Please help!!
Based on the information in the article, which of these happened second?
This question asks about when events happened. It does not ask where in the article the events appear. Reread the article for clues, such as dates.
A. Tenayuca graduated from high school and began organizing.
B. Thousands of pecan shellers in San
Antonio walked off their jobs.
C. The stock market crash set off the Great Depression.
D. Tenayuca was arrested during her participation in a strike.
Speaking Out for Change
Economics: Business, Industry, and Labor
On a Sunday morning in the early 1900s, 10-year-old Emma Tenayuca promenaded with her grandfather through Milam Park in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Known at the time as La Plaza del Zacate, this cultural and social center of the city's Mexican American community abounded with activity; it was a place where anyone with something to say could stand on a soapbox and speak to those who gathered. Tenayuca had spent many such mornings strolling through the greenspace with her grandfather. She listened and learned as neighbors read newspapers aloud, Mexican revolutionaries endorsed independence, and labor organizers lobbied for workers' rights.
These early excursions had a profound impact on Tenayuca, sparking a passion for activism. This would impel the future labor leader to fearlessly fight on behalf of San Antonio's marginalized workers. Her efforts would also pave the way for a national movement to bring equity, justice, and respect to all Mexican Americans.
Tenayuca was born in 1916 in San Antonio, Texas. When she was 13, the stock market collapsed, plummeting the U.S. into the Great Depression. The teen witnessed firsthand the devastating impacts this had on many people living in her community, some of whom lacked access to even the most rudimentary sanitation and housing.
As the Depression worsened, Tenayuca recognized that the effects of the economic crisis were compounded among Mexican Americans. People of Mexican descent were prevented from participating in programs aimed at supporting workers during the crisis. They were denied access to food banks and job recruitment programs, and they were also often barred from joining labor unions.
Appalled by these injustices, Tenayuca became a vocal champion of workers' rights. She participated in her first strike at the age of 16, marching in solidarity with workers at a local cigar factory in 1933. The police broke up the strike and she was arrested, yet rather than discourage her, the experience further ignited her passion for protest as a means of effecting change. After graduating high school in 1934, she began organizing people through labor unions, focusing her work on the plight of Mexican American workers.
Over the next several years, Tenayuca's reputation as a formidable advocate and deft orator grew. Some were inspired to dub her "La Pasionaria de Texas" (The Passionate One of Texas). The moniker was quickly adopted by workers throughout the city, and in 1938, when a group of pecan shellers decided to organize, they elected Tenayuca to spearhead their crusade.
Pecans constituted a big business in San Antonio during the early 1900s, with 400 plants processing half of the nation's pecans. Most of the pecan shellers were Mexican American women who labored for long hours in overcrowded and poorly ventilated rooms, leading to high rates of tuberculosis among them. When companies cut workers' already paltry pay from about six cents per pound of pecans shelled to just three cents, hundreds of shellers walked off their jobs.
With Tenayuca at the helm, the strike quickly escalated from a few hundred participants to 12,000—the largest strike in San Antonio's history. Though police responded with tear gas and made mass arrests, the strikers persevered, drawing national attention to their plight. Three months later, the pecan factory owners agreed to a pay raise. This victory sparked a movement that continued into the next several decades and influenced future labor leaders like Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. "What started out as an organization for equal wages," Tenayuca later recalled, "turned into a mass movement against starvation, for civil rights, for a minimum wage law."
Yet historian Sandra I. Enríquez believes that Tenayuca's legacy transcends a single movement. Rather, she says that the story of "La Pasionaria de Texas" is a compelling reminder about what youth can accomplish when they raise their voices.
