Patricia Torres Ray Speaks About Solidarity and Support

 

 

Good evening, buenas noches. It’s such a pleasure to be here with all of you celebrating Minnesota Women’s Press.

Mikki and I meet with some frequency, and we talk about the work that we need to do together to advance women.

I love these conversations. Most times I leave very inspired. Many times I leave overwhelmed. I don’t know why it is so hard to do this work to advance women.

I got a call from Mikki recently. She said, you like to work in solidarity, and work with a lot of groups and women for so many years. Why don’t you write about it?

After I wrote that piece, I really started thinking about that word solidarity.

The simple definitions of solidarity refer to the ties that bind people together, what we owe one another, seeing other people’s fates as intertwined with our own fate, being committed to defending the interest of those whose problems you do not necessarily share.

I really wish for solidarity right now in this country.

Yet, solidarity is often reactionary. We don’t think about working with others until we have a problem. When we have a big problem, we really think about people.

 

 

There also are many people in this country today that are working together to build power to work against women, against immigrants, against the poor, against many of us. They are working in solidarity with one another to fund, empower, and elect leaders who profess their values. They elect people and put people in power who will defend those values. So solidarity is not always positive and is not necessarily unity.

Tonight, I ask you, what is your stance and our collective responsibility to protect and advance women? I ask this because I believe that we women are facing a great challenge right now. We’re not just trying to figure out how to protect our jobs and our pensions, but we are fighting to protect our most fundamental values. We’re fighting to protect our rights to make decisions about our own bodies, including our reproductive choices. And the right to be free from all forms of violence; the right to access affordable advanced education; to participate fully in the workforce, receiving equal pay and opportunities for advancement; our right for full political participation, our right to vote and run for office.

That is what we’re fighting for today.

If middle-class educated women think that these are not your problems, you should think again, because your daughters may not be afforded the education that you received.

And when non-immigrant women decide that the attacks against immigrant women are not their problem, they better think again, because you are compromising your own freedom. The domination of women begins targeting the most vulnerable and extends. That is the systemic work of patriarchy, where women’s subordination is not limited to the most marginalized, but it affects all women.

Please think about our ancestors. Think about the women before us. If you won those rights that were afforded to us by those women who fought so hard, our duty is to work together. Our duty is to work in solidarity,  to defend and protect the rights of all of us, not just a few women, not just the women that you know. It’s all of us.

My last ask is that you please make a commitment to support the Women’s Press and the people that work in it. This publication supported me from the very beginning, when very few people believed that a Latina could actually become a senator. Twenty years ago, they said, “We want to tell your story, because it is worth telling. It is a story that everybody needs to know. I think that story will help you get elected.” And they were correct. I became the first Latina elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2006.

Minnesota Women’s Press was the only publication that wanted to write my story, because nobody believed that a person with my background and my story could actually become a Minnesota Senator.

So today, I am going to ask you to become a sustaining member of the Women’s Press. I have contributed in the past, but I’m going to do it every month. I don’t have a salary that is good enough for me to give more than $50 a month, but I’m going to do it. And I would like to ask if you could do the same. If you could do more. I would like to invite you to contribute more. Could you do that? If you cannot do $50 you can do less. Can you do that?

I thank you from the bottom of my heart, because I want the stories of other women to be told. I want other women to have the opportunity that I had of meeting the Women’s Press team and making sure that these women receive the same support that I did, and that I do when they invite me to tell people about my work.

Our work is powerful, and we need to make sure that all of us talk about it. Advancing women is not easy, and I want to invite you to work with me to support the powerful work of Women’s Press and to make sure that they will be here for generations to come.