Documentary Short in Post Production, Produced and Co-Directed by Laura Varela, Co-Director Anne Lewis. Produced by VoxFem
Rebecca Flores: Under the South Texas Sun (56 min. Documentary) Rebecca Flores: Under the South Texas Sun (working title) is a documentary film that tells the story of a native daughter returning home to organize the most vulnerable and marginalized people in South Texas, farmworkers, refugees, immigrants, and the poor. Her life story is a part of the legacies of Mexican American and Indigenous resistance to dispossession, displacement, and labor exploitation in one of the most storied states in the Union.
Her story carefully traces resistance and resilience in the face of adversity. Rebecca Flores was raised in a family of farmworkers who migrated seasonally for work. In the late 1970s as a young mother, Flores began organizing in her community. She quickly rose through the ranks of the United Farmworkers Union in Texas and served as the director of the UFW in Texas for thirty years. During her tenure, she led numerous campaigns to improve the working and living conditions of agricultural workers, resulting in the passage of key legislation. Upon her retirement from the UFW. In 2014, she worked with RAICES and other organizations toward ending family detention, which resulted in the release of many families from detention centers in Texas. Upon their release, Flores helped organize humanitarian aid for families and petitioned the City of San Antonio to fund a temporary shelter for the hundreds of vulnerable people that came through San Antonio. In collaboration with another notable Chicana activist, María Antonietta Berriozábal, Flores co-founded the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, a primarily faith-based group that provides various kinds of support for immigrants and refugees. Additionally, Flores has also been at the forefront of community-based Get Out the Vote campaigns and more recently, the anti-gentrification movement. Rebecca Flores: Under the South Texas Sun documents the life of one of the most significant, unsung, Chicana leaders of our time and, through her life’s work, we understand that economic justice and civil rights are not given so easily in Texas and that we must continue to educate the next generation.
