—Let’s eat, she said, and they all bustled around the food. In their own heads, they debated if they would return next Sunday. What if Miraluz was right? Maybe one of them couldn’t save enough money, but together they might be able to do something.

The next Sunday, Miraluz didn’t expect such an audience. The women dressed casually, each with their own food offering placed on the backyard table. They collectively joked about how their husbands didn’t like that they were going over to Miraluz’s. Soon after, wives were asking their husbands to make their own meals and their sons were doing their own laundry. In weeks, Miraluz had a regular group of women who started addressing immediate concerns. Who would babysit for their children? Who would cook? Who would take care of the viejos? Who would take care of all the things the women had to do after they got off work? And in weeks, they started a bartering system that inspired even the most skeptical to want to join El Secreto de la Victoria. For years, people had been hoarding the little they had, but something was changing in the women and how they treated each other, that for Miraluz was reminiscent of the days when the garden of Los Llanos was abundant and the people were feasting. Women volunteered to babysit. They shared their fruits and vegetables from their yards and the clothes and other supplies they received from their families in New York City. The young men, including Miraluz’s sons, were called to duty, fetching the women water, delivering food to the elders who were left alone for days because their daughters were working at the factory. Optimism had taken over Miraluz’s community in San Pedro de Macorís, and like an unexplained outbreak, it was difficult to contain. With time, even the ones who preferred to pray put money in the small donation box that Miraluz kept in a safe at the bank.

In no time, Miraluz’s living room was equipped to make three hundred panties in a day. Three hundred panties in thirty days was nine thousand panties at ten dollars a panty, which amounted to ninety thousand dollars. Money that they would divide among all the women who made them.

—Even if we could make these panties, who will buy them?

—The same people who buy Victoria’s Secret? said another.

—We can start a campaign: Don’t buy Victoria’s Secret, buy El Secreto de la Victoria. A person who works the land should own the land, Miraluz said, excited.

—What land?

Miraluz was too overjoyed to explain that Don Chan had been right. If they work at the factory, they should own the factory. Same concept that he had about the land.

—Mujeres, we must get in touch with all our family members and find out who buys Victoria’s Secret and see if they will buy from us. We must involve them in this movement. If the money that our families send us makes up about half of our economy, then what they choose to buy can affect the conditions of the women in these factories? You’ll see, a part of the money will go to building up our community. Better schools, better clinics.