Hope Mendoza Schechter was born in Miami, Arizona in 1921 and left school in 1938 to work in the garment industry. She was soon hired as an organizer and later as a business agent for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, where she worked from 1945 to 1956. During these years, she was a Littauer Scholar at Harvard, attended classes at Los Angeles colleges, sat on the executive board of the Los Angeles Central Labor Council and the executive committee of the Democratic State Central Committee, and was involved in several other Mexican American community organizations. After her marriage to Harvey Schechter in 1955, she became a shorthand reporter and continued her community activism and work with the Democratic party. In this interview, Schechter discusses her Mexican American family background, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union and her start in Democratic party politics, Mexican American community activism, and her political activism in the Democratic party.