Daria Vera: A Mexican American Labor Organizer in The Rio Grande Valley

Daria Vera:  A Mexican American Labor Organizer in The Rio Grande Valley 

Few communities in Texas have been harder hit by the Covid-19 pandemic than the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The virus overwhelmed local health care facilities and medical providers in the Valley as thousands were stricken. The virus struck young and old.   Valley doctors, lacking ventilators and intensive care units in their hospitals,   were forced to fly the critically  ill to San Antonio.

I recently spoke to  Dr. Francisco Guajardo, the Director of the Museum of South Texas in Edinburg about their efforts to understand and document the horrible Covid-19 tragedy.  Dr. Guajardo provided a touching story about one victim of the pandemic, Daría Vera.  He noted that Vera,  a lifelong resident of Rio Grande City, had died of complications resulting from Covid19 this past summer.

Dr. Guajardo shared this story with The Monitor of the Rio Grande Valley in a series his museum calls “Bearing Witness: Taken by Covid-19.  Dr. Guajardo’s story about Vera’s life is provided below. 

Daria Vera at her home with her favorite photo: Viva La Huelga [Long Live the Strike] Photo credits:  Museum of South Texas. 

“Daría [Vera] was born on November 18, 1946 in Rio Grande City. She attended school up to the 3rd  grade and at a young age began to work in agricultural fields in South Texas and even followed the crops to the fields of West Texas. Her lack of formal education did not define her life, however.  Maricela describes her mother as a spark plug, a capable woman whose enormous talent was matched only by her immense passion. 

When Daria was 19, she worked as a melon picker, earning 40 cents an hour to pick cantaloupes,  a wage much lower than other laborers earned. Daria did not like that, and she did not like  the fact that there were no bathrooms available to women working in the fields, nor was there  running water, or access to other basic laborer necessities. 

The United Farm Workers organization, led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, was just  gaining strength across the country, and its leaders  came to Daria’s community to gauge interest in a  strike to protest low wages and unacceptable working conditions. Daria threw herself into the organizing effort, assuming a leadership role in the famous Melon Strike of 1966 in Rio Grande  City. This historic event pitted melon growers against the workers who picked the melons. 

Daria Vera is seen in this 1966 photo lying on the ground to

block a bus with Mexican workers that tried to make its way

across the international suspension bridge between Miguel

Aleman, Tamaulipas, and Roma. Photo: The Monitor and Museum of South Texas. 

To combat Daria and other strikers, the growers brought in replacement workers from Mexico. When a bus with Mexican workers made its way across the international suspension bridge between Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, and Roma, Texas, Daria physically laid down her  body on the bridge to block the oncoming bus filled with replacement workers. A photograph of  Daria and another striker blocking the bus became the subject of national news. 

According to historian Maritza de la Trinidad, who conducted an oral history with Daría in 2016,  “Daría loved that picture. She was so proud of her role in the strike, and adamant that she should  be involved. She was such a formidable woman.” 

After the strike, Daria and others led a march from Rio Grande City to the State Capitol in  Austin, to announce their protest before the state government. Along the way, they stopped in  small towns that dotted the South Texas landscape. Kenedy, Texas, was one of those towns, and 

the strikers apparently made an impression on one of the churches in town. 

For a half century after the strike, Daría continued to work in the fields. She raised a family and lived a proud life. But material success never came to her, as she settled into a modest life.  Maricela said that her mother basically lived in poverty. She said, “Her house was almost 

unlivable, but Pastor Martinez from the church in Kenedy, a town they visited on the 1966 march, came just a few years ago. With others from their church, they built my mother a new house.” 

Daria Vera.  Photo from the Museum of South Texas. “Que en paz descanse Daría Vera.”

Unfortunately, Covid-19 took Daría, but not before she cemented her legacy as a woman of  historical importance. Professor de la Trinidad, who bore witness to Daría’s life through the oral  history process said, “Daría saw herself as the mother of the community, and through her  activism she also became one of the people who would launch the civil rights movement in  South Texas.” 

*Special thanks to Dr. Francisco Guajardo and Michael Rodriguez,  Deputy Editor, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas 78504