Yolanda Alaniz was born in 1950 in Texas, and grew up in Sunnyside, Washington, in the Yakima Valley. She and her family worked as farm laborers. Alaniz began attending the University of Washington in 1969 and during her time there she became an activist for Chicano rights and women’s rights. At UW, Alaniz was a member of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), Brown Berets, Las Chicanas, and Radical Women. In 1975, she was central to a strike protesting the firing of Chicano employees at UW. Alaniz was active in Seattle politics after graduating. In 1995 she moved to Los Angeles and continued advocating for women, LGBTQ+ people, workers, and immigrants.

This image shows Alaniz (right) and a friend celebrating a victory for the Freedom Socialist Party in a lawsuit about a previous donation to the party. The donor alleged that he had been misled into donating the money and attempted to use the lawsuit to force the party to make its documents public. However, the Freedom Socialist Party was allowed to keep its records private and to keep the donation.

Caption information source: “Yolanda (Abeyta) Alaniz,” Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project, retrieved from https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/alaniz.htm.
Caption information source: “Freedom Socialists may keep donation,” by Don Carter, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 28, 1992, page B1.