Sonia Pressman Fuentes
Sonia Pressman Fuentes (born May 30, 1928) is a German American author, speaker, feminist leader, and lawyer.
Sonia P. Fuentes | |
---|---|
Born | Sonia Pressman[1] May 30, 1928 Berlin, Germany |
Education | Cornell University (BA) University of Miami (LLB) |
Occupation | lawyer, writer |
Early years and education
Fuentes was born in Berlin, Germany, of Polish parents, with whom she came to the U.S. to escape the Holocaust. She graduated from Cornell University and the University of Miami School of Law.[2]
Career
In the U.S., she became one of the founders of the second wave of the women's movement. She was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and Federally Employed Women (FEW), and she was one of the first woman lawyers in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She contributed to several early sexual discrimination cases by connecting complainants with feminist lawyers outside the EEOC. [3]
Fuentes is the author of a memoir, Eat First—You Don't Know What They'll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter (1999),[4] which has been required reading at Cornell University and American University in Washington, D.C. Her articles on women's rights and other subjects have been published in newspapers, magazines, and journals in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Fuentes has given talks throughout the U.S. as well as in Germany, Spain, Japan, China, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. She has served as an "American specialist" on women's rights for the then-U.S. Information Agency.
She is a member of the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. Since 1994 Fuentes has been a resident of Sarasota, Florida as a snowbird and permanently, since 2009.[5]
Her papers are archived in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.[6]
Awards
- Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research. [7]
References
- Commencement program of the University of Miami, June 10, 1957
- Strebeigh 2009, p. 115.
- Banaszak, Lee Ann (2010). The Women's Movement Inside and Outside the State. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-13286-2. p.126-127.
- Fuentes, Sonia Pressman (24 November 1999). Eat First -- You Don't Know What They'll Give You: The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter. Xlibris. ISBN 146281462X.
- Fuentes, Sonia Pressman, Letter to the Editor, SRQ Daily, July 9, 2013
- https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/6022
- http://www.center4research.org/foremother-health-policy-hero-awards/
Bibliography
- Strebeigh, Fred (13 February 2009). Equal: Women Reshape American Law. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06555-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Further reading
- Cox, Billy (23 September 2013). "Feminist returns to Belgium, site of Holocaust escape". Sarasota: HeraldTribune.com.
- "Sonia Pressman Fuentes". Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. Maryland State Archives.
External links
- Official website
- Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution from the Jewish Women's Archive
- Papers of Sonia Pressman Fuentes, ca.1929-2009 (inclusive), 1955-2009 (bulk). Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.