By Sylvia López and María Jiménez, Mujeres Unidas y Activas
When I arrive to Mujeres Unidas y Activas In 2006, I was searching for a lifeline. As an immigrant woman from Oaxaca, Mexico, who was suffering domestic violence, I had no family nearby, no map, and almost no confidence in my own voice. What I found at MUA was something I hadn't dared to hope for: a family. A space where women who had walked the same path could look at me and tell me, “You can do it. We’ll do it together.”
That's where my journey as a leader began.
Sylvia López, Director of Labor Rights, MUA
I am one of the eight women who helped found Mujeres Unidas y Activas In the summer of 1990, we started because we saw Latina immigrant women all around us—isolated, uninformed, without family, and unaware of their own rights—and we knew something had to change. More than 30 years later, that founding vision continues to drive everything we do. MUA is my home, my family, and my university.
María Jiménez, Co-director of Personal and Community Empowerment, MUA
Women find MUA the same way the community finds itself — through relationships of trust, rather than advertising.
A road paved by the community
Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) It began as a study by San Francisco State University and a small support group that met once a month in San Francisco. Today, we hold weekly meetings in three offices located in San Francisco, Oakland, and Union City; because our community has grown and displacement has forced many of our members to leave the city where we first put down roots. MUA goes where the community is. And as the community moves farther away, its needs often become greater.
Our work is based on the conviction that personal empowerment and political education go hand in hand. When a woman walks through our doors, often after having suffered harm and faced barriers such as domestic violence, wage theft, or workplace abuse, we don't simply give her a fact sheet with resources. We sit down with her. counselors of the soulWomen who have lived through similar experiences and received specialized training offer a space where they can be heard without judgment. From there, we connect the women with legal resources, accompany them to police stations or hospitals, and help them begin to regain their stability. Then, we invite them to a general meeting. And something begins to change.
Women find MUA the same way a community finds itself—through trusting relationships, not advertising. Now doctors and therapists refer people to us; however, the most powerful outreach has always been person-to-person: a colleague bringing in her friend, her neighbor, her godmother. This is how our work spreads and reaches those who need it most.
Leadership Path
MUA's flagship program is what we call the leadership pathThrough workshops on self-esteem, healing, and knowing your rights, women who arrived feeling invisible begin to discover the leader within. We offer training for facilitators, soul counselors, organizers, and community spokespeople. Many of our staff members, including ourselves, started as MUA members and later became interns, organizers, and now directors.
Maria started as a childcare provider, then applied for an office coordinator position, and gradually, through meetings, training, and community involvement, discovered that she had always been a leader, but simply needed to believe in herself. Today, her work focuses on healing through art and ancestral knowledge, as well as helping women remember who they are and where they come from.
We are also part of coalitions, such as Alameda County United in Defense of Immigrant Rights (ACUDIR),Bay Resistance, Oakland Rising y SF RisingBecause we know MUA can't do this alone. We bring healing and leadership development; our allies bring legal resources and rapid response capabilities. Together, we are better equipped to protect our community.
Sylvia's journey with MUA began as she fled domestic violence. She quickly realized that her job cleaning houses also left her unprotected—no overtime pay, no recourse in case of injury, and not even legal recognition that what she did was work. Domestic work was still categorized under the law as a hobby and something only women did.
This narrative shifted when MUA's campaign for domestic workers took shape. Sylvia traveled to Sacramento to testify before legislators who had never considered domestic workers to need protection. She helped secure the passage of the California Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights (SB 1015) in 2012, guaranteeing overtime pay for domestic workers. It was, she says, the beginning of her realization that she was a leader, not just a survivor.
Responding immediately
Today, our community faces new challenges. The current anti-immigrant climate has unleashed a wave of anxiety in Oakland and the Bay Area. At MUA, we responded immediately: “Know Your Rights” workshops, emergency planning sessions, legal consultations, and safety drills—not only for immigration raids, but also for any crisis that might require the immigrant community to act quickly and protect one another.
We scaled back street outreach to protect the safety of our members, shifting our focus to schools, community centers, and trusted spaces. We developed a plan that we can activate during times of high federal activity in the area, using lessons learned from the pandemic—namely, moving all our activities to Zoom to stay connected without putting people at risk. And we witnessed how our members, who may have been too afraid to speak out in the past, are now showing a willingness to take action.
We are also part of coalitions, such as Alameda County United in Defense of Immigrant Rights (ACUDIR), Bay Resistance, Oakland Rising y SF RisingBecause we know MUA can't do this alone. We bring healing and leadership development; our allies bring legal resources and rapid response capabilities. Together, we are better equipped to protect our community.
We've also launched an emergency fund for domestic workers in our area who have lost income, faced separation, or are simply struggling to survive because of this administration's needless cruelty. Our community is under attack, and MUA will not stand idly by.
What we ask of foundations
To our allies and donors: Thank youThe resources they've invested in MUA have transformed lives, and those lives have gone on to transform others. Sylvia's daughters grew up watching their mother discover her power in MUA. Now, they both work to support our communities.
But we also want to be honest: when funding is too restrictive, it limits what we can do. The needs of our community don't fit into grant cycles or program categories. The challenges the women who come through our doors face today are different from what they were five years ago, and they will be different again five years from now. We ask that you trust us to be there for our people. Flexible, long-term funding gives us the freedom to respond to reality, not just to what was planned when we wrote a proposal.
We don't do this work because it's trendy. Immigrant women in Oakland—Latinas, Indigenous women, undocumented women—deserve sustained investment in their leadership, healing, and empowerment. We are strong, and we will continue to move forward. We just need allies willing to move forward alongside us.