Interview: Author Yvonne Martinez

I was always close with my maternal grandmother. She recently passed away and so I’ve been thinking more and more about her. She was the daughter of Hungarian immigrants and she was tragically orphaned at the age of 4. Luckily, she was taken in by an aunt and uncle — although she did always feel “othered” and was not allowed to do much of what her cousins/siblings were permitted to do. She was required to call her adopted parents aunt and uncle. They rejected her when she married my Italian-American grandfather, and her uncle didn’t come to the wedding. I think she struggled with memories of her childhood, even though she never really talked about it that much. She did drop hints and clues about her experiences, almost leaving me a trail to follow to deduce what she went through and how it affected her.

All of this is to say that when I read author Yvonne Martinez’s novel Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman (read my review here), I immediately thought of my own relationship with my grandmother. My grandma wasn’t a working woman but she did go through many tragedies in her life that I have been left to piece together. Yvonne was also left with pieces to string together in order to discover the truth about her family. She turned to both writing and activism as a way of processing everything that she went through.

After reading the book I had the pleasure of speaking to Yvonne about writing as well as her time as an activist.

Molli Sébrier: What shocked me most about your time as an activist was the amount of sexual abuse that you encountered. There is one passage in the book where you describe the way one of your bosses sexually manipulated an armrest. Could you talk a little bit more about that experience? Was it shocking to you, or had you seen it so many times before that it didn't really phase you?

Yvonne Martinez: Sexual harassment is about power. The institutions I worked in, even though they were purportedly there to advocate for oppressed workers, were themselves not immune from entrenched sexism and racism. When threatened, they resorted to the same abuses of power as any employer I fought against.  

In the instance that you described, the truth of what was happening sort of crept up on me, it was that insidious. If you've ever been to San Francisco City Hall, you would see how beautifully ornate it is all the way to ornately sculpted wood benches.  I had just worked for months with union members I represented to organize against the proposed closure of a public health facility and we succeeded. We took our protest to a SF City Council meeting and packed the room with testimony after testimony.  My boss’s boss was there and saw it all.  Before leaving, she handed me her notes on what to say on the record as she had to go to another meeting.  She did not give the notes to my boss, she gave them to me in recognition of the work we'd to save facility from the threat of closure. By handing me her notes, in effect she asked me to speak for her, not him.  As he sat next to me, clearly upset that she had recognized my leadership, his sexual manipulation of the sculpted bench armrest was intended to shame and humiliate me. At first it was weird to see him do that as I sat next to him in such a public place. It creeped me out and when I looked up at him, I could see in his eyes the malice he intended. I moved away. 

MS: What did it feel like when that same boss actually filed a complaint against you? Did you ever want to give up because things were so difficult? 

YM: I felt fear and rage when I got notice of the trumped-up complaint. I felt bad for the member who was coerced into signing the bogus complaint. I also felt vindicated in some way, because I knew he knew it was a lie and that he had gone too far. It was a signal of his desperation. He became more and more convinced that in the Union's upcoming merger that I would be promoted over him because a woman of color would soon be leading the union.   

I didn't give up because I had to do what I asked every woman I represented to do when she got ready to and that was to stand up and fight back. The experience brought the reality home of what women dealt with on a daily basis. It was in real-time — not theoretical.

MS: You also mention the psychological cost of filing your own complaint. Can you elaborate on that?

YM: Well first there is the fear, the betrayal, the sense of vulnerability, and the feeling of isolation. I had developed many tools to cope with abuses that helped me tolerate these feelings. It wasn't easy. But doing so was the gateway to my resolve to do something about it. But I had to sit with it first. I would not let myself be cut off from myself, no matter how much it hurt. That's where the breakthrough that I write about in the book happens. The double helix of trauma and resistance. If you can stand it, you find the strength to take the next healing step. That's when the path becomes clear.  

MS: After you did do the work, both mentally and emotionally, to file your complaint, you write that your boss continued to act inappropriately towards you. How did that feel? Did you have the impression that all of your hard work was in vain? 

YM: By the time I'd filed the complaint, I had broken my isolation and found allies in the colleague who came with me to file the complaint. He was a male colleague. We were both on probation during the Union's merger and we could have been fired at any time for any reason. But he had the courage to go with me and I had to courage to ask him. Then there was the Chief of Staff who I took the complaint to. She heard and received my complaint and assured me that she dealt with it. I followed up with her when he wouldn't stop. The main thing is that she believed me. I was transferred out of the City and he was subsequently fired by new management. 

MS: It sounds like you've encountered many situations in which undeserving bosses were given recognition for work that you have done. Do you ever struggle with bitterness? If you have and have overcome it, how did you do it?  

YM: My approach to my work was often different than many I worked with. As a working-class person, I allied myself with members more than with their employers. When our campaigns worked and the Union's bosses took credit, my satisfaction came from knowing that members knew who was responsible for what. Best of all members had tools to hold not only their bosses accountable but to hold union management accountable for any changes in their working conditions and their contracts. I fought for democracy and accountability in the workplace.  

MS: How much of an influence did your grandmother have on your decision to get into activism? 

YM: First of all, I'm grateful to have had the wherewithal to reflect on my life and write this book. When I learned more about my grandmother's life along the way as I wrote the book, the thing that came through the clearest was her capacity and courage to love in the face of everything she suffered. And to the very end, her determination to pass on to me her fight for dignity and respect.  

MS: What inspired you to begin writing?

YM: The simple need to tell the truth to myself even if no one else saw or believed what I saw happening around me. It was like keeping a record. 

MS: How big of a role do books and reading play in your life?

YM: Books saved my life. An uncle who visited us during the chaotic abuse of our household once took us all to the library as a reprieve from the domestic violence we lived with. He saw to it that we got library cards and a quiet place to read. I will always be grateful to him and the librarians in urban neighborhoods. It's why I'm literate. 

MS: Who is your favorite author and what are you currently reading?

YM: Hands down:  Elena Ferrante. In My Brilliant Friend, she captures so vividly the struggle of a working-class need to break out of the confines of her class and break into a hostile academic world and all of its trappings.  Lenu's mother was my mother. 

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