Mónica Ramírez, an internationally recognized attorney and feminist, is teaching migrant women how to organize and advocate for their rights. Growing up near Fremont, Ohio, Ramírez was inspired by her great-grandmother's efforts to support isolated farmworkers who lacked legal status and were vulnerable to exploitation. In 2014, Ramírez founded Justice for Migrant Women to provide information and empower workers rather than offering direct legal aid. The article highlights the organization’s role in supporting migrant women through the lens of a specific case involving a victim named Bernice, emphasizing the importance of mutual respect and dignity in their interactions.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-15,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Growing up around the rows of corn and soybeans in Fremont, Ohio, Mónica Ramírez spent her earliest days being looked after by her maternal bisabuela, or great-grandmother, Virginia Guardiola.
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Ramírez → grow → bisabuela
From her home in town, Guardiola served as an informal, one-woman welcome committee for farmworkers who arrived in Fremont, disoriented and alone.
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who → serve → Fremont
Guardiola would tell these newcomers where to find jobs and fill them in on what they needed to know about Ohio.
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they → tell → Ohio
From her great-grandmother, Ramírez says she learned “the importance of having information to share, so that people could actually get jobs—and get safe.”
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people → say → jobs
Ramírez saw the vulnerability of those who followed the harvest to a place like Fremont.
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who → see → Fremont
Many were women living far from their families, who often worked without legal status, which made it risky for them to speak out against exploitative foremen in the fields or predators in the worker barracks.
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them → live → barracks
It mattered, she says, for them to have “trusted community members.”
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them → matter → members
Some 40 years later, Ramírez is an internationally recognized attorney and feminist, with degrees from Ohio State and Harvard.
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Ramírez → recognize → State
The founder of the advocacy group Justice for Migrant Women, Ramírez has made powerful allies, including celebrities like Eva Longoria and America Ferrera; she was Laura Dern’s guest at the Oscars in 2018.
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she → make → 2018
Yet to this day, she still lives within miles of the agricultural fields in Fremont.
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she → live → Fremont
When Ramírez founded Justice for Migrant Women in 2014, she’d spent a decade as an attorney helping farmworkers fight for their rights in court.
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farmworkers → found → court
Instead, it performs the service Ramírez saw her bisabuela perform in Fremont: it provides information.
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it → perform → information
Ramírez helps workers access the knowledge they need to organize and fight for their own rights.
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they → help → rights
She sees herself more as a neighbor than a charity giver, and the neighborliness goes both ways.
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neighborliness → see → giver
One of the women who most inspired Ramírez was a farmworker named Bernice, who had been sexually victimized in a labor camp and later evicted.
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who → inspire → camp
Homeless and injured, Bernice decided to return to her home county rather than file a criminal complaint, despite Ramírez’s offer to fight for her.
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Bernice → injure → her
In all their calls, Bernice always began conversations by asking Ramírez the same question: “Are you happy?”
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you → begin → question
Today, she says she starts every new conversation by considering the dignity of the person she is speaking with, taking account of the fullness of their life.
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she → say → life
Ramírez sees a role her organization can play in the twists and turns of politics and culture, working to ensure that Justice for Migrant Women is there for people who need support as the political landscape shifts and new challenges arise.
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challenges → see → support
In 2017, as the Me Too movement took off, Ramírez helped write the “Dear Sisters” letter, which ran in TIME under the headline “700,000 Female Farmworkers Say They Stand With Hollywood Actors Against Sexual Assault.”
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They → take → Assault
It read, in part: “Even though we work in very different environments, we share a common experience of being preyed upon by individuals who have the power to hire, fire, and blacklist.”
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who → read → power
And amid the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign, as some farmworkers feel they have to choose between enduring sexual abuse in silence or coming forward and risking the trauma of detention and family separation, Ramírez is working in community meetings and trainings to help them understand their rights.
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them → feel → rights
One of Ramírez’s projects, the “Humans Who Feed Us” dinner series, brings people together and highlights the interdependence of our broader communities.
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Who → feed → communities
In Ohio and around the country, she sets large tables for farmworkers, line cooks, delivery drivers—immigrant workers who support the nation’s food system—and then invites business leaders and other community members to join them.
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who → set → them
“We’re too far apart, and I think that that space between us is what’s leading to hate and misunderstanding,” Ramírez says.
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Ramírez → ’re → hate
She sets the table the way her great-grandmother would for any newcomer in town.
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grandmother → set → town
“Back in the day,” she says, “people relied on their neighbors.”
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people → say → neighbors
The Aporia
