Petition launched to honor Emma Tenayuca with a San Antonio street name

Nearly 100 people have penned digital signatures in a local petition asking for a street name change in Southtown to honor historic San Antonio labor leader Emma Tenayuca.

In the 1930s, San Antonio was home to the nation’s largest pecan shelling industry, with nearly 400 factories. The wages and conditions did not reflect the robust operation, however. Tenayuca, then 21, led a strike of 12,000 shellers against pecan plants after they attempted to cut already dismal wages. The strikers fought through tear gas and billy clubs. More than 1,000 workers, including Tenayuca, were jailed. A deal was eventually struck to pay the pecan plant workers a minimum wage. Today, the strikes are respected as some of the first and largest actions in the fight for Mexican-American civil rights in U.S. history.

Virginia Hartung, a public history graduate student at St. Mary’s University, is the organizer behind the movement. Hartung, who is from Sinton, Texas near Corpus Christi, says she was first introduced to the tenacity of Tenayuca during her undergraduate years at the University of Texas at San Antonio when she met Keli Rosa Cabunoc, the actress who played the historic figure in a play about her life.

Enthralled by the knowledge Cabunoc shared, Hartung dove deeper into the history and focused her capstone work on Tenayuca. She built a self-guided map of key places in Tenayuca’s life and memorials dedicated to her, a Twitter account sharing bits of knowledge, such as the family name was supposed to be Teneyuca, with an E. Tenayuca believed that there was probably a misspelling at her baptism.

The street name change is the newest component of Hartung’s work.

“I was shocked that there are so few official monuments to Emma,” she adds. “Part of the reason I wanted to try and get the name changed is because I knew people would be interested in doing so. It’s amazing to see the community contributing to make this happen.”

The petition is asking city council to consider renaming Beauregard Street to honor Tenayuca. Hartung says the street currently honors P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederate general who led the first shots at Fort Sumter to start the Civil War. The organizer says the early response indicates locals are ready to move forward with place names that better reflect San Antonio’s culture and history.

“San Antonio is ready to make a change to honor people who have actually contributed to the betterment of the city,” she says. “It’s a small step forward but it can be used as an opportunity to heal old wounds.”

Hartung’s goal is to receive 1,000 signatures. She has not met with residents of Beauregard Street yet. The King William Association was not immediately available to return requests for comment as of this write.

Hartung is planning on constructing a Dia de Los Muerto ofrenda for Tenayuca to be part of Centro Cultural Aztlan’s 44th exhibition on Tuesday, November 2. The design will incorporate a QR code which will direct the public to the petition.

She’s hoping to take the petition to city council in December.