Latinas Signal New Leadership

By: Susy SchultzThey are the two freshmen Latina state representatives.

Though not the first Latinas in the Illinois General Assembly, Cynthia Soto and Susana Mendoza are considered signs of a new political generation.

“This is the second generation of Latina leadership in the city,” said Sylvia Puente, project director for the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. But “the leadership of Latina women is still very young and embryonic.”

Some experts claim the Hispanic political community isn’t mentoring enough future leaders, particularly women. But Mendoza and Soto show it does happen. And despite their wide political differences, their stories are similar.

Both are Mexican-American women who say they stumbled into politics out of commitment to their communities. Both introduced themselves to their mentors, established Latino political leaders. And both lost their first election campaigns in tough, well-publicized races, then won their second bids for office.

At 29, Mendoza is the youngest legislator in Springfield and still works as coordinator of business outreach in the city’s Department of Planning and Development. She proudly claims to be an ally of Mayor Richard M. Daley. Her mentor is 12th Ward Alderman Ray Frías, a longtime mayoral supporter.

After several years in the suburbs, Mendoza finished college and moved back to the Little Village neighborhood where she lived as a child. She looked for a job in advertising. Frías, then a state representative, was running for alderman, and she received a mailing from his opponent that was riddled with Spanish misspellings. Mendoza showed the flyer to her dad, Joaquin, a pipe fitter at a candy factory, and told him she planned to complain.

Mendoza made an appointment for the two of them to meet with Frías. “My dad, who hated all politicians just by nature, absolutely loved him,” Mendoza said. Two weeks later, Joaquin died. But Mendoza never forgot that Frías impressed her father.

Frías set up an interview for Mendoza at an advertising firm. She got the job. After six months, he asked Mendoza, then 22, to be his part-time press secretary, she said. She accepted the post just as Frías was indicted in Operation Silver Shovel.

“It was a nightmare,” she said, but “probably one of the best experiences I had in terms of growing up.”

Frías said working with Mendoza was the first time he had served as a political mentor.

“A lot of elected officials don’t mentor,” said Frías. “It’s almost a phobia we have—that we will create people who in turn will take our place.”

“If you spent 10 minutes with her in a room, you come away with the impression that she’s the most energetic person you’ve ever met,” said Frías.

Mendoza stuck with Frías through his trial and his 1997 acquittal. The following year, she made her first run for state representative against Sonia Silva, who was backed by U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez. Mendoza lost by 55 votes.

“Thirty in the city and 25 in Cicero,” she said. “I knew I wanted to run for office again. I announced the next day.” Last fall, she beat Silva.

In her first months in the state legislature, Mendoza sponsored several get-tough-on-crime measures, including a controversial bill that would have made gang-related murders punishable with the death penalty. Gov. George H. Ryan vetoed it.

Soto’s work in the legislature—focusing on immigration, education and gentrification issues—hasn’t received as much media attention. But she is considered a tough campaigner. In 1999, she lost her first election, in which she tried to unseat 1st Ward Alderman Jesse D. Granato, by 347 votes.

Soto, who was a supervisor of child support enforcement for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, then built a coalition of progressive supporters, including state Sen. Miguel del Valle, Gutiérrez and 26th Ward Alderman Billy Ocasio.

Last fall, she pushed out state Rep. Edgar López, a Daley-backed incumbent. He had drawn criticism from other Democrats for leading a delegation to Cuba for Ryan, a Republican, and for chairing the committee that investigated a mismanagement of federal funds at Roberto Clemente High School in West Town.

But Soto said none of those issues mattered. Nor did it matter that her boss, Cook County State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine, backed López. “It was easy,” she said.

The 39-year-old Soto has lived in the West Town neighborhood for 35 years and has been married for 20. The mother of three girls, she took a leave of absence when she won the campaign.

Soto is proud of the independent coalition of elected leaders that helped her into office. She considers del Valle, the senate’s assistant minority leader and a longtime opponent of the city’s Regular Democratic Organization, to be her mentor.

“I have the utmost respect for him,” Soto said. But “I had to prove that I was someone who was sincere and who wanted to support my community. … It took a long time to even get his attention.”

“I was impressed that she was calling three years in advance of the election,” del Valle said. “And she followed up.”

“The difference between today’s women leaders and those of the past are that they are coming in with confidence,” continued del Valle. “There’s a lot more determination because we’ve opened doors.”

But, he added, “We have to do more.”


Contributing: Rupa Shenoy.