Activist Women's Voices: Oral History Project
Linking Communities and the University
  Maria Peralta is Associate Director of the far-reaching project Bread and Roses. This organization was founded in 1979 as the cultural arm of Health Care Union 1199, by Moe Foner, who at that time was the Executive Secretary of the Union. The membership of the union is approximately 120,000 and consists predominantly of women workers, employed in all job categories in health care institutions throughout New York State. While the main purpose of the organization was originally to provide a cultural avenue to its union members, the organization has expanded to include a variety of cultural programs as a tool for social change. It has sponsored Gallery 1199, the nation's only labor art gallery and sponsors many exhibits throughout the year, some of which have toured the Smithsonian. The gallery exhibits have included such themes as: Art for Nuclear Disarmament, Images of Labor, Black History and especially Women of Hope.

Women of Hope is another successful project of Bread and Roses. The Women of Hope Series is a four-part series (including posters), to reflect the various cultural diversity of its own members and to provide positive role models for women in the public at large.

Since January 1999, Maria Peralta has and continues to serve as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, at the U.S. Department of Housing and Development.