From JUSTICE FOR MIGRANT WOMEN
Justice For Migrant Women, based in Fremont, has announced that it’s founder, activist and attorney Mónica Ramírez has been named to the 2021 TIME100 Next list.
An expansion of the TIME100 list of the most influential people in the world, TIME100 Next highlights 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, health, science and activism, and more.
For over two decades, Ramírez has fought for the civil and human rights of women, children, workers, Latinos/as and immigrants. She is well known for penning the ‘’Dear Sisters’ open letter to the women of Hollywood from farmworker women that sparked the TIME’S UP movement. Consistently able to strike a meaningful chord, in 2019 she organized the ‘Querida Familia’ letter that appeared in the New York Times with 200 artists, activists, labor and civil rights leaders signing to support a letter of love and solidarity to the Latino community following the El Paso shooting and ICE Raids.
Most recently, she led in the publishing of an open letter expressing solidarity with the ongoing farmers’ protest in India. The letter, co-signed by 75 civil rights, legal, and community organizations, ran as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times with individual signatories and supporters including, Kerry Washington, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Freida Pinto, Piper Perabo, Lilly Singh, and more.
As part of her work with Justice for Migrant Women, Ramírez has worked alongside leaders in Washington to introduce numerous pieces of legislation (among them the BE HEARD Act and The CARE Act). Having received numerous accolades for her smart, effective activism she was awarded the 2019 MAFO Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2020 was chosen as one of the few US citizens to receive the inaugural and prestigious Ford Global Fellowship to connect and support the next generation of social justice leaders who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality. This supported her key focus for the pivotal election year last year in building power among rural communities and ensuring everyone’s voice was heard.
As co-founder of the Latinx House and founding principal of She Se Puede, Ramírez is a key force in elevating not only rural, but Latinx voices. In 2021, she will also continue to advocate for farmworkers who were deemed essential workers in this country yet continue to lack the safety, policies and benefits needed to continue harvesting the food we enjoy on our tables.
The full list and related tributes appear in the Mar. 1 / Mar. 8 issue of TIME, available on newsstands on Friday, Feb. 19, and now at time.com/next.
Follow @TIME for updates about the list.
ABOUT JUSTICE FOR MIGRANT WOMEN
Justice for Migrant Women uses education, public awareness and advocacy in order to ensure that all migrant women are guaranteed human and civil rights, including the freedom of mobility, the ability to live and work with dignity, and the right to be free of threats of violence against them and their families, whether they are migrating across borders, around regions or within states.
Justice for Migrant Women was created in 2014 by leading activist, Mónica Ramírez, to further scale the project she created in 2003 as the first legal project in the US focused on sexual harassment and other forms of gender discrimination against farmworker and other migrant women workers.
