[Sandra Enriquez] Today is July 17th, 2015,
and I'm here today with Miss Lorena Andrade
(inaudible) and I'm Sandra Enriquez
and David Robles is taking care of the audio.
Miss Andrade I wanted to ask you a little bit to get you
comfortable with the recording
about when and where you were born.
What was your childhood like?
[Lorena Andrade] To get me comfortable, you're going to
ask me about my childhood.
(laughing) I was born in Los Angeles, California,
and I grew up in a place called Boyle Heights,
which is an area of Los Angeles.
It was primarily Mexican community
, and that's where I grew up.
Even if there's a lot of history there in Boyle Heights,
and in that part of the Los Angeles or in terms of
Chicano movement or our history as Mexicans there,
I didn't ever learn any of that in the schools.
[Sandra Enriquez] How were the schools you attended in Los Angeles?
[Lorena Andrade] Well, as I was growing up there,
I think that that was my world,
so I didn't know it
was supposed to be any other way than that was.
[Sandra Enriquez] Were they primarily Mexicans-Americans?
[Lorena Andrade] Yeah, we are all Mexicans.
I think maybe when I went to high school,
there might've been a couple
of African Americans and some Vietnamese.
But it was mostly Mexican.
[Sandra Enriquez] How were your relationships with
the black community students in high school.
Did they get along with Mexicans or did
they just keep to themselves?
[Lorena Andrade] I think we all were,
because there wasn't that many,
so we were all majority Mexican.
[Sandra Enriquez] Where did you go to college?
[Lorena Andrade] I went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
[Sandra Enriquez] What took you to?
[Lorena Andrade] Just that it was far away.
(laughing) My degree is in Chicano studies.
[Sandra Enriquez] You said that you didn't learn much about the history
of LA, especially Boyle Heights,
which is like a crucial
Chicano neighborhood for Chicano (OVERLAPPING).
[Lorena Andrade] I didn't even grow up calling it Boyle Heights.
We didn't grow up calling it Boyle Heights.
Now it seems kind of trendy
everybody calls it Boyle Heights.
But when I was growing up,
we never called the Boyle Heights so it was (FOREIGN)
[Sandra Enriquez] How did you first
become engaged in the history
of your community or of Chicano history?
[Lorena Andrade] In Minnesota. When I went to the University of Minnesota.
At that time when I was studying there in the early 90s.
Now if you go to Minneapolis,
there's a lot of Mexicans and all of that,
but that's not how it was before.
There was only a few of us Mexican women that we're
studying at that time,
so that was one of the first things we did was look
for each other and do that.
[Sandra Enriquez] How did creating that community of Chicano women help
you shape you as an individual?
[Lorena Andrade] Well, for me it was important because there
was the (inaudible) of
the 70s they fought to leave for us RASA,
what they call over there RASA Student Cultural Center,
is supposed to be a place for
the Chicanos to gather and to have support,
support each other and have some also like computers.
Before not everybody had computers like now,
so it was important for us to have
those things and for us to organize events.
But what had happened is
by the time I showed up in the early 90s
then it was dominated by rich Latin American men.
(FOREIGN) When as women,
we decided to get to know each
other and unite one of the first things that we
did was organize to push
them out of our RASA Student Cultural Center
and make it a safer place for women and for Chicanos.
Because they would tell us, like for me, for example,
they would say, people like you
in my country are my servants.
It was also a class.
It was gender, obviously because
women did not feel comfortable walking
into the center because of the way the men
sometimes they would stand in a line and
critique the women as they walked in.
I would hear things like that about the center,
and I was just learning.
I started taking some Chicano Studies classes
with Dennis Valdez was
our professor and Giliemo Rojaz was
our other professor. We only had two.
(FOREIGN)It was a small department.
But I started learning
about the history and it was a lot of,
I read Occupied America,
and that was really
important for us to be able to say like,
"Hey, there's something wrong here.
Why didn't anybody tell us
about all the horrible things
that have happened to our people or why
did I growing up just accepting the conditions
that were in my neighborhood, (inaudible)?"
It was adding combination with where is my safe place at
this university and that being controlled by these men.
That also gave us something to organize around.
Like do we need a place where women so
that we can help each other through the university,
and also it helped us organize against something,
like for something,
defining who we were and against something.
That brought us together.
[Sandra Enriquez] You mentioned that a lot of these men
were just being very inappropriate with women,
very condescending, and very sexist,
making sexist comments, and classless comments.
Did any of the school administration
or faculty of the Chicano Studies Department help
you address these issues or was it
only a fight by the Chicanos?
[Lorena Andrade] It was led by other Chicanos and
other women like Puerto Ricans, and (FOREIGN),
but it was mostly Mexican women
and the professors were there like
Dennis Valdez and Giliemo Rojaz
were always very supportive of us.
They weren't going to lead the battle
(laughing) or organize for us.
But they were always ready to meet with us
and talk through some
of the issues that we were
dealing with because it wasn't just like,
"You have to keep those men out."
They wouldn't say things like that,
but they would help us
understand the contradictions that we were living.
Whether it was through teaching us about history or why
these men had this idea about
Chicanos and reading about our history in terms of that,
because I think a lot of people at that time,
they would come from middle-class Mexican backgrounds
or upper-class Latin American backgrounds.
They don't understand the struggle of the Chicanos.
They think the Mexican-American war was like paperwork.
Santana just kind of handed it over.
Like if there was no war and that
there's no consequences to them.
They help us kind of put it into context,
and I think it was really important that it was
just a small group of us out there.
I don't know how this is going to come out
but there's other places that have
more merchants and in
LA there's a certain ideologies and they're very strong.
We didn't have any of them,
but RASA we really did have the opportunity
to learn history through our professors and literature,
through Giliemo Rojaz and
figure it out for ourselves without
having the set ways of looking at Chicano history.
I think that that was really important for me
to (background) experience this.
None of us really knew about our history,
so it was all just learning
and going through this experience
about taking back our center and things like that.
Then when the Zapatistas arrived in '94,
well, for us, they had just arrived in '94.
(laughing) They'd been around for a long time,
but that was also really important for us to be able
to see the other ideologies that were there,
but also to reinforce that as women,
regardless of different ideologies that were out there,
we had a right to define what that
looked like for us as Chicanos.
But that, which is, I feel like the Zapatistas taught us
that they didn't seem
dogmatic about anything but we're native,
and we're going to learn about all these things,
but we're going to define what that
looks like in our community
and what direction we take it,
so I think that was really
good that I left Los Angeles to
be able to figure out those politics for ourselves.
[Sandra Enriquez] You also mentioned that there are some Puerto Rican women
and other groups in your communities.
How did you go about learning from each other and
creating community across ethnic differences?
[Lorena Andrade] Well, I don't want
you to think that it was completely diverse,
there was like two Puerto Ricans or and I don't
even remember the other countries very well,
because it was mostly Mexican,
but we started an organization,
I remember it was called Luna Latinas (FOREIGN)
or something like that.
It was long time ago. We would
meet regularly at the center.
Our meetings and our study were part of
taking more space in that center.
[Sandra Enriquez] What other ideologies have shaped you?
You've mentioned the Zapatista.
Learning from the Chicano Movement in
your time as a college student,
what other ideologies shaped you?
[Lorena Andrade] That was basically it.
In college, you get exposed to other things like
the socialist student organization
or the Feminist Women's Center.
We did a little bit of that,
but it was always very Mexican based and very history.
That's what our experience
was and that's where we wanted to
(inaudible) of that information.
But we thought it was new news (laughing).
Nobody knew that there was a worry.
We were experiencing it,
we were the first ones to learn it,
but obviously we're on that.
[Sandra Enriquez] What did you do after you graduated college?
[Lorena Andrade] After I graduated from the university,
I came La Mujer Obrera.
I went to Los Angeles for a little bit,
but then I was able to come here to La Mujer Obrera,
and that's when I
started having a paid job here was February of '98.
[Sandra Enriquez] How did you learn about La Mujer Obrera?
What convinced you that this was your calling?
[Lorena Andrade] I liked the fact that it was women organizing for labor,
so that was interesting for me.
Then when I was hearing La Mujer Obrera,
that was the time before we had the social enterprises.
It was when the women were
getting laid off from the factory still.
We could be in a meeting like we are now talking and then
just 100 workers would just walk
in the door because they had just
received notice that they were getting laid off.
Because before, the factories wouldn't give you notice,
it was just that was your last shift
or the door wouldn't open,
and that's how you knew that it was gone.
It was around that time when they
were just getting laid off with no notice,
that's when I started.
Because that's very romantic to
me because that's what you want to
do protest and do that organizing.
That's what I had studied in Chicano studies,
I took it very seriously.
If I study Chicano Studies,
that means that you're going to struggle for your people.
This was seemed like a good place and it
was women centered (inaudible).
[Sandra Enriquez] Can you tell us about the history of La Mujer Obrera?
I know that have been part of it says
'98 and another is the longer history of it before,
but your interpretation of
what La Mujer Obrera
has done for the community, what it is.
[Lorena Andrade] La Mujer Obrera started in 1981.
The way I interpret it is that it was women who had
participated in the Chicano Movement like
Cecilia Rodriguez.
Then also, I think a couple of
women who had participated in the FATA Strike,
and that we understood that maybe the voice of women
wasn't as strong as it should be.
Maybe in the Chicano Movement and in the FATA Strike,
because the women in the FATA also
started their own women's organization within the union
because their voice wasn't being acknowledged
and the union was making decisions
without really informing the workers.
This is how I interpret it.
That's why they decided to speak (inaudible).
Also, because our vision had to be a community based,
not just fighting for a contract,
fighting for our rights and to get
paid in the factories and
our rights within the factories,
but also education,
of nutrition, health, political liberty,
peace, housing,
that it was broader.
As women, we felt we needed to
have a broader vision about what
the struggle to improve our communities meant.
That it was about our rights in the factory,
but it was also more than that.
Also we did a lot of popular education,
learning what are our places in
the economy and in history,
learning to have more of a critique of
the economic system was very important to
us because we're workers.
That focus was important that helped us when we
were analyzing what was
happening and buzzword helped
to see for in the long term.
For example, we knew that
the garment industry was going to leave and we knew it
had started to downsize
and we understood that it was going to
create things like sweatshops and so
we're ready in the battle in the sweatshops.
Occurred in the very early '90s,
late '80s or '90s.
That was, I think, and also a very important
stage for La Mujer Obrera
because when the women were not getting paid,
we would go and say,
we have to shut it down or we
have to take over the garments and pay
ourselves or negotiate with the boss, things like that.
After a while, the women were calling us and saying we
already took over the garments, come and back us up.
I think that it was important that women
were being able to take those actions,
understanding that there was
an organization that was going to be there for them.
Also, in here, we've taken big actions like we're
here on the border and it seems that we're very
separated from the National Rerun.
Nobody really seem to care whether
women were getting paid for working or not.
One of the actions that Cecilia and
the other woman took was to chain themselves to
the machines and one of
the sweatshops and that always brings us.
If we take actions that way,
it brings national attention.
[Sandra Enriquez] When was this?
[Lorena Andrade] The chaining themselves to the machines,
I want to say '91.
It's back there in a newspaper article.
At that time, they were already starting to talk about
the North American Free Trade Agreement
that was coming between Mexico and Canada.
Again, the women at La Mujer Obrera
and the (inaudible) were saying
this is going to be horrible for us.
We're going to lose our jobs just like the compass,
I guess were getting ready to say this is
a death sentence for the native people at Mexico.
We were saying that,
but it was very difficult for us to convince others,
whether it was unions or environmental groups or others.
There were some coalitions,
but nobody really believed us or they did believe us,
but who are we to have an analysis of the economy?
But we were just a bunch of workers,
but we were right.
When NAFTA came, we lost more than
35,000 jobs and that's
where we lost the garment industry.
[Sandra Enriquez] Aside from obviously the loosening of 35,000 jobs,
which is huge chunk of the workforce in El Paso,
what were some of the economic and social consequences
of NAFTA from what you understand and even now.
[Lorena Andrade] Well, the economy when it's changing to a new phase,
(FOREIGN) or they would say progress,
progress is not a good word first,
because they usually means that we have to
wear the consequences of
whatever they define as progress (FOREIGN).
When I tell you that we were fighting the sweatshops,
there were factories that didn't
pay the workers very much or didn't pay them at all,
but we also have like Levi's and the
FATAs that pay $10, $11,
$12 an hour,
and we're talking 40 years ago or 30 years ago.
I didn't know how far enough is the 40 years ago.
For our population right now,
that is a really good paying job.
If I had $10 an hour,
I feel like middle-class.
Because we don't have those jobs
that you could get paid an hourly minimum wage,
but it doesn't guarantee you the 40 hours.
Anyway, when we lost the garment industry,
it wasn't that we were just losing
jobs that didn't pay us.
The women were losing jobs and they were
already buying their homes.
They had mortgages,
had moved out of the (inaudible),
bought these homes, they
were sending their kids to the university.
They were living a different life than they had here.
I don't want to romanticize the time in the factory,
but they were also very good paying jobs.
They were very difficult jobs and they were getting hurt,
but they were stable and they were good paying jobs.
Two-thirds of the women that lost their jobs or head of
household and that's
your economic independence right there.
Those jobs, they didn't plan for those jobs coming back.
NAFTA promised that they would bring back
jobs that paid the same
or more than the jobs that we had,
and that never happened.
NAFTA and the economy,
there's entire populations that are just left over.
When they do their calculations,
we're not even in the calculations.
There's just entire populations
that are no longer necessary women.
Just like Segundo (inaudible),
if you see Segundo housing it
was structured for men that were going
to live by themselves and go out to the farms and work.
They were going to be laborers in our community.
If you see it here was designed
around serving the needs of the factories.
Don says, when the big firms don't need us anymore,
the factories don't need us anymore.
(FOREIGN). Why do
our neighborhoods aren't necessary anymore?
That's why there's no investment
in this neighborhood unless we fight for it.
Because what's the point
of having our neighborhood anymore?
We're just left out.
That's kind of one of the implications.
Then we lost our own economic independence.
Now, you have to work two hours here taking care of
an elderly person and then you get on the bus and
then there's another two hours.
All of a sudden, they were asking for GED and what else?
English. We never had to do that and we don't need it.
Practically, you don't need it here.
But those are some
of the things that they were putting so
that women were not having access or
like some other people are telling us,
the women you're working with are too old.
We only have 10 years of productivity lifted.
We have to invest in the young people.
(FOREIGN). We were too Mexican,
we didn't assimilate enough,
we were too Mexican.
We don't speak English, we're too old.
Everything that was just an excuse to
keep us out of the economics.
I mean, there's no place for us and
there's no reason to bother with us.
It's like the Chase Bank said to
the separatists coming to the government,
like it will probably be cheaper to go in there and
get them out than to invest in those communities.
Those are real practical.
If you see the world through their eyes, it makes sense.
It doesn't make sense to us.
That's why at La Mujer Obrera,
we've always had to battle about
what does progress mean in our community?
What does a community mean for
the women workers of El Paso or for this community?
When they talk progress,
it usually means that we are the ones who have
to suffer the consequences so that others can benefit.
Just like the factory benefited from our labor,
we created the wealth and
others have been whole part of the city that's
living off the wealth that we
created while our communities are abandoned,
and then the women themselves are abandoned.
We have to be able to continue to
struggle against the economics
that are being imposed on us and
try to still be creative and create
something different in the wake
of the distraction and after cost.
[FEMALE_1] You mentioned that a lot of women
garment workers would be able to make
$10 an hour or more (OVERLAPPING).
A lot of money in comparison to their jobs.
Does the organization have numbers
about like in comparison to other jobs and
other wages that people would make in comparison to.
[Lorena Andrade] I'm sure we had all that information when
we were right in the middle of that battle.
I don't have them in my head.
[FEMALE_1] Yeah. I was just wondering
because I think that it is even today (OVERLAPPING).
[Lorena Andrade] Because the minimum wage was like $4.
[FEMALE_1] Yeah. Even today, do you have a $10,
$15 minimum hour job,
is still a lot for this community.
[Lorena Andrade] Yeah.
[FEMALE_1] What were some of the efforts
that (FOREIGN) in order
to attempt fixing the destruction of NAFTA?
[Lorena Andrade] Well, a lot of the aftermath
of the free trade agreement was,
before we always have proposals,
we always have a critique and saying this is what's going
to happen with the economy and this
is what we think should happen.
Before the garment industry left,
we have entire folders like a Plans this way that
we were trying to convince the garment industry
to keep some other jobs here,
but we've always done things like that.
When NAFTA passed, like I was telling you,
the NAFTA promised two things.
One, that they would bring back
jobs that paid the same or
more than the jobs that we had lost.
Also that we would have a right to go to retraining,
what they call retraining schools.
We had a right to go to
study another career or another career path,
whatever the words that they would
use so that we had the opportunity to go to school.
But even if 80 percent or whatever
the statistics are now 85 percent of
the population of El Paso's of Mexican origin.
There was not one bilingual
vocational training school in the entire city.
There was nowhere for us to go to school anyways,
because most of the women did spoke very little English.
If we hadn't protested and we hadn't say, hey,
this is what the treaty said,
nobody was going to say anything.
They were just going to have the women just ran out of
their unemployment and a lot of the women
didn't even know how to ask
for unemployment because they'd never been without a job.
Because you worked in these factories
forever (FOREIGN) and not a lot of them.
Some of the women we had to
convince them that it wasn't welfare.
But they had already worked for unemployment
because they felt like (FOREIGN)
it's like (FOREIGN) this is you
worked already in place that when you lose your job,
there was a lot of struggles also too.
That's another thing that we had to do is like,
I think it was about in '97
that they blocked the international bridge.
The women blocked the bridge,
like Guillermo and the women blocked the bridge.
That was to bring federal attention
because we were again,
it was that same type of thing like we were saying.
We were losing all of our jobs in the city,
just didn't seem to react to it and they didn't.
They had all these plans about how to
improve the international bridge and how to improve
commerce and everything that they define as
progress while we were just left behind.
Women are invisible on the border
(FOREIGN) that's what NAFTA caused as well.
If we were invisible before and after cause
that they could murder women in quarries,
and we could lose all of our jobs.
It didn't seem to have any impact
on the Government's further.
We had to block the international bridge
to be able to bring a national attention.
That brought money, like I think that time we
brought $45 million into the city.
But all of these resources are just getting
funneled to the city and the city
that doesn't care about
women workers and that they see no need for this.
All of a sudden whereas before we didn't have schools,
now we had over a million schools popping up
because wanting to serve the workers,
because there was all this money to be had for it.
But then the city had to figure out how
to disperse all this money in
the state because we
had demanded it rather than it's like,
hey, here it says that there's resources.
If you lose your job because of a NAFTA agreement.
Then all of a sudden there were a lot of schools,
there were schools like (FOREIGN),
which is a rec center, where the basketball court is,
that was a classroom.
There weren't even real teachers.
It's like how we would say
, you're walking down the street.
You want to teach the workers.
(laughing) It was very degrading and it was
horrible because you have 18 months to learn English.
Let's say you have a sixth grade level education,
formal education.
Then you had 18 months to learn English, get a GED,
and learn a new career in
18 months with a teacher who isn't even a teacher,
you can be stuck Eskimo and bodega.
Like if you were just
because you are dollar signs, right?
It's just like 30 workers in a room and
all these little schools were getting all these money
and your time would run out and that's it.
It was a lot of like crisis and a lot
of depression and things
like that that the women had to go through because
the whole propaganda the entire time
is that when we would go protest they were like,
Oh, they just don't want to work.
They just want to get money from the government.
These are women who have worked since
they were 16 or before in a factory rather.
But it's that part of the propaganda about
our community that we don't want to work.
That's totally logical because
if we do anything here on the border
is offer labor (laughing),
but not throughout our history.
That's why it's been recruiting
center for the entire Southwest for a reason.
[FEMALE_1] What were some of the psychological and personal problems
that women had because of losing their jobs,
because of attempting to go to a school
that was not really preparing them.
[Lorena Andrade] A lot of the women,
you could probably ask the women themselves.
There was also people started losing their homes.
They had to get their kids out of
the university because they couldn't pay for it anymore.
Just horrible things like that.
Some other women had to move in with
their kids because they
couldn't afford to pay the rent anymore.
Just horrible things like that.
Then nobody wants to hire you.
Everywhere it's like the doors are closing.
(noise) If you have a little bit of an economic base,
you can move around a little bit and
this just shut everything down.
I think people really don't understand
the impact of when an economy and when
the city and entire says you are no longer necessary,
you are worth nothing.
But then the women were getting that message every day,
whether you were at school,
whether it was presenting to
the City Council or to the state government.
It was just this constant message that
we were fighting a losing battle.
We're fighting to have a place when they
had already decided there was no place for us.
But you can ask the women themselves
about the personal effects.
[FEMALE_1] You mentioned earlier that
the unions student or some unions to understand or
some other organizations did not really
understand the crisis that
was going to come after in NAFTA.
Then we have some opposition for the city.
What were some of the biggest opposition,
problems that you've organizing throughout this time.
[Lorena Andrade] I think about the unions,
Guillermo probably has more of a direct story about
what that was because I was doing just a lot of
the calling the protests and doing all of that.
I was there negotiating with them.
What is happening now with
the Transpacific Partnership and all of these things.
I think the government like Clinton
and what it says me (OVERLAPPING), Al Gore.
They passed the free trade agreement and they
convinced a lot of worker organizations,
probably not the worker centers,
but a lot of other different worker organizations
that they were going to respect the rights of
workers and somehow they
were going to write it into the treaty that they were
going to respect the rights of workers
in Mexico and the rights of workers here,
which didn't happen as you can see.
(laughing) Then I think they convinced a lot of
the environmental groups that
they were going to care for the environment.
We've seen the devastation that it
has caused here and in other trade agreements.
The devastation that it has cost to the environment and
to women specifically heard about over the world.
The rights of corporations are a priority.
But I think a lot of the organizations,
I don't know if they received some kind of Concessions.
What is the word? They receive certain promises.
Because I think that with the unions we
could have fought to keep the jobs here.
Now everybody is saying by made
in the US and support workers.
But how many years after NAFTA is it better worthy when,
where was the Levi Union?
There was a union in Levi,
where were they when we're
telling them and demanding for them
to support the workers so that it wouldn't shut down?
I don't remember seeing them.
[FEMALE_1] You're saying larger unions like
National Unions did not (OVERLAPPING).
[Lorena Andrade] I don't know, that's my analysis, right?
But I'm here stuck in the board and we
don't have a lot of union presence here.
You can go ask them. Where were they (laughing).
[FEMALE_1] When you came in the 1998, correct.
That's how it started actually be hired.
What were some of your responsibilities
and you mentioned getting people out?
[Lorena Andrade] My responsibilities when I just started in
(FOREIGN) is that I started taking what
we used to call cases.
The factories would shut down and in order
to receive NAFTA benefits as they called them,
the worker had to be registered as
being laid off because
of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
(FOREIGN) that the factory would tell the government,
"I'm shutting down and I'm moving to
Mexico," (FOREIGN) and that they had
to report that and then they would send the list
of workers that were their employees.
Then all of those workers would then be NAFTA certified
and then we could put them into the school system.
(FOREIGN) We could get them registered to
receive the benefits to go study,
(FOREIGN) and to get a check every couple of weeks.
Because you would get paid for your school,
but you would also receive a check in the mail,
like an unemployment check (FOREIGN) or
its equivalent after it was over.
But the factories wouldn't do that.
Part of what I had to do was I had to
be able to convince three workers
to put their names on the petition,
on the (FOREIGN) on
the application and I would send it to the government.
Then they would certify the workers in that factory and
then we could begin to negotiate to get their funds.
You would get your unemployment check,
sometimes the checks wouldn't arrive.
It was just this constant battle with the state to say,
where is the money for
the workers they have to pay bills.
It's like the workers would say,
"They say, wait for your check,
but our bills don't wait,
(FOREIGN) and our mortgage isn't waiting."
It was a lot of just dealing with that or
like 100 workers would get in and then
this one worker wouldn't get in
(FOREIGN) it's just helping that work
get through that process.
Then we had 13 weeks from the time they were laid off,
to getting them into the school or else they
would lose all their benefits.
It was a lot of bureaucracy that we
were having to organize around and take cases.
That's why there's a difference between the
organizing outside to get rights for the workers
and all these things and then how just
taking the cases would consume our time
(FOREIGN) because we were dealing with individuals.
The way I would do it is just make
a huge list of all the workers who
weren't getting a check,
(FOREIGN) and then have a protest at the TWC,
at the Texas Workforce Commission.
If I had a list of 500 workers,
then we would call all the workers or I would do that,
and then we would just get them and just
take over the TWC offices
and just demand that they give us the checks.
What the hell? Where are they?
We would do things like that.
Then other bigger things like blocking the bridges,
we liked blocking the bridges,
blocking the bridges or having different protests,
or going to visit the politicians in Austin saying,
to not deal with those specifics but
more of a general like what
is the plan for El Paso (FOREIGN)?
We need bilingual vocational training. This is our plan.
It was like a broader strategy
as well as having to deal with just the everyday that
this worker needs to eat and she doesn't have her check
(FOREIGN) and she's got three kids or whatever.
Is that combination that I had to had to do.
We had established school committees.
For example, there's a school in Eastlake,
or there's a school in San Jacinto.
Just different schools. Like I said,
all of a sudden there was a bunch.
We would have worker committees
in several of the schools.
They would inform us also
about the different things that were happening.
What are the new strategies?
Things like there was
a school that we would call the English only,
although it was called the American Institute of English,
I think it was that one.
(FOREIGN), But they're like,
"We're going to teach those workers to speak English."
They hired a bunch of soldiers and they had them
standing up just repeating phrases in English.
Because they were going to teach those (laughing)
Mexicans how to speak English.
Ridiculous strategies like that (FOREIGN).
Or you had teachers telling the students
that teach the workers would
say (FOREIGN). Can you repeat it again?
(FOREIGN) You're just a Mexican,
you're not going to understand anyways,
and you've got this timeline.
It's like Mexican schools all
over again except for adults.
The humiliation and the Mexican schools try to
steal your culture and your pride and who
you are and just do that.
It was like that level but for adults.
But then also nobody
is really focused or paid
attention to how degrading that is,
or how humiliating that is (FOREIGN).
How is just all fraud.
Again, we were bringing resources so that
others could benefit (FOREIGN).
[Sandra Enriquez] What were some of the organizations efforts to regain
that dignity that women
workers were losing here in El Paso?
[Lorena Andrade] Well, for us, it was,
how do we get some of those resources
and build a future that we want here?
What is our proposal about
what we want our community to look like?
(FOREIGN)
There is no bilingual vocational training in El Paso,
I don't care what you tell us.
What the women are experiencing, it's fraud (FOREIGN).
Working with, I think, John Hopkins University,
and we were working with
other professionals like that
too and we would go to the city and present.
(noise) This is how we feel
like we can implement
bilingual vocational training (FOREIGN).
When they would tell us, "Well, you are just a bunch
of workers, what do you know?"
We had our list of professionals and
university people that helped us develop the plan.
So like I said, we would always say this is wrong.
This is what we think the solution is,
like (FOREIGN) has always done that.
But internally it was
what do we want our community to look like?
We would have these meetings with
the workers to not only say,
this is what's happening in the schools
or with education or with jobs,
but also what do we want to replace it with?
The factories are gone
and what do we want to leave behind?
Do we just want to do activism forever?
Although we still have to do activism,
it's a way of recruiting workers and women
and keeping the system at bay a little bit,
but also what do we want to do?
That's when we decided to do
some of the social enterprises.
(FOREIGN) The building that we're
in here, they wanted, I think,
to make it a halfway house for prisoners,
when you get out of prison.
But the women started
protesting outside saying, "Hey, that's our building.
We're going to use it for our ideas as women."
(FOREIGN) It wasn't ours.
There was no paper that said that,
but we claimed it and then after that,
we were able to negotiate resources to be able to obtain
the building and to renovate it,
and to start a restaurant.
Way before, the workers
had drawings and different ideas
that they wanted a daycare center,
or that we wanted a restaurant.
Before we would say that, it was a way
to bring women in to learn, on-the-job training,
whether it was in
the daycare center or in the restaurant,
because nobody would hire us,
because we didn't have any experience
in anything other than factory work.
This was a way of the women
starting to get some experience and then
hopefully moving on to other jobs.
Or starting their own daycare centers in
their homes or things like that.
That's how we would explain it to get
resources to be able to fund it.
But also it was like,
"How do we promote our culture?
What are we learning about cooking?
How is cooking resistance?
Why is it important that women are still
feeding their children (FOREIGN).
To be able to create a space where we could
serve food that was more nutritious
but based on our culture (FOREIGN) is also important.
That's something that's been evolving (FOREIGN).
That's something that we've been learning about.
For example, the generation of the workers before,
it was just like,
"We want to promote Mexican food because we are
Mexican and because we're proud of that." (FOREIGN)
But now if you talk
to some of the newer generation of Mujer Obrera,
they're more like it has to be nutritious.
If we can grow it ourselves and it's local and its
indigenous to our culture.
The more we go back to our traditions
the healthier we're going to be and how does
that translate at the table and (FOREIGN)?
Why is it important that women continue to cook?
That we resist all these notions
that as women we shouldn't
cook or that we should just buy
processed food or things like that.
It's evolving in that sense.
[Sandra Enriquez] You guys have open a farmer's market, correct?
When dis the organization
have this idea and when was it start?
[Lorena Andrade] We've had the idea for a long time.
But (FOREIGN), when we turned around,
there was no one growing food in El Paso,
(laughing) nobody's growing food anymore.
We started talking to
some other local farmers and they were like,
I'm not going to grow food, there's no water.
Labor is too expensive
and (FOREIGN) and things like that.
Then finally we're able to find a couple that were still
producing at least chilies and (FOREIGN).
We were able to get little piece of land.
(FOREIGN) We started to grow our own food.
The very little bit of what that was,
we would start selling at our farmer's market,
but it's not a farmer's market like
New York or anything like that,
but it was something that we were able to get.
Once it became a little bit more.
Now it's more common to talk about that then before.
Then, we have other organizations
that are starting to also do it.
Now there's more farmers markets in
El Paso and things like that.
Now it's a little bit easier. But for
us, we have a right.
For example, if women workers,
if we just say we have a right to know where
our food comes from, it doesn't exist.
As women, we have to go fight for the land,
go look for seed that is not GMO and all that stuff.
Learn how to plant our own food, grow our own food.
Then we can say I know where my food comes from,
but there's no infrastructure for women here.
When the factory is left,
our neighborhood doesn't have a library,
doesn't have schools,
it doesn't have a rec center
like nothing that is social structures,
whereas where then. It was all factories.
If we have just a very simple idea,
we have to start it from the beginning.
We have a right to know, we want fair trade.
If they're NAFTA is obviously unfair trade (laughing),
we want to have fair trade,
but how do we do that?
We had to look for resources to help develop
a network of indigenous women at the centers in Mexico,
we had to start our own import company
in order to be able to import the (FOREIGN).
Now we can say that we have some fair trade going on.
But like I said, we have very simple ideas and
maybe I'm not saying
that the infrastructure doesn't exist.
It exists obviously,
trade infrastructure exists, obviously,
food system exists, but does it serve to serve
the interests of our communities? No, they don't.
We almost have to start from the seed
(laughing) to be able to
implement those plans so that we could have that right?
(FOREIGN). We have to be creative.
Think about how we're going to
do it and then do it ourselves.
Like if I want to import
(FOREIGN) the import companies in the border,
they want a million of one thing.
(FOREIGN) doesn't work that way.
That's they might be a million things,
but they're all different or they're similar.
We had to start our own import company,
so we had that kind of control and that we were
able to import (FOREIGN) as well.
The women, we also
say we have a right not to not migrate.
One of the things that they told us here,
who are you? You're women workers.
What's your place in the economy
because you're a factory worker,
you have to pay attention,
look where the factories went
and then follow the factories.
To us, this is our community.
We don't want to leave. We have our family's here,
we have a history here.
Then the women in Mexico,
the ones we work with are also saying the same thing.
I have a right to not migrate,
have a right to stay in my town,
sustain myself based on my culture and my community,
and continue to sustain my family in that way.
(FOREIGN). It's a mutual
(FOREIGN) like we're supporting
each other in that way as well.
Like the women from Mexico
and here because we're both suffering
the effects of NAFTA and the free trade agreements.
Indifferent, the way we've been affected is different.
But that's why we also have these discussions amongst
ourselves in the past to learn from each other.
Because to the economic system,
we're just a bunch of Mexicans.
[Sandra Enriquez] You mentioned that at this time,
that you sell here in the Bastrop.
Where are some of the other social enterprise things
that you do within (inaudible)?
[Lorena Andrade] The other social enterprise I
think is one that I think that
we have is our daycare center
and that's like down the street.
The daycare center was also started at
around that time and to get resources for it,
we were saying that some of the women wanted
to have their own daycare center
because we set up a little school.
In the the school,
we were learning how to run a business,
how to do a business plan, things like that.
But when the women workers said we would like
to start our own daycare centers,
(FOREIGN) who is going to lend them money to do that?
That's what the women workers
themselves said nobody's going to lend us money.
We have no experience in running a center
of our own business.
We've been taking orders like you had to ask
permission to go to the bathroom in the factories.
All of a sudden you're in charge of a business.
(laughing) But that's what they had the idea also of
saying what if La Mujer Obrera
establishes the daycare center.
We learn how to run it there,
and then from there we'll feel more competent.
We'll have more experienced to
either get employed somewhere else
or some of the women
started their daycare centers in the home.
But that was part of the original ideas,
like I said, as more women
come into the organization, those vary.
Now it's a little bit more
like how are we going to raise our children?
How do we see preschool education for our babies?
What do we want that to look like?
Well, we want them to be more exposed to nature,
we want them to have a childhood.
We want them to play and learn while they're playing.
Just the different styles of how we say, I need a job.
Now it's more like what is
our proposal about how to raise
our kids as women workers,
or women here in the community. Just like it was here.
We have to learn how to run a business or a restaurant.
But now it's also more
are these foods traditional to our culture?
Are they native? How much of it is local?
How much more do we need so that it's still nutrition,
but it's just the ideas
are changing, not changing, (FOREIGN)
[Sandra Enriquez] You mentioned that La Mujer Obrera
sounded important to maintain culture and history,
what are the efforts that
the organization has taken to continue
to advance Mexican-American history
and culture aside the restaurant? (OVERLAPPING)
[Lorena Andrade] Well, for example, here
we learn about our culture through cultural events.
Like we'll have a (FOREIGN) Festival or (FOREIGN).
Then (FOREIGN) that is our personal,
like my personal family for
that micro or whatever they call it history.
Our history of our families
is important in this neighborhood.
But also we'll have altars
for maybe some of the Chicano activists,
have passed away, we'll always have space for them.
Then also like Emiliano Zapata who's a (FOREIGN),
so there's altars that are personal and family
but there's also history that
we add into our altars as well.
Then we always decide on
a different state that we're going to learn from.
Because even if a lot of us are Mexican
and some other women here were born in Mexico,
they've never been further south into (FOREIGN).
So it's our way of learning about
Michoacan and the food
and the history and the women there.
Or if we decide Puebla,
then we learn about the food of Puebla,
the women, and the struggles of the women in Puebla.
It's a way of bringing in like a cultural event and
we invite everyone from the city to come.
It's an open event to the community,
but also how do we learn from that.
That's how we've been
learning about all the different foods.
Now so we've been interviewing some of
the women and trying to record some of that,
but it's very difficult to maintain
those records and to maintain our history.
But we do feel it's important because,
the city right now it's as if
the women workers never existed,
like we didn't exist.
If we don't record that ourselves,
that history is gone, it's gone with the women.
[Sandra Enriquez] What about the different exhibits that you have?
[Lorena Andrade] The exhibit right now, I guess exhibit,
but what you see back there
is what is the practice of (FOREIGN).
I think when we battle with
the city or the city is always
like you all don't know how to run a business.
For example, a restaurant here,
they're not going to say that
our idea is not a good idea.
They just don't feel like we should be
the ones to be running it.
(FOREIGN) in the exhibit that we have there,
that's why it's not structured as a business,
because our goal is not to have
the most successful business restaurant
on earth or here in El Paso,
it's to say, what is our collective practices, women?
What are we creating and what are the women workers
going to leave behind for the new generation of women?
So what is our collective practice?
What are we discovering as women?
How are we creating community?
How are we hopefully creating
something that is an alternative
to the economic system
that we're living under now
and we're suffering under now?
That's why, when you see the part of the daycare center,
it doesn't say it's a social
enterprise business, it says,
this is our practice in raising our children.
This is how we see our education for our children.
When it's cooking is cooking as resistance,
it's not Cafe Mayapan social enterprise
(FOREIGN) the fact that we're still
serving tortillas and calabacitas.
It's trying to explain
a little bit about the history of La Mujer Obrera,
but also, what is it that
we're trying to create as women?
What does that identity look like?
What are we creating in place of the destruction?
I know it sounds very broad,
but it's a very real and it's a very difficult struggle.
I think some of the people would say,
I would understand you when you would fight
the boss because we're poor,
we're victims of whatever,
but now when we're saying as women,
we have a right to implement our vision,
that's when we feel the backlash,
that's where we feel the pressure.
So we want to be able to work,
but we're always holding off
the system from trying to come
in and take us over. (laughing)
[Sandra Enriquez] How many women are currently involved in La Mujer Obrera?
[Lorena Andrade] We have about 15 employees and then we have
a Familias Unidas which is
our neighborhood organization that's about 40 women.
But we work with the entire community or right now that
they're trying to shut down
our schools, things like that.
Then we have another committee
of women who work in community garden.
Before, we used to have committees in
the factories now we have
committees in the different areas of work.
[Sandra Enriquez] Can you tell us about what Familias Unidas is?
[Lorena Andrade] Familias Unidas is a Barrio organization,
it's the community organization here.
Right now, they're really doing a lot of investigation,
a little bit of research on
the contamination because we're right
here by the international bridge,
so we have a lot of diesel trucks
and a lot of recycling,
and all the trash is put here and goes through here.
They wanted to study about the effects of that and having
one of our schools right in front of a recycling area.
Then also all the diesel trucks that are passing by.
That's what they wanted to concentrate on and
they doing some of that work right now.
But also, the school district announced that they
wanted to shut down schools in our neighborhoods.
That's another idea I was telling you about progress.
Progress means there's more investment on
the west side and that they shut down our schools.
Who's dealing again with the consequences
of supposedly improving education on the border?
It's our own communities.
Right now, we're organizing around that.
[Sandra Enriquez] This is in El Paso Independent School District, right?
What was the reasoning for shutting down?
[Lorena Andrade] We don't have enough students.
But I think it's okay for students or
if our babies go to schools that are not overpopulated.
I think it's logical. (laughing)
[Sandra Enriquez] Historically, schools in South El Paso or
South Central El Paso have
been overpopulated for decades.
What is the alternative
where are the students going to go?
[Lorena Andrade] They're going to get bussed to other parts of the city.
But we feel like we deserve education here in
our own community and that
instead of taking away structures,
we need to improve the structures that we do have.
For example, there's a school,
I forget what it's called out in the West side,
that they're going to invest more money in
science and math programs I think.
One of the women said, "Well,
they have a good science and math program,
shouldn't we invest in where they don't
have all those resources, which means our school?"
But that's always part
of the discussion and always part of
the negotiation about what
our ideas as women are of progress,
then what their ideas are,
and they don't usually coincide.
[Sandra Enriquez] If you were to estimate,
how many people are currently
living in the Chamizal neighborhood?
[Lorena Andrade] About 6,000.
[Sandra Enriquez] Six thousand, okay.
You mentioned earlier that (FOREIGN)
they created the tenements to
house agricultural workers in here.
They tell me Sal you have more towards factories.
Then you said that there was no social structures,
thus La Mujer Obrera partner with other organizations
locally or the organization itself
attempted to bring social structures.
[Lorena Andrade] Yeah. That's all we've done,
we are fighting for a community center
so we're able to get,
we still negotiate with the government.
You're able to get the community center in
the banned election that we had in the past,
so there was resources designated and we were able to
get the city to buy a Levi factory,
which we thought was nice to renovate
the Levi factory and make it into a community center.
We'll do things like that.
[Sandra Enriquez] (inaudible)
[Lorena Andrade] It's just a few blocks down.
It's where the old Levi building was
on Cyprus and Piedras.
But it's also these buildings like
our community garden (FOREIGN)
daycare center, this restaurant.
How do we make those into community centers?
As we'll have more control as women to
figure out what that is because it's
not just about somebody giving us something.
It's our right as women to have
that collective practice and
create the alternatives that we
feel are necessary for
our community (FOREIGN) which is a little different also,
before we would say
(FOREIGN) one of the seven basic
needs (FOREIGN) fights for.
Before it was interpreted
a little bit like freedom of speech.
I can go yell at the mayor all I
want (FOREIGN) They'll come down on us, but I can do it.
(FOREIGN) But well, so
how we redefining what political liberty is,
is do we have our right as
women to implement our vision, ourselves?
That's where we don't, we feel we don't have that right.
That we have to fight for it every day,
for every space in every minute
that we want to liberate in order to have
this creativity and to have our proposal
(FOREIGN) We have a right
to health (FOREIGN) or nutrition.
We could be like,
we need a food bank (FOREIGN) or things like that,
but we see it like we have
to grow our own food and we have
to cook our own food
(FOREIGN) How much of that
is in control of our community?
Or how do you differentiate that
from services that the government
should be giving and they don't?
We have that combination (FOREIGN)
[Sandra Enriquez] This is a tricky question.
I'm enjoying the very much gender empowerment of women.
Maybe like a rhetorical question.
Do you think that if, let's say La Mujer Obrera
was run by some men even though they're Mexican men,
do you think that they would have more opportunities,
more victories, and those city governments?
[Lorena Andrade] Well, you have La Fee. La Fee is
run by a man. (laughing)
[Sandra Enriquez] (OVERLAPPING) Do you think that being
a Mexican woman's organization not that it hinders you,
but it presents challenges
because of sexism and discrimination?
[Lorena Andrade] Yes. Obviously, the answer is yes.
(FOREIGN) I think it's not only that,
but it's also these
alternatives that we're trying to create,
that are a little bit hopefully outside
of that marked system
(FOREIGN) Because I could
run this as a restaurant and it's just a business.
If I only see it just as a business,
as a training center, I could have more money.
But no, we have to
complicate our lives and we want it to be
creative and a collective space for women and we want to
promote our indigenous background.
We want to be able to study (FOREIGN) our history and
create an alternative that is different from a factory.
(FOREIGN) I could run this as a factory and it
would make a lot of money, but we don't.
We want to create new social relationships
amongst ourselves and we want to do all of these things.
If I had just a daycare center and I
just wanted a house,
children, and create jobs,
I could do that too, but no.
How are we going to raise our children that is different?
What are we going to offer our babies
so that they understand that being
good in math and science is part of who we
are and learning through nature?
(FOREIGN) It's all that creativity
that there's no funding for.
If we would just settle for
taking the path of the system and just training
workers and getting the GDs and learning English,
there's resources for that.
There's no resources for women to be creative.
That's the difference. (FOREIGN) It's also gender.
But it's also this whole creativity part
in that we want to create alternatives for our community.
That's where there's no funding,
(FOREIGN) that's where we get accused like, oh,
you all are poor always because you don't know how to run
a business and you don't know how
to write grant proposals.
(OVERLAPPING) If I want a grant proposal for
job training for poor women on
the border because I'm sure we can get it.
We've gotten in the past,
but is that where we want to go?
Not necessarily. (FOREIGN) Yeah
, (FOREIGN) has a lot of money,
but that's how they chose to
struggle and I respect that win, we respect that.
I'm sure the fact that he's a man
and can be buddies with other people,
I don't know if I should say anymore.
It's good (FOREIGN) That's
his strategy and he's been very helpful and they've
been very helpful to the
(FOREIGN) to the families there and there's
other organizations that do
that (FOREIGN) We support them any way that we can,
but as women workers here,
we've decided that our battle is a little
bit different and that we want to
take the risk and the challenge to create
something different (OVERLAPPING) therefore,
we have no money. (laughing)
[Sandra Enriquez] What are some of the current struggles
that La Mujer Obrera is facing?
The lack of support from the government and all that
[Lorena Andrade] The struggles for us are also,
how do we create something
different when we don't have a memory of
anything other than factory and Barrio relationships.
(FOREIGN) We want to be collective and democratic,
but how do you do that?
(FOREIGN) If we're coming from
the survival of the fittest in the factory
and all of a sudden as women,
we don't have a boss and we're going to work collectively
when we don't have a memory
of working collectively anymore.
(FOREIGN) Those are, I think that
the deeper challenges more than preparing a plate of food
is if we're trying to create a new way of
working with each other and creating
an alternative to the economic system.
Then how we do that when
we have no history of doing that is very difficult.
[Sandra Enriquez] Do you have any questions?
[David Robles] I had one.
[Lorena Andrade] Have it. (laughing)
[David Robles] Thank you. I had one.
There is something you said very early on the interview
about the Chicano movement,
but they thought that it was a romantic way
of protesting for rights.
(FOREIGN) When you're learning these things (inaudible)
How do you think
the Chicano movement is seen upon nowadays
by current student scholars, teachers?
Do you think that it's been romanticized
over too much that the struggles
are dim down but
just the protests are there but not the struggles?
[Lorena Andrade] What I mean by romantic is that
when I got out of the University,
that's what I could see at that time.
(FOREIGN) I could see
the protests and I could see a bunch of
youths from the different schools
and I saw that in the Chicano movement.
I read about (FOREIGN) I read
about the history with Rudy in Occupied America,
and that's why I mean like that's their romantic notion.
I didn't (FOREIGN) he
does tell you a little bit about
the everyday work (FOREIGN),
but you don't see that,
(FOREIGN) you don't see
all the background work that comes along.
That's what I mean by that romanticized part,
(FOREIGN) It is something that I didn't see.
That's something that when you begin to work in
an organization that is a long-term organization,
that's when you begin to learn about
(laughing) the non-romantic part.
[David Robles] The question is, I'm trying to ask, what is written?
Does it do justice to what's really happening?
You know what I'm saying? You've been
in Mujer Obrera for how many years now?
I'm pretty sure from what you read and when you were in
college is a lot
different than what you are experiencing.
[Lorena Andrade] Yeah. But I feel like I pride myself
and we as an organization pride
ourselves in studying other LUCHAs.
I hope that La Mujer Obrera is
a continuation of what the Chicano movement left for us,
(FOREIGN) and that we're being
respectful of that struggle and that
we're hopefully building in
a creative way what they taught us.
Because we're not making anything up.
They had community gardens
in the Segundo and they were fighting
for nutrition and they were fighting
for all the things that we're fighting for.
It might look different now,
but I hope that we're being respectful and building on
what the teachings that they left us.
In that way, to me,
I see all of those books and all of that history
has information to guide us in our struggle.
(FOREIGN) Do I think that people
interpret it in that way? Probably, no.
(FOREIGN) I remember being
with a university classroom and they were saying,
well, there's no struggle anymore
because they see it as a mass.
Like one leader coming up to save us like Sir Chavez.
I see it is like we have a lot of leaders like
look around and we might be
battling it out every day (FOREIGN) and it
doesn't look as romanticized as it was in the past.
The fact that I think that
the legacy that they left for us is that
the struggle is
an everyday struggle (FOREIGN) and it's not.
We can't sit around and waiting for a leader to show up.
I think that's somewhere where it gets misinterpreted,
(FOREIGN) waiting for the next
Sir Chavez, when in reality,
if it wasn't for all the women
organizing around him and all the communities organizing
around him (FOREIGN) I think
that part of the history is not spoken about enough,
so that now some other Hispanics, as I call them,
are able to focus on one man
and not our people that were doing
the organizing and that were having
to deal with the sacrifices of
that work (FOREIGN) If you get one individual,
you could clean them up
and then they serve your needs like Sir Chavez
fights all the Hispanics could
be middle-class or whatever,
(laughing) however they choose to interpret it
in Santo Chavez (laughing)
I think that when people
interpret our history in that way,
they really take away from
all the women in the Segundo that we're
the ones at the hunger strikes and doing
the campamentos and doing all that.
That's why I really like about the history of El Paso,
that we don't have this one icon that is coming up,
but that we can really see how it was family's doing it.
But I think that's
really pretty about when we were talking about
the Chicano movement and learning about
the history of that part that we were seeing,
that it was families and it was
women and the youth, just random youth.
What youth are you waiting for is they were
just kids just like you at school.
(FOREIGN) (laughing)
[David Robles] That comes into the next question I have about leaders.
I guess you answered
the question because we usually really
asked within the movement and nowadays or if it exists.
You foresee a leader or
any leaders but I guess answered that question.
But I want to ask
how can you see
the community comprised of so many individuals,
women, men, children, and youth.
How can you see them overcoming
that whole notion there has to be
one leader for there to be a difference.
[Lorena Andrade] That's the tough work and because we don't have,
like I was saying, we don't really have
a history of working collectively.
Everything is very individualized the more
the system takes more of our time then
the more individualistic and the more consumer-focused
we become better so that's a constant struggle.
That's why we have to do things
like immediate impact organizing.
A lot of the people
from the community they're not going to say,
we need a right to know where our food comes from.
They're not going to see that they're going to say
the trucks are running over our kids.
We do actions like that.
They want to shut down our school,
will do actions like that with
the idea that we'll be able to recruit somebody,
some of them for the longer-term battle.
It has to be a permanent organization
with the vision for the future.
As many people as hopefully we
can recruit to that long-term vision.
Because that's the goal,
but is it difficult? Hell yeah?
Because we're talking about
a lot of internalized oppression
in a lot of ways of and because
your immediate needs are always more
important than that long-term battle.
How many people can you convince that this long term
and that it's possible to
create an alternative is very difficult.
We ride the waves, when
the workers were getting laid off, that's a wave.
But you always have to have that long-term vision
of what's going to happen when that wave is gone.
(FOREIGN) Those are just waves that come and go.
But what does our long-term vision
and how are those people going to contribute to
the long-term vision while you have it and how
many of that can you retain.
Until we are able to be big enough and have enough of us
that the outer community can
see a more of a consistent practice.
Hopefully, it'll be easier to convince
people that an alternative is possible.
That's why I said it gets complicated because
if I just want to create jobs
for (FOREIGN) If want to be a job agency (FOREIGN).
Then how many kids do you want to
create a university that's important,
but if you're just handing
over your children to the system.
It's a slow strategy to have our kids be educated,
but can you convince them to continue to
struggle for their (FOREIGN)?
That's something that we learned from
the Chicano Movement definitely.
[Sandra Enriquez] Final question for you.
I like that this project has been able to provide
an opportunity to say that
the struggles of civil rights continue today.
El Paso had a very (inaudible) Chicano movement.
But the same time,
these struggles like La Mujer Obrera are not very recent
but they're still continuing like
the struggle never ends too. Put it like that.
We're trying to put these interviews up our mind right?
Hopefully, you're going to be accessible not only by
researchers but also by community members.
Let's see that someone is
interested in helping out La Mujer Obrera.
What help does the organization need from communities,
not only here in El Paso,
but in Texas and around the country,
but you feel that will be
beneficial for the organization?
[Lorena Andrade] That's always a difficult question
because more than anything,
we want to challenge people wherever
they are to create alternatives for their community.
To not only question the immediate like,
I need to give food to my people,
let me start a food bank in order to do that.
But really what do I have to create,
or what do we have to create as
a community so that
we no longer need the food banks. Does that make sense?
I don't know how else to explain it.
What is the longer-term vision for our community and
to really make a decision?
What is my idea of progress?
What is our idea of progress?
It's always going to be
an opposition to what the system is saying too.
Challenge ourselves wherever we are in our communities,
whether we're Mexican or not,
to create an alternative to what is now.
(FOREIGN) The more of us that are promoting the vision,
the easier hopefully our work will be,
and the more easier access to resources we will have.
Like I said, there's no funding for
that kind of work or not a lot.
There's different people who
are willing to fund that stuff.
[Sandra Enriquez] What are some of the community partners that you have
(inaudible) you mentioned some professor (inaudible)
[Lorena Andrade] There are several organizations
here that we are always in supportive of
like the central Campesino.
We've always seen that it's like Campesino (FOREIGN).
Together with a more or less the same economic analysis.
Which I think that economic analysis has
really united our battles and we see it as one.
There's the Border Network for Human Rights.
There's organizations out in the colonials.
There's other organizations like La Mujer Obrera.
Like I was saying yes it's a restaurant,
but it's also a meeting place for
different organizations that don't
have this kind of structures.
At any one time there could be a dancer group,
there could be another women's
organization that is meeting here.
They use it for their space.
The artists use it to perform
the theater or music, poetry.
That gets also gathering space and
because they understand that it's an open space for them,
that they can come and meet here and they have the stage,
they have meeting room areas.
La Mujer Obrera is really open in those terms.
Or if they have an idea of just about any event.
They understand that this is
a place where they can hold that event.
[Sandra Enriquez] Do you have any concluding remarks for your interview?
[Lorena Andrade] I don't think so. (laughing) I don't know what else to
say other than women have
a right to work
collectively to implement our vision
for what we want our community to look like.
We have to battle for that too
even if it doesn't make sense to the outside world.
But we have a right to do that and I think
that's something we learned
from hopefully the Chicano movement
and from the different worker struggles that we study.
[Sandra Enriquez] Thank you very much.
[Lorena Andrade] (FOREIGN)