encouraged women to take leadership roles in union organizations. In 1937, she settled the Encanto neighborhood of San Diego, which she used as a base for her nationwide activism. In 1939 she was one of the main organizers, alongside Josefina Fierro de Bright and Eduardo Quevedo, of the El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Española (Spanish-speaking People's Congress). She took a year off from UCAPAWA to travel throughout the U.S., visiting Latino workers on the East Coast, in the Southwest, and allying refugees of the Spanish Civil War to her cause. In 1940, she was asked to speak before the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (ACPFB). Her speech, which became known as the "Caravan of Sorrow" speech, eloquently described the lives of migrant Mexican workers. Portions of it were reprinted in Committee pamphlets, creating a legacy that lasted much longer than the duration of the speech itself. In it, she stated, In the same year, she co-founded an employment office in San Diego with her friend Robert Galván. She also organized San Diego-area cannery workers and persuaded employers not to hire scab workers. With the dawn of World War II, the defense industry became a major employer in the United States, particularly in San Diego. Mexicans, however, were forbidden to work in the petroleum industry, shipyards, and other war-related fields, and were relegated to the lowest-paying jobs. Moreno criticized the discrimination, pointing out that "California has become prosperous with the toil and sweat of Mexican immigration attending to its number one industry, agriculture. Now they have sustained a true and lasting patriotism to a democratic country that refuses to give them citizenship or even basic civil rights." In 1942, Moreno became involved in the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, a cause célèbre for the American left and Mexican-American civil rights activists. Along with longtime friend Bert Corona and attorney Carey McWilliams, she organized the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee to exonerate the indicted youths. In addition to mounting a legal defense, the Committee sought to put to rest rumors about "violent gangs" of Pachucos and to counter sensationalist reports of urban "guerrilla warfare" between Pachucos and servicemen. (The press had dubbed the 1943 attacks of Pachucos the "Zoot Suit Riots".) She also investigated abuses on the part of servicemen in San Diego, advising city councilperson Charles C. Dail on the matter. She invited Admiral David W. Bagley, commandant