Josefina Fierro (1914–1998) was a Mexican American political activist from Calexico, California who fought for the rights of Mexican and Mexican American workers. She also played a key figure in the founding of the civil rights group “Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Española” and intervened in Washington, D.C. to end the unprovoked assaults of the Mexican American community in East L.A. and downtown Los Angeles during the Zoot Suit Riots.
In 1948 Fierro was accused of Communist affiliations by the California Committee on Un-American Activities, which led to her to being harassed by the CIA and having to move to Guaymas, Mexico to escape the government’s persecution. Fierro stayed in Mexico the rest of her life, where she passed away in 1998.
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