Latina Network

Born and raised in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, Miriam Galarza Holland is no stranger to overcoming difficult situations. She reflects on how those experiences shaped the person she is today.  A Real Estate Broker by trade, she’s also become an advocate for mental health.

As Miriam vulnerably shares, growing up wasn’t always easy for her. With struggles at home, her situation wasn’t much better outside in her community. Yet, Miriam has never allowed her circumstances to dictate who she is. 

“I was surrounded by many friends that were involved in cocaine, heroin… you name it. I was around it, but it was not who I was. I didn't judge anyone. That's, that's the lifestyle they chose, but that was just not for me.

I wouldn't say money was my motivation, but I wanted something better for me.”

With that hopeful optimism, Miriam worked in different industries before falling in love with real estate. For her it’s helping people that motivates her to work harder each day. 

“The gratifying part about real estate is those smiles, the text messages that I receive like ’thank you so much... my family is so happy.’ Money cannot buy that.”

With a thriving real estate business, Miriam stays grounded in her pursuit to serve others outside of her profession. With her parents still living in the neighborhood she grew up in, she has a deep connection to her culture and community. Though she’s very honest about how she’s still learning to navigate life’s challenges, it’s clear to see that Miriam is inspiring Latinas with her courage to tackle challenges head on. 

When it comes to making tough decisions, the toughest can be removing yourself from toxic situations. Miriam offers advice on relieving the fears that come with leaving relationships that don’t serve you by replacing them with those that do. 

“I mean, there's memes about ‘who's at your table?’ That's it. It's not a joke… Who is at your table? And Who are you surrounding yourself with? I'm not telling you to go with a bunch of rich people. I'm not saying that I'm telling you, surround yourself with intelligent people. I'm telling you to surround yourself with good hearted people.”

Tune in to hear more on Miriam’s story of courage and triumph; and how she's learning to embrace the journey she’s on.

With the world’s 8th largest economy (third in Latina America), Beatriz Vivas has the honor and responsibility of representing Argentina and assisting their citizens throughout the Midwest. She joins Paola Meinzer to share more on what makes her country beautiful and how her career in diplomacy began. 

Part of Beatriz’s job is to promote tourism in Argentina, but also to create awareness for American companies working in Argentina to export foods found in your everyday cuisine. 

“I would love to host an Argentinian wine demonstration. Malbec is a really strong player, the quality is extremely high and the price is very reasonable. It's  a wine with depth and different fruits. You can taste the fruits and also the wood in which it’s stored in the last part of the cultivation process.”

With a shared love for Maleb, the idea of creating a tasting event creates more than just conversation about wine. It creates an awareness of how Argentinian cuisine and culture have already found their way into everyday American life. Much to the surprise of most people. 

Beatriz is here to make the Consulate a meeting point for our community and provide a service that serves its constituents. In the same manner, her office promotes Argentinian culture through the several festivals in the region. However, tourism and awareness haven’t always been part of her job. 

“I went to law school at the beginning. I started practicing law, but after some time I realized that there were some issues where I was interested that needed to be addressed in a more global way. So I joined the foreign service and was sent to different countries where I had the opportunity to be involved in matters of global crime. It is a very interesting journey, because when you're doing diplomacy you are not practicing the same kind of business for many years.”

Tune in to hear more about Argentina and how Beatriz has navigated her career in diplomacy; through all its triumphs and adversities.

https://www.tfocb.com/latinas/podcast/paola-meinzer/beatriz-vivas

On this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast, host Paola Meinzer sits down with the Consul General of Chile in Chicago, Ambassador Aylin Joo Liem.

A granddaughter to Chinese immigrants, Aylin grew up in Santiago, Chile knowing from a young age that she wanted to be a diplomat. 

“I was 14 years old. I was quite young. But my best friend, she still remembers. She said, ‘you had it so clear. When we were already at school, you wanted to be a diplomat.’”

She is the first woman to hold this position and shares that in the last month or so, history has been made. 

“Actually this is the first time that the government has  among 13 colleagues ambassadors, six of them are women. This is really the first time in Chile and this is a compromise made by the government who wanted to implement a feminist foreign policy.”

Her biggest passion is gender equality and she participates in different platforms to support women. 

“It was not enough before to say that we were just half of the population. I think that the world has discovered that women play a very big role and we have been a subsidized society for centuries.”

In her foreign service, Aylin has been working with other colleagues promoting women into important leadership roles and key positions. In her words, “we reflect and we represent half of the country. No matter where I will be, I will always continue supporting and working for women's visibility. ”

Aylin recently wrote an article describing a bit of what the last four years in Chile have been like. There has been a new government put in place. In part, she touched on the pandemic, but also spent time focusing on a new social movement that began in 2018. 

“Some students were protesting on the street demanding for some protocol against  sexual harassment in the academic field. The former president, President Piñera, heard that and in a way he empowered the ministry of women.”

Tune into this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast to hear more about Aylin’s story, how she climbed her way up the political ladder, and more about her work on empowering women. 

Lupe Rodriguez joins us on this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals to talk about her own experience with and passion for culture and how she turned that into a career. 

Growing up in Berwyn, IL, Lupe talks about how she grew up immersed in a very Latino community. 

“Berwyn is an incredibly Latino/Hispanic area. That was really nice because I grew up with people who looked like me and had my same culture.”

When she turned 14, her family relocated to Lockport, IL, a predominantly white community. It was a culture shock for her. Lupe shares how that’s when she started to realize the dichotomy of her identity. She recognized that while her family was originally from Mexico, they’d been in the United States since 1908 and they had adopted very American values. 

“When I moved to Lockport, I realized, oh, like my family is actually more like these families, but I wasn't used to being surrounded by people like that. [In Berwyn] They're like, oh, but you're like a white Mexican. I never really understood what that meant until moving to Lockport. 

I wasn't accepted by the Latin Americans because I was too white per se, but I also didn't really fit in with the white students because I had never grown up in that environment.”

Navigating a dual identity without feeling like you truly belong anywhere, Lupe learned a lot from her experiences. The biggest lesson for her? Never judging anyone by what they look like or where they’re from. Throughout this journey as a young girl, she found a passion for culture and dreamed of one day flying to foreign countries and having foreign friends. 

Eventually Lupe went on to become a flight attendant and had the opportunity to move to Dubai where there were very few Americans. 

“Everyone's like, oh, well you don't look American. And I'm like, well, what does that mean? Everyone's like, oh, you're Latina and they would start speaking Spanish to me. They automatically assumed that I was either from Latin America or Spain and it was another really weird transition.”

Tune in to hear more about Lupe’s story, how she became a flight attendant and how traveling the world has adjusted her perception of her own culture on this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast. 

On this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals, host Alexis Rodriguez sits down with Paola Meinzer to talk about Paola’s story of immigrating to the United States as an adult and turning her passion into pioneering for Latina women. 

“I'm just a girl from Colombia that came out here almost 20 years ago. I came as an adult and I came with my luggage full of dreams. After 20 years, I can say that I'm a very blessed person. This country has brought a lot of wonderful things to my life.”

Originally moving to Miami where she was surrounded by other Colombians and Latinos of various backgrounds, it didn’t quite feel like America to her yet. It wasn’t until she moved to be with family in Cincinnati, Ohio that her new American identity began to take shape.

“I was new to this country, I was new to that environment. I was trying to find myself to identify who I would be or how I was going to fit within the professional world and within my community.

It took me a couple of years to realize that actually one of the, um, of one of my strengths was who I was; Latina.”

The two discuss how the term ‘Latina’ was new to Paola coming to America. In Colombia, if you were from Colombia, you were Colombian while if you were from Peru you were Peruvian. However, in America Paola learned that ‘Latina’ was a term embracing women of all Latin American backgrounds creating a beautiful fabric of identity in our melting pot of a country.

“I think that what my approach was, I'm not anymore a Colombian, I'm not anymore a woman from South America. Now I really embrace that. I'm a Latina period. There’s not that much of a difference from a lady from Mexico, or a lady from Puerto Rico. For me, we are Latinas. We are this, this is who we are as a culture.”

Paola’s pride and passion for being a Latina and a part of this amazing community of women has led to her co-founding a networking organization called Latina Executive Entrepreneur Network (LEEN). The mission of LEEN is to bring together a diverse group of high-growth Latina business women from different backgrounds and organizations to inspire, empower, and educate. 

For Paola, LEEN has been something God placed in her heart. It stemmed from her own journey coming to America not quite having the business network of women like her and wanting to create that space for the next generation of Latina leaders. 

“For me being part of many business organizations within my career, I always felt that it was something missing. I felt that we needed that specific space where we can come together to help each other. We're all in the same boat.”

The future for LEEN is bright and brimming with opportunities. One of the goals Paola shares with us is to expand the organization to be inclusive of all women from various backgrounds beyond Latin America. As Paola says, “We all want to excel, but we can not win on our own. So we need that community of women behind us, that sisterhood.”

Tune into this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast to hear more about Paola’s story, what is coming next for LEEN, and how we women can support each other. 

Maribel Garcia joins us on this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast. 

Maribel is the founder of Break the Silence Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to helping the victims of domestic violence. Not only women, but men, the entire family and even people’s neighbors.

“I'm a survivor and that really ignited the desire, the passion, and the fire to open an organization to help others.”

Maribel talks about how oftentimes when you are a childhood victim of abuse and that’s all you know, you can easily grow up to choose the wrong life partner. That is what happened to her as she shares how her first husband was incredibly abusive to the point she tried to end her life. 

“It's something that just happened because I wanted to end my emotional pain, which was worse than the physical pain.”

After jumping from a building and surviving, Maribel woke up in a hospital bed promising God that she would do whatever she could to try and help others in the same situation as she had been in. Despite getting many doors slammed in her face as she was getting started, she remained persistent, confident that this was God’s path for her life.

Today, Maribel has an incredible Board of Directors that work around the clock to help support the organization. 

Maribel goes on to discuss how Latinas more than any other group of women she’s seen have the tendency to allow fear to paralyze them in cases of domestic violence. 

“It just only takes one. One to say enough, we can do this, let's move on. Let's join forces. Let's believe, let's have faith. Since we’ve started this movement it's about empowerment.”

Tune in to this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast to hear so much more about Maribel’s story of trauma and triumph and how she is paving the way to help so many other women and families who have fallen victim to domestic violence.

On this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals, Rachel Diaz, CEO of Borinquen cakes, sits down and chats about all things being Latina, Puerto Rican cakes, and more.

Rachel grew up in Puerto Rico migrating to the United States when she was 19. As she says, “By the time I was 20, I realized there were no Puerto Rican cakes in Chicago.” Thus her journey of bringing a little slice (pun intended) of Puerto Rico to Chicago began. 

She called her aunts in Puerto Rico who are professional bakers and they taught her the art of making authentic Puerto Rican cakes complete with brandy and almond icing. 

However, Rachel shares how starting a bakery wasn’t her original intention. 

“I found a passion for designing logos and things that were corporate and all of that. So, when I came here, I was determined. I wanted to be a designer and that was it. I was just doing the cakes on the side, just for fun for my family and friends.”

Coming to Chicago to follow her heart to be with her now husband, Rachel shares the culture shock she had coming from a country where everyone mixed together without judgment to a city and a country where there were still neighborhoods for different groups of people, keeping them segregated. 

With that in mind, Rachel wanted to make sure that she was as inclusive as she could be when creating her brand.

“One of the things that we had to do first when we started the business was define our target audience and define who we're going to be.

Listen in to this episode to hear more about Rachel’s story, how she’s made Chicago her home as a Latina, and stop in to Borinken Cakes on W Fullerton Ave and try the best authentic sweets from Puerto Rico.

Berenice Tenorio, CEO of Nuestra Cocina Food Company, sits down on The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast to share her story of being a Latina executive in the food industry.   

Born and raised in Hidalgo Mexico, Berenice had a dream of studying at one of the most prestigious schools in Mexico, a private university in Monterey. Coming from humble beginnings without much money, most people told her it was impossible. 

“And I said, you know what I'm gonna do? Find solutions. And that's basically my personality. I always try to find solutions when everybody tells me there is a problem or you cannot do this.”

Putting her mind to solving the problem, Berenice not only found scholarship opportunities and a way to pay for her school and expenses, she graduated from that prestigious university with a degree in International Business, taking a job opportunity in the United States after graduating. 

Berenice goes on to share her passion for international exposure and how a girl from a small town in Mexico created those opportunities for herself. Today, not only is she very proud to be a Latina in the U.S, she also runs her own company manufacturing food products. All of her products, ranging from yogurts and sour creams to meats, include a Mexican flavor. 

“One unique thing about our company is that we want to manufacture products that are one hundred percent natural. When we manufacture these products, we want all our processes to be friendly with the environment.”

Tune in to this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast to hear more about Berenice’s story of creating opportunities for herself and building a successful business and life. An inspiration for us all to work on creating our own opportunities in the New Year.

Grisell Perez sits down on this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast to share what it means to her to be a Latina who grew up in Chicago.

Grisell talks about what it was like to grow up between two worlds. Born and raised in Chicago, she was raised by her Puerto Rican father and Mexican mother. Growing up in the 80s, she explains how it wasn’t cool to speak or act ‘Spanish’ even around other Latinos. Even though her mother would speak to her and her siblings in Spanish at home, Grisell shares how they’d only respond in English. 

“You're caught in this world. You want to be cool with your friends, meaning, ‘Hey, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know Spanish’, but then when you go back home, it was a pressure of, you know, ‘Hey, tu eres Latina.’”

Grisell goes on to talk about how this wasn’t specific to only heer experience. During that time in American history, most Latinos in this country stopped teaching their kids Spanish because they wanted to ‘Americanize’ as much as possible, or in Grisell’s words ‘whitewash’ to be more cool.

“A lot of my generation do not know how to speak Spanish or read it or write it or anything because that was erased growing up.”

She brings up an important discussion that surrounds all Latinos in the United States. On the one hand, in Grisell’s generation, it was seen as protection to make sure that kids learned English so they could better assimilate. However, now, speaking Spanish is revered and can often be a ‘badge of shame’ when people of Latino-descent don’t speak the language. Fortunately, for Grisell, her mother always spoke to her about the importance of learning their native tongue. 

“She’d say, you get paid more. They want the best for you, I guess. You being young, you don't know. But now I'm happy.” 

Tune in on this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals to hear more about Grisell’s story, what she’s up to these days, and get into the discussion between Grisell and our host around what it means to be Latino in today’s world.

Stephanie Martinez, CEO of HR Designed for You, sits down with The Face of Latina Professionals podcast and shares her story of being a mixed-race Latina growing up in Chicago.

Stephanie’s father is El Salvadorian and German while her mom is of Polish, German, and Czech ancestry. Growing up in Beverly on the South Side, there weren’t many people that looked like her and didn’t have a ton of friends in her neighborhood. She shares how even when her parents were married, there were people who refused to attend an interracial marriage. 

All of this helped shape the woman she is today and her experience as a Latina. 

“I think it, it just made me work that much harder. I wanted to make sure that I was always doing my best work, so that it would show who I was and that I was capable of it. It wasn't about how I looked. It was more about what I could do.”

On reflecting what it means to be Latina as a woman today, Stephanie shares how it makes her think of the other women who go through or have gone through the same struggles she has: being a single mom, going back to school, getting a job. She wants to give others what she didn’t have growing up. 

“And I think about the mentors that I didn't have when I was very young and trying to educate me and get me in front of the right people and all of those things. So I want to be there for them to give them those resources so that they don't have to struggle as hard as I did.

Listen to this episode to hear more about how Stephanie went from following a passion of photojournalism to getting her start in HR, how she’s overcome the challenges in her life, and more on this episode of The Face of Latina Professionals Podcast.