What I've learned is that it's a that we have to be more organized and we have to provide more support for our Latino and Latina community members who may be interested in running for office or who are just community leaders. And we could inspire them to think about running for office, like, shift their mind to consider themselves as like valid candidates to run for office. And I think we're trying to get there through what Los Cien is currently doing with the bridge program. I think that's a start, but it's not the solution. It's part of the puzzle, and I think we have to invest more confidence into our Latino community to realize the importance of stepping up into these leadership roles and that their voice matters. And them just being there on the dais really does matter.

Hello. Welcome to. We're the Leaders. We're looking for a podcast from United Way of the Wine Country, produced with tech support and direction from Brandt Hoekenga and TIV Branding. We are here to share the voices of our neighbors, changemakers and everyday leaders who are building a region rooted in belonging, resilience and justice. And I'm Lisa Carreño. I'm president and CEO of United Way of the Wine Country. Thanks for joining us. And let's get started.

Welcome, everyone. To We’re the Leaders We’re Looking For. Are you ready to level up your leadership game? Meet Herman G. Hernandez, community builder, advocate and ultramarathon runner of the civic engagement kind. Herman leads Los Cien Sonoma County, the go to Latinx leadership hub, driving bold conversations and real action because real change starts with courage and honesty. I'm proud to have joined Herman's dad, Herman J. Hernandez, nearly 16 years ago. We were in the back room of the downtown Santa Rosa, Mary's Pizza Shack, along with dozens of other Latino leaders who were all asking ourselves, where is our community and leadership? How are the decisions being made that drive local policy and resource allocations? How do we lift our communities, experiences and wisdom to better inform these decisions and shape them for our community now and future generations?

Los Cien's name was inspired by my mom's neighborhood in West Tampa. She grew up on West Kathleen Street. This casita was one of the original 100 houses built by cigar factory owners in West Tampa in the late 19th century. This was to lure workers from Ybor City's bustling cigar manufacturing business. 100 households to establish a new community and new prosperity for the workers and for their employers. We adopted the name Los Cien because we were committed to building a movement, building bridges to understanding, belonging and a big inclusive tent under which we got to experience how truly interconnected our lives are. In this episode of We're the Leaders We're Looking For. Herman gets real about what it takes to create change that lasts pushing through fear, building belonging, and dismantling limiting narratives about ourselves. About Latino identity and about one another.

From learning to love. Public speaking after hating it to calling out systems that cause harm. Herman, chair stories that will make you rethink what leadership looks like in 2025 and beyond. If you've ever wondered how to turn discomfort into growth or why representation matters. This conversation is your blueprint. Spoiler alert it's not about being perfect. It's about showing up, staying curious, and doing the hard things with love. Listen now and join the movement.

We've needed to break up our conversation into two parts, because it was so rich and runs a bit long. So hang in there with us. Listen to part one with a favorite beverage and a snack. Let it digest and sift into your DNA and your soul. Then come back for part two. You won't be disappointed, and I promise you will see yourself throughout each and every aspect of our conversation. It's worthwhile listening. And I'm certain you'll be inspired.

All right, well, Herman G. Hernandez, it is my great pleasure to invite you to engage in this conversation with me. Here on where the leaders were looking for. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to talk with you in this space and have this kind of conversation, because we never have conversations like this. We kind of have conversations around conversations like this. But I to have the intention to make this time together is just really cool. No, I thank you. Thank you for creating this. This is an awesome opportunity to get to chat and talk about leadership and community. And I appreciate you creating this space. This is awesome. Yeah. I'm well. Thank you. What story of your life reminds you why you do this work?

Before I answer that question, I also want to thank you for just being a iconic Latino leader in Sonoma County, because you have been and a good role model for other people who are getting into this work to know what it's like to have a lot of different running shoes, because you've been in this ultramarathon for your entire career, and you continue to stay engaged and involved. So whatever it is you're doing to rest and rejuvenate and re-energize is something that we can all learn from. But you're when it comes to Latino leadership in Sonoma County, you're like at the you're on that mountain of faces, you know, on the Mount Rushmore because you've been here as long as I've known Latino leadership in Sonoma County. And I just want to say thank you for your leadership, I admire it. I see you, and you also have this leadership component that is unique. Not everybody has it, which is the kind of spiritual side. And very sage and like wisdom. You have a lot of wisdom in the way you deliver your messages. It's a very unique, approach to leadership that I admire. And I appreciate, and I just love working with you. And thank you, for creating those in because I wouldn't have a full time job right now. But a story that reminds me of why I do what I do. It comes in different shapes and forms. And usually, when I was, when I was reading the questions, I realized, I don't like bullies. And what I mean by that is a lot of my dad's lived experiences and racist remarks or things that he had to deal with where he used to say the word shine it on like he would try to ignore it and just move forward. But I got to hear all of those, and that really kind of lit a fire under me to get more involved and kind of try to build confidence, to be able to speak truth to power and, I continuously hear stories in this position from different community members who are experiencing some sort of racism or derogatory remarks or this organ that this person said this and they don't have the platform or the courage. I don't know what word to use, but they don't want to like, confront the person. And it's not about confronting the person. It's about confronting the issue. And I feel like I hear so many different types of stories. It happens in boardrooms, executive rooms, not just I'm not talking about farmworkers or kids in high school or first generation migrant come from migrant families. I'm talking about like people who have also been here for a generation or two who are older than me. Sometimes that experience these things that really fuel why I do what I do. And it it comes down to the fact that I have always, played sports my whole life. And I didn't like the team camera, the camaraderie, the the team element of building your team and working together and having each other's back. When our weakest links were being bullied at school, I was always a person that would try to like defuze the situation. I was, and that's kind of how I feel like I've gotten involved with those corners. I'm not really out there advocating or speaking, but I'm listening to people and trying to figure out how can I bring this issue up in a way that isn't going to be like punching physically? But figuring out metaphorically, how do we address this issue that's leading to this harm that's being created for some of our community members? I know that's kind of a vague way to, answer the question about a specific story, but really it comes there's so many different stories that I hear that I try to like, figure out how can I present this mainstream and figure out how we can come up with a solution?

I appreciate that it it takes a lot of, emotional presence and vulnerability, I think, to permit yourself to listen so deeply to people who are in pain, you know, to be a sincere witness and and really understand how an offering comment can cause so much harm, and then decide, I'm going to get in the middle of this because I want to bring healing. Not only to the person who's been harmed, but also to the people who are causing the harm. You know, you're not trying to meet fire with fire. You know, it's your approaches. You know more to illuminate and to help make peace. And unfortunately, it hasn't always resulted in that. And a good example is what happened during the pandemic with the Black Lives Matter and the Sonoma County Alliance, where you were hearing things from community members leading up to the pandemic of like, oh, there's certain things that they do. They're just not for me or there's racist tendencies or they've said smart remarks that are derogatory towards Mexican farmworkers or things of that nature. So you kept hearing that, and then all of a sudden there was like, the All Lives matter statement that was just kind of a complete PR just, disaster for them. At that time, I reacted because of all the stories I'd heard, and I just kind of reacted very quickly. And, somehow became the spokesperson against the alliance when I wasn't trying to be against them. I was just trying to say that what the culture that they have is, is in totally ingrained with the white supremacy culture. And that got me in trouble for saying that publicly. So a lot of the leaders from that organization were not very happy with the way that I was approaching it, but I also didn't think that the press Democrat or the media was going to kind of elevate me as the spokesperson against the Sonoma County Alliance, and I don't regret what I said, but I, and I'm happy to see that they've really tried to change their organizational structure, and they've taken a lot of the community feedback and criticism strongly. But the way that I that's a story that does is a good example of, they weren't technically bullying people, but they there was certain experiences that people were having with the organization that you couldn't just go straight to them and say, oh, what's going on here? It had something like that where they kind of exploded and made that huge comment about All lives Matter at the wrong time for me was an opportunity to kind of react, which I probably shouldn't have went about that way, but it is a story that definitely reminded me of why I do the work that I'm doing, and I could approach it in different ways.

Yeah. Live and learn. Yeah. Well, thanks. I think that. We can all look back on experiences like that and be hard on ourselves. I remember many years ago being in, a conversation or maybe even a retreat setting where those of us in or in attendance were being encouraged to be ourselves. Now, looking back on our younger selves and and looking looking on our younger self with compassion and kindness. You know, with a view toward accepting that, like radical acceptance that we're doing the best we could with the resources that we had at the time. And and we've grown from that. And in fact, I've been thinking a lot recently about how we grow the most from the most difficult of our lived experiences. And, you know, to mine those experiences, I mean, there are things that I find myself reflecting on from, you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago that I'm still learning from, and to look back on my younger self with, with kindness and compassion helps me make peace with my younger self and embrace and accept my younger self, and, and use that experience to do what I do today.

When you, when you have. When you have look back on your life, And you've had to pause and listen deeply and see with new eyes. What situation has made you do that? Like, look back and and. Go, Let me. Let me reflect here for a minute and and see what I can see that maybe was invisible to me before. I think this is another one that I could relate back to sports, because sports for me was a lot of my upbringing. And I think losing in sports is like the answer to this question is, you learn from the mistakes you made as a team and you like in football, you could watch film and actually see what you did. But in other sports that I played in high school and college, the coach was telling us what we needed to improve and how we needed to improve. It. Unfortunately, in real life we don't have like an actual person. That's our coach. But I think that for me. It's similar because, I'm a very ambitious person, as you know, and sometimes, like, I like what Angie Dillon short. So she's like, I'm a recovering perfectionist because her perfectionism is always like forcing you to think negative, negative it negatively about yourself kind of to your point of like looking at your past with compassion. And I've been trying to learn that. And that's something I've actually heard you say so many times that I've been trying to approach the way that I reflect with compassion and not like trying to be negative and nit picky. But I think the work lotion does and just in general, the way the type of person I've always wanted to be is a person that's trying to be open minded and, trying to bring both sides together to talk about issues. And that requires that in my role, was executive director of the OCN and a Latino leader in Sonoma County. You have to be able to see things with new eyes, and you can't be. The the your ideas of stuff cannot be set in stone. There has to be flexibility and you have to be able to adapt. And that's something that you learn over time. I believe in that. The more wisdom you gain or the older you get, I think you can get better at that. But I've also noticed certain people that don't want to change the way that they do things that might be better for the whole community. But for me, losing in sports is an excellent answer to that question because you never just walk away from a loss. You learn what you can from the mistakes you made, and then you kind of move forward and try to apply what you learn in the next game from the mistakes you made in the last game. Yeah. Do you remember a particularly painful loss or loss? Oh yeah, I missed I missed the patty. What is a classic run? I was the kicker my junior year, and it's. You score a touchdown and then you kick the extra point. I missed that, and we lost by one point. If so, I remember that one. I got benched. But another big loss was having too much confidence going into my junior year of football and not getting to play at all, and then quitting at the end of the year and not not wanting to play my senior year. And then coach Tony Size pulled me aside at school one day and he's like, Hernandez. Yeah, I heard you're not going to play next year. Like you have a lot of potential. Like you just have to try harder in the weight room. You have to do this, this and that and you can be a starter and all this stuff. And I was so I had already lost. I had lost all motivation to want to keep playing football. But then because of that conversation, I thought about it and I prescribed to his recipe of summer weightlifting and stuff. And then, learned from the mistakes that I made my junior year of being too confident and being like, oh, I'm really good. I don't need to do all these things. A coach is saying to, oh, I need to listen to the coach and adapt. And and they get better from what they're trying to coach me to do. And then I became an all league tight end, second team linebacker and all the punter. And I was like, because Coach Size pulled me aside when I had already decided I wasn't going to play the next year, and he randomly found me. And that changed my senior year completely playing football. That was like the best year ever. What else did that change? That conversation with Coach size? Well, it's changed the way that I do things. It taught me discipline. Coach size was a marine, and that's the way he coached us. He was very hard, but there was so much discipline learned in the way he coached and what he had you do. And one of the things I learned was I was undisciplined in the weight room. I was just doing whatever I could because my natural athletic ability had got me to where I was. And I'm not going to do I'm going to be great at linebacker. I'm going to do this. No, no, you got to lift weights. You got to run, you got to train. You got to do what the coaches is telling you. But the discipline part for me is something that I'll never forget for my football coaches. And it's like the training was so difficult. How they forced, like, mountain climbers, bear crawls, all the things that they would make you do if you made a mistake or if you weren't like, if you're goofing off. I still goof off, don't get me wrong. But like, the discipline from football was something I'll. I'll never forget. Wow. I loved every day. I love that I see that in me. By the way. I see your discipline. I see your focus. And I appreciate it so much. I feel very lucky that I get to watch you every day, I really do.

So what practices help you stay rooted in your values when the world feels overwhelming? I don't know. That's the one that I honestly need to pay more attention to it. I'm not sure. I think a big one that I notice I feel a lot better, in my body is being around people, like just going somewhere that I'm not working and I'm just hanging out with people at some sort of mixer or like, it's not work related, like just people re-energize me and like, that's a huge thing. It's almost like I'm taking their energy. Your classic extrovert. Yeah. Extroverts recharge around other people. Introverts recharge on their own. But yeah, I feel like I'm both in that. I'm. I'm, I'm I got in I talk about this all the time because I'm a Gemini. I mean, I was born June 8th, but I'm also like into being by myself. And sleeping. That's what helps me re-energize is, is getting extra naps. I never nap, but if I can sleep an extra 2 or 3 hours in the morning on one weekend, that changes like the entire next week. But I think I'm not a huge person on meditating. I'm not a huge religious person. Although I was raised Catholic. But for me, reading also helps me kind of distract myself from, what's going on and all the chaos. And, lately, my daughter, she's so funny and she's starting to walk and talk and say her personality's coming out. But just kind of, I think just what the usual the normal person does to try to decompress. And, the other big one is get off social media. If you're really having some mental health challenges, or life is extremely overwhelming because social media can really magnify that or multiply that. And I definitely have some good discipline around getting off completely from Instagram, Facebook. I'll just delete the apps off my phone. And then on the I don't even go on it on my desktop. So, well, what have you learned to love even when it's hard to? That is a great question.

Besides, my sister and I'm just going back. Just asking. What have I learned to love? I just want to say, Danielle, if you're listening to this, we love you. I love her so much. She's amazing. She's a unique person. She's a beautiful person. I love your sister. Very resilient and hard working as well. And carrying on our family tradition of selling homes. Hernandez Realty, if you need an agent. Guerneville, California. Yeah.

You know. Oh, you know what? I actually, this is totally honest. Another college story is I hated public speaking. I still hate it. But I've learned that in the job that we have, we have to be able to communicate to large groups of people, especially when we're talking about our values, our mission and our vision and the society or community that we want to live in. In college, I struggled significantly with public speaking. I had some horrible like, I don't know what it was, but I just didn't like public speaking. In my speech classes, I just vividly remember always having to sit back down and asking the teacher if I can go another day. And that was very demoralizing and super like, embarrassing in a class full of 30 people. And then when I went to San Diego State, my teacher was kind of like, ta ta. She would forget certain things. And my Rotarian family is not going to be very happy with this because it, one day she asked me, Herman, this was the final. She's like, did you do your presentation? And I said, yeah. And that she gave me a B-plus, and she believed me, and I didn't have to do my 15 minute presentation on opening a CrossFit gym, which I knew all about and I could've easily done. But I hated public speaking so much that I. I lied to her. Oh, boy. And then when I pledged my business fraternity, it's a coed fraternity. It was for women and men. And it didn't have to just be business. That actually changed my passion, because my passion forever was sports. That's what got me through school. That's what got me to school. That's where I started playing baseball at the junior college. And then about a year into that, I dislocated my shoulder a span of six times over a year. And coach nailing was like, you're going to have to get surgery on that, so you're out 18 months. So that kind of forced me to be like, okay, what the heck am I going to do with my life? And I still wasn't sure, but I went to San Diego with my friends, leaving Santa Rosa Junior College, join this fraternity. That was like a leadership program, and they forced you to do public speaking. They forced you to do interviews like this. You had to interview the whole active body. They forced you to do group presentations, write a resume, read an email. They they they talked. I learned so much from that fraternity that I apply in my real life. Then I did an actual the actual classrooms, but through the their leadership program that forced me to kind of push off out of my comfort zone of like, I'm never I'm not going to do public speaking. I can't do that to at least pushing through it and then realizing that it's really the first 30s of getting in front of people that are the worst. And once I get past that and I practice what I'm trying to present, I can do. So I've learned to love public speaking, even though I'm not a fan of it. Like getting in front of people makes me very nervous, especially when it's not a loss in event. Yeah, and I get asked to do a lot of mixing and. Yeah, not not none. Any keynotes, but mostly meeting eventually keynotes. I don't think I can get there, but yeah. So it sounds like you've learned how to love discipline and pushing through discomfort. Yes, 100%. And I do believe that putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, are one of the best ways to grow as a person. And I think that's one of the things that I did in that experience. And in the summertime with my football coach and training hard, pushing myself through that uncomfort zone and uncomfortable zone and, and then playing my senior year and excelling at my positions. But then in speaking, pushing myself through that because that could that's a barrier that that could easily. Yeah. Just completely pushed me to do something else career wise. And, and I believe that, there was a couple friends that really pushed me to join this fraternity, and one of them one time crumpled up my speech and threw it away right before going up on the stage to do our presentation. And I'm like, I, I didn't I was like, I didn't want to do it. But I pushed myself to because I was just going to read everything. Oh, well, that was probably a turning point. But yes, that's I appreciate see how you're great at tying things together. I just that's one of those experiences too, that I feel like you can go back in mind, like, you know, looking back on what happened when your friend gave you that gift, crumpling up your your speech and, you know, like, pushing you out on the stage. What what did you draw from deep inside to. Show up in that moment with like, like naked and nothing. Jeremy Brinkerhoff, he was my roommate, best friend. He's like, let me see your speech. And we're walking with our cohort of 20 students to go to our group presentation. And I had a roll. And he goes, just throws it. I'm like, what the like, what are you doing, Jeremy? And I was like, dude, you're going to be great. Just stopped using, your script. Just remember the bullet points. And that because he was good at it? Yeah, naturally gifted at public speaking. And I'm like, so I, I just pushed through it. I definitely froze, and I'm like, am I'm still alive. I could do this.

So you know that that our podcast questions have been inspired by Valerie cause work in the revolutionary Love project. And I know that you are a big fan of Valerie, cause, and so I'm curious, what does it mean to you to see no stranger in your work or in the community? Yeah. Valerie. I now have all three of her books. One of them signed for, for Nina the the children's book. But she did an excellent job at our state in the Latino community address. And so, you know, strangers to me is is about trying to get to know the other side. And like today's world, it's like right now it's Republican versus Democrat in our community. It's like people who are advocating for farm workers versus people who are advocating for the owners of the of the farms in the vineyards. Yeah. It's unfortunate that we have to be divided or playing a game against each other, but I think seeing no stranger is about understanding the people that you're working with. Or have differences of opinion and trying to find figure out ways to get to an agreement. But really it's more about getting to know the person, the individual, and doing a lot of what I thank you. My dad, Todd Mendoza. Who else is Sylvia Lemos? Oscar Chavez. There's a lot of Latino community members who go and reach out to to people that may disagree with some of your comments or some of our stances and, and, and meet with them and break bread and seeing no strangers is just that. It's like just because we disagree on an issue doesn't mean we could talk about the other 1 billion issues that we might agree on. And it doesn't mean that you're not invited to the table and that you're not invited to my house. So, like, I think it's about getting to know the individual, and understand why they believe whatever their position is on an issue or whatever their perception is on life. Why? Why it's being curious. Yeah. And it actually goes back to I think the foundation of this in is in the leadership that founded this, like you and my dad and other people, it's about relationships, building. You all spent spend so much time building relationships. A lot of people don't realize that. They just think, oh, you guys can do this, or you guys can. Why don't you say this or do that? And you're like, well, we have to talk to people before we make these large announcements or, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. I feel like, you know, because not everybody who listens to this podcast is going to know what we're talking about when we talk about this young Sonoma County that we should explain a little bit about Lucy in Sonoma County, too.

Oh, I would love to. You go. Well, these are perennials. One of our founding board members. She's an OG, but, Lucy in Sonoma County is an organization that convenes community members. And we talk about different issues and how it impacts our Latino community. And when I say different community members, I mean, like the business community, the ag community, the educational community, the government sector, schools, activists, advocates. People who are retired, high school students, college student like one of the greatest compliments that we receive all the time is when people show up to our events for the first time and they're like, you guys have a lot of different types of people here. I thought it was going to be like the business community, and I'm like, no, we're really like a dive for not just diversity in skin color and ethnicity, but diversity. And like our the work that we do that everybody does. And that's a more inclusive, more comprehensive, like small sample size of our, of the community we do live in and that's why the issues that we cover, which is any type of issue that impacts Sonoma County from the Latinx lens, and that's the types of conversations we like to have. We were started in back room of Mary's Pizza Shack in 2009, and back when they started, it was about proactively engaging people, running for office and elected officials to get to build relationships with them and get more Latino leaders to the table to engage and build relationships. Then it evolved into like, the Flamingo area, and we were hosting panels on immigration, entrepreneurship, education, health care access, access to parks. Like every like I said, every single issue. And we would host different panels, and the whole quite all the questions were designed around how does this impact or why is this important to the Latino community. And we've been around now for 16 years. We just celebrated our 16th birthday, actually on Sunday, November 2nd, the year we were, incorporated as a 501 C3 nonprofit or sorry, the day is November 2nd. But now this year we launched a program called the Bridge Program because if you're a Latino in Sonoma County and you're involved in the community, you will get asked, you know, 3 to 5 Latinx leaders or community members that might want to join my education foundation, my environmental nonprofit, my commission at the county or city. And we can only give five names before they're on every single boarding commission. So what we've been able to do with consultants out of Southern California is put together a program to train and educate predominantly Latino community members on how to serve on nonprofit boards and commissions, because we know that there are nonprofits and elected officials out there that are actively trying to recruit people to take on leadership roles. So as lo San is growing, we've become an or an or a membership organization, and about 120 of our members are actually either recruiting nonprofit board members or department heads or elected officials that are recruiting commissioners. So what we do is we mix and build relationships and network our fellows who are going through the bridge program and the people who are recruiting so that towards the end of their class, they're recruited on a border commission or placed on a border commission. So now we're in my one of the things that I'm really proud of is we're we're finally we finally have a program that's living out the part of our logo that says Latino leaders. We're developing our leaders through a tangible training. So that is who we are a little bit longer than a nutshell. That's more like a peanut butter jar. But yeah, and we're going to continue doing the work that we're doing. And I'm excited about the future for us and really tapping into the leadership development component of our community, is, I think, where our future lies.

That's great. Thank you. Lois Young's origin story starts with creating belonging in the back room of Mary's Pizza Shack and the venue changes to the ballroom of the Flamingo Hotel. But even in a bigger ballroom space, we're still focused on building belonging. The building bridges part of Lois Yang's logo. And what I'm struck by is, I hear you talk about what the bridge program is doing is we've we've, we've evolved our education conversations and convenings that were these belonging spaces to now create this, leadership development, and confidence building incubator for future leaders of our community, so that they have the confidence to nurture these kinds of relationships and these kinds of conversations in the spaces where they are eventually led. And it's what a beautiful, virtuous cycle of community building and connection building and inclusion and, letting people know they're cherished. I think it's awesome. I 100% agree. And I've always admired the way that Lois and host culturally, enriching events like the Los. And when they guide us in the Latino, what was it, the Latino Latino cultural experience. Yeah. And it's kind of like we get to celebrate our culture, but then we're also educating the greater community about the Latino culture and kind of what it's all about. And we're getting to enjoy that together. And I think that's so important. And something that little San started doing back in 2000, 1112, when you started to host like mixers and stuff, and now you like I love seeing schools. I love seeing the nonprofits and even organizations in community who are also really realizing 30% of our county is Latino like. We should be embracing and celebrating their culture as well. And I've noticed that's been happening a lot more recently. Yeah. That, true.

Celebrating and and playing together is is a is like and like another aspect of that belonging and bridging work. Yeah. It's fantastic. What's a moment when you had to speak truth to power or protect what you love?

Well, I think going back to the Sonoma County Alliance, in 2020, when we were going through the murder of George Floyd and really kind of the social reckoning of, the police inequities that were happening from and police shootings of black and brown males in the United States. And I think that was a big, I think, for lack of better words, an opportunity to use my social capital and the what the relationships that I've been building and try to speak up on in support of, of the Black Lives Matter movement locally. And, I mean, we were we've been impacted ourselves with police shootings. And I think it's important as a community that, we spoke up at that time. And unfortunately, Sonoma County Alliance was kind of the and the crossroads of all that energy because of the the mistake that they made. And it wasn't easy. And it definitely makes you feel uncomfortable. And especially when the Press Democrat is quoting you, calling them a white supremacy group, which wasn't in exactly the way that I framed it. It wasn't meant to be offensive. It was meant to be more of like, this is what they are. I mean, it's male led, mostly white, old people. Pale, male and stale is what some people call it. And it's just it is what it is. And, and now left in a position where I feel like I'm rebuilding relationships with certain individuals who were hurt by what we said or what I said because I didn't work for Leslie. I'm back then. But a lot of Latino and black people had the same sentiment. And I actually one of the interesting parts of speaking up during that time, because it was not an easy time to be speaking up locally. Was the incredible amount of support I got from og Latino people whose who were like, I've always felt that way. I'm so happy that you said it in an eloquent way. And they were thanking me, was like, what? You guys are like millionaires and super established Latino leaders. And like, they didn't, they couldn't say what I said. I don't know what that means, but, it was I felt good about, that that they had my back at least behind closed doors. They weren't going to publicly congratulate me. But that was a very interesting dynamic, getting calls from people who had been personally involved with the alliance and things of that nature. And I didn't mean to make this, this podcast about that. It was just something that occurred. And you can see it in the newspaper if you ever googled it. So,

A reckoning that's the most intense for our community in so many ways. Yeah. I think another speaking truth to power was a synergy that Arthur G. Initiative that happened, I believe it was the 2018 where we, Ana Lugo and I were trying to organize Spanish speaking parents and our community to talk about A through G and the impact it had on the Latino graduation rates and their opportunities after high school. And I think Lozano also indirectly, like, because you're a nonpartisan group, had a huge role to play in that because you spotlighted A through G a few times in some of your luncheons, which I felt is about one of the biggest values of those CNN changing narratives is educating people and spotlighting issues on low sands platforms so that we all learn about it together, because this is a lot easier to educate the greater community after those had had some conversations about it at their luncheons to move the A through G policies so that all students were automatically put into A through G classes that would theoretically change the graduation rates and for the better, and have more kids graduating from Santa Rosa City schools that, can go can choose whether they want to go to a four year college or not, because before it was like the counselors and the vice principals were placing students that were Latino in non college prep courses just because their parents weren't college educated, which was happening consciously or unconsciously. Whatever you want to say, it was happening. So that was a pretty big truth to power. And the the school board had looked at that in 2011 and 2012, and they voted against changing the policy. And then in 2018 they voted 5 to 2. Laurie Fong was actually one of the guest votes. I remember being in those, those hearings for Santa Rosa City School. The school board meetings in 2018. I remember over the space of a couple of meetings, like 15 hours of community testimony. Yeah, folks in favor and folks against and and just listening to deeply to all those perspectives. It was really something and just relating back to what you were talking about at the beginning of our conversation when I asked you, when we first met, the earliest, some of the earliest conversations we had were the ones that you were talking about. The conversation, for example, with former supervisor Gore Gorin about, you know, the experiences, the challenges of students of color in Sonoma County back in, you know, 2009, 2010 and and why why they were particularly struggling to succeed in school. Well, you know, what's crazy about that is my dad and I remember he was friends with the vice principal at Emiliano High School. And my classes were created by a counselor, and then those like freshman orientation night. And for some reason, we showed Mr. Anderson the classes. And Mr. Anderson goes to my dad, Herman, your son should be in all the classes that have a P after them, because those are college prep courses. So I was placed in and my dad didn't know the difference, even though he owns his own business, he's a successful real estate person and involved in rotary, but he doesn't know anything about education. So I was placed because of my last name and non college prep courses, and Mr. Anderson was like, no, no, no, we're changing these. And he changed them himself and put me in all the like English college prep course algebra one. And my dad remembers that. He's like, Herman, remember when your Mr. Anderson brought that up? And I'm like, no, I don't really remember that. But he's like, yeah, he actually changed your class schedule so that you're in college prep courses. We had no idea you had been placed in, college prep courses because what was happening and what still happens if you're in A9AG for all district is kids have graduated from high school with a 4.0 and non college prep courses and then want to go to some four year college and they're like, wait, I can't apply for what? I just have a 4.0. That's what got me involved in back in 2014 and 15. I'm like that does not sound that's not fair. Right. So we got to change that. Kids. And we got to educate parents better. But like kids are have a 4.0 and non college prep courses through three years. Why that. Why the hell are they in non college prep courses. Right. Right. We you know we haven't talked about this yet but we should we should bring this up. You are a member of the Sonoma County Board of Ed. And you represent the fifth the fifth district. And you're in your second term. No. It's complicated. It's the fourth term. You're first. My first term was a two year term. Okay. And then I did two, four year terms, and I'm now I'm in my third four year term. Wow. So I've been on the board for ten years. Time flies when you're having fun. Yeah. I don't know about fun like this. Makes you energy I know, I know, I'm old, I'm old. You're not old. But this makes you an OG on that board. It does. It's crazy.

How do you move through fear or exhaustion when the fight for justice feels heavy? I have it tattooed on my finger. Just do it as seriously. But it rubs off all the time because I work too hard. Supposed to say, just do it. Okay? I wondered what that was. It's definitely not a birthmark. I would be funny if I had a birthmark. That's just. And then two dots, because the do it always comes out. I get it done, like almost every couple of years, really. But I say that jokingly, but at the same time, seriously is like, as we mentioned earlier, and one of the answers to the questions is, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is like one of the best ways to grow personally and professionally. And I try really hard to be conscious about feeling fear and trying to push through it. And exhaustion, though, that's a real thing. And that's a hard one. And, because, going back to my day job, like, Magali and I are a small team. It's just we're three employees, and she's always pushing me to try to take time off, and it's just so hard because I feel like taking time off is just going to create. The work's just going to pile up. Even more and and come back to more work. But I think that vacation time is important. We have an amazing our board has created an amazing like holiday schedule. We have three extra sick days for like mental health leave days. If we would just want to take a day off, we can. We have our vacation time that that accrues. But I do think that it's when you're exhausted, you have to take a break because it's just going to ruin the vibe with your team, with your the people you work with. And you're going to be on edge and it's just not fun. It's horrible. I actually do not like that. And I feel exhausted after some of our large scale events, and it takes me a couple weeks to recuperate if I don't take a day or two off completely. Yeah. But fear, that's something that I've learned to love, actually. And I would say I've learned to love because I freaking hate public speaking, but I've learned to kind of push through it, and I've learned how to you learn kind of like with anxiety, you don't ever get over it. You learn how to cope with it and kind of manage your life with it instead of like trying to get over it with fear. It's just like, can why am I afraid? And then try to be conscious about it and then just do it? You just do it. I jokingly say that, but that's really something that I, I do tell myself.

Valerie Cooper invites us to breathe and push when we get uncomfortable, whatever it might be. We'll breathe and push. It's like breathe. You're acknowledging your letting it go. Yeah. What does it mean to you to fight with love? Not against people, but against injustice?

That's another really hard question to answer. But I mean a good question. Kind of goes back to, you know, strangers, you know, like. A I'm not a fan of when people make it get angry at people at a person. And dismiss the system or the, the way that the system's designed and why. Things are the way they are and they blame it on people and not the system. But I think leading with love is like meeting with understanding. Going back to building relationships, understanding why certain people have their certain beliefs, and trying to figure out a way to communicate with them to understand your beliefs or you. That community represents beliefs. And making it about the system and not the individual. That's pretty darn brilliant.

Well, I repeated what you say is true. I can't ever remember saying anything like this to you, but it is. I feel like everything goes back to your relationship with people. If you don't know someone, all you're doing is assuming things about them that are mostly completely wrong. Or it really helps to understand why you think something is the right thing to do. We've needed to break up our conversation into two parts, because it was so rich and runs a bit long. come back for part two. You won't be disappointed, and I promise you will see yourself throughout each and every aspect of our conversation. It's worthwhile listening. And I'm certain you'll be inspired.

So folks thanks for listening. We're grateful that you've joined us in community today and that you believe just like we do, in the importance of building belonging, resilience and justice in this region. We know it will have ripple effects across the state and across the country and around the world. So your presence is really meaningful and we're very grateful for it. If you'd like to get even more involved with the work that United Way, the wine Country is doing. Please join us. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and follow us on social media. You'll find us on Facebook, and you'll find us in LinkedIn, and you'll find us in next door. We're banned from Instagram. I'll leave that to you to figure out why that might have happened. Sign up for our newsletter at our website. United way. Wine country.org. And share our conversations with a friend. Feel free to have the same conversations that we're having here with your friends. The more of us having conversations like this, the more we will all appreciate that we are the leaders that we're looking for, and we're just looking for a place to get started. Thanks for starting here.