Rebeca Armendariz: Building Community Power in Gilroy
Rebeca Armendariz is a respected activist, mother, and Chicana born and raised in Gilroy, California. She is a community and political organizer at SEIU US Service Workers West where she represents 50,000 service and contracted workers across California. She organizes primarily with janitors and security workers, and connects workers with elected officials and allies to fight for economic justice and workers rights. She formerly ran for Gilroy City Council, and led the campaign in creating a union for the local nonprofit, MACSA. She discusses her childhood in Gilroy, the violence and victories she experienced in her first few years of organizing, and her transformation in becoming the community leader she is today.
What was it like to grow up in the South Bay and how did your upbringing lead you towards community work?
I’m from Gilroy, born and raised. My kids are actually 5th generations Gilroyians. My mom is a grassroots organizer in Gilroy. My dad was an organizer in prison. He went to prison for a long time. He was privileged to work with Eldredge Cleaver and other Black Power organizers in the prison. Together, they brought in English as a Second Language classes, general education classes, trades — they brought in speakers from different universities to San Quentin. He was in there for a long time, and he did a lot of good work while he was there. Once he got out of prison, he became addicted to drugs but he always taught us about the importance of political theory and being in community. He had a lot of reading time. My mom is very pragmatic, very practical, very powerful in the community, and very well loved. She’s not afraid of anything. I have a lot of love and respect for her in the work that she does. She’s 75 — she’ll be 76 — and she’s a force. My mama is a force to be reckoned with.
How did you start organizing your own campaigns?
I don’t think I had a choice! In high school, I got involved with organizing my freshmen year when the first war in Iraq happened. I organized with my fellow students, did a walkout, and we were confronted. It was the worst. It was so reflective of Gilroy. We were confronted by hundreds of pro-military, pro-war guys, who accosted us and got us into a corner. They took our signs and started throwing things at us. For a good hour, we were under attack. There were a dozen of us. That really made me aware of how dangerous organizing can be and how passionate the other side could be.
We organized bigger and better for the next walkout that was against a Zero Tolerance Policy when I was in high school. My friends and family were being targeted to draw down money from the state to combat gang violence. What it really was doing was to get money to militarize our police department, and to place our friends and fellow students in these off campus programs where they could get probation officers and cops on them at all times even though many of them didn’t have discipline problems. If you had a problem being tardy, you were transferred out. They were placing many kids into these pop-up schools that the County and State were funding. That was a big problem, so we organized a second walkout when I was in high school around that time. I got arrested for that one because I had just turned 18. High school was where I started to mobilize my fellow students and community.
We won good things out of it the second time. We won a Mexican American History class, a Literature Class, and a section in the library of books dedicated to Chicano history. I had to do a lot of community service hours for that one though, around 200! But I also got confronted by white supremacists from the John Birch Society when I was doing a forum about the war. I was 15 and they tried to accost me. My parents were in the parking lot, and it was at the end of the night. It was at the church and we just did a debate about the war and a bunch of toothless white dudes surrounded me and tried to get me outside. My dad came out with guns blazing (not with real guns) and he just came in and they scattered. It was no joke. Gilroy is not like San José. We have the John Birch Society, and we have militia members. In Morgan Hill, we have the KKK. We have a very active South County Patriots — that’s their cover for being Tea Party members who organize themselves and are right here just below the surface.
How do you deal with such a large presence of hate groups in South Santa Clara County?
I think as a Gilroyian, I just learn to expect it from the Tea Party. We’ve always known they’ve been there. They always sent newsletters to the library. Now they just seem to be more normalized. They seem to be more like people you see everyday. They don’t look like backwoods militia members. Now, they look like middle class white ladies who work for our mayor, host coffees for him, and host voter registration tables. That’s what they look like. They’re very normalized. They were ready for Trump to win, for this tide to turn to come out of their rock and look like presentable people.
How do you think Gilroy has grown in terms of activism and political consciousness?
I’m really proud that we’ve had marches in Gilroy led by students and teachers. We’ve joined forces with Morgan Hill to have the South County resistance that popped up after the January 20th Trump Inauguration. I’m proud. I’m not involved enough in it because I’m in San José so much. I’m really honored it happened. It’s really the light at the end of the tunnel to be honest. Our City Council reflects a more conservative side of the community, but the gentrification of Gilroy has brought more diversity. Gilroy’s always been Mexican and White and now there’s a sprinkling of Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino. It’s much more diverse now now that we have all these immigrants coming in and being a part of the community.
The housing crisis and renting prices have skyrocketed, but our schools are much more diverse and my kids are exposed to diverse people. I don’t have to go to San José to eat or to meet people beyond people who are not Mexican and White.
What led you to your current position at SEIU?
When I did my community service hours for the walkout, I was 18. They hired me at Mexican American Community Service Agency (MACSA) and we had a Gilroy Youth Center. They ended up hiring me, and I worked there for about six years. While I was working there, my coworkers and myself were abused. A lot of nonprofit workers ended up getting “martyr syndrome,” and managers took advantage of it. They don’t pay you well despite having money from the grants. We ended up calling the union and we called SEIU because other non profits were organized by them. We organized our non-profit to have a union and we had 86% of staff voted for the union.
As soon as we negotiated our first contract, SEIU recruited me to work for them, and I was very happy to do that because MACSA, despite it’s name, showed me the hypocritical side of the Chicano movement and nonprofits. There were pictures of Cesar Chavez everywhere but did they live up to his legacy. Did they honor the rights of workers? No, they didn’t, so I was happy to organize them and win better pay, benefits, and rights for my coworkers. But ultimately, if you have happy employees who can go to school and have education leave, then you have a base in the community to help the children and families we were helping. That was something I was really proud of.
From there, I was working at SEIU Local 17, which is now Local 521. I was there for ten years. It’s hard work, and it was great work. I got to work with health care workers who were taking care of the elderly, disabled, and children in their own homes. I was lucky enough to be a part of that negotiation — one of the highest paid contracts is Santa Clara County and San Mateo County. The best benefits bar none in the whole country were home care workers. They deserve much more, but Santa Clara County, we treat them pretty good. We do. They fight hard. They’re really proud union members. It’s an honor to work with them for so long.
What have been some challenges and victories for you in organizing your community?
The challenge is having my kiddos and a husband. I neglect Gilroy, and my own community. Evenings and weekends are either with my kids or my community and so, I drag them with me and make them do stuff like make posters. They all can chant really well. Sometimes they enjoy it, and sometimes they don’t. That’s the challenging part — pretending you don’t have a job when you’re a mom, and pretending you’re not a mom while at work. It’s a juggling act.
I’m sure for all working parents that’s the challenge but ultimately, it’s for them. They sometimes make me tear up and tell me something really profound and beautiful about my work. Sometimes they say, turn your phone off, Mom, or turn the computer off.
How did running for Gilroy City Council impact you in terms of your growth?
I learned in running for City Council that I have a lot of work to do on myself. Voter registration and surveying my community, going door to door, that’s on going — my whole life I’ve been doing that. My neighborhood knows me, but the folks who are the newcomers to Gilroy, there’s a lot of outreach you need to do. I needed to bridge that better.
I should have had a better campaign manager because I know how to run a campaign and I’ve worked on campaigns since I was little, since I was in first grade. I learned that there are different standards for Chicanas running for City Council than a white guy to be running for City Council. One of our sitting council members went to prison for selling and manufacturing methamphetamines, but he’s a white man, and now he’s a business owner. He’s easily elected every term. Our mayor, as horrible as it is to mention, had a young woman die of alcohol poisoning in his house after she was drinking with his daughter. Horrible thing I had to mention, but it’s very real. I had a ticket for talking on my cellphone and I got slammed in the newspaper for that right before the election. I also had a bankruptcy from when I was 21. I was working for a non profit and I was a single mom. I was slammed in the news, but we have a sitting meth dealer.
What dreams do you have for Gilroy?
First and foremost, district elections. We still have at-large elections. We’re one of the last communities in the state with the population demographics we have that do not have district elections. We have a coalition to make that happen.
I would also love to see equal distribution of our resources. The east side can be safer in terms of the infrastructure and recreation facilities that we invest in. We have one-nineteenth of parks that the westside has and that’s being generous. In all honesty, the numbers are much worst. We don’t have the facilities for our youth. I dream that kids on the east side could learn how to swim in a pool, have accessible recreation, and have things to keep them busy and smart not just in the summer time but all year round.
How do you think Gilroy has contributed to the history of South Bay?
We do have a really rich history, the Myers Milias Brown Act came out of Gilroy and our representatives. Of course our agriculture, I mean the lovely smell of garlic and chile and tomatoes every summer. Cesar Chavez was very active in our community and inspired people like my mom to do so much. I know San José residents think Gilroy is just another part of the county, but Gilroy is a gem. We don’t look like the rest of the Silicon Valley but we’re definitely passionate, heart filled people. Now, San José is spilling over to Gilroy, but we need to maintain our character. We don’t want to blend in. We want to be a positive influence. We’re very “hometown-y” and old fashioned. There are still horses on the street and tractors, but I love that. I love being exposed to that and my kids being exposed to that. In San José, I love being here too and being able to transfer the progress and ideas and possibilities a little further south.
How would you like to continue growing as an organizer?
I think there are people in the community who are way better than I am at self care and at feminism. I need to become a stronger feminist.
What does that mean to you?
My daughter didn’t know a woman could be president until she was 8 years old. That’s my failure. She should have been knowing that. I never make the conscious decision to be a proud feminist. I know my mom as a Chicana activist was always torn between being a feminist and being a Chicana, and I was influenced by that for a long time. I think my dad was more feminist than my mom. During my MeCHA meetings when I got frustrated with the guys, my dad would say, “Tell those guys to check their sombreros at the door.” He wouldn’t let me do the domestic stuff and it’s never been my strength any way. He would say, “No my daughter is not doing that if my sons are not doing that.” He was just very progressive.
I didn’t run with that as strongly as I should have. It was always again of being a Chicana or a feminist. It’s not a question for me any more, it’s both. I need my girls and my sons to know that and embrace that.
What are some words of wisdom you’ve gained from your life of activism?
I think everyone should be active in their community. They should do what they’re passionate about and organize their communities so that we can come to a space and place where it’s no longer a question of you’re this or that, Chicana or feminist, you’re LGBTQIA or not. It’s just us. It sounds cheesy but we have to work towards it. I’m really proud of my kid’s generation — my 19 year old, 13 year old, and my little one. They are not homophobic at all and my generation really was, and my mom’s generation still is. My kids are so fluid with their gender and sexuality, and they keep telling me so much about it. When their friends come over, I ask, is that a girl or a boy and they say, that’s just a person. I’m learning so much from them and it really gives me hope. It’s really wonderful.
