Emma Torres

Emma Torres was born into a migrant farmworker family in Guanajato, Mexico.{{Cite web |title=Emma Torres Oral History |url=https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/142071 |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=Arizona Memory Project}} At age 5, she moved to San Luis, Arizona with her family. She first began working at farms in California when she was 13 years old. She did not finish elementary school. At age 24, her first husband died of leukemia. She could not speak English and had two children to raise. She pushed herself into education to make a better life for her children, later earning a bachelor's and masters degree.{{Cite web |date=2022-05-03 |title=After decades helping farmworkers in Yuma, she pivoted to help asylum seekers |url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/decades-helping-farmworkers-yuma-she-005451641.html |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=Yahoo News |language=en-US}}

In 1994, Torres and other local farmworkers and advocates in San Luis, Arizona organized the first Dia Del Campesino (Day of the Farm Worker) to provide community health support and access to services for workers in Yuma County, Arizona.{{Cite web |date=2024-12-17 |title=Dia Del Campesino health fair for farmworkers in San Luis celebrates 30 years |url=https://www.kawc.org/news/2024-12-16/dia-del-campesino-health-fair-for-farmworkers-in-san-luis-celebrates-30-years |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=KAWC |language=en}} Yuma County is one of the United States' biggest agricultural regions for winter produce and where more than 40,000 mostly migrant farmworkers work each season.{{Cite web |last= |date=November 22, 2023 |title=Nonprofit in Yuma County receives funding to address farmworker healthcare barriers |url=https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/other-sources/article/?id=14263610&title=Nonprofit-in-Yuma-County-receives-funding-to-address-farmworker-healthcare-barriers |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=Philanthropy News Digest (PND) |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2025-01-20 |title=Yuma County farmworkers, ag leaders, law enforcement and elected officials await Trump border actions |url=https://www.kawc.org/news/2025-01-20/yuma-county-farmworkers-ag-leaders-law-enforcement-and-elected-officials-await-trump-border-actions |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=KAWC |language=en}} Inspired by the success of this event, five years later in 1999, Torres co-founded Campesinos Sin Fronteras.

Torres has described the holistic support required by community health workers serving migrant and the low income population in her rural community,

"I might go to someone’s home to talk about diabetes, but when I get there I see they have nothing to eat, they have a child in jail, or there is a situation of domestic violence and/or extreme poverty. All of these things need to be taken into account, so the promoter needs to have very good people skills in order to understand all this and help people in all of these possible ways. You can’t come in to solve one problem and just leave all the others unsolved."{{Cite web |title=How Community Health Workers Are Helping Vulnerable Communities {{!}} SOCIAL DIGITAL |url=https://socialdigital.iadb.org/en/node/8716 |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=socialdigital.iadb.org}}

{{Infobox organization

| name = Campesinos Sin Fronteras

| formation = 1999

| status = Non-profit

| headquarters = Somerton, Arizona

| region = Yuma County, Arizona, Arizona-Mexico border

| services = Heath, workforce development and community services for farmworkers and low income migrant workers

| leader_title = Executive Director

| leader_name = Emma Torres

| website = https://www.campesinossinfronteras.com/

}}

Campesinos Sin Fronteras offers community health support, domestic violence support, health screenings and services for farm workers and migrants who often do not qualify for health insurance in the United States.{{Cite web |date=2023-11-25 |title='It’s a blessing': Día de los Campesinos offers badly needed services to Yuma farm workers |url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/blessing-d-los-campesinos-offers-130042590.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFP7jsgzAR8GUUhqFNqU-u6TZFJvIQmhDmV9zfWNEH400yiWK4HIjw5fVJTdouRWw2ssln57XcHzIBUbWj7m2c0gpKI84e1JpFJxqcORKS3SaDEjqDs9TT2mGASCEuVI1F4n6-hIF5lnWZrWlEluTS1xUwhwCr_X-zrCXjlJBWn8 |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=Yahoo News |language=en-US}} The organization additionally supports advocacy for migrant workers rights and labor laws.{{Cite web |date=2019-09-25 |title=Yuma Co. Farmworker Advocate: Changes To Guest Worker Program Would Be Felt Here |url=https://www.kawc.org/agriculture/2019-09-25/yuma-co-farmworker-advocate-changes-to-guest-worker-program-would-be-felt-here |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=KAWC |language=en}} Campesinos Sin Fronteras has become a model program that has inspired other community support organizations for farm workers across the United States.{{Cite web |title=Emma Torres |url=https://www.azwhf.org/emma-torres |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=AWHF |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=National Center for Cultural Competence |url=https://nccc.georgetown.edu/culturalbroker/4_principles/4_principles.html |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=nccc.georgetown.edu}} The organization operated two community health offices in San Luis and Somerton, Arizona.{{Cite web |date=2020-03-19 |title=Campesinos Sin Fronteras Director: We’re Committed To Serving Clients |url=https://www.kawc.org/south-county-news/2020-03-18/campesinos-sin-fronteras-director-were-committed-to-serving-clients |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=KAWC |language=en}}

Today, Torres remains the executive director of Campesinos Sin Fronteras. She is a nationally recognized Hispanic leader and immigrant activist. Under Torres' leadership, Campesinos Sin Fronteras has collaborated with the University of Arizona, the National Institute of Health and the United States Department of Health and Human Services to expand their programming for vulnerable populations.{{Cite journal |last=Crocker |first=Rebecca M. |first2=Torres ,Emma |first3=Ingram ,Maia |last4=and de Zapién |first4=Jill |date=2024-10-01 |title=How Promotoras Put Community at the Heart of Research: Reflections from a Community-Based Participatory Research Study Along the US-Mexico Border |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08884552.2024.2378331#d1e222 |journal=Practicing Anthropology |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=221–236 |doi=10.1080/08884552.2024.2378331 |issn=0888-4552}}{{Cite web |title=Campesinos Sin Fronteras, Advancing Equity in Adolescent Health through Evidence-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and Services (TPP23 Tier 1) – 2023-2028 |url=https://opa.hhs.gov/grant-programs/teen-pregnancy-prevention-program-tpp/current-tpp-grantees/campesinos-sin-0 |access-date=March 19, 2025 |website=Health and Human Services, Office of Population Affairs}}{{Cite web |title=PEI Success Stories: Campesinos {{!}} UArizona Prevention Research Center |url=https://azprc.arizona.edu/news/pei-success-stories-campesinos |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=azprc.arizona.edu |language=en}} Campesinos sin Fronteras has worked both in Arizona and across the border to help their community confront health emergencies such as the Zika virus{{Cite web |date=2017-07-18 |title=Binational Public Health Campaign Spreads Zika Awareness |url=https://www.kawc.org/health-care/2017-07-18/binational-public-health-campaign-spreads-zika-awareness |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=KAWC |language=en}} and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, the organization initiated a summer youth leadership program for teenage children of farm workers.{{Cite web |date=2019-05-08 |title=Campesinos Sin Fronteras Announces Youth Leadership Summer Institute |url=https://www.kawc.org/news/2019-05-07/campesinos-sin-fronteras-announces-youth-leadership-summer-institute |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=KAWC |language=en}} The organization serves more than 12,000 people from the Yuma community each year.

In 2021, Torres and Campesinos Sin Fronteras expanded their work to support incoming asylum seekers and refugees in the United States.{{Cite web |last=Lin |first=Peiyu |title=After decades helping farmworkers in Yuma, she pivoted to help asylum seekers |url=https://www.azcentral.com/mosaic-story/news/local/arizona-people/2021/06/05/agency-helps-farmworkers-yuma-county-arizona-now-aiding-asylum-seekers/4961238001/ |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=The Arizona Republic |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=O’Connor |first=Taylor |date=2021-05-03 |title=Nonprofits help border towns struggling with waves of asylum seekers |url=https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2021/05/03/asylum-seekers-dropped-off-in-towns-that-have-few-resources-get-help-from-nonprofits/ |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=Cronkite News |language=en-US}} After Campesinos Sin Fronteras found that the U.S. Border Patrol was releasing asylum seekers without resources in small towns in Yuma County, the organization stepped in to help, offering community care coordinators and support in communities where no permanent migrant shelters existed.{{Cite web |last=Carranza |first=Rafael |date=March 29, 2021 |title=Biden said migrants are turned back at border, but in AZ, they are released in small towns |url=https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2021/03/29/yuma-streamlines-process-released-migrants/4744356001/ |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=azcentral.com}}

In 2023, Torres was inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame. In 2024, Dia Del Campesino marked its 30th year anniversary event.

{{Reference list}}

• [https://www.azwhf.org/emma-torres Emma Torres] at the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame
• [https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/142071 Emma Torres] at the Arizona Memory Project

{{Arizona Women's Hall of Fame}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Torres, Emma}}

Category:Living people

Category:Date of birth missing (living people)

Category:21st-century American women

Category:20th-century American women

Category:Immigrant rights activists

Category:Activists from Arizona

Category:People from Yuma County, Arizona

Category:Farmworkers

Category:American community activists

Category:Women civil rights activists

Category:American women activists

Category:Activists for Hispanic and Latino American civil rights

Category:People from Guanajuato (city)