Foreign-born Latinas have been making a difference across Iowa since the early 1900s. Their contributions have elevated the quality of daily life for Iowans and leaving a legacy we feel today.
Latina History in Iowa:
Marta Lucia Brown Werner
Marta Lucia Brown Werner was born in 1906 in Hermosillo, Mexico, to Mexican national Maria (Concha) Concepcion Morales and miner Frank Russell Brown, a U.S. citizen. The family left Mexico during the nationalist uprising led by Pancho Villa and moved to Fort Madison, Iowa, in 1914.
Werner served as lay minister for prisoners and assisted prison groups such as prison branches of the NAACP and Alcoholics Anonymous with meetings and programs. She also wrote letters to dozens of prisoners and their families between 1973 and 1989. In 1981 she was awarded the State of Iowa Volunteer Service Award for her work that led to prison reform.
Learn more here: https://aspace.lib.uiowa.edu/agents/people/1514
María Cano
María Cano moved to Iowa City from Guanajuato, Mexico, with her family in 1928. She worked as a medical secretary at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Seeing the growing need for interpreters, Cano volunteered hours before and after work to ensure doctors and nurses could communicate with their Spanish-speaking patients. For over twenty-five years, she assisted patients from the Caribbean, Mexico, South America and the seasonal migrant workers from eastern Iowa and the greater Midwest. Her work was pivotal in creating the University of Iowa Hospital & Clinics’ Interpreter Services.
In 1982 University of Iowa Chicanx/Latinx alumni and students established The María Cano Martínez Service Award in her honor.
Learn more here: https://migration.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits/show/people/mariacanomartinez.
Maria Eugenia Escamilla-Góngora Rundquist
After graduating with a degree in business administration and accounting from a university in Merida, Mexico, Rundquist helped organize an exchange program between Mexican doctors and medical students from the University of Iowa. That’s how she met her husband, Rex Rundquist, MD of Sloan, Iowa. The Rundquists moved to Sioux City in 1991 and the next year Rundquist became a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She stayed busy serving on the Iowa Commission on Latino Affairs from 1993 to 1995. In 1994, she began teaching Spanish and was elected to the Woodbury County Extension Council where she received an award for her leadership. That same year, while teaching and raising a family, she ran for city council and again in 1995. Her work was recognized with the Governor’s Volunteer Award in 1997 and a Friend of Iowa Civil Rights Award in 2002, and served on the Sioux City Human Rights Commission the next year.
She wrote a book about her advocacy and service titled Maria: Immigrant, Community Activist that was published in 2016. She still lives in Sioux City where she runs a bookkeeping business and teaches Spanish.
Learn more here: https://aspace.lib.uiowa.edu/agents/people/1618
Read about some of the Latinas in Iowa making a difference in their community now here
Mujeres Latinas Project: Preserving Latina History in Iowa
Despite their significant presence in Iowa, Latinas remain largely invisible in our state’s history due to the lack of historical documents available to researchers. Since 2004 the Iowa Women’s Archives has gathered and preserved materials that document the lives of Latinas and their contributions to Iowa history.
Few people realize that Mexicans began arriving in Iowa as early as the 1880s, and that by the 1920s boxcar communities had grown up near railroad yards in towns such as Fort Madison, Davenport, and Bettendorf. Throughout the 20th century workers from Texas and Mexico followed the migrant stream through Iowa to work the tomato and sugar beet harvests. Some chose to settle in communities such as Muscatine and Mason City well over fifty years ago. Today Iowa is home to Latinos and Latinas from many countries whose work reflects a wide range of occupations and professions.
Types of Material Collected
- letters
- photographs
- diaries
- work records
- oral histories
- speeches
- newspaper articles
- and more
To learn how you can help preserve the history of Latinas in Iowa contact the Iowa Women’s Archives at [email protected]
Please visit the Collections relating to Latinas to learn more about the materials held in the Iowa Women’s Archives which preserve the history of Latinas in Iowa.
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