Hi friend,
Gloria Molina doesn't remember me, but I remember her. I’ve followed her career closely, admiring the way she’s put people first throughout her own many firsts—including being the first Chicana elected to the California State Assembly (1982), the first Latina elected to the Los Angeles City Council (1987), and the first Latina to join the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (1991). In the weeks since she announced she had terminal cancer, I’ve been moved by the many tribute pieces written about her, including Gustavo Arellano’s “Gloria Molina, you were always a chingona.” I wanted to share my memories too.
My high school boyfriend’s godfather, Joe Sanchez, worked to get more Latinx politicians into office in L.A. and advocated for hiring and training programs for underrepresented groups. Joe was always trying to get me into politics too, and in 1986 he invited me to a fundraiser for Gloria Molina when she was running for city council. Even then, she had that “it thing” that made you believe in her. She spoke with courage and conviction, and I still remember thinking: Here was a woman who could make change happen, and who wouldn’t let anything stand in her way. I was all in. I ended up volunteering with her campaign and, later, for the campaigns of other Latinx politicians, like former councilman and now-Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who is still fighting the good fight.
I got so into LA politics that when I was an undergraduate, my goal was to get an M.A. in Urban Policy at UCLA, where the revered Latinx Professor Leo Estrada taught. I dreamed of becoming chief of staff for the LA City Mayor. If it weren't for a Ford-Mellon Minority Summer Research Exchange Program that my various professors and friends at UCLA encouraged me to apply to, which got me on the road to a Ph.D., I might have done that. There’s a lesson to be learned here from the power of seeing oneself represented and the doors that open, as well as the power of pipeline programs for first-gen students, like those from Ford and Mellon, to demystify higher education and open doors for people like me.
The path I did take and the path I didn’t are reminders of how much we’re shaped by our community—something I thought about again when watching Renee Tajima-Peña (director) and Virginia Espino’s (producer) powerful documentary No Más Bebés. It also includes stirring footage of Gloria Molina in the early years of her fight for social justice.
No Más Bebés tells the story of the civil rights class action lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, filed by a group of Mexicanas who’d undergone involuntary or forced sterilization at LA County Hospital. In addition to focusing on Madrigal and other brave women who describe what they’d undergone, the film features two of the biggest Chingonas LA—and for that matter, the world—has ever seen. One was Antonia Hernández, a young lawyer who fought for civil rights and went on to become President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). She currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the California Community Foundation, one of Southern California’s largest and most active philanthropic organizations. The other was Gloria Molina, then the head of Comisión Feminil, a feminist organization. Early in their careers, these two were already fighting an uphill battle and did not back down. It still blows my mind that they existed in the same moment in space.
When Molina went on to hold office, she retained this activist devotion to serving—in solidarity with others—the disenfranchised. To the extent that, as Martin Luther King, Jr., tells us, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," it does so because of women like her.
(For those interested in a historical look at another pair of badass chingonas in 1940s LA, see Gaye Johnson's Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity: Music, Race, and Spatial Entitlement in Los Angeles, on the activist Luisa Moreno, and Charlotta Bass, activist and editor of The California Eagle, a Black newspaper.)
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I hosted a writing workshop featuring the pomodoro technique and the flow method with Deborah Harlow for my graduate students and wider USC community. We started online retreats during the pandemic, and this year FIVE of them will graduate with their Ph.Ds!
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In case you missed it:
Gerry Cadava is a beautiful writer, vivid storyteller, and -- as we now we hear -- a natural podcaster! I had so much fun chatting with him on his new podcast, " Writing Latinos." Check it out!
Earlier this month, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Mike Amezcua about his new book, Making Mexican Chicago -- the book that makes us wonder how we ever could have overlooked the role of Latinos in white flight, the rise of conservatism, and gentrification. Special thanks to the USC-Huntington Institute on California and the West for hosting us! |
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Thank you to all of those who purchased A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community. All 2022 proceeds from the sale of my book went to No Us Without You, a 501c3 charity that provides food relief for hospitality workers who have been disenfranchised in the pandemic. We share a goal of showing how immigrant workers have sustained the country, and I'm proud to support them. I will continue to contribute a portion of the book sales to No Us Without You in 2023.
I have learned much from the good people who have attended recent book talks. And I'd love to hear from those whom I haven't met yet or heard from in a while. Please share your thoughts on the book on Twitter, Instagram, or leave a review on the platform of your choice.
Until next time,
Natalia
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