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Welcome to Salud.

Celebrating South Texas Latino leaders.

I'm your host, Melanie Mendez Gonzalez.

On this episode, we're stepping up to the dais to meet two women who decided to lead by getting involved in local government.

Plus, an inspiring Latina who went from teaching to life coaching.

Salud.

Starts now.

She was the first Latina to be elected to a city council in a major Texas city.

Maria Berriozobal representing San Antonio's west side from 1981 to 1991, when she ran for mayor.

Although she was narrowly defeated, she continued leading, working for social justice and human rights.

She is a legendary Latina who paved the way for many young women today.

I served in.

Public office in San.

Antonio, Texas.

My name is Maria Antonietta Berriozabal and I am a long time community activist.

My journey to becoming the first Latina elected to the San Antonio City Council in 1981 starts with my ancestors, with knowing the history of my ancestors and being from a community that is very active.

So this is my view.

This is 1980, and Henry Cisneros decided not to run for mayor.

So I decided, with the help of many friends and family, to launch my campaign, just because I believed that we needed to be responsible for electing our own and not have outsiders come and represent us.

I represented district one, and actually it was the first time that we had had a single member district elections, because before that we had at large and our neighbors could never get elected.

I was raised in a family that was very aware of our surroundings.

My father taught us to be good analyst of the world around us.

What's happening?

Who's doing what?

I saw class differences.

I saw social differences.

I saw financial differences.

And I became very interested in what's happening, what was happening around me.

In fact, I wrote a book and it's called Maria, Daughter of Immigrants, where I grew up seeing things that were not right.

I don't think at the time I said they're not right.

Like when it rained, we had a lake in our backyard, and we thought it was fun, you know, to go into the lake in her backyard.

That was wrong.

That those were drainage issues, issues of class and issues of poverty.

I didn't see that because we we had what we needed.

But then as I grew up and started seeing other neighborhoods, you know.

Well, then it's this is a poor neighborhood and I can do something about it.

When I think about reaching a certain milestone, for example, getting elected to City council, actually being the first Latina to run for mayor, I didn't win, but I walked and I had a really good campaign.

When I think of that, I think of structural differences that we have.

I was born in a community that was, given less, educationally, financially, it is like I grew up in, in a world where you are sort of to be less, I mean, that made me, like, say, no.

I mean, everybody's the same.

God made us all his children.

And I'm not less than anybody.

And my daddy used to say, you're not less than anybody, but you're not more than anybody else.

so it's just an ethic at home.

I don't think it's something I discovered, as an adult, it's like an ethic of service.

an ethic of being honest, an ethic of, being part of a community and one very proud of being a Mexican American girl.

Very proud of my Megan on this.

and that's because my parents were proud of their culture and the music and the traditions and the the fiestas and the food.

and I was just a proud Latina.

All along the way, there are obstacles.

there are obstacles today, of opportunity.

people who are going to help you of having money, of, being a woman.

Things happened in 1980 and in my campaign that would never happen today.

You know, people actually printed things about, a woman running that they would never print.

Today I ran, for city council with, I think, four opponents, four men.

And, I got into a runoff with one, one man, and they had money to buy ads and stuff.

We didn't have that much money, but this, gentleman bought an ad that compared me and him, the opponent, this this, I did this.

My opponent went to a private school.

I went to Lanier High School.

The opponent married an outsider.

I married my childhood sweetheart.

My opponent doesn't have children, so she's not going to know how to deal with issues of children.

That would never happen today.

We paved the way.

So it was hard in many ways.

culturally, Latinos, I believe that I had to work with after I got elected were not ready to work with a Latina, you know, like, how do you how do you do this?

I ran for mayor because for ten years I had been going against a system.

I voted against Applewhite.

I voted against Fiesta Texas.

I voted against the Alamodome.

So people will say, don't vote for her because she voted against everything that was important.

Losing the mayoral race, was difficult.

And I think it was difficult because after ten years on the city council, I really bonded with my community.

And then when I lost, we lost and I would say they would I meet them at the grocery store.

I saying, you're upset of emails.

You know, we lost.

And that was hard.

There were no political mentors for me, per se.

I didn't know any women who had run for public office before I had mentors, so if I can call it that in my family, in having women that, as far as I can remember, worked hard, struggle, did miracles with what they had.

They were strong, active.

The history of making Latinas active in their communities is, oh, it happens a lot.

As far as, mentors, I had women, business women who took time to include me to show me, to embrace me in the community.

One of them was Lucy Escamilla.

she's the woman who founded the Mexican American Business and Professional Women's Club in 1972.

And that was my first opportunity at leadership.

You know, the the lessons that people give you sometimes or tough love, you know, it's not, oh, honey, you're going to do this.

I remember Mrs. Escamilla, named to me as the public relations chair of the.

And maybe P.w.

And I would work really hard to get the press to go to our meetings as there were little meetings.

And she said, we have to get the press here, so I would get television and newspaper there.

So one day we had a very important meeting, and there were two television stations and two newspapers.

And when it was over, she said, is that all you can get?

Just two television stations and two newspapers.

Next time you have to do better.

And I said to myself, Will you just watch next time?

And that was her way.

she knew I could do better.

So it's people taking out of you what they see, and that's the talent.

Us with a great hair.

What are we going to leave behind to our children?

I think we have an obligation.

Those of us who have something to share, to give to young people and and have them run with it, you know that every young person you see, if you got to be council woman, man, you can be mayor, you can be Senator, you can be, the owner of your own business.

and we have the eyes to see.

And sometimes young people don't have the eyes to see what they have.

So it's our obligation to to tell them what we see and the hope that they are to us.

But I say, first of all is know yourself.

Know yourself so well, know where you came from, know on your shoulders you stand and know your history.

That's who you are.

And that's important.

Once you know yourself, when you go into that system and you see a lot of other things, maybe not what you want to use, you want change the the dangerous that you become like and you lose yourself because to to to fit.

And when you really know yourself, you say, I know who I came from, I know what my responsibilities are.

I know what my dreams are, and nobody's going to take that away from me.

I'm going to continue to be me no matter what.

I'm 83 years old, proudly, and along the way to be told that you're open doors or that you're a trailblazer.

first, you don't think of it when you're doing it.

You're just doing what you need to be doing.

You're doing something that's difficult to do.

But then when kind of in your last years, people start telling you that, you kind of say, wow, I mean, that's that's good.

That's a good thing I did.

And to acknowledge the, the other trailblazers who are my Miami guys, my friends, my mothers, and that we women who are now in our 80s, late 70s and 80s, particularly as Latinas are a generation that opened up doors for the younger women.

And that makes me very proud.

And you make us proud, my dear.

Thank you for all you've done for our community.

Up next, another Latina taking charge at City Hall this time in the town of Floresville.

Marissa Jimenez is finding her way through the challenges of local politics, but she is emerging as a true leader.

My name is Mighty city manager.

I am City council woman.

Place one for the city of Floresville.

Also, Mayor Pro Tem, I am also the president of the Association of Hispanic Municipal Officials for the State of Texas, and I also sit on the Texas Municipal League as a director for their board play.

Growing up, I didn't really see this as, oh, I'm going to do this one day.

you know, went to school, left to go to college, came back, and I noticed that my city was just as I left it after I graduated high school.

I think at the time I had said, well, if I'm going to be living here for this amount of time, I would want to see a little bit more.

And the only way of getting that accomplished was for me to actually step up and do it myself.

So I, started asking questions and found myself applying for the economic development Corporation for the city.

And I was appointed.

So I served for, five years on the EDC.

But then realizing that the real decisions are going to be made in council chambers.

I, decided to run for council in 2018, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Yeah.

No clue.

And then when I decided to run, I realized I didn't know the first thing about running a campaign.

So I got in touch with, former Senator Letizia van depute, and she lit a fire in me that just pushed me.

She didn't say, you need to do this, this and this.

She asked the right question as to why.

Tell me about what your dreams are.

Tell me about what you want to see, and let's talk about how to make that happen.

And it gave me this completely different perspective of I'm not doing it because I want to do it.

I'm doing it because I need to do this for everyone else.

Who, when I was elected, at the time, I was the youngest, Hispanic, like, female to be elected ever.

And we were an all Hispanic council at the time, and that was the first for the city.

and currently we are predominantly Hispanic and predominantly female.

right now.

so it, it does kind of show people that we are, here as a Latina, you know, we, we are just as important as any other race.

And we do have a mark to me.

Growing up, I was very shy, very quiet.

I actually had a speech impediment growing up.

And my parents didn't even know that we we didn't know until later on.

And in my educational career, I think it was in middle school when they said she actually has a speech impediment.

That's why she doesn't speak up.

So this is what will be on the agenda tonight.

I am the kind of person that will listen, but I'm also the kind of person that's going to be prepared.

And so I'm thinking about our meetings.

You know, we get our information.

I do my homework, I look at it, I study, I ask questions ahead of time.

and everyone I know is already and they probably roll their eyes any time the mayor says any comments.

And I'm the first one to raise my hand and say, mayor, I have a question or have a comment, and I'll speak to every single item on that agenda or ask questions, because that's my job.

I would say that just this last year, I did experience a lot of opposition, to some of the ideas that I had.

or maybe I was in opposition to the majority of what was, on the table, so to speak.

And, and that's okay.

because it you're not always going to agree to everything.

I felt okay at the end of the day because I still came forward and spoke my mind and spoke, on behalf of my constituents.

When I got reelected this, time around, after a minute at my swearing in meeting, I emailed the city manager, the assistant city manager, the director of public works, and they said, I have two years left, and I want these things to be accomplished because we've been working on them.

And it so it's setting it up to ensure that projects are going to be completed, even though I may not be sitting in that seat.

Like we were talking about.

If you do want to get involved in your city, if you're wanting to get involved in local government, come to a meeting, go to our meeting, listen to what is being discussed and if you have questions, ask them if your questions aren't being answered, ask again your progress.

If you're wanting to start somewhere, start by showing up.

And then if you're feeling like those individuals in those seats are not accomplishing what is needed for the city, then I would say, then that's the time for you to step up and do it.

You know, there's that stereotype of, Latino women being docile and having to be the woman in the home, raising the children.

Right.

That's your old stereotype.

It's not like that anymore.

You see, women business owners, you see, single mothers working, raising their children.

You see, women with careers.

I mean, it's it's not the way it was when my parents were growing up.

And it's neat to see all of this shift in how women are supporting other women.

And that may not always happen.

And sometimes we bring each other down and we have to come back and remind ourselves, this is where we started and this is where you want to be.

So prove it to me.

Show me that you can do it.

If you want someone to agree, or at least consider your idea, you need to, be respectful of each other and sit and listen and learn what they would like and use that to help you get to them and say, I'm going to work with you on this, but I'm going to need your help with this as well.

Our community is changing.

You know, I lived here, grew up here, graduated, said.

I'm never coming back.

This is a small town.

I don't need this place.

Here I am, and I am actually making this a place that people would want to come back to.

From government leadership to leadership coaches, let's meet a woman who helps others break through roadblocks and find their own power using a traditional Mexican symbol, Jessica introduces us to Laura Saldivar.

Luna.

Our guest today is the amazing Laura Saldivar Luna.

She is a Latina entrepreneur who has taken her life experiences, her life skills to inspire others.

So I must ask because in this company, because you are a life coach for Pina, the possible.

Yes.

So how was it that a female became an analogy for what you do as a life coach?

Oh my goodness.

The pinata has been a personal mascot and an inspiration for me for quite some time.

Started likely when I was very young and pinatas were always in these moments of joyful celebration.

But it's become for me now a philosophy for the infinite goodness that is within all of us as human beings, and the power of what happens when that goodness is fully expressed and shared with the world.

And I often tell people when I'm coaching them that sometimes it's those very tender cracks, those parts of us that we think are the most sensitive.

Those cracks are the opening to the next and new possibilities the next and new growth.

And if we allow ourselves to look at those cracks, we can open and be fully expressed in ways we never knew could be possible.

So how was it that you got started as a life coach?

Well, prior to becoming a coach, I spent a whole career in the field of education and executive leadership.

And so in doing that work, I learned a lot about how to step into my own power, how to find my own voice, and how to use that voice in service of others in service of the broader community.

But I wouldn't have said back then that I was self-confident.

I think I actually had a lot of self-doubt along the way.

Every time I stepped to a new edge, it felt like there were new big questions to confront.

And so that little pinata that really did become a mascot for me in my own leadership of let's just break through, let's take all the breakdowns, let's take all the things that feel like they're falling apart and turn them into the moment where we transcend the previous form and step into who we really meant to be.

And as you and I remember well, as children, that a pinata was something.

Here we were blindfolded.

Yes, people were twirling us around, and there the pinata was teasing us over our head and someone else was pulling the strings on that pin.

So consequently, were, you know, we were blessed just swinging wildly.

Absolutely.

In a way that I guess that's kind of like life sometimes.

Absolutely.

Like life.

Sometimes we have to step into the unknown, do things in the dark and have to feel into it, have to sense where we are, find our grounding, find our footing.

And sometimes it does feel like everyone is watching as we are in those tender moments as well.

Why is it so difficult for many people to achieve those breakthroughs?

I would say the answers are always within us.

Oftentimes we're clouded by our conditioning, our past experiences, because our brains are very, very smart.

They learn from past experience and past pattern recognition, and they teach us when things are no longer possible because we've seen evidence of them not being possible.

Or maybe we haven't yet seen evidence out in the world of something being possible.

So our brain tries to protect us.

Our body tries to protect us from the things that feel impossible.

And so I do sometimes find that when we're working with people to clear away all that conditioning, clear away the inherited burdens that keep us from reaching as high as we possibly can, oftentimes we see the answer was always.

They're always there, waiting for us.

Be it in your professional life, your personal life, or, as you mentioned, your leadership, your management skills.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Sometimes it it helps to have a trusted partner who can sit across from a leader and say, let me hold up that mirror.

Let me offer you a quality question so that you can guide yourself to those answers that are there, waiting to be discovered.

And you don't be defensive about it when someone brings that to your attention.

I guess that's also because we're human, and oftentimes we don't take criticism very well or direction very well.

So again, I guess that's something else that we need to break through.

So then what was the best piece of advice you ever took, and perhaps what was the advice that you regretted not taking?

Well, the advice that I regret not taking was the advice of my father, who told me when I was going to college.

So I was the first in our family to graduate from college.

Big family goal for us to to achieve that collectively.

And I remember he told me, you're in college, take a business course.

And I told him, I said, I'm not really interested in that.

I don't know if that's necessarily what I'm good at.

And he said, but take a business course so you can be good at it.

And so I don't think I would have found, I would have known back then that I would have ended up running my own organization, starting my own business, and being an entrepreneur.

And so now I look back and say, I should have taken more of those classes.

Like he said, always honor the wisdom of those who have come before you.

I've learned that.

Lesson.

So what's the best piece of advice that you've gotten?

The best piece of advice for me has been the answers are always within.

My mother told me how to cast a vision for possibility, even if it's never existed before, and to know that the map, the guide it's already within it comes from those who have come before us as well to just trust that intuition that's there.

It's a knowing that sometimes speaks quietly, but it is always there speaking if we're willing to listen.

That's very true, very true.

And again, it's a matter of being able to accept the truth that sometimes may be hard to accept.

But what happens if you don't see?

I think there's something else we have to ask ourselves.

Well, if I don't, where is that going to leave me?

That's right.

And one other thing.

Sometimes we tell ourselves, oh, well, I know that.

I know it all can sweat.

Just when you think you do.

You doubt.

Yeah.

And that's where you have to be open to a life coach.

How do you know when you need a life coach?

Let's end with that briefly.

Well, I would say no one needs a coach yet.

Everyone deserves a coach.

And I find that when I work with leaders, they know that when something calls to them, when there's a next level that they're trying to access, but something feels like it's in the way something feels like it's impossible.

That is typically a sign to reach out beyond yourself and say, who can I enlist the support of to help me break through to a new level that might be beyond the scope of what I've ever achieved before?

Thank you so much for showing us that, yes, a pinata will show you what is possible.

Laura Saldivar Luna, thank you so much for being here and bringing your little mascot.

Oh, thank you so much for the invitation.

Thank you for having me.

What a beautiful conversation.

Thanks, Jesse.

That's a wrap for this episode of Salud.

Thank you for being here.

We'll see you again next week to celebrate San Antonio's Latino leaders on Salud.

Now, Ve mos.