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Tenayuca's first knowledge of the struggles of working people came from visits as a young child to the Plaza del Zacate, a place where Socialists and Anarchists would come to speak and work with families with grievances.

She was an integral part of the historical struggle to incorporate Mexican workers into progressive US Trade Union s at a time when 88% of all Mexican workers were employed in low-paying, low-status sectors of the economy.

Tennayuca was also instrumental in one of the most famous conflicts of Texas labor history–the 1938 Strike At The Southern Pecan Shelling Company . During the strike, thousands of workers at over 130 plants protested a wage reduction of one cent per pound of shelled pecans. Mexicana and Chicana workers who picketed were gassed, arrested, and jailed. The workers were victorious, though mechanization of the plant years later led to large scale unemployment.