On a Sunday in May I got on a bus in the Inland Empire with a group of women I have come to know, and we rode out to wine country in Fallbrook.
It was billed as Part 3 of a Mother's Day celebration. Two wineries, sangria for the ride, a charcuterie board, karaoke that nobody was good at and everybody enjoyed anyway.
What stayed with me was not the wine. It was that for those few hours, not one woman on that bus was needed anywhere else.
I know what that is worth because I watched my mother go without it. She worked double shifts as a caregiver, looking after other people's families, so that I could get through law school at night. She gave away her Sundays for years. Nobody ever chartered her a bus.
A room where nobody wants anything
¡Soy Latina! in the IE exists to close that gap, one afternoon at a time. Their mission is to bring Latinas together in spaces “where they can be themselves and bond with other Latinas to form long lasting friendships.” Their tagline is Empowering One Woman at a Time.
Read that again and notice what is not in it. No panel discussion. No exchanging business cards over lukewarm coffee. Their events are Lotería night at a boba shop in Murrieta. Selena night at a bar in Corona. Grupo Night, where the point is dancing.
I have been to plenty of legal events, and I can tell you that my profession is good at building rooms where everyone wants something. We are much worse at building rooms where nobody does. Friendship is harder to organize than networking, and it is worth more.
What these women have built, they built themselves. No institution behind them, and no staff. Just someone deciding that Latinas in the Inland Empire deserved somewhere to belong, and then doing the work of making it happen, month after month.
I did not arrive as a sponsor. I came the first time as a guest, before my office on Fourth Street had opened and before my firm's name was on anyone's flyer. I went because I wanted to be there. The sponsorship came later, once I understood what I had walked into.
The other days
So when they planned a Mother's Day escape and needed someone to help make it happen, saying yes was easy. It is the least complicated decision I have made this year.
Mother's Day is one Sunday. Then Monday comes, and the mothers and tías who hold everyone else together go back to holding everyone else together.
A community like this one is what happens in between. That is why I am in it, and why my firm will keep showing up for it.
