Interview with Maria Rodríguez, November 17, 2012

[title slide]

WRIGHT: Thank You Maria, to start off please state your name, date of birth, and birthplace for us please.

RODRÍGUEZ: My name is Maria Isabelle Rodriguez. I was born in Milwaukee on September 11, oh that sounds bad, but 1952.

WRIGHT: Thank you, what are your parent's names and where were they born?

RODRÍGUEZ: My mother's name is Maria also her last name is Gobea, she was born in Edenmore Texas in 1925 actually. And my father, she met my father in San Antonio but he is actually from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. She helped him come to 00:01:00the United States.

WRIGHT: Excellent, do you have siblings? If so, could you state their names and birthplaces?

RODRÍGUEZ: All of my, well actually no that's wrong, my two older brothers were born in San Antonio. My mother was a migrant worker so they traveled back and forth and they tried to get him to be in the Wisconsin area and finally he did and so all the rest of them are in Milwaukee. So my oldest brother Pedro, after my father, Arturo. They are both older then I am, then it's me, then my brother John also born in Milwaukee, I guess that they all were, Diana, Marie-Lue and Marie Ester. So they are all here and I am the third one, I'm really the oldest.

WRIGHT: Do you have children, and can you say their names and how old they are?

RODRÍGUEZ: My old--my oldest son Lloyd and he is 31 and born in Milwaukee, my second child is Lorenzo and their last names are Gushier I was married at one time to Lloyd Gushier, and Lorenzo is just 29 and my youngest son is Emilio Lopez. I married Emilio in 1991 and Emilio is just 19.

WRIGHT: Thank you, and is there anybody else you would like to mention.

RODRÍGUEZ: I have a second family; Emilio came with a whole family so I have 00:03:00three other children. They all actually lived with me. Luisa she is 34, Juan, and Israel. Juan is 32 and Israel is 24 and actually a law student at Madison right now. They all lived with us in there teen years, that's why I am near to crazy.

WRIGHT: Thank you, Okay so let's move on, can you tell us how did you get involved with, and what was your role with La Raza Unida Party?

RODRÍGUEZ: I was pretty young and really didn't understand a lot that was going on. I worked for the Latin American Union for Civil Rights for one of their 00:04:00programs and it was the bilingual bicultural education program. I worked with them as a young person, I got to staff and work at different events that the Latin American Union Sponsored. One of them was always, one of the organizations they always worked with was La Raza Unida Party and it was in terms of creating awareness of what we are, who we are, a nation with in a nation kind of thing. And so I got to understand a little bit about that as I was in high school because that's when I started with the LAUCR. Then I was a full time staff member for the Latin American Union for Civil Rights, I began to be a little more involved and participated in meetings, conferences, workshops, that had to 00:05:00do with women involved with La Raza Unida, to the point of even becoming a delegate being selected as a delegate of Wisconsin to represent La Raza Unida party at the women's year conference in Mexico City, that was an international conference there were women there from all over the world and we again were recognized as a nation within a nation. And so there were delegates from, that represented La Raza Unida Party, several states California Texas Arizona New Mexico Indiana Illinois and Wisconsin. I was the Wisconsin Delegate, so really 00:06:00how I became involved was sort of doing little things and being part of staffing events and understanding a little bit more about what was going on and later participating.

WRIGHT: So did you have a prominent speaking role in any of these women's workshops?

RODRÍGUEZ: At the international women's year our role was to meet with the third world countrywomen, women who were organizing in the mines in Bolivia, women who are coming out of Vietnam. Those kind of women and talking to them and exchanging where their background was, what our background was, what their struggles were, what our struggles were, and really we learned more from them. I 00:07:00didn't realize how much it affected me, it was a woman from Bolivia who had been jailed and raped and for simply organize the women working in the mines. Now she came to the conference by way of her priest, her priest did help pay her way to the conference to build awareness about the struggles of women in that country and what the government was refusing to do in terms of their safety, equity and pay and things in that nature. I didn't realize how much it really affected me 00:08:00until really at that point in time, I was just listening I was struck by her, she was a small indigenous looking women, she was strong and everything that had gone on in her life the strength to come to another country to speak out against those kind of injustices really hit home to a lot of the women that were there. So we got to meet many women in similar situations but that one struck me the most or affected me the most and you know, in terms of comparison and struggles, sometimes you don't really, your kind of look at yourself - those are not the 00:09:00things that were going through and then you look at some things that are in our community and sometimes we are you know. Sometimes we are the victims of justice and no one is doing anything about it. So that was one of the interviews that we sat through and really affected me. So that was our job, our job was to sort of be the spokespersons for our people, the Latinos here in the United States, Latina women and what our struggles were.

WRIGHT: Just a clarification on the location on that conference because I know 00:10:00you said you were part of many conferences as far as staffing.

RODRÍGUEZ: That one was in Mexico City, Mexico.

WRIGHT: Just kind of related is your participation, can you tell us about your participation in Latina Mujeres and how they differed from?

RODRÍGUEZ: I'm not sure what that is.

WRIGHT: Okay I found an article about a conference in New Mexico, in Montezuma.

RODRÍGUEZ: That conference is interesting, we have been on meeting with women all across the state small groups of women and just talking about Latina issues and building more awareness of who we are, what we are, and what we're doing and 00:11:00getting more involved in helping women become better organizers of their own community. Anyone can help make a difference in their own community and in a number of ways no matter how small. The conference when that, when the conference came up there were some of us part of the Wisconsin piece that decided to go to New Mexico and the thing that struck me about that conference was where it was, which was, I'm not remembering exactly where it was, that was outside the city and we actually had armed guards at that conference and the 00:12:00reason we had armed guards, and they were all Latino men, because there had been a rash of killings in New Mexico of Latinos and Native Americans at that time. So here we were, we landed in New Mexico we drive up to I'm not sure if it was an old convent, I'm not even remembering what it was I'm sure it will come to me at some point and you see men with guns and they're there basically to protect us during this conference because it was seen as it could have been viewed as outsiders agitated and that kind of thing and basically we were doing the same 00:13:00thing that we have been doing in Wisconsin we were again talking about what impact and what inference we have as individuals or as a group with in our communities and within cities and states, that kind of thing, and it was kind of an eye-opener because every day that I was there I opened up a newspaper and several people had been killed the night before and what relation it had to me for our movement whatever was never really clear it was that for me being from Wisconsin that was really kind of an eye-opener because you read about someone being killed all the time but when you see it's mostly one kind of person and 00:14:00their brutal, it was very eye opening.

WRIGHT: Was there any kind of struggle as far sexism? I feel like it came up in articles and how they describe this specific conference in New Mexico that this was a topic that was talked about.

RODRÍGUEZ: It was talked about because it existed and still exists in some shape or form. Whenever you are dealing with individuals who hold power or manage resources, but the discussion revolved around how do you use that or help 00:15:00that move to help everyone to help our people and while we weren't the Gloria Steinem you know we had a different view of how we were going to deal with it. Maybe that's kind of romantic, I don't know but it was more of you know there still our people, they are still part of us, we have to help them see how they can help everyone make this change and transition and sharing responsibility and power and even recognizing that there is unity, you know by bringing everyone 00:16:00together and you gain more at the end. So that kind of our philosophy, we weren't going to be against them, we wanted to help them in the struggle.

WRIGHT: I just want to definitely kind go with what you have been mentioning about identity, how the movement was helping people claim a new identity or recognizing the importance of identity? Can you speak on how you identify?

RODRÍGUEZ: When I was in high school and have worked for about maybe 10-15 years out of high school I identified as a Chicana that is what I was. Later there was Hispanics, the whole census work came up people started using that 00:17:00work and I didn't know what it was, never identified as a Hispanic you so we really when from Chicana/Chicano and that was all part of that was political to Latino Latina you know. So put in terms of how we were viewed, yeah we were spics and you know we were called names, I recall one incident when in high school there was always a problem, had an issue with Anglo kids, but I wasn't an 00:18:00aggressive person in high school. So I, you know, I learned how to maneuver around it you know and I was pretty well accepted, I didn't make waves, I didn't I would be in trouble at home but as in the community there were different segments of people for instance in the unions people belonged and worked at brewery, well they didn't belong there, they worked in breweries. People worked in foundries they there were issues with paying and pay equity things of that sort and we were seen as trouble makers if we were trying to organize a strike or a walk or something of that sort. So the Latin American Union really took a 00:19:00front line role in helping to help workers around that, farm workers around that and you know changing and making people see you are a human being just like anybody else and you deserve respect and justice like anyone else. That was sort of the underlining work we were doing and it was always about equality and justice and you know being seen as anyone else. Whether it was in the farms of Wisconsin in the tanneries or the breweries. And so but you know one of the 00:20:00struggles we had was really in gaining the appreciation of greater Milwaukee community around that, you know and I am not sure that it has gotten better a lot of our folks have mainstreamed but I am not sure if the views of us have really changed that much.

WRIGHT: I feel like I want to ask you about how brown berets were perceived in context of making people understand the voice?

RODRÍGUEZ: It was more of a, I wasn't part of the brown berets but I knew several people it was more of being proud of your identity that was what they were about and sort of displaying their colors so to speak, the gangs do it now. 00:21:00This is what we did but it was for good it wasn't, and maybe in the larger community it might have not seemed as good you know but it was to really let people know, I know who I am and I am proud of who I am and that was what it was about. I came in on the tail end of that.

WRIGHT: Thank you, just kind of getting into the part of the involvement with Milwaukee Public Schools system, I am over a piece that you were the director of the bilingual bicultural program?

RODRÍGUEZ: That was a really small program and I ran it for the Latin American Union for Civil Rights and it was started up really to help children who were 00:22:00sort of migrant families that settled here in Milwaukee and because they were migrant children might be not doing well in school. So basically served about a 100 families during the school year and about 200 during the summer. Basically we worked with Milwaukee Public Schools in terms of making sure the kids were going to be accelerating in reading and math and that's what we did. Now that program was a bilingual program but what did was all in English because that's where they all struggled in the but in the movement for bilingual education the Latin American union used their resources help parents organize and my role was 00:23:00to asset the city wide bilingual bicultural advisory committee organize, organize demonstrate through the Milwaukee Public School administration, the school board to see the need for bilingual education the leadership in that, the experts in that were not the parents but the parents knew there was a need, the experts were always brought in to speak about the issue of bilingual education and most of those were men, the Tony Biases of the world, you know the Ricardo Fernandez, you know those were the ones and they helped the parents which we most, primarily women understand the need and they organized around that. We had 00:24:00in some cases busloads of families going to school board meetings, staying at school board meetings until one o'clock two o'clock in the morning till our issues was being dealt with and in those days' school board meetings would go into the early morning, my job was to help them stay organized and help them in any way that I could, for several years I worked for the city wide bilingual bicultural advisory committee to do that.

WRIGHT: Going more on that bilingual bicultural program, even though it was somewhat small, could you tell us about the activities you did because I know it was focused on academics, and what other types of learning styles?

RODRÍGUEZ: We did a lot of cultural arts, cultural dance. So we actually had dancers and artists so it was all about them to understand who they were so they 00:25:00could do well in school we used plenty of the resources in the community we would go to different events that were going on in the community and but the academics was really about meeting their bench marks in school and so we worked very closely with the schools, children were attending neighborhood schools so it was easier to work with the schools because the children had to live in the certain radius to go to school and that made it easier now a days it's not the case. So academics was important and we followed their academics throughout the 00:26:00year and in the summer it was more academics and recreation but it was, you know we had dance groups some musician's things of that sort. One of the things that I helped organize was the fiesta navidena. It was an event at the proffering arts center, what we did was featured many of our children in a Christmas performance it was a sold out, it was a free program and the performing arts center which is a top notch you know downtown, symphony and the ballet, we featured all local and children's talent and it was a full house in the city. 00:27:00There was a couple thousand people there our children danced la botaya, la bamba, you know it was great and you know, it was great.

WRIGHT: Thank you, so as far as what difficulties did you face as far as being in the schools and getting schools respond to the need of bicultural and bilingual education.

RODRÍGUEZ: You know, fortunately for us our my initial, our entrance into the school was with the permission with the parents and so we were able to get information work with the teacher and we really didn't have any problems there 00:28:00were you know some stubborn teachers, individuals here or there would not give us any updates or helps us to help them or do anything extra but most I would say were caring individuals and did work with us. We did not have a problem in working with them. We were helping them do their job and see improvement with their children. Is wasn't, we weren't seen as competition or anything like that, now bilingual bicultural education that whole movement was seen as a little more threatening one of my, when I worked for the Latin American Union for Civil Rights my second or third year I took a part-time job as a teachers aid and I 00:29:00worked with only bilingual children. All bilingual children Yugoslavian, Latino anybody who didn't speak English or I should say they were monolingual children but when I went to the principal to meet with him because parents has asked for bilingual education he agreed to a meeting with a parent we had the meeting and when that meeting was occurring the union steward of that school rushed into the meeting and they objected to us meeting with the principal, they objected to the principal to even listening to what we had to say and they were fearful that a bilingual program was going to be coming to that school you know that they 00:30:00wasn't a need. The things they said were mean and nasty. So you know a couple years down the road there is a bilingual program for the entire school because the majority of the school, I would say is 90% Latino but in that case the teachers saw this movement as a threat.

WRIGHT: Did that play into, could you tell me how that played into the dropout rates that kind of sparked a need or was something that was more tangible to a lot more people in understanding the need for this type of work?

RODRÍGUEZ: You know there was, when I worked with kids I knew there was a feeling of being treated less than and young 00:31:00people feeling that, feeling frustration and anger. And they, teachers, would use certain words that made them angry and I don't think they are any different now you know when someone wants to hurt you they will hurt you but what I saw was in our kids they was a little more of a resiliency you know even though there was a dropout rate issue, you know I'm not an expert I wasn't an expert early on, later on I did get involved with a particular high school that was working and trying to deal with the drop out issue and even the people trying to 00:32:00work on that issue couldn't work together it just became a struggle of power you know who had power you know and it was you shouldn't, are they really going to do anything, even though the administration was part of the whole group or helping with the change in programs in that particular high school you know no one could agree, no one could agree what the problem was, what the solution was, how were they going to work it through. So after years sitting on that committee and that was years later after I had worked for the bilingual program you know it was a very frustrating process. Everything now is such a process and I find them if you don't stick with it you know you are not going to see the change you want, things are different and so now we have to work the process and to fill 00:33:00the allies and the alliance that you need to make that change. And I think I am going back and forth there.

WRIGHT: Yeah that's fine, did you; can you speak more on the city wide bilingual bicultural advisory committee?

RODRÍGUEZ: That, I think we talked a little about that before, I was a staffer to that committee as well as a part of the Latin American Union for Civil Rights, there were three major leaders in that city wide organization and those women were dynamic in bringing parts together of all Latino backgrounds, Puerto Rican you know what ever was in Milwaukee that was concerned about their children and that was Mercedes Rivas, Amparo Jimenez, and Aurora Weir. There 00:34:00were men like I said before that were sort of the experts that always brought the information the why we should do this, what program should be implemented, what you know what certifications teachers should have you know all of those things came into play but the idea of organizing parents coming to school board meetings, meeting with administration and having an agree from the administration as that this body was identified body that represented of the Latino community in the city of Milwaukee it even got to that point and 00:35:00administration met with them on a regular bases when they were first established, so those three women, worked hard they weren't paid they were volunteers I was paid by the Latin American Union and assisted them in whatever I could and that's what lead to the bilingual program in MPS along with a lot of forces coming in and making that happen.

WRIGHT: Maria can you tell us about the Latina Task Force and how that played a role in your activism?

RODRÍGUEZ: Well I was a member, the idea came from several women some of them are close friends of mine Eloisa Gomez, Patricia Villarreal, Barbra Medina, and 00:36:00several others Irma Guerra that is now passed and I think that I have probably mentioned this before that group really was looking to inspire women to get involved, we talked to women from Chicago, women that were organizing in Chicago, how they were organized what they did, what were the things that mattered to those Latina women in Chicago, and what it was really doing was solidifying what our ideas were about Milwaukee and what we wanted to be involved, in you know around education and it was always, that was always the priority for many of us. So many, a lot of us took that education, voting, 00:37:00getting people involved in that effort understanding that at one point women, Latinas, African Americans didn't have that right at one point and the significance of that, how you can change the face of the politics, your representative, and so that, that effort was organized by us we had a couple of turnings and meetings and then people moved on but I think that effort did help 00:38:00a lot of women in their own efforts in their communities things happened and I think I have seen some of the fruits of that at the university with in MPS and just a better relationship with politicians, and also understanding you know again who we are in relationship to men, our men, Latino men. Chicano men and who had the power I guess and how really we had to work with them to change 00:39:00things for our families in the future. You know I worked for the Latin American union for Civil Rights I don't know that any of the other women that part of the Latina Task force worked there might have been one or two. The work that we did, with the Latin American Union was also ways important because it was about justice and equality and it was about justice and equality for back then the Chicano community the Puerto Rican community and now the Latino community you know, back then the constituents were Chicano, Mexicano, Puerto Rican community 00:40:00certainly there was different issues with different segments but I don't think that any of us walked away with nothing, I don't think that we walked away with, that was a great day let's do it again. I think we walked away with a sense of understanding a little better of who we are and our strength not only with in ourselves but with all of us together as a collective you know a women's group and we were viewed by Latino men as being dangerous we were viewed by different heads of different organizations as being ball busting, watch out for those 00:41:00Latina Task force you know but that's not what we were about we would meet with politicians as a group show that there was strength in not only bring votes to them but also dollars you know many of us end up working positions and having the ability to contribute financially so you know there's been some I think good contributions by all these women and many of them continue to make those contributions. And hopefully continue to influence other young people.

WRIGHT: Awesome, I want to ask you about the Chicano Movement and how you benefited from it and where you feel it exists in what people can do today to bring about move issues and resolve past issues?

RODRÍGUEZ: Well you know, I probably most people would say it's a dead movement I considered myself a Chicana for a long, long time. I think there are certain aspects of that time the things that we learned during that time and understanding what was going on in our community how it affected us, the changes 00:43:00we wanted to make the way we changed things. As times change you know there is a different way of doing things but there is still will be things you can impact by being involved and caring for your community. Now do people feel, you know feel as passionate about the Chicano Movement, `, you know are we going to get out there and demonstrate or sit in. You know I was arrested several times, my husband was arrested several times for sitting in, for something that we believed in. Will people do that know? Come on josh, you have your career on the line in this day and age you are going to think twice about whether you are 00:44:00going to set your car on fire you know to demonstrate against a war you know there are different tactics you know that we are moving to. There is a different approach on how you make change, do you have to compromise what your feelings are what you think, I don't think so, I think you have to find a way to make those changes and figure out how and who can help you whether is someone who has power and you influence them mobilizing people in a nice way I don't know, you know everything has to be nice these days you know. We just don't do those kinds 00:45:00of things anymore, is it necessarily bad, I don't think so, I think good people will always be around to make change, brave people will help make change, brave women, brave men you know. I just think that what we need to work on is how we do it.

WRIGHT: Thank you so much for your time.