GOMEZ: This is Eloisa Gomez with Tess Arenas and we just want to thank you again
for the opportunity to provide us with this audio interview. Today is October 7th, 2015, and so we will begin. Lucia, if you could share with us a little about your background, the name of your parents, your date of birth and place of birth?NUÑEZ: Sure. So my name is Lucia Nuñez and actually Suarez should be part of
it, even though that's been dropped for many years. I was born in Caimanera, Cuba, a very small town. One of the last towns before the US Naval base on Cuba so it's kind of got an interesting history. My parents are Rodolfo Hidalgo Nuñez-Martinez, he was born in the area called Las Tunas in Cuba, and then my 00:01:00mom is Maria Caridad Suarez- Rebo and she was born in Caimanera. Our history, it's kind of important. My father was born more in the middle of the country and moved to Caimanera to work on the US naval base as a young man. So he at the age of fourteen started to work on the US naval base as kind of a day laborer. I think he probably lied about his age like most people did in order to kind of just be able to work. At that point the naval base was pretty open and Cubans would go to the naval base to work and go home to Cuba, go home to their towns afterwards. It was during this time that my father befriended my uncle, my 00:02:00mother's brother Pepin and that's how it was Pepin that introduced my father and mother and then they got married, settled in Caimanera. And then my older brother was born, he's also a Rodolfo like my father, and then I was born. By this time, I was born in 1960. So January 3rd, 1960 almost a year after the revolution. So obviously born during kind of tumultuous times, during that period of time. My father and probably about a hundred other Cubans were allowed to continue to work on the naval base even after the revolution and then they would come home and then repeat process in the morning. Right now there are no Cubans working on the naval base. Given that my father is 84, most of his 00:03:00generation that have been working on the base is either passed away or like my father, with Alzheimer's and dementia. Caimanera is kind of an interesting place. I don't know if you know and this is new since our first set of interviews, this summer I returned to Cuba for the first time in fifty years.GOMEZ: Wow! I did not know that, Lucia!
NUÑEZ: Yep! We spent a whole month in Cuba traveling from Havana, from the
western part of the island, all the way to the eastern part of the island, which is where I was born and where I still have a lot of cousins and an aunt, my mom's last remaining sister. So this was my first trip back. I got to meet cousins that I had nevermet and I got to see cousins and an aunt that I hadn't seen since I was five
00:04:00years old. So that was kind of a huge trip but to go back--GOMEZ: Sure.
NUÑEZ: Go ahead-- Hello?
GOMEZ: No, I didn't say anything. I just said, "Yes".
NUÑEZ: To go back. So we were in Cuba from the revolution. The revolution
happened in '59. We remained in Cuba until '65. My parents like many people thought, "Okay, well, let's see what Castro brings." Just like anybody else that has been in power. They weren't upset or anything plus we weren't part of the landed gentry that left after his initial nationalization of farms and factories, etc. My parents decided to leave with the increased Soviet presence and kind of a whole series of rumors that were going around in the time about 00:05:00children being taken away and being educated in the communist way. Little things like really strange Soviet products that my parents were like, "Yeah, you know, we don't want to be here." So at that point in 1965, when we left Cuba, all the freedom flights that were flying from Havana to Miami had been stopped. At that point, you had to apply to leave, you had to get permission, and then once you did that, you were allowed to leave and we left through Spain. We spent about three months in Spain waiting to get our visas to enter the United States. Once that occurred we entered the United States through New York and then ended up 00:06:00going back to Cuba to the US naval base as political refugees. So my father had been promised that his same job would be there. We lived with many other Cuban refugees in a trailer park on the naval base and my father worked for the US Navy as Civil Service. We lived on the naval base for about five years from '65 to '70. We realized we couldn't become US citizens on the naval base since it isn't US territory. So that's when my father left civil service and we went to live in Florida. He got a job with an American construction company in Florida and then we only lived in Florida for three months because we didn't really like it and then my father was offered to be transferred down to the US Virgin Islands. So we moved to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands in 1970 and lived 00:07:00there. [Inaudible] is where I grew up. That's what I know as home in the sense that my memories of Cuba were pretty limited. My parents left the US Virgin Islands in 2004, 2005 when their health kind of started to deteriorate and we brought them closer to my brothers and myself here in the States. So that's where I grew up, it was mostly in St. Thomas. So that's early history.GOMEZ: Yeah. And when did you come to Wisconsin, Lucia?
NUÑEZ: Well I didn't. . . Oh boy. It wasn't until much later. Let's see. . . So
I studied. I went to undergrad at Connecticut College. Went to graduate school. 00:08:00After Connecticut College, I lived in Washington D.C. then I went into Peace Corps. When I got back from Peace Corps, I did grad school at University of Massachusetts in Amherst and it was in grad school that I met my partner. So we decided to move to California after I finished my graduate degree. We went to California, lived there,had our daughter Carina, I was working at Stanford at that point. Then we
decided after Carina was born we decided, you know what, we really wanted to buy a house. But you can imagine the Bay area. This was at the height of the boom. The big companies like Sun Microsystems, all of those kind of made that area 00:09:00impossible to. . . It wasn't affordable at all. So we ended up trying to find a community that had affordable housing. Something we could buy. You know, a small enough gay and lesbian friendly. . . We had a whole series of criteria. We kind of shopped around. We traveled from Oregon to New York looking for a community that we would want to live in. We had a friend here from Peace Corps who invited us here. We explored it and then it came down to whoever got the first job, we would say okay. We kind of had five communities that we really liked. Madison was one and I ended up getting the job at Centro Hispano and that's when we moved here in 1999.GOMEZ: Okay. Well, as you reflect on your background you were talking about some
00:10:00of the experiences that you had, Lucia, in terms of movement, Cuba to the naval base. As you reflect back on your childhood, is there one or two childhood experiences that stand out for you as you think about community work that you have done in your adult years?NUÑEZ: I would say having lived in places where there were such great
diversity. Even among the Cuban population, I mean, like I said, we weren't the elite Cuban population and the people were living on the US naval base that were Cuban refugees were also not the elite. So and by that I mean the majority of 00:11:00the people that came in the first waves from Cuba tended to be upper class landowners or industry owners, etc. They tended to be white Cubans. You know, even some of the sugar plantation people that are still in power in Florida, if you look at them, they're in society pages of the Miami Herald or whatever. They are very white Cubans of the Spanish descent, etc. Later waves of Cubans coming to the United States, actually got darker and darker to the point of, you know, the most kind of controversial last wave of the Marielitos.GOMEZ: Right.
NUÑEZ: That's kind of how Centro Hispano began here in Madison was Marielitos
00:12:00had been moved to Fort Atkins because they didn't have enough space in Florida when they started to receive all the thousands of people that left in the Maria Boat Lift and most of those Cubans were Black Cubans. So what was interesting for me in the naval base and then even going back now as an adult, the part of Cuba where I grew up was far more than diverse than Western part of Cuba and I think having lived among not only Cubans but Jamaican refugees, Jamaican-Cubans. These were Jamaicans who had immigrated to Cuba again for economic opportunities and then stayed. My world, be it on the naval base, be it even in Cuba was much 00:13:00more diverse than even my world now in Madison and then in the Virgin Islands, the same thing. I consider, just. . . I am a white Cuban and in the Virgin Islands I was a minority. Not only as a Latina or as a Cuban, there was very few Cubans families so we connected with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who live in the island. So we werethe minority and then even among those, white Latinos were the minority. So my
world has always been far more diverse and I think that's a major influence in any of the work I've ever done either as a teacher or now as Director of the Department of Civil Rights.GOMEZ: Thank you. If you would share with us how you define your ethnic identity
00:14:00now and has that identity changed over time and if so, how did it change?NUÑEZ: Sure. I was born in Cuba. So I think if you asked me first and foremost,
I am Cuban.GOMEZ: Okay.
NUÑEZ: I've been raised in this country so you can add the Cuban-American but
that feels too much like a binary, like it's one or the other or half of me is one. Identity is more complex than just kind of two labels like that. It wasn't until I came to the United States to study that I became Hispanic. I had never heard of the word Hispanic until I arrived in the United States. I had been 00:15:00grouped together at Connecticut College with other students of color, though I don't think they called it. . . Other minority students, they didn't call them students of color back then. I didn't have that label. That wasn't a label that I was used to. Again we were either Cubans or West Indians, you know, but Hispanic was something that I learned in the United States and not either in the Virgin Islands or in Cuba. We never talked about that. So the identity that's not only been imposed on me but then my own sort of reflection and evolution. You know, as a fifteen year old I was unbelievably embarrassed by my parents. I'm not proud of that now but that's I think just the reality of being raised in 00:16:00a culture that wasn't part of the dominant world and, you know, my mom's accent or my dad's accent or the foods we ate. I mean, I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch not arroz con frijoles, you know, whatever my mom made. So I didn't want to be Lucia Nuñez, I wanted to be Lucy Nuñez, you know. People didn't know how to pronounce my name. So that was painful as a kid. So I couldn't hide my Cuban-ness enough for many years and then it probably wasn't until late teens and early twenties that I really sort of started to understand 00:17:00what identity does and what it means and kind of changing all of that and becoming much more aware. First of all, acceptance of myself and acceptance of my family and that's okay. So it changed and evolved and it constantly does, even the race question. I can't remember when I first read La Raza Cósmica, Los Consuelo's little book, and thinking, Yeah! There is a new race, a cosmic race. It's different. We can't. . . That's kind a neat way to look at it. So I remember being influenced by that book the first time I read it and I'm not sure if that was in grad school and thinking, absolutely! This is something new! It's not black, it's not white. A whole 'nother thing. And even now as I'm doing readings 00:18:00and kind of how race is a construction and some of the history behind it. I can't remember the name of the book, it's Nell. . . Nell something, the history of the white race or something. ["The History of White People" by Nell Irvin Painter] It's just sort of interesting to think about. Wait a minute, so is it my skin color? What else is happening here and who is making those decisions as to howI'm labeled? Even how I can choose to label myself. What choices I have and
formed. So I think it continues to evolve.GOMEZ: So would you say right now that you are Cuban or would you say Hispanic
00:19:00or Cuban-American?NUÑEZ: You know, I am Cuban and as much as I have tried to fight it for so many
years, I am Cuban. It was amazing for me to realize that this summer. I have to say I love this umbrella of Latinos because then it allows me to connect with Latinos in this country and be under this umbrella and kind of unite on so many different fronts. I know most of my Cuban compatriots in Florida don't consider themselves Latinos but I like that and proudly label myself that.GOMEZ: Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, we ask all of the people, all the women
that we interview, how do you define community activism? Is that the term you 00:20:00would use to define your community efforts and if it's not, how would you define your community efforts?NUÑEZ: I thought that was a great question in the form that you guys sent me
and I thought about it. For me it's giving voice and also maybe. . . Not necessarily speaking on people's behalf, but giving voice to those that are not usually listened to or not heard at all even if they are talking. I've learned there are things that I have learned. If I wear a suit, am I listened to more? If I wear pearls with that suit, what doors are opened? If I talk about my 00:21:00education, my degree, or where I've gone to school or where I've worked, does that open doors? And so how do I use those things perhaps to give voice to some others that may not at all be considered? Maybe that's one definition of community activism.GOMEZ: Thank you. So when did giving voice start for you? When did you feel that
you were sort of living that giving voice to others not heard?NUÑEZ: Hm. That's a good one. You know, in typical fashion as a kid that
learned the language fast and a mother that stayed at home to work, so didn't 00:22:00get an opportunity to learn the language as well as perhaps my father. She was probably the first person I gave voice to. You know, in terms of I did all the translating. I would go to the bank with her, I would go talk to teachers and in kind of a strange way, that was one of those first experiences that I had giving voice to someone who wasn't listened to and I watched sometimes how she was discounted because she didn't speak the language and I think that, probably not knowing, influenced what direction I took. I first explored international development by going overseas, etc. Then I came back and was a teacher. You know 00:23:00most of my students were Puerto Rican young women who were pregnant or parenting. And they'd either been kicked out or pushed out of schools. That kind of started me into the education field. Thinking about students who again, nobody listens to. They track in the lowest of tracks and I watched this in California. In Massachusetts and inCalifornia. I think those are kind of some of my beginnings there that I think
have continued.GOMEZ: Thank you. So when you talked about working with younger girls, what kind
of support did you provide to them? How did you. . . Don't know if the word is 'advocate' or maybe just keeping with giving them voice? How did that work? Where did that 00:24:00happen? What was done?NUÑEZ: Well I worked for, it was a program called The Care Center and it was a
center for adolescent resources and education. So Holyoke, Massachusetts has always been one of those immigrant communities, dates back to the textiles down on the flats. Just about every immigrant group has lived in those flats and worked in the textile mills. At the time that I was in Massachusetts in the late '80s, Puerto Ricans were the ones working in those factories and then living in the flats. So most of my students were Puerto Rican. Either recent arrivals, so they didn't speak English. I taught the Spanish class. And most of the girls, like I said, had either been pushed out because they were pregnant and they 00:25:00didn't allow pregnant students in the Holyoke public schools. So this program was started to allow pregnant teenagers to be able to complete their education. Either stay current on subjects and then return to school once they had their babies, if they were young enough, or if they hit that certain age, be able to take their GEDs so they could have their high school degree. And they were the ones, I mean especially the young girls that had just arrived from Puerto Rico didn't know the language. They were. . . not only from educational system that were they being denied and educational rights that were being denied to issues of domestic abuse to issues with drugs, etc. And how to develop their own voices 00:26:00and made sure they stayed in school was one of the biggest pieces that we worked on. You know, it was shocking to me sometimes to find young girls that were so smart but have been so convinced by, I'm not sure, everybody, from family members to schools, that they were dumb. Working with self-esteem and realizing, "No, you can write an essay". "No I can't." "Yes you can." And you know, using every technique in the book from "Okay, we're going to write essays on post-its and put them all together and you'll see you're going to have a full page essay by the time we put all these post-its." Or boy, they could talk. I had a student, Cookie, who, God, she could talk. So I recorded her.ARENAS: Yes.
NUÑEZ: Then we transcribed. . .
ARENAS: Yes.
NUÑEZ: . . .what she said and realized she had said five pages worth.
00:27:00ARENAS: Yes.
NUÑEZ: She couldn't believe she had that much to say when it was transcribed.
So those were like little things but I feel like that gave them voice. We did a lot of things like publishing, just simple little self-publishing things, too, about their stories. That I think, I hope, I don't know. It has been so many years. I hope it gave them voice.GOMEZ: And how many years did you work in that particular program, Lucia?
NUÑEZ: Oh boy, from when I got out of Peace Corps? So-- '88? To then when we. .
. When did move to California? '90? I should have my resume in front of me. 00:28:00[laughter] That's how I know.GOMEZ: More or less. That's okay. It doesn't have to be exact. So for about two
years and you were talking about joining the Peace Corps. What made you decide to do that and what did you do?NUÑEZ: Well I worked in Washington D.C. at an organization called Overseas
Education Fund for Women. This was an offshoot of a League of Women Voters project from back in the '40s to bring women leaders from Central America to the United States to teach them citizenship. It was kind of one of those interesting things back in those years. The fascinating thing is that it actually developed incredible women through Central America, Honduras, Costa Rica, that later became the first generation of women to be elected into their legislature, etc. 00:29:00They were deputadas, that's the. . . I guess equivalent to senator perhaps, I'm not quite sure, or representative? Nicaragua was another one of the countries. So OEF then became an organization to help women in Central America more on the economic development aspects. So, starting your own businesses, cooperatives. There was a pig farm cooperative in Honduras actually that we worked with when I was in DC. International development pretty much, people who get to travel to these projects. I didn't because I was a lower level employee. So that's when I said, you know what? I'm going to quit this job and then join Peace Corps and go 00:30:00overseas and actually see this. What was interesting, I was assigned by Peace Corps to be in Honduras. Lots of good experiences, lots of amazing things. The unfortunate part is that we were in Peace Corps during the Reagan years. So the war in El Salvador was still pretty strong on one side and then the Reagan administration was supporting the Contras against the Sandinistas on the other side. So we were smack dab in the middle of a very highly political, highly controversial region, with more military personnel, US military personnel in Honduras, more Peace Corps than any other country in the entire world. Our graduating Peace Corps class was 120 Peace Corps volunteers. So it was really a 00:31:00pretty confusing time. The idealism of oh, I'm going to help, I'm not sure, develop Honduras? I don't know what I was thinking back then and then realizing how Peace Corps was just as much an arm of the foreign policy that I really did not agree with what Reagan was doing in Central America, with the Cold War. You know, all of it. It was just incredible to kind of be witness to all of that. Disillusioning at times but I think what came out for me was, again, relationship building. I was sent out to live in a village ofabout twelve families. That's it. There was no running water, no electricity.
You had to cross the river in order to get to this village. There wasn't 00:32:00anything there. [laughter] You know every once and a while you could buy a hot Coke, Coca-Cola, and that was a treat. So, you know, shook my foundation.GOMEZ: What kind of work did you do in the small village, Lucia?
NUÑEZ: Well, we were first. Actually, my partner and I, my current partner,
we've been together since Peace Corps. We were first both assigned to work with the Federación de Mujeres Campesinas in Honduras. AHMUC. It's a very famous Campesina group.ARENAS: Wow.
NUÑEZ: It was the very first time that AHMUC had ever asked for Peace Corps
volunteers. Because they were critical and for good reason wary of the US presence. That was, to me, one of the best parts of the three years that we were 00:33:00there. AHMUC has incredible power and seeing women's groups in the most remote villages feeding kids or trying to teach kids literacy skills. . . There were no teachers. They came in and filled the gaps on so many levels. AHMUC, their headquarters in Juticalpa, the main city where we were, you can still see the bullet holes where the army massacred nuns. This is horrific, horrific history of oppression of kind of the liberation theology. Priests and campesino groups, etc. So, to be a part of this group was pretty amazing. They became a little 00:34:00wary and scared about having Americans working so we ended up stop working for them and then many years, well, two years later just before I left I went back and worked with them some more. I ended up working, we were trained, both Heidi and I, were trained as small animal extensionists. Again, at that point this was a part of US foreign policy. We were determined to give them Holsteins and goats. You can't believe the animals that were sent down to Honduras and changing the agriculture that they have, changing the way they did things. Where at one point, I used to have these statistics memorized but, prior to the '80s Honduras used to export. They had enough of rice and beans that they would 00:35:00export to other countries. By the years we were there, in '88. . . Well, we were there '85 to '88. They was a famine. There were areas of Honduras that were in severe famine. They depended highly on imports from the United States. USAID was dominant on so many different aspects of their agriculture. People. . . they were not surviving. That part of it was really horrid to see what US foreign policy can do in a small country like Honduras.ARENAS: And how old were you when you were there? I'm trying to get a sense of
00:36:00[talking over each other]. . .NUÑEZ: I went down to Honduras in '85, I was twenty-five years old. My mid-
twenties. And then, like I said, it's a 27 month service. I stayed a little bit longer but was back in the States in '88.GOMEZ: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
NUÑEZ: Mm-hm.
GOMEZ: So then after Peace Corps that's when you went and were working at the
Center for Adolescence?NUÑEZ: Correct. When I got back to the States, I ended up going to Washington
DC and thinking I wanted to continue in International Development. So, I was applying to a lot of jobs in DC to go back to Central America. So I had actually 00:37:00interviewed for a job with Peace Corps to be in Tegucigalpa in Honduras and then kind of had a little bit of a crisis thinking, I'm not sure that I want to do this anymore. I didn't want to be part of the foreign policy arm of especially the Reagan administration. So I ended up saying, okay, you know what, maybe I'll go to grad school. So I moved up to Amherst. I ended up getting this teaching job in Holyoke and then applying to grad school and staying in that area and getting my graduate degree and working as a teacher. University of Massachusetts had a great program where they waved my tuition as a teacher. So I didn't pay anything except for, I don't know, books or whatever. It was great. I basically 00:38:00got my master's for free.GOMEZ: Wonderful.
NUÑEZ: Yeah.
GOMEZ: So when you came to Madison, what kind of work did you do and was that
also about giving voice?NUÑEZ: I took the job as Director of Centro Hispano and that's why I ended up
in Madison. So my first job here was Director of Centro Hispano, which is a small community based organization dedicated to the Latino community. So again here was another. And that was '99 so it was just before the 2000 census. And if you recall, those were the years that they talked about the new Hispanic boom. I 00:39:00don't know if you remember that article. That was like front-page news of. . .GOMEZ: Oh yeah.
NUÑEZ: Wall Street Journal, I think, perhaps or New York Times about how the
greatest growths in the Latino community were in the Midwest and then in states like South and North Carolina. Where we saw, here, probably, what, like 150% increase in the Latino community? And that wasn't by any means accurate because of the fact that we know that lots of Latinos would not fill out the census, would not allow census takers into their homes and were afraid of this whole process. So the kind of attention given the growth, the demographic, given the explosion in school districts, there was a lot of attention to oh my god, wait. 00:40:00Latinos? Really? They live here? What's going on? I don't care if it was the university to businesses. Everybody was like, wait a minute.What's going on here? How do we deal with this population? What should we do?
Those were the years that I was at Centro. Thinking about, it was almost kind of shocking because I had come from California where. . . "Latinos? So what?" You know, one in four and it's probably higher now. And here people didn't even get it. They didn't get second language. They didn't get second language acquisition. They didn't know what to do with this population in the schools or in the community. I remember so many different things from being. . . actually 00:41:00translating during the birth of a baby, woman in labor, and the nurse just unbelievably inappropriate with this woman.ARENAS: Whoa.
NUÑEZ: And I'm trying to desperately to translate only the things that might
help get her the baby out versus everything from, "She's just having this baby to stay here." To, you know. . .ARENAS: Oh, my gosh.
NUÑEZ: You know it. I mean, you've heard it. Anyway, there were just so many
different instances and how Centro was used even by other community-based organizations, like, "Well, why don't you send your workers over to our agency and they can help us translate to the Latino community?"GOMEZ: Yeah.
NUÑEZ: That kind of, "You come to us" type of thing instead of develop your
00:42:00own. Develop your own people that will help attract the Latino community to whatever your business. So we were at Centro during those years, and I think that shaped a lot of my thinking in what was needed. And, again, giving voice to a community that either was fearful because they were undocumented. We didn't even want to talk about the undocumented. Especially like the places like United Way and now, everyone is talking about the undocumented and its okay even though there's legislation about punishing sanctuary cities. But, anyway, that's a whole 'nother thing. That's another battle that's looming. Anyway, I think that's it.GOMEZ: Yeah. So, kind of focusing on that period of time that you were
00:43:00mentioning, 1999, how long were you in the role of Director?NUÑEZ: From '99 to 2003 and then I was appointed Deputy Secretary of the
Department of Workforce Development by Governor Doyle.GOMEZ: And before segueing to that role in 2003, were there any other kind of
distinguishing features regarding the community's response to the Latino families during that timeframe that you were the Director of Centro Hispano?NUÑEZ: Oh, yeah. I mean, there was really. . . I think what was surprising to
me was sort of unbelievable lack of knowledge about Latin America, Central 00:44:00America, the Caribbean, thedifferences between our countries, the connections between the United States and
Mexico, Cuba. Immigration is so based on that dynamic. People here in Madison completely unaware of "Oh, South of the Border? That's just Mexico." You know, or "Everybody's Mexican." Lots of things. I'm trying to even think back to examples of just that lack of awareness. I noticed this with the kids in school. If they don't speak English, they are lesser or not as intelligent. No real 00:45:00education about second language acquisition. That most immigrants, I don't care whether it's Mexican, Filipino, or German, in this country, by first generation have lost their mother tongue. We, in the United States, know how to kill languages better than any other country in the world. Linguistic genocide in this country is really. . . We're good at it. So, most immigrants will lose their language and that idea that they're not going to learn or that fear of teaching them or helping or supporting them, whichever. Bilingual immersion, whichever model you want to focus on, if you help these students, they're not 00:46:00going to learn the language. That's just bad. What's fascinating is they will. They do. I did. I started school without knowing English. And guess what? In a year's time, you couldn't shut me up. You know? So, children do learn. You've got to be able to treat them and work with them as teachers and I didn't see that understanding at all. We were constantly battling for our kids. We had after school programs for homework assistance in middle schools and high schools when I was at Centro. They still have those programs. We were constantly battling for those kids. These kids don't live in this neighborhood. You know, these kids come to our school. Wait a minute. Whose school? The kind of 00:47:00us-versus-them type mentality. Anyway. . .GOMEZ: Yeah. Well-- So, what was your feeling like when you left Centro Hispano?
What did you feel were kind of the important efforts made by the agency to support Latino families?NUÑEZ: I think every Director at Centro has raised Centro to a different level.
I think given the changing dynamics when I was Director, I think I brought attention to Centro because of the explosion. Hey, we're a community. We're 00:48:00here. We're growing. We're young and having children and you have got to pay attention to us. I think that was one of those things and it happened through, I mean, I don't know, Tess, if you remember Fiesta, I mean, Fiesta was a sleepy little festival.ARENAS: And now, right?
NUÑEZ: We would now get ten thousand people at Fiesta. It's huge. Our banquets,
the same thing. I remember, kind of a year before I arrived, I think there might have been three hundred people at the banquet. When we had Jaime Escalante or Sonia Manzano, we were hitting six hundred people and pushing the capacity at the Marriot. People were asking us to come to the banquet. And those were real growth years that I think has been maintained in different ways. Now the growth 00:49:00is digging deeper into different types of programming that Karen Menendez is doing. So, I think it was that awareness. "Oh, this is a population we can't ignore. They're here." And now you see. To me it's exciting to go to the Latino Professional Association and see hundreds andhundreds of Latinos in just about every sector and that wasn't the way,
whatever, in'99 when I arrived here. So that's exciting.
GOMEZ: When you talk about giving voice, were there other positions that you had
or volunteer work that you were involved in that continued that effort beyond the work with Centro Hispano?NUÑEZ: Well, I think in those years probably the place where I tried to focus
00:50:00was United Way. So I served a lot on different groups in United Way in part because United Way is one of those organizations that you can't ignore. They are powerful in this community, raise an incredible amount of money. And it was very evident to me early on that Latinos didn't have a voice there. So that was one of those things that I focused on, building relationships with United Way to think about issues in the Latino community. Again, one of those things like how do you talk about the undocumented without whispering, "The undocumented!" Trying to think of other volunteer. I mean, kind of as a young parent I did a 00:51:00lot of work with my kid's school. So those were the extra things that I would do beyond my work.GOMEZ: Okay. Well, tell us a little bit more about your role as the Deputy. Is
it Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development?NUÑEZ: Yeah. So Workforce Development is everything from unemployment
insurance, worker's comp, equal rights. It's a huge department and this was a statewide. So this suddenly, this connected me to Milwaukee, Green Bay, areas I hadn't really been connected to before. There's a certain amount of figurehead 00:52:00in this period of time. I actually talk about. . . Well, I think about power. And I feel I was far more powerful as a teacher or as the director to small little Centro than I was as Deputy Secretary. Even though the size of the agency or the scope is much broader. The power to change things and the power to be able to influence others, like I said, as a teacher and as a community-based organization, those were my most powerful positions. So, I think I learned a lot at DWD but I feel I lost the power and the connection that I had at Centro. You 00:53:00know, I got to learn about huge projects, statewide projects, and how call centers work and meet with Latino leaders in Milwaukee. I just felt like that there were great power in the classroom and great power at Centro. I feel like I accomplished a great deal more in those years than I did in DWD.GOMEZ: Okay. Were there other key influences that you didn't mention that shaped
your giving voice, Lucia?NUÑEZ: Hm-- I mean, there have been people throughout my life that kind of
00:54:00helped. Other than my parents. I mentioned on that sheet, I remember a librarian that had come down to the Virgin Islands to work at the school I went. So this was the '70s. She was a Black Muslim woman and I remember her speaking to me about being a woman and again, using my voice and knowing how to use my voice in a way. I remember, I think I was sixteen. I was being givenan award by The Jewish Brotherhood Association in St. Thomas. And so this
beautiful ceremony in the synagogue and the award was presented by the Governor 00:55:00at that time in the island [inaudible]. She had talked about, she congratulated me and then talked had about the whole use of the word brotherhood, and how it didn't include women. So I prepared this speech and was nervous and thinking, "oh my god, I'm going to say something to them". I thanked them for the award at the same time saying you should change the name and call it something else because you're eliminating young women like me that could be part of this association, or what they called the brotherhood. Then we weren't asked to give speeches. I had just built up in my brain that I was going to do this and then we were asked not to give speeches, which was interesting for me as a young 00:56:00person, that I sort of just got this courage to do something and say something and I wasn't given voice there. The adults just wanted to give us the awards, take pictures and then move on. So, it was kind of. . . And that made me think a lot about, again, those are things my own students and making sure that that they had a chance to speak and to be heard.GOMEZ: Was there, as your role evolved, were there other experiences, gender
differences, issues or barriers that you experienced, or racial prejudice?NUÑEZ: Gender, absolutely. You know, women aren't listened to. Sometimes it's
00:57:00hard for me to separate out. Is it because I'm a Latina? Is it because I'm a woman? What's going on here that I'll say something and nobody hears? Somebody else might say the same thing. I mean sort of a typical scenario that I think a lot of women have experienced. How to use allies, how to use people in the room, and kind of prepare before the meeting to make sure that my idea that I don't need the credit for it but I want the idea to succeed. How is it that I can plan ahead so that it happens and not to get discouraged when it does happen and just 00:58:00keep at it. Keep at it. That continues to happen. That hasn't stopped.GOMEZ: Well, how. . .
NUÑEZ: I keep hoping that it would but it hasn't.
GOMEZ: What the field that helps you deal with not get discouraged, not letting
it get to you?NUÑEZ: I kid about, like, you know lately there's been this question: What
superpower would you have? You know that one?GOMEZ: Uh--huh.
NUÑEZ: And for me it's sort of like, okay it's time to take out my Captain
America shield or my Wonder Woman. . . What are those wrist things she used to wear? Remember? And she'd deflect off, you know, whatever? Or something with her belt, too. Didn't she have a magical belt? So, I talk about it. I've got to 00:59:00deflect this stuff. I've got to come back around and some of that requires, oh my gosh, I've got to over prepare so I can fight something. I end up doing a whole lot to be able to combat some of that and figure out who are the allies that are going to help me be able to fight something. And sometimes trying not to come out like I'm fighting, in part because then, my experience has been that I get dismissed even faster. I'm not sure. God, it's a little bit of manipulation plus a little bit of planning plus outwitting them. Playing a 01:00:00better chess game and anticipating what their moves are and then being able to block it, you know? Sometimes it's exhausting and it's almost like, crap, do I really want to do that? Is this really that important for me to just battle it? Or, yes, this really important for me so I'm going to battle it and I'm going to do it. But to be constantly to be thinking that takes away from the creativity or the energy that can go into actually doing the work. You know?ARENAS: Yeah
GOMEZ: Tell us about the job that you have now and is there a role for giving
voice in it?NUÑEZ: So, I'm the Director of the Department of Civil Rights. Which for a
municipality, we have a really pretty robust department. We are charged with the 01:01:00enforcement of all equal opportunity and affirmative action ordinances. So that includes fair employment, fair housing laws, prohibitive discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. So these are the laws that came out of the Civil Rights Movement. This is really the foundation of that that was institutionalized. And then on the affirmative action side in addition to affirmative action plans, it's a lot of the regulation of contract compliance, who does business with the city and then enforcing what those requirements are in order to do business with the city. Be it public works or vendors or a community-based organization that receives financial assistance from the city. So we track and monitor all of that. I go back to those laws especially in fair 01:02:00employment, fair housing. Those are great laws. They have been in the books for a long time. They've been developed and evolved in the books. They've been chipped away and many have attempted to eliminate them completely but they're great laws. And the process just like the process that I was able to learn about in DWD with equal rights, UI, and workers comp, it's an administrative process that makes it easy for the average person without a lawyer, without access to money, to be able to file a complaint, to have investigators look at that complaint and find out and make a determination whether discrimination occurred or not. And then we have hearing examiner. Excuse me, at DCR we have three 01:03:00investigators, a bilingual investigator and then a hearing examiner to take a look at all the cases that we see here in Madison. So, that is a very unique way that voice is given to people who, again, they don't have access. They don't need a lawyer. They can do this process on their own and be able to sort of get a determination. Did something. . . Was something done wrong? I think that it's great. I love it. The professional crisis I'm feeling is, it's a stream. I'm downstream waiting for people that are in the water to come and say I've been 01:04:00discriminated against. The thing that I've learned and been thinking a lot in the last, what, threeyears is how do we get further upstream? Before they are pushed into the water,
before they throw themselves in the water and not have to wait until the discrimination has occurred. How do we change that? So that's kind of my new thinking of, wait a minute. You know? It's good that we have enforcement and regulations and monitoring but I need to figure out what else there is and go further upstream. That's the thinking that we've had. It feels like there is a momentum about that. What else can be done to. . . So that discrimination doesn't occur. And by further upstream I mean we're throwing third graders into 01:05:00this stream. Because if they can't read, guess what? They're not going to succeed in math and then they are not going to graduate from school. Then they're going to get involved in the criminal justice system and then they have an arrest and conviction record. And guess what? Then it's really hard to get a job and then they come to us. And yes, we'll find that discrimination had occurred because of their arrest and conviction record but man, that's too late. You know?GOMEZ: Yeah. Yeah.
NUÑEZ: We need to go back to third grade and make sure that they don't get
thrown in the water there.ARENAS: Right.
NUÑEZ: By not knowing how to read. So that's the part that is obsessing me right
now.
GOMEZ: Yeah. What kind of support are you getting? Either currently or in the
work that you have done with giving voice? Who has been your support system 01:06:00folks? Not necessarily by name or it could be by name. How has that worked for you? Has it worked? Are there other systems out there needed to support the work that you've done over the years?NUÑEZ: You know, I have found a group of women, women of color and white women,
to really think and kind of help each other out on this stuff both internally in the city as well as in the community. We have a tendency of sort of pulling each other down and I finally found a group of people that are not reacting on ego or 01:07:00self- esteem. You know, they're beyond. . . They've just done a lot of work, internal work and they're okay being vulnerable. That's one of those huge things that's like, you're afraid to say something because who's going to tell? Who is going to find out? There's two degrees of separation in this community. It's really difficult because something I say to one person at a coffee and I hear about it at a banquet two weeks later. So that's been a challenge. How to find the right people to have these kinds of real open heart, "Oh my god, you can't believe what I just experienced at a meeting" and not be afraid that it's going 01:08:00to somehow get published somewhere. That's been hard especially in a small community. So sometimes I've looked elsewhere beyond Madison borders, friends from other communities. I currently, the city has been involved in an alliance called The Government Alliance on Racial Equity. I have found directors ofother departments of civil rights in other cities that have just been incredible
sources of support for me. Women, again, women of color that have gone through. . . Like, we talk and it's like, "Yep! That's happened to me. That's exactly what happened to me." That's been really helpful. So that's the kind of support 01:09:00that I sought out. I'm not done learning and sometimes people think, "Oh, you're an expert." Nope. I still need to learn. I still need to figure out what blind spots I may have and sometimes there's no room for that kind of vulnerability of that. I don't know. It's surprising to me. "Why are you wasting time going to the Racial Summit?" I spent two days at The YWCA Racial Justice Summit and I actually got asked, "Why'd you waste time doing that?" I haven't stopped learning. I'm not done. I've got a long ways to go.GOMEZ: Well, speaking about that, do you get comments like that from other
01:10:00Latinas, Latinos, in terms of. . ?NUÑEZ: Other people of color, yeah, other people of color, other women. "Why
are you wasting time doing this?" So yeah.GOMEZ: What would things like that mean, "Why would you waste your time?" Is it
because feeling like, "White people won't get it"? Or "Things will never change" or "We already know it, so why go"?NUÑEZ: I think it's some of that. I think I hear people say and it's like,
"What could this person possibly tell me?" There's a little bit of ageism. We've got a young generation of twenty, thirty, forty somethings that are wow! The Michelle Alexanders, these are unbelievably brilliant young women that I could 01:11:00listen to for hours, right? You know like, "As a Latina, I know everything. I've been around the block." "As a black woman, I know everything. What could she teach me?" Well, for me, I don't see it that way. I don't see it as a waste of time. I listened to three individuals at the Summit on Thursday and Friday. Ian Jamie Lopez, a Latino, I think born or perhaps grew up in Hawaii. A brilliant scholar at UC-Berkeley, he wrote a book called Dog Whistle Politics. Another man from Pakistan by the name of Shakil Choudhury, I may be pronouncing his last name wrong, wrote a book called Deep Diversity. It was like going to therapy for two hours with him because he really dug at the sense of belonging, the 01:12:00us-versus-them. Kind of that,"why do we feel a certain way when we're the out group and we're trying to
either fit in or just belong." So he gave me so many tools that structured and then this African- American woman by the name of Loretta Ross. She captured heart, head, and hand all in one in the most impassioned speech that showed vulnerability in her leadership, showed vulnerability in her thought pattern. She was just fabulous and irreverent. I walked away feeling inspired and learning from them. You know, challenged yet once again to keep thinking about 01:13:00not only my own voice. Because sometimes we focus on others and it's like, "Hm. No one is listening to me either." You know? And thinking, no, this wasn't a waste of time, not by any means. I still have the ability to learn. As long as that's happening, I'm good. I don't care what anybody else thinks. You know?GOMEZ: You had mentioned the librarians on the Virgin Islands. Did you have
other role models that have helped you in your work to give voice?NUÑEZ: Believe it or not, my father. You wouldn't think it. He is one of the
most sexist human beings on God's earth. The most traditional Latino man. Most 01:14:00of his friends were saying, "Why waste money on your daughter going to school? She's just going to get married." And he didn't believe that. He didn't see it. If there has been somebody who's pushed my education and helped my education, it's been him. Kind of the unusual thing because I, the only female in my family. My brothers didn't get a college education. I'm the only one who did. I think it was my dad pushing me.GOMEZ: Why do you think he pushed you, Lucia?
NUÑEZ: You know--
GOMEZ: Pushed or supported you, why was that? And you mentioned he had some
traditional ways about him, which I can relate to.NUÑEZ: Yeah. I think he values education. He should have been a PhD in
01:15:00something. A brilliant man who had an eighth grade education at most, taught himself with constantly learning to read, and I think he saw himself in me because I was the same way. There wasn't a book that I didn't. . . that came into the house that I didn't read. My father and I were constantly, constantly reading. He wanted that for me. I think that was far more important and perhaps, maybe he lived vicariously through that I got to go to college. Boy, he should have. He would have been great in school, but he never had that opportunity.GOMEZ: When you. . .
ARENAS: Well, he certainly influenced you. His role modeling, that academic
01:16:00behavior on his own, that. . . [inaudible] Sorry. Thank you.NUÑEZ: Yeah, here's the man who taught himself how to speak English by getting
a tape recorder and a dictionary.ARENAS: Wow.
NUÑEZ: And writing every word that he heard and trying to look it up. You know,
he never stopped. Never, never stopped.ARENAS: Wow. That's impossible! Wow.
GOMEZ: When we consider women leadership experiences such as yours, do you have
a specific social or cultural or political framework to describe your work?NUÑEZ: Give me an example. I'm not sure. . .?
GOMEZ: Empowerment model? Equity model? Is there any particular framework or
01:17:00maybe not?NUÑEZ: I'm not sure I've ever really given that. . . I'm not sure, I'd have to
think about that. Maybe empowerment. You know, again, the whole giving voice and that. A Campesino woman has as much to say as a university student. Each experience is valuable. I guess that would be an empowerment model.GOMEZ: What is the most impactful activism or, I'm sorry, giving voice work that
you've done and why?
NUÑEZ: [talking over each other] I would have to say being a teacher. To me,
01:18:00those were the most unbelievable years. What I learned from these young women in the classroom, it was great. It was how I got them to think about things, and again, just even like how to get them to write an essay. How to get them excited about algebra. How to get them excited about social studies and what is a country? They created their own countries. I had so much fun as a teacher and that constant back and forth. I mean, they challenged me. Some of these girls, they were involved in gangs. They would put razor blades in their fingernails. 01:19:00You know, like, false fingernails? Whatever, you know, and they. . .ARENAS: Yeah.
NUÑEZ: They would imbed razor blades in there.
GOMEZ: Oh my goodness!
NUÑEZ: Just some of the toughest, toughest kids I had ever. . . Just
unbelievable stories. One time, this was during Tiananmen Square. And so I had spent the morning preparing a lesson on social studies. Here's China and where is China and the student revolt and I cut out from the New York Times pictures. Remember the young man standing in front of the tank? You know that picture?GOMEZ: Yeah.
NUÑEZ: Student violence and all of that. I was so excited, and I was so
prepared. I walked in the class and one of my students was all bruised up. Another student's like, "What happened to you, Nancy?" And she said, "Yeah, 01:20:00well, you know, he beat me up last night and he held my baby out the window. He was going to throw the baby out the window and then the police came and arrested him. I spent the night in the shelter." And I was just, like, "Okay--" You know?ARENAS: What grade was this? What grade was this?
NUÑEZ: They were in high school. Like I said, this was a special center for
girls who were either pregnant or parenting and have been kicked out of school, etc. Believe it or not, I had a thirteen year old with a baby to I think Nancy was maybe seventeen. So she had been severely beaten that night and her baby almost killed. Luckily the guy was arrested and that dominated the class. That's what we talked about. Violence against women, not student violence. They took 01:21:00over the class. I lost complete control and gave it up. Just like, "You know what? This is meaningless." I put my little New York Times articles away and we spent the rest of the time talking about violence against women and they took over. I mean, the other girls took over and basically created a support group for her. Like I said, I lost control of the class.ARENAS: In a good way, though. I mean. . .
NUÑEZ: Well, yeah! It was the smartest teaching. . .
ARENAS: Right.
NUÑEZ: Smartest teaching decision I ever made by just putting the articles
away, this isn't the time. So anyway, yeah. There's so many stories that I can 01:22:00think of that period of time. That's one of the greatest highlights of my career, I think.ARENAS: I'm nodding my head in agreement with everything you say because that's
how I felt leaving Madison after teaching ten years. It was the best years of my life.NUÑEZ: Yeah.
ARENAS: Working with the Chicano students were the best years of my life so I'm
just in total agreement with you.NUÑEZ: Yeah. I don't know. There was such power there. Maybe I'm realizing it
looking back. Who knows, you know? I don't know.ARENAS: I'm sure you positively impacted those young women. You just don't know
how it all turned out for each of them individually but as a group of women, I think you've done some powerful things.NUÑEZ: Hm. Thank you.
01:23:00GOMEZ: So, in terms of your role now, and I'm not thinking exclusively of your
job, but how would you describe your role right now of giving voice?NUÑEZ: I guess it's giving voice through the process and through the laws. You
know? The laws protect against discrimination and I always say to people, "Use the laws". Again, I go back to our superhero analogy, we need Captain America shields and whatever else and that's the law. Stand behind the law. Sometimes the law doesn't work to our behalf but, boy, when we can, let's use it. Maybe 01:24:00that's the way.GOMEZ: Is there anything you would change about the journey that you've taken
thus far, as you look back over the years, Lucia?
NUÑEZ: No, I don't think so. I mean, if I had magical powers, I wouldn't have
gotten pancreatic cancer, but you know. No.GOMEZ: Well, what words for future generations of Latinas, about giving voice,
would you like to share?NUÑEZ: I think find your own voice first. Really explore that. What does that
mean? Know deep inside what that is and what influences it and then you're more 01:25:00able to help others find voice or give voice to others. But if you don't have your own, I think you're going to be in trouble. I don't think it's going to come out in a meaningful and sincere way. So, find your own first.GOMEZ: Even if that's a painful process?
NUÑEZ: Oh yeah.
GOMEZ: I mean, even with issues with self-esteem or other barriers?
NUÑEZ: Yeah. Absolutely. And do that hard work because if you don't, forget it.
You're not going to be effective as a leader or an activist. As whatever. As an 01:26:00activist leader, it doesn't matter what you are. You've got to find your own. You've got to do the work to figure that out.GOMEZ: Is there anything that I didn't ask that you would like to share tonight?
GOMEZ: Identity is so bizarre to us. You and I have had the discussion of. . .
There's constant chemical reactions that are changing and shifting our identity. Age adds to it and sexuality adds to it. There's so much that goes into it and I'm watching a new generation that isn't as concerned about the boxes that we 01:27:00struggled to make sure we have on some form. And that's really going to change the dynamic in five to ten years because if I don't identify as Latina or Hispanic but maybe other, multicultural. What's that going to do to numbers? How's that going to work? It's fascinating. I have a younger generation in my office that's coming to me and saying, "Lucia, we need to eliminate the binary". And at first I'm looking at them going, "I don't know if we're allowed to do that. Isn't that some mathematical law?" I'm not even understanding the language that they're using with me, like are you cisgender? Gender fluidity. So much 01:28:00that I never even have thought about in terms of gender identity and being. My own children correcting me of the right use of pronouns and pushing me in a way, hell, I've never thought of. What? There's male and female. What? That's not going to change and now we're talking about eliminating the binary and what's that going to do with our numbers because we track that for affirmative action. You know, wow. This is an interesting discussion. Those are the kind of things that keep me sort of interested in my job. It's not so rote. It's not predictable and routine. I'm being pushed by a younger generation to rethink 01:29:00gender as somehow, we were taught. And it isn't just about color, wearing pink or blue. This is way more and that's exciting, totally exciting.ARENAS: Right.
GOMEZ: Well, thank you so much, Lucia, for giving us your time and sharing with
us your experiences and hearing your reflections. We appreciate it so much.NUÑEZ: No problem!
GOMEZ: I haven't met you in person yet but I feel like I know you. We'll
definitely try to connect.ARENAS: Yes. When I listen to Lucia talk, I am imagining the city in 1999. So
01:30:00many of the things you said just made me realize how dynamic Madison has become. And I have to say your role at Centro was difficult then. Bringing discussion into the larger audience in Madison and I thank you for that because it's grown in leaps and bounds in terms of political influence here and you were part of that so just thank you.NUÑEZ: Thanks! No, thank you.