SOMOS LATINAS

Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists by Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez shares the powerful narratives of twenty-five Latina activists who have worked for community change in Wisconsin. The stories are drawn from interviews conducted as part of the Somos Latinas Digital History Project housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society. The book also includes the authors’ analysis and in-depth exploration of key themes like the activists’ role models, support systems, motivations, and risk-taking. The following excerpt features the Wisconsin Latina activist Maria Rodríguez.

Maria Isabel Rodríguez was born in Milwaukee on September 11, 1952. She became active in community organizing efforts at an early age through her involvement with the Latin American Union for Civil Rights as an education advocate. She became executive director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission in 1990 and became a founding member of Latinas en Acción, a philanthropic fund of the Women’s Fund of Greater Milwaukee, in 2003.

Ethnic identity: Mexican.

Do you consider yourself an activist? Over the course of my life, yes.

How do you define community activism? A person who advocates for more resources. There are many ways to do this. As I have aged, my ways of advocacy have changed.

Areas of activism: Education and cultural knowledge advocacy.

Location of activism: Milwaukee.

Years of activism: Early 1970s, starting right after high school.

Activism after High School

I was pretty young when I became aware of the social unrest in Milwaukee’s Latino community. I was hired part-time by the Latin American Union for Civil Rights (LAUCR) in 1970, while I was a junior in high school, for their Bilingual-Bicultural Education Program. The organization was involved in many civil rights causes affecting the Latino community. If Latino members were trying to organize a strike or a walkout or something of that sort, LAUCR was likely involved. They wanted better enforcement of civil