During the 1930s, the Popular Front mobilized the American working class and reignited the flame of labor organization throughout the nation. This thesis investigates the Popular Front movement in the Latino community, Ybor City, located on the eastern edge of Tampa, Florida. It studies the Popular Front as a social movement rather than a communist movement, and questions the rise of a Popular Front culture despite the absence of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in Tampa and Ybor City. This work explores how Floridian Latinos and Latinas used the Popular Front to advance their own platform of workers' rights and become active and participatory citizens in Southern Society. It reconsiders the centralization of white men as the leaders of the Popular Front and uncovers women's activism that defied and challenged traditional gender stereotypes in Tampa, the South, and the United States.Master of Art
