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The Gift of
Empowerment
When I was
five years old, I told my mother, “Mami, I‘m
going to change the world one day.” Without
hesitation, she smiled at me and said, “I
know you are mija. Tienes la determinación
de tu padre.”
Now, 28 years later, I feel blessed that God
has given me the abilities, passion and life
experiences to pursue my dream of empowering
Latinas. Growing up, I never saw myself as a
writer, only a businesswoman who was
determined to build a successful company
that would help thousands of people. I
didn’t know how I was going to do it or what
service I was going to provide for the
people, I just knew that I wanted to live in
two worlds: one of building wealth through
my own company, and the other of helping
people and changing the world.
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One fall day in
1997, my graduate women’s studies class was
discussing a book written by Gloria Anzulda called
Borderlands La Frontera. As we discussed he author’s
strong opinions about how our Latino culture
cripples its women in many ways, I read the
following quote from Anzulda’s book: “I will not
glorify those aspects of my culture nor embrace the
virtues of submissiveness, guilt and self-sacrifice
which have injured me in the name of protecting me.”
In the back of the room, I heard someone speak from
the back of the room. “Submissiveness and guilt?”
she said. “What do Latinas feel so guilty about?
They just need to get over that shame and guilt
part. That’s what’s keeping them down — they are
allowing it to happen.” I voiced my strong
opposition to my classmate’s comment and vowed to
bring to our next class information that proved
Latinas were doing something to break through these
cultural barriers.
As I endlessly searched every university library in
Southern California, I found absolutely nothing
pertaining to Latinas, cultural barriers, or
solutions for overcoming those barriers. And the
more I spoke to Latinas about this topic, the more I
observed that many Latinas realized certain cultural
traits were wrong but submitted to them in order to
avoid friction. I needed to know why nothing had
been written about this pattern when it was
obviously hurting many of our women.
I took my questions to some of the universities’
Mexican-American studies professors. To my
astonishment and sad surprise, they all told me the
same thing; “Yasmin, the issues you are talking
about have to do with family, and no one is willing
to go there.”
“But how can we fix something we do not even admit
is broken?” I asked. “If we do not admit there is a
problem, we will never be able to solve it and free
our women from emotional bondage.”
And so my writing journey began. I am a true
believer that if something does not exist but is
sorely needed, then it is time for me to create it.
So that is what I did. I wrote and created my first
book, Empowering Latinas: Breaking Boundaries;
Freeing Lives.
I had never thought of myself as I writer, yet I
knew the best way to get my message out to the world
was through a book. I hired an editor by the name of
Patricia Hernandez and told her I wanted her to
ghost write the book for me. She asked me to record
my life story and the rest of the book’s content on
a tape recorder and mail it to her. A few days
later, Patricia called me and told me she could not
ghost write my book.
Frustrated, I asked her why not. And in a calm,
soothing voice, she said, “Yasmin, this is your
story. You have to write it. I will help you through
every stage of the writing but it must be you who
writes it.” For every 10 pages I would send for her
to edit, she would return 15 pages to me with
comments of how to make it better. We worked on the
book for two years until, finally, it was done.
In November 2004, I launched my second book,
accompanied by an audio empowerment program in both
English and Spanish, called The Latinas Seven
Principles to Personal Empowerment. The program
helps Latinas learn how to love and trust themselves
and how to take full responsibility for their lives.
It is an especially fitting topic for me; after all,
that gift of empowerment and responsibility is what
Patricia gave to me.
When I sent Patricia a chapter of this second book
to edit, she returned it with a note. “You’ve turned
into a fabulous writer. One day you are not going to
need me anymore.” |
