As part of a yearlong, statewide Missouri Latinos initiative, the Kansas City Public Library is offering an array of special programming. Theresa Torres explores how the Guadalupanas, a religious organization of Mexican-American women, began a grassroots movement in Kansas City, Missouri, ultimately preventing the closing of their church. Religion and social action, though, both empowered and limited these remarkable Latina women. The Guadalupanas saw themselves as agents for change, yet they faced difficulties in understanding and maintaining their limited gendered roles within church and community.

An associate professor of Sociology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Theresa Torres is the author of The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership in the Catholic Church (2014). For her research she drew on the extensive, historic Guadalupe Center materials in the Missouri Valley Special Collections.