By Grace O’Malley.
“Mexican children in Texas need an education…. There is no other means to do it but ourselves, so that we are not devalued and humiliated by the strangers who surround us.”
“Working women know their rights and proudly rise to face the struggle. The hour of their degradation is past…. Women are no longer servants but rather the equals of men, companions to them.”
Jovita Idár was a Mexican-American teacher, journalist, and social activist. After teaching for a few years in her hometown of Ladero, Texas, she became frustrated at the poor conditions of the schools and decided to pour her efforts into writing as means to create change. She joined her father and brothers in writing for La Crónica, a weekly newspaper that criticized Hispanic-Anglo relations and discussed educational and social discrimination against Mexican-Americans, the use of the Spanish language, and the lynching of Hispanics.
In 1911, Idár participated in the First Mexican Congress, which was called by La Crónica. The congress discussed economic, educational, and social matters, as well labor-related issues that Mexican-Americans were facing. From this congress, the League of Mexican Women was formed, with Jovita as the first president. The foremost goal of the league was to provide adequate education to poor children.
Idár is also known to have crossed the border during the Mexican Revolution to care for the injured. Additionally, she wrote an article for another paper, El Progresso, protesting President Woodrow Wilson’s dispatch of United States troops to the border. And although the Texas Rangers responded by shutting down the newspaper, Jovita Idár continued on her fight for justice.
Citations/Learn more:
- http://www.utexas.edu/gtw/idar.php
- Nancy Baker Jones, “IDAR, JOVITA,” Handbook of Texas Online(http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fid03), accessed October 19, 2015. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
Grace & Theia 