Jessica was a talented seamstress, who made intricate quilts for her family and friends

“As a child, she scratched chalk marks in front of the homes of potential voters, a "bird dog" pointing the way for adults who followed with registration forms. As a teenager, she starred on the debate team, where her favorite speech, “The Man with the Hoe,” scored points for delivery but demerits for its radical message about desperation in the fields. At nineteen, she jettisoned her father’s dream of law school and dropped out of college to spend a year working for Cesar Chavez’s fledgling union. One year turned into sixteen. She went abroad, fell in love, ran union elections, organized a health clinic across the Mexican border. She rose to become a member of the executive board of the United Farm Workers of America. Then she was drummed out of the organization that had become her life.”

excerpt from The Union of Their Dreams