At lunch, she shared her discovery with some of her comadres who had joined her in trying to organize a union. —I found the answer, she said at lunchtime, remembering the year the Invisible Ones took to the streets in the name of democracy. El Secreto de la Victoria. It was as if someone had turned on the light in the factory with small windows. The threads floating in the factory choked many of the women and the warmth made them so drowsy that some of them sewed their fingers right into the lace. But not Miraluz. She was awake and ready.

—Don’t you see, mujeres? The reason we can’t get our union is because if we all get fired, there are hundreds of women just like us willing to take this job. The owners have all the power. Who gave the power to the factories? The owners of the companies. When we unionize, we try to get the owners to care about us. But they don’t.

—That’s because the people still buy their clothes. Miraluz, we’ve been through this a million times at the union meetings. Shit is never going to change. Estamos jodidas, said one.

The women were leaning in, forming a circle around Miraluz.

—You think gringos who buy these bras don’t know that we get paid five dollars a day? They don’t care about us, said another.

—People who have money buy what they want. I would if I was them, another added.

—How could they not know that we’re jodiéndonos la vida while they buy their fur coats and diamonds? Don’t you see them on television? They don’t care about anything but themselves.

The overseer glared at them and waved his hand, motioning them to end their lunchtime. The bells went off and the women went back to their stations.

Miraluz rushed home that night to make a plan. The younger women had no idea what she meant when she spoke of victory. All their lives they knew only one way to live. Some women had been working in la Zona Franca since they’d dropped their first period. They were happy to have a job that paid them at least a minimum wage, unlike many of their friends who worked as trabajadoras for pennies a day. They had fallen into the rhythm of the machines. The machines’ loud trill and the steamers’ deep suction, a steady breathing, day in and day out, had paralyzed their imagination. They needed to think bigger than getting paid three or four dollars more a day.

When Miraluz saw her sons playing with a ball and stick on the street, she called out to them,

—Muchachos, come inside. You two are making dinner tonight, I have work to do.

—We don’t cook, her eldest said.

—You better learn or we’ll all go hungry.

She ordered her son to heat up the water so she could soak her feet, which ached from working the sewing machine pedals. That night, they ate burned rice, unsalted beans, and fried plátanos with avocado.