Latina Leadership Quotes

Fear is the currency of Control, it is how the people in power control your behavior

Walking in nature has been the answer to all my problems and once the trees remind me of my humanity, I'm at peace

the truth is we are all horrible bosses at some point and we must dance with that truth with ease and grace and be gentle with ourselves

We can look to Mexico, where a vision for social change has been powerfully affirmed by the Maya people of Chiapas. They named their vision "Zapatismo," in memory of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and startled the world with an armed uprising on January 1, 1994. That day, and ever since, the Zapatistas have posed the basic problem: how to establish both identity and democracy? How to achieve a new life of dignity for indigenous people while also creating a Mexico of justice for everyone? Always the Zapatistas have said they do not want one without the other. At a 1996 meeting of Chicanas/os with some of the Zapatista leadership, Comandante Tacho began his presentation by saying: "We don't want power. What we want is decent homes, enough to eat, health care for our children, schools." At first I thought to myself: how can you gain those things without power? Then I realized that by power he meant domination. The Zapatista vision does not find the answer to injustice in the replacement of one domination by another, but in a vast change of the political culture from the bottom up that will create a revolutionary democracy.

I must also underscore the important contribution of Latinas to Hispanic preaching. It is common to see Hispanic women in the púlpito, both in Latin America and in the United States. In part, this is an unlikely by-product of the racism that otherwise tainted missionary endeavors in Latin America and the Caribbean. As missions grew south of the border, missionaries were forced to delegate ministerial duties. Given their initial reticence to entrust pastoral work to locals, male missionaries usually turned to their wives and to single female missionaries. Unwittingly, these women became role models. Church members grew accustomed to female leadership in the local congregation and female presence in the púlpito. This led the second and third generations to appoint women as misioneras (lay preachers) and pastor as (local pastors) even in denominations that traditionally did not ordain women.