Los Angeles, CA – On March 8, activists from Centro CSO and Freedom Road Socialist Organization met up in Boyle Heights for their eighth annual celebration marking International Women’s Day. This year’s event featured a panel with speakers from different areas of work that Centro CSO is focused on such as immigration, education, and police brutality, as well as a labor activist from Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and a keynote speaker from the LAUSD school board.

The event was held at Casa 0101, a local theater in Boyle Heights. The speakers shared how they got involved in activism, and what it’s like to be women fighting for a cause like education or working in the labor movement.

Amanda Diaz Sanchez, an immigrant rights activist with Centro CSO said, “As we fight for immigrant rights, being a woman in the movement means always having to recenter women’s issues. In our movement, reproductive justice and paid family leave are always seen as separate issues, but being a woman who has experienced these issues means bringing that back and connecting the dots to other things that are happening to us.”

Hannah Keith, a shop steward and trade union activist out of UPS Olympic spoke out about the discrimination she faces as a trans woman, saying, “There are a lot of coworkers who have a problem with the way that I am, but they’ll still come to me for help as a shop steward. And I have no problem helping them, because I know my co-workers who are uncomfortable with me being trans aren’t the enemy, it’s the supervisors, but in order for me to help them confront the boss I have to meet them where they’re at.”

After the panelists concluded their portion of the event, Dr. Rocio Rivas, an LAUSD school board member, gave the keynote speech for the event. She spoke about her upbringing, and how public education was something she fell in love with at a young age, saying “Education can be a tool for escaping oppression. They wanted to keep us ignorant, not giving us the education we deserved. That was the beginning of my activism.” She went on to say, “When we have this knowledge, we know how to fight back against what they’ve been doing to our people for centuries.”

When asked about the event, Juliana Regalado, an activist with Centro CSO and the emcee for the evening, said, “It’s important to celebrate women’s contributions and achievements throughout history because it shows us how far we’ve come and what work still needs to be done. This was an excellent event, and it felt good celebrating and uplifting a few of the many strong women I organize with.”

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