Manuela Solis Sager

Manuela Solís Sager (1912–1996) was a Mexican American labor leader, union organizer and educator. She is best known for her work organizing with Mexican women in Texas during the 1930s, where 40% of the total Mexican population were employed almost exclusively in low paid, low status jobs.

Life and work Manuela's political career began in 1932 and 1933, when she began organizing with Tejano onion field and garment workers in Laredo.

In 1934, she was awarded a year long scholarship by La Asociacion de Jornaleros to attend Universidad Obrera de México, a left wing labour school in Mexico City. During this time she helped establish the Texas Workers Alliance in San Antonio alongside Emma Tenayuca.

On her return to Laredo in 1935, Manuela and her husband, James Sager, began to consolidate their local efforts among Mexican workers into a statewide movement. Later that year, Manuela and James were appointed official organisers of the Rio Grande Valley at a Corpus Christi conference that established South Texas Agricultural Worker's Union (STAWU), which mainly represented predominantly Mexican field and packing workers. In 1937, she became a member of the executive committee of the Workers Alliance of America, a national federation of unemployed workers organisations.

She died in California in 1996, while visiting her son.