Mujeres Atrevidas

Mujeres Atrevidas (Bold Women) is a bilingual, documentary project depicting how female delivery workers, construction workers, and day laborers have been impacted by the pandemic, and their fight for labor rights through their involvement with worker centers, most notably Workers Justice Project. Workers Justice Project is a worker center based in Brooklyn which fights for better working conditions and social justice for low-income, immigrant workers. The struggles of Latinx low-wage workers have been frequently studied and widely discussed, yet their full contours and consequences have been only partially comprehended. This is not a new story; it fits a recurrent pattern of excluding female Black and brown workers, immigrants, and other low-wage workers from the most fundamental rights and safeguards. Cynthia will collect these female workers’ powerful stories, which blend insightful, and at times haunting, narratives expressing the hopes and fears of this workforce. The stories tell of daily working lives and of the struggles of people resisting. Weaving together moving interviews and video footage of activists' lives, political events, and rallies, Mujeres Atrevidas focuses on the individual journeys of four female workers who are worker-center activist leaders, their legacy, and the enduring power of their resilience.

Cynthia will collect narratives describing each woman’s daily work life and their fears and challenges of Covid times. Then she will focus on depicting the friendships, sense of community, camaraderie, and empowerment these women have found since becoming involved in joining advocacy campaigns with the Workers Justice Project. Through an insightful look at what daily conditions female-identified frontline workers face, Mujeres Atrevidas will illuminate the key role worker centers such as the female-led Workers Justice Project can have in cities and states across the country where new labor policies and standards (such as domestic workers’ bills of rights and higher minimum wages) are being enacted. Ultimately, this project will testify to the ability of these female workers to sustain and improve their lives, as they reflect on questions regarding New York City’s future and its relationship to labor.