EXHIBITS
October 18, 2025 - Ongoing
OUr Work Transforms the world
El Westside de San Antonio is principally the story of Mexican and Mexican American working-class communities — women who engendered life, organized to demand workers' rights, and fought for the dignity of labor. Their influence extended beyond the geographic limits of the barrio.
Life on the Westside, from its very beginnings, was difficult. Racial covenants, redlining, and sustained municipal neglect shaped a community that refused to be diminished. In the 1900s, parteras drew on ancestral knowledge to ensure the safety of birthing women and their newborns. In the 1930s and 1940s, labor organizers remind us of women's courage and the power of the strike. Throughout the century, gifted entertainers preserved and transformed Mexican cultural expressions, strengthening community pride, identity, and sense of belonging.
This museum and exhibition grows out of the convivios and desires of Los Corazones del Westside. The people of the Westside are the beginning and the ending of the Museo.
Partería in the Westside
A social gathering of Westside midwives. Romana Ramos is seated second from the right. María Saenz Romo is standing second from the right, Agapita Bonilla third from right and Julia Saenz Rendón is the fifth person standing from the right wearing a white blouse.
Courtesy of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center Archives, donated by Ricardo Romo.
Selected Exhibition images
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La Casa de Maternidad
In 1927 Romana established a maternity home, La Casa de Maternidad, at 315 Matamoros. The house had twenty rooms upstairs, and twenty downstairs. Most of Romana’s clients were poor and working class Mexicanas, and Romana was known for her generosity to her community. She was known to waive delivery fees for families who could not afford her services.
Courtesy of Ramos and Bonilla Midwife Records in San Antonio, TX, 2020-015, San Antonio Public Library, Texana/Genealogy Collections. -
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“Mexican Group Unemployed Council”
Photograph from Manuela Solís Sager labeled “Mexican Group Unemployed Council” in San Antonio, Texas, 1936. Unemployed Councils, often run by the Communist Party, were created to provide aid and mobilize communities throughout the United States.
Courtesy of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center Archives, donated by John Stanford. -
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Rosita Fernández, “The First Lady of Song”
Rosita Fernández, hailed by Lady Bird Johnson as San Antonio’s First Lady of Song, was born in 1918 in Monterrey, Mexico. Moving to San Antonio at age nine, her family lived on Pinto Street where many other local musicians lived. She began her singing career with her uncles’ Trío San Miguel, performing in carpas across Texas. At just 14, she won a local singing contest, which launched her into a successful career in radio, recording, and acting.
Rosita married Raúl Arturo Almaguer, who managed her career and translated songs into Spanish. She became a prominent figure in the Tejana music scene, performing at iconic events like Fiesta Noche del Río and A Night in Old San Antonio.
Promotional photo of Rosita Fernández from the 1940s. Esperanza Peace and Justice Center Archives, donated by Diana Rosa Almaguer.
Installation Images
