Interview with Daisy Cubias, November 23, 2013

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WILLS: When and where you were born?

CUBIAS: I was born in El Salvador, Central America. I am a very old lady. May 21, 1944.

WILLS: What are your parents' names?

CUBIAS: My mother is Luz Cuvillas and my father was Jose but I never met him, I met him twice. So I was raised by my grandfather, Asunción Cuvillas. That's my real, real father.

WILLS: What were their occupations?

CUBIAS: My grandfather was a farmer, but he was very strong, very intelligent. He was living in a small village and the people around the city love him so they elected him mayor of the city. He didn't even live in the city. A small town, San Lorenzo, in the state of San Vicente, El Salvador.

WILLS: And what was your mother's occupation?

CUBIAS: She was a seamstress; she made dresses and gowns for people. And she was a stay-at-home mom.

WILLS: How many siblings do you have?

CUBIAS: I had four to begin with. One passed away but the other ones. . . One is living in Milwaukee right now. My brother was killed by the government in 1981 and my sister was killed in 1981, also. 1982.

WILLS: What are their names?

CUBIAS: My sister's name is Maria. Maria Roman, she was married at the time. My brother was Rodolfo. My sister was Delmi. All Cubias.

WILLS: What are their occupations? Or were their occupations?

CUBIAS: My sister worked for a company in Milwaukee that do therapy with children [ages] one to three. My brother was a teacher and my sister was also a 00:02:00teacher. But like I said, they were kidnapped by the government.

WILLS: Do you have any children?

CUBIAS: Yes, I have one. His name is Daniel. Daniel Cubias. He lives in Los Angeles. He has a wife, Crystal, and I am a grandmother for the first time. My baby's name is Zachary, so, he's gorgeous. He's ten months now.

WILLS: Congratulations, that's very exciting.

CUBIAS: Thank you, yeah.

WILLS: What is your son's occupation?

CUBIAS: He's a journalist. Together with his wife they met at the University of Madison, your university. In the second year, they've been together since then.

WILLS: So let's move on. Tell us about your life in El Salvador.

CUBIAS: I was very. . . I will say, I was never very poor. We had land and we 00:03:00had a place to sleep. It was really nice but I didn't stay in the little town for a long time. When I was a little older, I moved to the city of San Salvador with my aunt Andrea and I went to school and I work. In El Salvador, you had to be very rich to go to college or you had to be very poor, because you could not afford it. So I went to school during the day. . . I worked during the day and went to school at night.

WILLS: And what did you study in school?

CUBIAS: Oh, I studied everything I could. I'd sneak into people's classes and I went to sociology to law to everything. But then I start working with the government of El Salvador and the department of statistics and census and they had a contest because the lady who was translating the information to English got married and she didn't want to work anymore. So they had a contest in the office say, "Why do you want to go to New York to learn English?" And everybody 00:04:00had to write an essay so I wrote it and I won and I came to New York to learn English.

WILLS: In what year did you. . .?

CUBIAS: 1965.

WILLS: So what was your experience then, coming to America?

CUBIAS: First it was so cold because it was December, okay. Coming from El Salvador, Spring always and Summer. It was snowing. It was very cold. The city was so big, it was just incredible. El Salvador is a little space in the [inaudible], only 21,000 square miles. That's how big is the country. We had an over-populated that everybody leave the country because there was no place to live, work, or do anything. And coming to New York City was the experience of my lifetime. And I still love New York City. If I could afford, I live there because it is a place. . . fantastic. It's just great.

WILLS: How long did you stay in New York?

CUBIAS: Well, I stay in New York from 1965-1970 because I got married in '68. And then in 1970, I became a mom and then we moved to Milwaukee. My husband was being transferred to California but he wanted me to see the country. And we drove and drove and we stopped here in Milwaukee to see some friends and then the next thing we know, he liked it so here we stayed.

WILLS: So, what was it like. . . Did you feel that you had to assimilate to American culture? What were the differences. . .?

CUBIAS: New York was okay because everyone is from all over the world so it doesn't matter how you speak. It doesn't matter because it's a big metropolitan city. When I came to Milwaukee it was very, very hard. In 1970, there was not too many Latinos in Milwaukee. It was mostly Mexicans and some Puerto Ricans. 00:06:00There was only one grocery store and I didn't know where it was because I live in Brown Deer. I was the only lady, brown lady, in that area. [part of interview is cut out] . . .who lives in the corner and speaks funny. That is how I was known because they didn't know my name. So everybody, "oh, you looking for the lady that live in the corner and speak funny?" Yeah, that's me. You know, because I couldn't speak English very well. I went to an A&P food store and the manager said, "What is a pretty lady doing during the day? Why you don't work?" and I said, "I just came from New York. I have a baby. I cannot work." He said, "Start working for me." So they asked me to work for them, for A&P, so I start working. I found a babysitter and I went to work.

WILLS: What did you do there?

CUBIAS: I was a cashier with A&P and then I become a store non-food manager, they call the people who do all the non-food stuff and order and make sure 00:07:00[products] are in the store and things like that.

WILLS: How long were you employed there?

CUBIAS: I was there from 1970-1975, almost '76. Then I left my husband and I moved to Florida for 3 months. And then I come back because the law make me come back since I took my child. And then I got a divorce and since then [inaudible], my son and I. That's it.

WILLS: Do you like to focus on women's issues or do you feel that you touch on other issues just as much?

CUBIAS: Well, yes, I touch on other issues as much. But I believe that as Latinas, we are discriminated and suppressed by everyone. I know countries by family, then you get married by husband, and then you come to America by society and all over the world by religion. No matter which way you look at it, women are being told what to do, where to go, and how to act. Unlike the men that can 00:08:00do whatever and it's okay. We, women, are a very. . . We have to be careful of our reputations and or very careful of what we do, how we act, how we dress because we are blamed for many, many things of the world even if it's not our fault.

WILLS: What really inspired you to start writing. . .?

CUBIAS: When I was in my country, as I say, we weren't very poor or very rich, we were in the middle. My grandfather had horses and cows and things like that. And we used to walk around and I had a little friend in a little hut, maybe you don't know what a 'rancho' means, but it's made with huts, [inaudible] things just to live. I used to go to play with her and I was about 6 years old. The following day I went there and it wasn't there, the little rancho was gone, the little ranchito. I asked my grandfather what happened to it. So, he explained to 00:09:00me that the man who owned the land decided that he didn't want people there, took a tractor, and he smashed the whole place. I asked why and he said because the land don't belong to the people. They are peasants, they're campesinos, they don't have a place to live. They go from town to town trying to make a living. Sometimes it's picking coffee, cotton, whatever was in season to eat. That hit me because I never had that experience. I always had food on my table, I always had a place to sleep and those people didn't. I asked him why and why and why. I say, don't ask too many questions. Write it down. Since then I start writing down things because he say, this country, you cannot speak freely. Maybe one day you can go to another country and do that but here, we can't. And it got me. Really, from then on, everything I saw, everything I look, I wrote it down, if 00:10:00it impressed me, if it makes sense or it didn't make sense. And it was very hard to understand why it was like that. So my experience coming to New York and learning English, that is what I call my "revolutionary things", I was sitting down with this guy from Austria--we have people from all over the world learning English in the dormitories of Columbia University--and he said, "You're from El Salvador. So you know about the Matanza?" And I looked at him like, "Huh? Matanza, yes, in 1935 the government killed all the Pipiles, the Indians". "Your mother was born in 1922, did she told you?" And I look at him like, "What are you talking about?" My country had denied us the history so he took me by the hand, took me to the library and I start reading. Oh my god, oh my god, I couldn't believe it. So it was really in the constitution of El Salvador, 1944, 00:11:00that if women or men, married an African-American, Negro, that's what I call it, an African-American, they will be immediately lose their citizenship and thrown out of the country because we were ugly enough without mixing with other races. That's how racist was the country. I don't know if that law is still in the books because I don't bother with that country anymore. But it hit me, and I say, now I know why my grandfather didn't want me to write things, to ask questions in public, just to write and keep it in a box. And I refuse to go back to El Salvador and I refuse. . . The government pay me to come, round-trip ticket, food and everything. I just went to the embassy and said, "I don't want to go back." And I had to pay all the money back but I did. Since then, I've 00:12:00become more interested in why things happen around the world. Why a country like this, who happen to be the democracy, let them get away, and I found out all the wars that was going on and things like that. That was my awakening to the American system.

WILLS: On Friday May 22, 1981, an article was published in the Milwaukee Journal titled: "Salvador Deaths Hit Home". There's a large picture of you above the title. In the article, it was reported that you were trying to get your family from El Salvador to Milwaukee because it was no longer safe for them especially after some of your family members were murdered. You said that you were struggling to work with immigration because you didn't have the necessary papers for your nieces and nephews. Could you tell us more about your experience being interviewed by this newspaper and the details of that experience?

CUBIAS: Okay. Before that I'd been interviewed many times for different subjects. But that time, it was when my brother and sister were killed. I find out through my mother that they had children. I know they had children, but I didn't know how old they were. According to the law in the United States, I cannot bring them because they're only my nephews. They have to be brother, sister, children, whatever. I went all over trying to figure out how I can legally bring these children to this country. So I can mention the name of the Senator now, the Congressman now, because he passed away. I went to Congressman Zablocki and I explained to him, there is an article in US News and World Report [inaudible] and she's looking at it right now, I'm speaking to the Senator, I'm explaining him the situation--the Congressman, I'm sorry, he's a Congressman. I explain to him the situation and he said, "Well. between you and I, I didn't tell you this, but you can bring the children illegally to this country and then 00:14:00file for political status." And I thought, "okay. That's good." So he gave me the best advice. So, I talked to my mother and I asked her to get tickets to Mexico City, round-trip tickets because otherwise, the government don't let you out. Got a hotel in Mexico. Her and the children came over to Mexico and from Mexico to the United States, bought another ticket and got them here. And that was in 1982.

WILLS: How are they now?

CUBIAS: My brother has three children, Jennifer, Leal, and Quique, we call him Quique, okay. Francisco, he was nine. Six was the little girl and the little boy was two. My sister has only one boy, that was Edwin, and he was also two. So my 00:15:00mother had to travel with all these children. I met them in Mexico with my son and we brought them to the United States. So the following day, since I had all the paperwork by then, the certificates, we went to immigration and naturalization services to file for special permit to have them here. And they are here and thanks to God, they are safe. They're married now with children. Leal is a staff surgeon for the US Army. He helped the doctors in the field, he picked up the victims. He's been in Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the world. He has two children. Francisco has four children, Jennifer has two children and my other nephew, Edwin, I adopted him. . . I mean, he live with me and then he went 00:16:00back to El Salvador because he never knew the country, he was very curious about his mother and father and why [the government] killed them. So he went down there. He lives there now. He's a teacher, he teaches English as a second language now. He is married and has two children. Really three because he has one here in the United States and his name is Edwin, too.

WILLS: As a writer, you were able to travel around Central America and what was that experience like? What countries did you visit?

CUBIAS: Well, as a writer, I never visit countries, I went as a humanitarian helper because we had an organization in Milwaukee called the Ecumenical Refugee Council. We start working with the refugees living in Nicaragua and will all the people from all over the world that had left the countries and live in another country. So, we start working with Nicaragua bringing medical aid. I have the 00:17:00newspaper articles that over the ten years that we worked with them, we brought over 10 million dollars worth of stuff. Humanitarian aid, food, medicine, whatever we could find. I also worked with poetry. We went to Honduras and Nicaragua. El Salvador, we couldn't go. But we were mostly in Nicaragua.

WILLS: What year was that?

CUBIAS: From 1983 to 1990.

WILLS: How did you get to the point where you were able to travel to Central America? What really inspired you to become a human rights activist? How did you get involved here before you were able to travel?

CUBIAS: Okay, now we have the children, orphans, right? So I start thinking, "What are we going to do to stop this madness? To stop this war in Central 00:18:00America?" In the meantime, Nicaragua has a war and everything going on around Latin America that a group of people got together and we start working with CISPES, an organization from Washington. Here, we formed more organizations to stop the war. We even worked in the Sanctuary Movement helping the first Salvadorians in the United States getting sanctuary in Milwaukee, getting all the churches from all the religions together to help them. And we had a big ceremony bringing them. But the thing is they are safe families, but how about the rest of the people there? So, we find out that Nicaraguans had lots of Salvadorians living in there. They didn't have anything. The government was helping them, but we decide that it would be a good idea to send them medical aid. At that time, my good friend, Dr. Thomas Schlenker, was one of the people 00:19:00that worked with children's hospitals so he established the medical aid to Nicaragua. He got all the hospitals in the Milwaukee area to donate leftovers. Like when they do surgery, they only use the scissors and the rest go in the garbage, so he told them to, he asked them can they please don't throw in the garbage, put them in a container so by the end of the week, we go and pick everything up. We got samples from drugstores, we got samples from doctors. We got everything we could find, including sheets, blankets, everything. And we filled containers with tons, a big container, to send to Nicaragua. And that's how we started. We went to make sure the donations were going to the right place and we went there as a delegation to make sure which hospitals need it most, which orphanages need it most. We started with the orphanages. I started with 00:20:00the program, it's called the Godparent Program. One night, I was, "What are we going to do with those children who don't have parents?" So, I said to my girlfriend, Sally Parrot, who was the one who started the Ecumenical Refugee Council, let's start a Godparent Program. And she said, "How?" I said, "Let's ask Americans to donate ten dollars a month to sponsor a child and that money we will send there or we can buy food for the kids." We did that. At one point, we were getting like $2,000 a month for the orphanages. Then, we started Cooperativas. [points at painting behind her] This is part of Cooperativas, a painting artist. A [inaudible] cooperative, half-Salvadorians, half-Nicaraguans. Sewing machine, I mean, everything we could think of that people in America maybe don't want, materials, thread, sewing machine, we put it in the container. We did that for ten years. Over the years, we helped and sent over ten million 00:21:00dollars worth with the medical aid to Nicaragua. We did help everybody. Most of them were American citizens. All of them. We didn't have no Latinos in our group, just one from Nicaragua, worked together, my girlfriend, she lives down the block. I went there every three, four months. I become the President after that and my girlfriends went, we had delegations going. At one point, we took channel 6 and channel 12 and the Milwaukee Journal to show because they were attacking Ortega and they have the. . . They couldn't send anything to Nicaragua. The embargo. And we were there to prove then that the country was great, was better than before and they were taking care of their own citizens. So we started sending medical aid to Nicaragua. I became involved with the 00:22:00politicians because we couldn't send anything because the embargo. So I know John Norquist, he was the mayor of Milwaukee later and I worked for him later, but at that time he was a senator, representative in Madison. I find out he was going to Nicaragua in a delegation. So, somebody told me, "Why you don't ask him to see if he can take some medicine because and they had diplomatic. . . They can bring anything they want to." I met with him and he said, "You know what I'm going to do?" It was maybe about ten, twenty people that were going. "I am going to ask every one of them to take ten pounds," because you could take twenty-five pounds with your stuff, "And I'm going to let you know." A week later, he called me and said everyone wants to help. So he said "We're going to take the whole twenty-five pounds of medicine and we're gonna take the backpacks for our clothes." So everybody that went to Nicaragua with Norquist. . . I don't 00:23:00remember the year, sorry, but he was still a state representative of Madison. He took all those pounds of medicine. We packed them and they went through. And then we thought, wow, that was great, and that's how I became a fan of him, working in his campaigns and everything because I thought, "This is a great man." It was fantastic for him to do that. So everybody was twenty-five pounds of medicine to go to Nicaragua. Since then, we start sending things. The government say they were donations, we told them, and he said it was donations and it could go through customs and everything, so it was donations. Nobody charged for anything, there was no money exchange so we continued doing the medical aid to Nicaragua. At one point we were sending to El Salvador a shipment with x-ray machines that they needed, and the government blew up the whole shipment in the warehouse. I have an article in the paper of that. So we didn't 00:24:00send to El Salvador. El Salvador was suffering but there was no way for us to send the stuff. The government didn't want us to help. Nicaragua, on the other hand, they treat us like kings and queens when we went there. I drove with Tomás Borge, the head of the Sandinista government. We went to everywhere and taking the medicine and take it to everyone and it was just great. So we did a great job in that country.

WILLS: I'm curious as to when it came to you going to Nicaragua and other countries in Central America, how were you able as a mother to do that? Did you struggle to find someone to help you?

CUBIAS: Well, my son was a little older, then. Then he was in high school. So, he could stay with my sister or get somebody in the house. He went with me one 00:25:00time. He went to Nicaragua with me when he was 15. So, we went there to see the country and to show him the different ways that you read in the newspaper and reality, how they contrast. So, it was not hard at all because he understood. He knew every time I travel, even now, even now when I travel I ask him, "You think I should go to this place?" "Oh, mom, go!" So, he always is aware. I always had that freedom [inaudible] that he was very, very understanding. He went with me everywhere, every place I went. He didn't speak but he had his little books and reading and he was very supportive. He's still supportive of me.

WILLS: At that point, were your nieces and nephews still with you? Or were you. . . [talking over each other]

CUBIAS: No, well, I forgot to say. . . their mother came with them, too. And they were living with my sister and my mother and they had their own apartments. Edwin was with me after he was six years old, he went to New York with my cousin 00:26:00for two years. So, they were okay.

WILLS: So, tell us about your process writing because you are a published author and poet. So, your process writing "Journey of the Sparrows", a children's book that you actually co-authored, published in 1981.

CUBIAS: When I was in Nicaragua and met [inaudible] writers, and you know the alphabetization campaign was going on in Nicaragua, when everybody went everywhere to teach people how to read and write. If you were in the market, at 12:00, everything is stopping in one section and you write. And then at 12:30 there's another section, so everywhere in Nicaragua, everybody was trying to learn to read and write. So, I met fantastic poets and writers, Ernesto Cardenal, Gioconda Belli, all those great writers from Nicaragua. I start 00:27:00writing political poetry and became friends with them. I was asked to speak in Milwaukee, many universities and many colleges. I went to Whitewater University and I met the women who used to work there and she was writing all kinds of different things and trying to understand the war in Central America. She asked me, would it be a good idea to write something about El Salvador? And I said, "Great!" But she said, "I don't speak Spanish and we're going to interview people, Salvadorians that only speak Spanish. Can you go with me and do the translations?" "Sure." So, we went all over Milwaukee--I mean, Wisconsin and Chicago to interview people. That's how it started. The funny part is, that was an 800-page book because it was very, very deep. It showed everything that 00:28:00happened. More than history, more than a children's book. Nobody wanted to publish. Nobody wanted to say, "No way, enough, we're going to publish it." So she kept bringing it down, down, down, down, down, down, then it becomes a children's book. But it was very hard for a couple of years for her to publish it. But now, the funny part about the whole thing was it was translated to Spanish from Spain, German and other languages. And I went in the internet the other day and I said, "What does this Chinese say? I don't. . . I'm going to ask my friend to look it up because I don't know. " But it has the picture of the book. And it became a curriculum in Boston and in Oakland and in Washington. I had the curriculum for the book, for a classroom, I think it was 6th grade or 8th grade, I don't remember. And then it became a therapy [inaudible] in 00:29:00Chicago. So, she's looking at the big announcement of the theater, you know, because it was just successful because people wanted to know what was going on. And my girlfriend, she was so excited because she is a writer by herself, [inaudible]. This book really was a national success.

WILLS: You are featured in the anthology "I Did Not Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin". How did this come about? Who did you work with? How did you choose the piece you wanted to offer to the book?

CUBIAS: We were reading with Oscar Mireles and other people. . . I don't even remember which city. And one of the people in the audience said, "I didn't know there were Latinos in Wisconsin." Because it's so cold, what are you guys doing in there? You know, Mexicans, Salvadorians, Colombians. We say, "Oh, we just 00:30:00don't know how we end up there." So, Oscar said, "That's a good name for a book." He is the one who come up with the name. And he asked us to [inaudible] some stuff, the way we wanted it to be in the book and that's what we did.

WILLS: How was it collaborating with other authors to create the book? Did you feel you were a big part of it or did you just submit some things?

CUBIAS: Oscar and I were friends forever, for a long time. I knew his wife and his family, they used to work at United Community Center so he was a friend at that time. I think he's still a friend but he lives in Madison so I don't see him often. But he was a friend, his wife was really nice. I was part of it because we sat down and figured it out, what will go in it, who will participate in it. And then he did the second book and the third one.

WILLS: Have you been included in the second or third?

CUBIAS: Yes, in the second and third. The third one is gonna be published in spring 2014. Yes, then my friend Brenda Cardenas, she was a professor in Chicago and now she's a professor at the University of Milwaukee. She was putting together a "Latinas in the Midwest" and she put a book together too, so I collaborated with her.

WILLS: Did you always know you wanted to author a book like "Children of War: Poems of Love, Pain, Hope, and Determination" and that was published in 1989, how long did it take you to complete this book?

CUBIAS: Like I said, the war was going on. It was very hard for me to take it. I don't believe in psychologists or psychiatrists, I believe in poetry. When you have pain, when you're happy, when you're tired, when you're whatever, you write poetry. That's my therapy. I started writing and I just put it together. The 00:32:00people from [inaudible], I belong to the board of directors, I was in many board of directors in the city of Milwaukee, they asked me can we put together a book and publish and we'll have all the funds go to Nicaragua. I said, fantastic. So, they print it, proofread it, they did all the marketing and everything. We put it together and it was very easy. We sold books for like, five or ten bucks. All the money went to the Central American Project. It was a curriculum in the University, I think it was. . . Michigan? A couple years ago. They called me to see if they can use the book and the University, I don't remember, it's two universities that had used it for a class in the last five years.

WILLS: Have you been able to go to these universities to speak or meet the students?

CUBIAS: I went to Fairbanks, Alaska. I was there for a week. They asked me to come over and talk about my book and my writing and I was there for a week. It was fantastic because I've never been in Alaska.

WILLS: The times that you have been able to speak to students and interact with them, do you feel like they're very receptive of your ideas?

CUBIAS: Definitely. Some of them are. But at one point when the war was going on and I spoke at Marquette University, one of the kids got up and said, "Your problem is you are a communist." And so very easy, I never get upset ever, and I said, "Will you please define communist for me? What does the word mean?" He was like, looking around, he didn't know what to do, and I said, "Is that disease? A belief? A religion? Tell me what is a communist." So the professor said to him, "okay," I don't remember the name of the kid, "You tell her why you called her a 00:34:00communist. Tell her what a communist is." The kid said "never mind" and sat down like that. But that was the only time I was [inaudible], and the University of Fairbanks was really interesting because the kids had read most of my books. And I had a round table with the professors earlier and then in the evening we have a reading. And the kids were really, "what do you think about this, what do you think about that," and it was really very interesting conversation because the war is not going on, the war is over, now they can reflect what happened. So it was completely different. But in Milwaukee, I went to Whitewater, I went to I think three or four universities in Madison, here MATC, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and about four more or five. I don't remember which ones. And we did poetry readings, we did talks, we did one hour of what happened in 00:35:00Latin America, we went to churches, and we went to every place they asked us to go that they wanted to hear what was going on.

WILLS: Writing has definitely been a means of reflection, communication, and activism for you. How else do you fight for justice in your own community here in Wisconsin, besides what you've already told us about working to send aid to other countries?

CUBIAS: I was the first Latina to come out and spoke about violence against women. We have a group named Women Against Rape and then we had another group called Women's Information Center. What we did is we gave information to people related to violence, rape, and the related violence against women. We were very hard on it. I was going on radio and going against, speaking against violence. 00:36:00My husband was a very violent man and that's why I divorced him. I found out that women, especially Latinas, don't speak about violence because it's such a private matter. We just keep it to ourselves. I came out and I spoke against that. That was the work that I did in Milwaukee. Then I worked with education because my son started reading when he was three, because I was home. I was working but he was the only one in my family, in my household, so I teach him to read and write when he was very little. He started reading three, four years old, and when he went to school, he knew a lot of stuff. In one of the schools, Allen-Field, he was having a hard time. The teacher called me and said, "Danny 00:37:00is having problems in school, he has to go into special education." And I say, "No, what happened is bored with what you are teaching him." They said, "No, no, no, no, no." And I said, "No, I want a psychology evaluation of the child because he is above what you are teaching him." They say, "No, that costs money." It was a big fight. That's why I start fighting for education in Milwaukee because my son. So, a couple weeks later, after going to school board and representatives and everybody, I got my son to a psychology evaluation. The teacher called me a couple weeks later, "Ms. Cubias, um-- um-- um--" She couldn't even speak and I said, "What is going on?" They say, "Well, Danny. . ." I still remember her words, she couldn't tell me that I was right. They say, "Well, he has a reading level," he was I think in 6th grade, his reading level 00:38:00was like, 8th grade. His communication skills was like, 12th grade. His math and science was like, all above. According to his IQ, he was above anybody. I mean, he's like a very smart kid. And I said, "What are you going to do about it?". "Oh, well, we don't have any programs for him." I said, "I told you so." He was a gifted and talented child. She was telling me he needed special education all because I couldn't speak English and he was a Latino. Okay, so that's when I learned that we are discriminated everywhere. That's how I got involved in education. We are discriminated everywhere. So, I went to the principal, Mrs. [inaudible], and I said, "What are we going to do?" I want you to test all the kids that these teachers say have special ed. And we are going to do something about it. And they said, they cannot do a thing. I said, "We are." So, a couple weeks later, it took a couple months, we found 25 kids, gifted and talented. 00:39:00Latinos, mind you. All of them, because it's Allen-Field, it's one of the largest schools for Latinos. I knew by then the power of politics, the power of newspapers, and the power of the media. My friend was one of the, again, another representative of Milwaukee, [inaudible], he became a congressman later. He was in Madison. I told him what was going on. I went to the school board and I talked to my girlfriend at the newspaper and explained the whole situation. Immediately, you know the newspapers, they wrote an article. "Twenty-Five Latino Kids. . ." Anyway, they didn't know what to do. I said we're going to start the first gifted and talented program for Latinos in Allen-Field. "But we don't have any money." So I got all my books, my dictionary, everything I could find in my house, asked for donations and we started the first gifted and talented program 00:40:00for Latinos in Milwaukee. It's still there in Allen-Field. And with the power of newspapers, she came out with two articles after that. They wrote the first article and the second said, "Allen-Field has a program for gifted and talented children but they don't have any money for the materials.School board was under fire. They had to put some money there. And my friend from Madison was saying, "Hey, if there's something to do with legislation, let us know." They started it. I was so happy because that was a big victory for the kids. And that's what I started understanding the system of the American schools because they go by age instead of going by knowledge. They see you're seven years old, they say, "He belongs in second grade. Oh, he belong in. . . " I see fifteen-year-old kids in high school that don't know how to read and write because they never went to school. It's so sad because the system don't accommodate people with under 00:41:00knowledge or over knowledge or whatever you want to call that. It was very hard so it was very good for me to have that victory. So from then on I started working in education and issues related to women and issues related to the community. And that's why I have a lot of friends and I became the member of many boards, mental health, anything that people ask me to do, I did. It's so important for the community to know their rights and to understand that the system is there to help but they don't know how to use it sometimes.

WILLS: Did you feel that this gifted and talented program also addressed a language difference? Was that an element of it or. . .?

CUBIAS: Well, it didn't because the teachers could speak with the children but then they spoke with the parents and most of the parents were monolingual like me. So we didn't understand the system. Remember, in Latin America, the teachers 00:42:00are held high up and here, they don't, so we always, because we come from that background, we always believed the teacher was right. And many times, we are afraid to speak. That's the problem, because they don't know how to speak to the teacher. Then in 1990, I had the great opportunity to be asked to start a program for parents in Milwaukee public schools. Also Oscar is the one who told me about this job and I went there and they say, "What do you wanna do?" I say, "I don't know but somebody gave you money, the [inaudible] Foundation, giving money to MPS and to this organization, the Greater Milwaukee Education Trust, to start programs related to education involving parents." There was zero there. Nothing. I started that. It was so successful, it was one year training. One 00:43:00year. They like it, we stay for ten years. And they gave me money. We started with two schools and we end with eighteen schools. So we started programs. In the schools, it was a fire again, because the schools say, "We cannot have parents coming in and out all the time and going to classrooms." And I said, "Where did they say that?" They said, "Yeah, but. . ." They want to close the door and I said, "No. We leave it open and we see what is going on." So to begin with, we started one in the Hispanic community, Kosciuszko Middle School, and one in the African-American community, [inaudible]. I signed the program. I came up with all kind of crazy ideas. Oh, it's incredible. There's a big newspaper article over there, Milwaukee Journal, that had the front page, one page plus another page, about the program. That, also, became so successful that we went all over the United States, I mean all over, from California, Oakland, San 00:44:00Diego, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Oakland, everywhere, doing workshops with the National Association of Middle Schools to involve parents. At the parents' center, we have parents. And then I recruit a parent to work there. The parent has an office, coffee, a coat rack, and we have papers over there and we talk. And that's how we started. And then later on I start with another school, and we visit parents at home. ]inaudible] During the summer, we went knocking on doors. And it got to the point that in South Division, in one month, we had 2,500 hours of parent involvement. By the third year, we were teaching English as a second language for parents, flower arrangement, cooking, and Spanish for education. That means the teachers come in during the lunch hour and we talk in Spanish for 00:45:00education only. "Ask Johnny, Johnny has homework," things like that. And then parents, learning English for education. "Ask Johnny, he has homework." So the kid didn't know the mother spoke English by this time. "Do you have homework?" He said, "No, I better do it because maybe my mother knows." She didn't know but she knew that word. "Do you have homework? Get ready, go to school," things like that, they learn that. We had, at one point, by the third year, a paid staff. Every school had a paid staff. Part-time helpers, and the helpers got paid too, something like three hours a week or four hours a week. It was something for the parents to feel proud of it and something for them to do and it was exciting. I got together with the people from the welfare system, W2, and I said, "You give 00:46:00me the parents, I can train them to be on time, how to dress for success, how, how, how." So we got all those parents that have to do something, because they were in welfare, to come to schools and to work. They were helping the teachers, they were running errands, nothing to do with curriculum but help. And I was so excited because, like I said, we had many, many hours. I took them to dinners, lunches, we had lunches for the teachers with ethnic food. At one point it was funny because one of the teachers that teach music at Kosciuszko, he said, "This food is really good but it was hard to eat it." I said, "What do you mean?" He had tamales and he ate the husk. And I said, "Mister, I don't remember. . . [inaudible] don't eat the husk." "Oh, I didn't know that. That's why I took two bites and I thought, 'This is too hard, how do they eat it?'" He never had tamales in his life. So, the teachers had lunches with the parents. They 00:47:00couldn't sit the teachers together, they had parent-teacher-parent-teacher. That way they get to know each other. I put together a curriculum for parents on how to talk to the teachers and teachers how to talk to the parents. And I worked very hard to make sure they had parent-teacher conferences in the evenings on Saturdays. The union was up in arms, "How can you do that?" It's the time that the parents have. They work for a living. Then I got the schools to do orientation day. They didn't have orientation day. You go to high school, you get lost because you don't know where to go. What are you going to do with these big high schools? We did in the summer, a week before school opened, [inaudible] to the orientation day, teachers and staff were there, they had the assignment. "Okay, room 14 is right here, right here," and they took a tour and everyone was 00:48:00happy. We did that for 10 years because the organization that gave us money was so happy with it. They wrote books about it, that specific program. And I went out preaching to everybody [about] that program. So it was very successful and that's how come I became involved in education because I saw, if parents are involved, teachers and children do better in school. And the kids do much better. I just couldn't' believe the difference and the organization couldn't believe the difference, either. After I left there, they went out of business because the school system said they were going to take over the parent centers. They said they're gonna do it. They never did it, but they said they were going to do it, so we couldn't do it anymore because, you know, it was the way. Walter Saba from United Community Center said, "You know a lot of education, I don't have an administrator for 8th graders, can you please do it for me?" I said, "No, I don't work for my friends," but I did it for nine months. I was the 00:49:00administrator at the Bruce-Guadalupe Community School. I started the program with the kids. No Latino kid had ever been in Messmer High School because it's across town in the African-American neighborhood. And they said, "You cannot do that, because the kids don't want to go." I said, "It's a great school and now we have school choice." And we could so, I made sure that the Messmer High School had transportation for the kids. They were very happy to have kids there, because they never had them. So they had a bus coming in the morning, to use [inaudible] to pick up the kids, and the evening to drop them. Then I went to other schools to ask them to help the kids, Pius and Holy Angels and everybody to see, we can work it out for the kids, all the kids from Bruce-Guadalupe to go there to those schools. 00:50:00Since then, most of the kids who graduate from Bruce-Guadalupe go to private schools. And I'm still on the Board. So, I left, I was there for nine months. Then I went to work for Norquist, the mayor. But it was very successful, again, also education. Also, I found out I couldn't work with MPS because they didn't want to give me information. And the information is if a kid graduates from 8th grade that was my kid, I want to know how he is doing in 9th grade. To get to talk to the board, to the teacher in MPS for the 9th grade when they have hundreds of kids, it's impossible. In the private school, it's different because there's not too many kids and there's more relationship between parents and teachers. They depend on the kids to go to that school. It was easy for me to make that relationship and that's why I like school choice. Then I worked with 00:51:00Norquist, when I moved to work for him, he loved school choice. So, again, I went all over the country with him, Washington DC and back, talking about school choice. And he's doing commercials and that. Helping him. That's how come I like school choice.

WILLS: You started to touch on this a little bit before, but tell us about your work with the organization "Hispanics for School Choice". You are the executive board representative for this.

CUBIAS: What happened is, after I worked with Norquist, I got to know exactly what is going on, how parents can participate, and even so, I start working with Mayor Barrett. Mayor Barrett is against school choice because what happened is, they use different formulas for the taxes and for the money we get from the state. So, he doesn't like that, but I do. Because I am in America, even though 00:52:00he is my boss, I can do on my lunch hour whatever I want after hours. So a group of people got together, Victor Huyke and Zeus Rodriguez and others, to form this organization called Hispanics for School Choice. The reason they started it is because they saw that many of the kids from Spanish background didn't take advantage of the school choice program. It was designed by an African-American, Polly Williams, but the Spanish did not get the information as much as the African-Americans. So, many of the parents who could qualify for school choice, didn't. So our job was to get people more informed. Get the people to understand the program and participate and send their kids to the school they want. As 00:53:00parents, you want the best school for your child. You want the best education, you want the best. Many times you cannot afford it. But if there's a program there that the government is paying for and you're paying with your taxes, you should take advantage of it. That was our goal: to inform parents of the great opportunities for the children and to send their children to the school they wanted to. That's what we started and that's what we doing now. It's very important, we want it to work in Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha, everywhere because it's very good for the kids. If you look at the kids who come out of Bruce-Guadalupe Community School, I am on the advisory board, we have a kid at Harvard right now. We have many kids, Latinos, going to all the best high 00:54:00schools in the country. The university school of River Hills gives a scholarship to one of our kids. That child could never go to that school. Free high school. She's a musician. She played the violin like you canot believe it. The opportunities you see by going to a school of your choice is incredible. Most of our kids are doing better than the MPS, twice as better, and some of this [inaudible]. Bruce-Guadalupe was named the School of the Year two years ago because the score are just. . . We drill those kids and the parents are there. The parents respond because it's a responsibility. They choose the school, they have to be responsible. They have to participate. That's the difference, I think, between choice school and public school. It's a shame because the public 00:55:00school should ask the parents to participate, should make them understand that education is for the whole family, not just for the child. And they are not doing a good job because it's not parent participation. When you just send your kid to school and just leave them there without parent participation, it won't work.

WILLS: When did this organization get started and how long has it been? Well, it's currently. . .

CUBIAS: It started, I think, in 2000. . . Let me see. '10, '11. Something like that, when it started. And it's still functioning. Yes. The girl who was in charge of the school now, she's a representative. She's going to be representing us in Madison. She's from [inaudible], she's a Salvadorian girl, too. Her parents are from El Salvador.

WILLS: What years were you the immigrant specialist for the state of Wisconsin?

CUBIAS: You know, the years go by with me, I don't pay attention. My girlfriend, one of the best Latinas in town, it's a shame because she passed away, Irma Gera, worked for the state. They have this position as an Immigrant Services Specialist. It was a law in 1968, I think, that anybody who came before that time could apply for citizen. . . Not for citizenship, for legal status in the country. Many people didn't know so when this law came into effect, nobody pay attention. Later on, they found out, the state found out that for every immigrant who filed papers to become a resident, they will get some money. So they decided to create this position and they gave it to me. My job was to go 00:57:00all over the state of Wisconsin, from Black River Falls to Kenosha to Racine to Green Bay, every place that had immigrant workers. Migrant workers. I asked the owner of the farm to let me talk to them and I find out how long they were here, when they came in, and explain to them that they could file for legal status without crossing the border and in a dangerous situation. They could [inaudible] if they wanted to.I went to every camp I could find to explain the law and help the people to file an application to become legal residents. And that process, it was very sad, because some of the owners did not want me to speak to them because then they are a resident and they would have to pay the minimum wage. They had to pay because they are legal residents. There was an old man that I cannot remember his name, but he was over 61 years old at that time. He was a 00:58:00legal resident because he had the papers but he didn't know what the papers said because he came with the braceros program. And every year, the poor man, he used to cross the border in a dangerous way to come and I said, "Señor, you can take a plane if you want to come." He said, "What?" He didn't know. Nobody told him because they wanted him to be a migrant worker, illegal-- undocumented person to pay very low salary. From then on, I thought, all these people don't know the law because nobody explained it to them. Nobody took the time. I mean, if they give you a piece of paper and you don't speak English and everybody else around there speak Spanish and only the bosses speak English, it's very hard. So, he 00:59:00was so grateful, he gave me a hug, he start crying. Because he said for all these years, for 20 years he had been crossing the border with his sons and then with his grandchildren to come to work. It was a Christmas tree camp. Christmas tree farm.

WILLS: In what city?

CUBIAS: Black River Falls. Yes, that I remember. And it was very interesting because in Black River Falls there's no Latinos, only the ones who work on the farm. I was driving in a state car, the state of Wisconsin car, and I went to a restaurant to eat and everybody looked at me so funny because only white people eating. I mean, migrants don't make enough money to go to a restaurant. And I had to start early in the morning to work. So, this woman looked at me and everybody and then I opened my mouth and ask for breakfast. They were completely. . . out. And then somebody called the police so the sheriff come. He 01:00:00said, "What are you doing around here?" I said, "I'm working." He said, "I hear you're driving that car. You stole it?" I said, "No, that's my car." I mean, I'm driving the car because it belongs to my job. He didn't believe me. I had to give all kinds of identification because he thought I stole the car from the state. Because it was in a place that no Latinos go. I didn't know because I didn't know the town. I just went to the place, I saw a sign to go and eat. It's a free country, right? It was an experience. Every place I go there's experiences of people having us undermine our. . . person. As a person, as a human being. We are less than a human being sometimes for some people because we are not the right color. And this is very sad. I never get upset so I just said to the sheriff to call Governor Thompson. Here's the papers. He left me alone 01:01:00but he was surprise, you know, for me to be. . . And then he even followed me for a couple miles to see where I was going.

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Don't give people permission for people to put you down. Don't ever, ever do that. And never forget about your roots. If somebody insults you, find a way, without insulting them, to tell them they're wrong. So, we just finished talking, the door open, the principal walked in. And I'm reading already, you know, to the kids. After I finished she said, "Oh, that's good, that's good." She said, "I didn't understand this topic because you speak too fast." I just looked at the kids and I said, "No, you listen too slow." The kids were like that [clapping] and then she left immediately. I said, see what I told you? She put me down telling me I speak so fast. No, she listen too slow. So, who got insulted there? And I said, you understand that nobody has permission to insult 01:02:00you? In public she could say, "Can you repeat it again?" Or any other way. But she was telling me that I speak too fast. So I told the kids, I still have the notes, "Ms. Cubias, you gave us a lesson." It was true because people tend to do that. People tell you, "Oh, speak Spanish-- speak English, you are in America." I speak any language I want because I am in America. I was in Kmart with my mom, 91 years old. 92. She doesn't speak English, for heaven's sake. "Yo no queria. . . queria comprar otra cosa, vamanos." The man behind me is a Polish guy, very tough, redneck, "Speak English, we are in America." I said, "Sir, because we are in America, we can Russian, English, Spanish, anything we want. This is a free country. How many languages do you speak?" "Nothing," he did [shrugged his shoulders], his wife said, "Just one." And I said, "That's his problem. You only speak one language? You should be ashamed of yourself." I said, "You're Polish, right?" "Yeah." I 01:03:00just gave it to him. And his wife said to me, "Thank you. He's always insulting people. You're the first one who stood up to him." I couldn't put up with that. Why, right? No, you don't have to. This is America, this is a free country. You do what you want to do without getting somebody [inaudible], you know? The wife was so happy. She even gave me a little pat on my back. [laughter] He didn't say a word. But for him to tell me that, I wasn't talking to him. It was my mom, you know, that's really bad. So, if you learn something from me, just learn that. Don't give anybody permission to insult you. Nobody can put you down. Just, that's the way it is, you know? But now I think it's better thanks to you guys going to college, universities, and becoming doctors and lawyers and writers and movie-makers or whatever. I think it's going to change. I think twenty years 01:04:00from now, everybody will be just completely different. We will not discriminate against Latinos. Because we are. . . not taking over; mixing with everybody. I think we have a great future, thanks to you kids.