Interview with Gladis Benavides, July 23, 2015

ARENAS: Okay. One of the things, Gladis, that I wanted to explore with you; I reviewed your transcript of your first interview and read your profile, which is very helpful, is this issue of role models. I care about your father's political work when you were younger in Peru.

BENAVIDES: Yes.

ARENAS: But I didn't hear anything about who was specifically a role model. Can you think of one or two in your lifetime, maybe early and then later in life?

BENAVIDES: Well, I would say that my father was always a very powerful role model for me.

ARENAS: Okay.

BENAVIDES: Because he was very much invested in the social work, whether it was as a mayor or any other function that he had, it was always a very personal way 00:01:00of getting involved with people and that I appreciated. In the later life, I would say Irma Guerra, as you know, was really one of the most incredible women in our movement and the most real and caring and strong. And we became really good friends. "Sisters of the Heart," as I called it. And the connection of raising our own kids and going through the issues, working not only directly with the community, but also when we both worked for the state of Wisconsin in various capacities. So she taught me a lot. She introduced me to the Latino community, particularly in Milwaukee, but also other places. She was truly, 00:02:00truly a role model.

GÓMEZ: How did you two meet, Gladis?

BENAVIDES: Well, through community affinities, mostly. But also because at some point or another we were both involved working with the state in different capacities, and that's I think where we really kind of combined our commitment and our knowledge through work. Regularly at our regular jobs, but also to have a real sense of collaboration in making things happen. And sometimes it took me being inside the system and outside the system. And I think that there was a time where there was a real trust built with folks, not only in as leaders in the community, but also working with systems like the state, the federal 00:03:00government, community-based organizations. There was a way for us to informally and formally work for the benefit of the community. And frankly, I don't see that as much in these days.

ARENAS: Right.

BENAVIDES: You know? Things have a more guarded environment.

GÓMEZ: Gladis, what led you to determine that you were going to work on behalf of the community? How did that evolve?

BENAVIDES: It just happened. It took for us to just get together and begin to develop trust because there was a lot of things that were happening, whether it was formally or informally that allow us to strategize.

GÓMEZ: Give us an example.

BENAVIDES: Well, issues of funding. Issues of internal things that were 00:04:00happening with some of the Latinos where there was a state-level or a local-level. Being in communication with the natural leaders in our communities, whether it was Milwaukee or Madison or even other smaller cities. Teaching each other what we knew. So that there was a real sense of trust in that we could in the context of our positions to influence both the system, but also get the knowledge to the community they needed. You know, we're not bound by belonging to anything. We really felt that if one of our primary responsibilities was to be translators between the community and the system and also strategize to get the benefits for our communities that they deserved.

GÓMEZ: Do you have a specific incident either with funding or with other Latino employees where you. . . essentially what I hear you saying is that you became advocates for the community and is there any specific instance that you can recall where you teamed up to advocate together to make a difference?

BENAVIDES: Well, I think that anything that had to do with migrant workers, for example, because you know, when you have migrant workers to the level we had in the state of Wisconsin, we needed to figure out how to use my office, which at that time was the civil rights office for the state of Wisconsin, and to make sure that we were sharing information as to rights and access to services. 00:06:00Sometimes it was to refer people either me to her, or she would refer them to my office because there was some concerns about the lack of services by a particular county or an office that was supposed to provide services, or hospitals, or nursing homes. So because we were functioning at different levels and then we did have a lot of communication also with Latinos at the federal level, that was director of The Office of Civil Rights. So there was that kind of both connections and trust that allowed us to say to somebody: "This is what you need to do; this is how it needs to happen." And for my office or Irma that was more of an advocacy in terms of working particularly with the Latino 00:07:00community for example. And so we were able to have an ongoing relationship, in and out our regular positions to be able to work with the community, or to give advice to people as to how to access service, how to complain, how to connect with other organizations or people that could be of help. It was a much more active time, you know? And then Irma and I became the best of friends, and as a matter of fact, my son and her son died in a car accident together.

ARENAS: I remember.

BENAVIDES: There was this other level of connection that never went away. And of course, eventually she died as well, and I'm still in contact with the rest of 00:08:00her kids.

GÓMEZ: Gladis, what was Irma's position at that time? She worked for the state as well, you mentioned that, and you mentioned that you worked for the office of Civil Rights. What position did she hold?

BENAVIDES: Well, her position was at a divisional level, and it was a position that was designated to provide services and information to the Latino community. And my position was a departmental level and it was The Office of Civil Rights Compliance.

GÓMEZ: What department did Irma work in?

BENAVIDES: The same department, Department of Health and Family Services. And at that point we had seven divisions, one of which was Division of Community Services, and that's where she was working.

GÓMEZ: Ah, okay.

ARENAS: Alright, that helps a lot.

BENAVIDES: Yeah. And that, what I don't see is those connections anymore. And 00:09:00it's kind of sad, because people sometimes don't have the system translated to them so they can access it properly, and that was our biggest concern. It was all the folks all over the state, many that did not speak English, came from the fields, or did not understand the systems sometimes or their rights, and so that has been really minimized to such a degree that, frankly now that I am doing consulting, I try to volunteer as much as possible in terms of working with the small agencies in the Latino community, or that I know don't have the funds to do training. Or people call me and say, "Señora, I'm having this kind of 00:10:00problem, what do I do?" And once in a while I'd go to the radio station and talk a little bit about rights and responsibilities, whether you were here legally, quote-unquote, or not. And those were the things that we used to do all the time, Irma and I, and other folks. There were, of course, other people that were doing very similar things either in the city of Milwaukee or also statewide. So there was a lot more networking going on.

ARENAS: Okay, that really helps us see a larger picture for you. Well, the other topic that I wanted to explore is that of the. . . we talked off-camera during your first interview about The Latina Strike Force being created.

BENAVIDES: Oh yeah.

ARENAS: And I wondered if you could tell us about how that group started and what did this Strike Force do, and your role in that.

BENAVIDES: Well, that happened in Milwaukee, when I was living there. And basically started just about a bunch of us, Latinas, that work in different parts of the city and the state and agencies, Latino agencies.

GÓMEZ: Mhm. Gladis, when was it?

BENAVIDES: Oh my god, don't ask me for dates because I'm really bad at that. [Laughter]

GÓMEZ: Generally though, no generally, just saying. . .

BENAVIDES: Generally? I would say, twenty years ago or so? Maybe a little less.

GÓMEZ: Okay, '90s?

BENAVIDES: Yeah, yeah. The '90s. So, we started with lunch at the Latino restaurants on the Southside. And then we started talking about the fact that it was good for us to share whatever it was going on in our own agencies and other 00:12:00places. And then we started saying, okay, but then some of the guys, the whole Hombre Collective thing, that sometimes are not addressing issues that need to be addressed about the women in our community, but we also didn't want to be the kind of people that would go and complain or challenge them publicly or whatever. And so, we decided that when we saw certain things going on, maybe that should include women, or we should have a voice in decisions that may be made, or when we saw that the guys kind of circle were allowing other men in our 00:13:00community to have very direct access to jobs or without looking at the capabilities that women had in our group, and so we kind of became the strike force in that we would be very diplomatic and careful not to throw challenges to them publicly or in a way that could hurt their own positions or their own situation, but that we would go and talk to them individually, when if possible. One of the things that happened was there was a position in Milwaukee County and it was kind of an understanding who was supposed to get it and we felt that 00:14:00there was a particular woman that was incredibly competent and capable to do that. And so we looked at seven or eight leaders, male leaders in our community and then we assigned one or two women to each one of them to go and meet with them, closed doors, and talk to them about it, and so we did.

ARENAS: Hah!

ARENAS: And then tell me about the kinds of responses you got when you did talk to these leaders.

BENAVIDES: I think they were, in most cases, they might have been uncomfortable, but we mentioned to them that it was out of respect for their disability as a total community that we wanted to approach them in a respectful kind of way, but 00:15:00not respectful because they were the power guy, but respectful because we want them to understand that we were not there to yell and scream or to just simply chastise them for being "machos" or whatever. That we were there to let them know that we are watching and that it's important that we have a valid representation from our communities that includes women, when women are competent and capable to do it. So, actually, nobody threw us out. [laughter]

ARENAS: Okay, good.

BENAVIDES: But at the same time I think there was some tension around that for a little while. But I think that the purposes of our meetings were two-folded. One was to support each other, and I mean support not only in "oh, let's hold hands and sing songs" kind of support. It was support with discussing things. We were 00:16:00supporting them when we were going through difficult times. We're supporting them to recognize that they had to recognize their value. Sometimes it was a matter of people having difficulties at work. And rather than go and file a complaint of discrimination, it's how can we advise people to handle those situations in a way that gives them credit as professionals and also the seriousness of what they were addressing. So, it was really a collective of things that we did, some of them very simple. You know?

ARENAS: Mhm.

BENAVIDES: We allowed each other to complain, to cry, to laugh. To kind of to slap one silly.

ARENAS: Yeah.

BENAVIDES: So we get back into knowing that we're whole people and we need to 00:17:00take care of business. And it wasn't a club, and I think that a lot of the younger people today in our communities have more club-like relationships than support relationships.

ARENAS: Okay, yeah.

BENAVIDES: Because you have to trust the support and be supported, you know?

ARENAS: Right, right. How long was the strike force together as a group of women?

BENAVIDES: Several years. Several years. See, but you know, because we were also different ages.

ARENAS: Right.

BENAVIDES: And then, of course, then I came back to Madison. But I still get together with many of the women in Milwaukee when I'm in Milwaukee. As a matter of fact I just came back from Milwaukee and I met with three of the women.

ARENAS: Okay, that's wonderful.

BENAVIDES: Just to have lunch and talk.

ARENAS: Right.

GÓMEZ: How many women were a part of the Latina Strike Force?

BENAVIDES: I think it went from eight to ten or something like that. So there weren't a lot because we didn't want to have like a gathering of thirty people every time.

GÓMEZ: Sure.

BENAVIDES: So it was people that brought people. And it was generally about eight to ten.

ARENAS: Okay.

GÓMEZ: Why did you give yourself that, your group, that title 'The Latina Strike Force'?

BENAVIDES: Actually I think somebody else did, I think. [laughter]

GÓMEZ: From the group?

BENAVIDES: Not necessarily, I think it came back from one or two of the guys or something.

ARENAS: Oh, they named you?

BENAVIDES: We didn't call us ourselves "The Strike Force".

ARENAS: Okay.

BENAVIDES: Yeah, we were Latina Women Group and that's how we defined ourselves. 00:19:00But I think it came from one of the guys that said, "You guys are like a strike force."

ARENAS: I see, okay, okay. That's very helpful.

GÓMEZ: Did that resonate with you and that's why it stuck that way?

BENAVIDES: Well, I think what happened was that for some reason or other we felt the need to be representative rather than just have lunch. So in a sense when somebody calls us a strike force, we all smile because it meant like, hey, then we're hitting something. You know?

GÓMEZ: Uh-huh.

BENAVIDES: So we really didn't call us, "Oh, we're going to do this, and we're going to do that, and let's go after this guy." That's one of the things I really appreciated about the group. And there are women like Elisa Romero, the 00:20:00Puerto Rican, and there were Latinas that came from Mexico and other places, so it wasn't anything. . . We didn't want it to make it a club with a harsh name.

ARENAS: Right.

BENAVIDES: But that was what somebody said, so we used to care a lot about that.

ARENAS: Okay, but you were the Latina Women's Group.

BENAVIDES: Yeah.

ARENAS: Got it, okay.

GÓMEZ: When you talk about the men, are we talking about Latino men? And. . .

BENAVIDES: Yes, always.

GÓMEZ: Are we talking more specifically Latino men who were a part of the non-Latino [Latino]. . . non-profit community?

BENAVIDES: Mostly non-profit, because that's where most of us came from. There were a couple of people from companies but the majority was non-profit, or were 00:21:00folks that the Milwaukee universities. . . And so, it was very much directed because our concern was the community and the services and the opportunity and the educational opportunities for the kids. It was naturally more directed towards working with non-profits or addressing the needs of the community from that perspective.

ARENAS: Okay. I am so glad that we got a chance to hear this experience because I thought that was the name, The Strike Force, and I. . .

BENAVIDES: Yeah.

ARENAS: And I like your real name better. And yet, the way you were labeled as a 00:22:00group by one of the men in the non-profit community is interesting and I can see where you would all get a smile from it and. . .

BENAVIDES: Yeah. . .

ARENAS: Now go on, please.

BENAVIDES: [inaudible] . . .kind of funny, because it really came from one of the Puerto Rican leaders at that time, working in a community organization. And it was said with a smile. And so we didn't take it. . .

ARENAS: Oh, I see.

BENAVIDES: You know, we didn't take it like, oh, it was really mean and nasty, and look at these women. Also a couple of people thought that we were acting as white women, which was very interesting. [Laughter]

ARENAS: Why would they think that you acted like white women and what did that mean?

BENAVIDES: I think to me, there was no definition, but to me, it meant that they saw us as white women who were more aggressive and kind of we're supposed to be 00:23:00the softest-spoken wonderful Latinas that love them and respect them and care about them and stay home and have kids. That was our discussion about it.

ARENAS: Ah.

BENAVIDES: How it was that we translated what we saw culturally with it and that was an interesting conversation we had because it's like, okay, then we were labeling white women as aggressive and direct and this and that.

ARENAS: Right.

BENAVIDES: You know, and we are supposed, which we didn't believe we needed to be, to submissive and anything men say is fine, and so it was we just kind of, 00:24:00in our lunches, talked about many different things sometimes, [inaudible] sometimes very important, and I think that's what I like about it. I mean, we didn't have a president. We just rotated. We didn't have somebody that took minutes, because we wanted to be simple and trusting, and for us to be able to say anything and know that it would stay there.

GÓMEZ: Uh-huh.

ARENAS: Okay, that's very, very helpful.

GÓMEZ: How long did you have the Latina Strike Force?

BENAVIDES: Well, I couldn't tell you how many years we actually had it, because there were some people left, some people left Milwaukee, some people took another job. So it was a very floating thing. But I would say at least seven years.

GÓMEZ: Okay.

ARENAS: That's wonderful. Well, Eloisa, is there anything else you wanted to cover?

GÓMEZ: Well, maybe just to ask Gladis, is there anything that you would like to. . . is there anything that was that you think is something we should know about your particular efforts that we haven't asked you about yet?

BENAVIDES: Well, I guess one of the things to me that was really, really important when I came here to Madison from Beloit, is that my first job was with Community Action Commission with the Latin American project. And that was Olegario Diaz, was the director of the program and an ex-migrant worker with a 00:26:00beautiful family, and that's when I began to learn about the Chicano, the Mexican American family and the community, and the similarities and difference with my background from Peru. And from then on, I had been taught by the best natural teachers. And I've been very blessed about that. Irma was another one, Olegario, all the leaders, the generation of leaders have taught me different things. And the women in different ways than the men. With the men it had been more professionally done in the world that I work.

ARENAS: Okay now.

BENAVIDES: And with women it has been in a more natural way with women here in Madison that are still teaching me. And my concern is how do we translate ourselves to the young women that are getting lost by living the corporate life and disconnecting from our community.

ARENAS: Yeah.

BENAVIDES: That is so. . . it's such a serious issue because I don't see some of these young women going back to the community. We have a Centro Hispano here in Madison that is a wonderful center, Karen the director is doing a fantastic job of going back into the community and reaching for people to come in and get the benefits of what they have. But still I see a lot of the professional young 00:28:00Latinos, Latinas especially being very disconnected and that concerns me.

GÓMEZ: What would be a way for them to reconnect with community? What ideas would you recommend?

BENAVIDES: I'll tell you, one of the things I have thought about and share it with a couple of people here in Madison is that if the professional Latina can. . . well, if those organizations of professional Latinas can develop a way in which the members would have the opportunity and hopefully will really benefit from volunteering or having access to the larger community which is either medium income or no income or whatever and being able to experience what we 00:29:00experience, which is regardless of what level we were at, we were actively involved with the total community. Not every individual but the total community. Those who need services, those who are going to school with great difficulty, those who are part of a system who is not responding to them. So you don't lose yourself in this kind of "professional environment" that you see with Facebook all the time. I don't see real people through the community in the sense of not people that made it, but people that need to make it, and that's the disconnect I see.

GÓMEZ: Yeah. Well, just as we thank you for that, and as we wrap up, I guess I 00:30:00want to share with you too, I think I can speak for Tess, and I am definitely speaking for myself, that when we started the Latina Task Force back in the '80s. . . before '82, something like that, I can't remember when we started.

BENAVIDES: Yeah?

GÓMEZ: But that you and Irma, in particular, became available to us and you made yourself accessible to us. Most of us were not in the larger system. You both were in state government.

BENAVIDES: Uh-huh.

GÓMEZ: You had already a wealth of experience and you had mentioned that a divisional or the administrative level, some of us didn't have that kind of experience. And we saw you as advocates for the community, so we really looked 00:31:00to you. . .

ARENAS: Oh yes, yes.

GÓMEZ: . . .to give us some guidance and help us be involved in community change. So you were a resource to us. I mean, you were. . .

BENAVIDES: Thank you.

GÓMEZ: . . .definitely walking the talk and. . .

ARENAS: Yes.

GÓMEZ: Just really key for us. . .

ARENAS: Right.

GÓMEZ: . . .in our own personal, professional development and definitely in terms of in organizing framework, we saw you as a tremendous resource.

ARENAS: Right.

BENAVIDES: Thank you. I really appreciate it. I wanted to let you know that the only volunteer work I do these days because of my schedule and traveling and all the confines of things with consulting firm, is to Latino and African American agencies. Whether it's young people or people that are interested in knowing how to access systems or how to deliver services. So if you know of any situations, 00:32:00please let me know. I give priority to that. And that's basically still the volunteering I am doing these days because I want it to be targeted.

GÓMEZ: Yeah.

ARENAS: Right. Okay. Well, thank you for everything that you've done, Gladis.

BENAVIDES: Thank you.

ARENAS: As Eloisa said, there was a time when Eloisa, Yolanda Garza and I lived together and you talked about ourselves as [inaudible]. Well, there was another generation of [inaudible] and that was Anita Herrera, [inaudible].

BENAVIDES: Yeah.

ARENAS: . . .and Gladis. And so I just reinforce everything that Eloisa said. You were our role models and we definitely learned everything from you. . .

BENAVIDES: Thank you.

ARENAS: . . .and contributed to our development and I humbly hope that when we share the interviews of activist Latinas and then we publish a book, we're 00:33:00hoping that people will find these stories of our women resonate with them. And. . .

BENAVIDES: That's right.

ARENAS: . . .maybe we can pull back some of those kids who are now sucked into their technology rather than human interaction. Potentially, we're hoping, we can turn them to look at other women as women of efficacy and passion.

BENAVIDES: That's good. That's great.

ARENAS: I'm writing a big tall story for ourselves and Eloisa and I have yet to finish the work, but I'm just saying in our small way we're hoping. . .

BENAVIDES: Of course you are. And it's wonderful to have that opportunity. You know, I live about two blocks away from Anita Herrera now.

ARENAS: Ahhh.

BENAVIDES: We are continuously together. We are sisters of the heart.

ARENAS: Okay, well, give her hugs for me. Give her hugs.

BENAVIDES: Okay, I will do that

ARENAS: All right, well, thank you for everything, Gladis.

BENAVIDES: Thank you, I feel blessed that you reached for me to share my experiences and I hope that they bring some ideas to the younger folks and maybe we'll start seeing another strike force growing. [laughter]

ARENAS: Yeah, that would be good news. Thank you, Gladis. Bye-bye.

BENAVIDES: Yeah, thank you. Bye-bye.