Mendiola was born in 1944 to a peasant family. Before the introduction of widespread education and local schooling in Nicaragua, she learned to read in her rural home.[1]
Mendiola's partner was Bernandino Díaz Ochoa (1941–1971) [es].[2] Together, they operated as peasant leaders and organised the compañeras, known as "the Heroic Women of El Cuá," for guerrilla action against the Somoza dictatorships.[2][3] She has testified to how women guerrillas were labelled as prostitutes.[4] After the Somoza family was deposed by the Sandinistas in 1979, Mendiola remained a leader of workers the agricultural sector,[1] becoming the head of the women's section of the Farmers and Ranchers Association.[5]
Mendiola and Irela Prado were the only two women involved in the drafting of the 1987 Nicaraguan Constitution.[6] In 1992, Mendiola called for peasant women to have access to land, titles, and loans.[7]
As part of a movement to increase women's representation at the highest levels of the FSLN (with 30% of all positions in the party reserved for women[8]) Mendiola was elected to the national directorate of the FSLN in 1994, alongside Monica Baltodano, Mirna Cunningham, Dora Maria Tellez and Dorotea Wilson.[5][9][10] To facilitate their election, the directorate was enlarged from nine to fifteen members.[11] She was nevertheless critical of the FSLN's Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women (Spanish: Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza, AMNLAE),[12] including commenting on AMNLAE's "tendency to centralize" and "insensitivity to peasant women's realities."[13] Mendiola later returned to working organising peasant farming women.[14]
Mendiola's son Lenin Mendiola was shot to death in 2018 during a confrontation in Matagalpa between anti-government demonstrators and groups related to the Nicaraguan government.[15][16][17]