User:Shak78/sandbox

Early Life
Josefina Fierro (born in Mexicali, Baja California) had always been involved or included into revolutionary activism. Even before she had become an adult her father had been an officer in “Pancho” Villa’s revolutionary army, but Fierro’s mother is where her passion for activism and helping others came into place in her life. Fierro had been raised by her mother, who had immigrated her to the United States when Josefina was a baby. Being that Josefina’s mother’s family were followers of the radical Mexican anarchist, Ricardo Flores Magon, she had been taught to speak against the unjust, to fight for what was right and to treat everyone with “dignity and respect”.

Personal Life and Activism
After high school graduation, Josefina Fierro had decided to move to Los Angeles to live with an aunt, where she met and fell in love with Hollywood actor John Bright. Bright, who was blacklisted with several other actors in Hollywood due to allegations of having ties with the Communist Party inspired Fierro’s activism further. After marrying Bright, Josefina found herself in the midst of helping others starting with the creation of a campaign that defended Mexican immigrants and Mexican American rights against discrimination during the 1930s. In 1938, at the age of eighteen, Fierro de Bright, who would become executive secretary, collaborated with Luisa Moreno and founded El Congreso del Pueblo de Habla Española, a Mexican civil rights committee that worked to fight for civil rights of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans and worker rights as well. Fierro de Bright took her and her husband’s platform in Hollywood and used it to fundraise revenue for El Congreso. The networking that she had made while being acquainted in Hollywood, she brought in actors and many other celebrities to help raise the revenue for the organization. Fierro de Bright and Luisa Moreno actively helped El Congreso in several issues that targeted lower-income and non-bilingual Mexicans to help them receive the civil rights that they deserved living in the United States. Although El Congreso did not last around long enough, Fierro de Bright’s activism did not stop there. In 1942, during the “Sleepy Lagoon” trial, after receiving complaints of cruel punishment from parents of the boys being held in custody, Fierro de Bright organized a committee for the defendants, otherwise known as the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, and raised money so that those on trial could hire a lawyer to represent and defend them.