Wealth Gap Warriors Episode 9 with: Maria Cadenas

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Welcome to the Wealth Gap Warriors Podcast, where we dive deep into the pressing issue of wealth inequality in communities of color, cultural money beliefs, and personal finance. Some of our families are struggling. Even people are actually homeless. Join us as we interview inspiring individuals and organizations across the United States who are dedicated to eradicating this disparity through their creative solutions and innovative approaches.

Together, let's explore how we can build a more equitable society for all. Here's your host, Luis Barajas. Let's get into it.

Welcome back, everyone, to the Wealth Gap Warriors Podcast. Today we have a very special guest, Maria Cadenas, who is the executive director of Ventures, and she's also a thought leader and community organizer. I came upon her through LinkedIn and I saw her do a TedX talk that was absolutely phenomenal. I need for anyone who's listening to me to go and find her TEDx talk and we'll talk a little bit about that. But thank you so much, Maria, for being with us today. I really appreciate, I know how busy you are, but one of the goals that I have here on this podcast is that you've been not designated a Wealth Gap Warrior, meaning that I know that you're out there not only in your area, but also throughout the country, really trying to change the way people are thinking about how we're approaching people who maybe are lacking, you know, what I call financial dignity. So I would love for you to tell us to start off. The very first question is tell us about who you are, where you grew up, maybe share some stories of that gave you context to the work that you're doing. And please share with us more about you.

Thank you so much and thanks for having me here.

I think my story, I wish it was a simple, straightforward answer, but the reason I'm here today is because it's not a straightforward answer that it touched many journeys along the way. I was born in Mexico City to my family and then my family moved to Ensenada, Baja California, a coastal town at the north of Mexico about two hours from the border. And at the time, Ensenada was a tiny village. I mean, it was so small that I remember the first time a pizza place opened because it was a big to do that. We were finally going to taste what this pizza was about. Now it's a cruise port, so it's a much bigger site. And then my family moved to the US when I was about 10.

I go straight to that because my immigration journey was a big a reason of how I see the world.

Being 10, you live your life as a child. I was a child going to school and my parents, they were fine. We went to grandparents on the winter. But in that immigration journey, I landed in a city that at that time there was no English learner as a second language. There were limited resources. I was one of two kids who spoke Spanish monolingually in the classroom.

Their solution for the school district was to give me all the books in Spanish and bring a tutor once a week for an hour. I had to just figure it out as a 10 year old. In the process, I also saw a lot of systems that I didn't have the framing of the language for, but that didn't make sense again, I was all of a sudden an immigrant, a wetback, someone to point at to make fun of my parents the same.

It gave no real reason of why. Since that moment, my journey has been really a curiosity and exploration of why we treat others as others and why we limit ability and possibility of people randomly by human design enterprise. The other piece that I would say helped me in my journey is that when I was in third grade we were walking down the street with my mom and I found a 500 peso coin. That's a lot of money to find in the ground as a kid. And I looked at my mom like what am I going to do? She's like, why don't you open a bank account? And I took that money, put it. That was my first bank account in third grade. But I remember that experience very closely because it gave me an idea of what you do with money. It was not spending it, it was thinking about how not only you invested, but putting it aside to think what you wanted to do with it and that there are systems there that can help you. So I think those two issues combine around the role of money and stability and the identity based politics that limited person's ability to thrive have really informed me growing up. And I ended up going to. I went to do my college education and I share this because I think some people laugh, but I went to study creative writing and I just happened to be good with numbers and business because I've been playing at entrepreneur since I was a little kid. And I said, you know what? I'm going to study business because I don't want to be a starving writer. So I'm going to do a double major. I did business and creative writing.

Then later I got my mba. My journey has been a journey of curiosity and exploration.

About how do we create worlds where we don't other others and limit their ability to contribute to society and to thrive. At the same time, looking at the resources that we do have, and one of them being money and our financial mobility and stability to make sure that we control how it functions and serves us as people and not us dancing around how money controls our lives.

Share with me a little bit about when you cross the border. What did your parents do? What type of work did they do? Are you the eldest, the youngest of the siblings?

Were you the first to go to college? Or did you have other people around you that had gone to college? Because it's a huge step, right? The thing is that a lot of people that come, especially with a language barrier, and here you come and you're very observant, your mind is observing everything and you're seeing the disparities of what's around you. But what inspired you to continue, and maybe not continue the work that your parents were doing, as a lot of people do, and maybe break through the, break the mold and go to college. I'd love for you to share with our audience a little bit more about that part of your life.

I think that my life is kind of lies a lot in the history of my family. My dad was born in Tabasco, Mexico, a rural town. We called it the jungle there cacao trees and sugar cane. And he grew up without necessarily running water. And they wanted fish, they went fishing, they wanted a chicken, they chased it down. And he moved very young to Mexico City by himself and his brother and poverty, working with nuns to survive as a young boy. My mom grew up in poverty in Mexico City. She will tell stories of growing up under a tin roof and having to Share Orange amongst 10 siblings. Growing up, they found themselves committed to education and they met in high school in Mexico City. And then they met and they were both going to university, public university in Mexico City when they met and married. And my mom got pregnant with my older brother. And so my dad decided to leave university. He was starting philosophy to take care of the family. And my mom had been working.

Started to work at a.

Child care state, provides childcare for workers in Mexico. She was starting to work there. My dad had asthma and the pollution of Mexico City made it really hard for him to continue. And he was working as an auto body repair person.

And my mom got offered a position at the childcare facility from the state in Ensenada, which was again a tiny town, nobody wanted to go. School goes there. And she's like, well, it's clean air, you can't breathe over there. So they moved the family to Ensenada. And I think for me, what that taught me is that one, you have ability to move and do what you need to do in your life. But they were just risk takers and care for family. And they had come from very humble, limited income backgrounds. But that didn't limit who they were as people or how they treated others. And I think that's a value that I hold deeply because they were able to move themselves from really what you would consider abject poverty to middle class positions. My mom ended up being the director of of the.

State for the state. And my dad had his own auto body shop. Even so, they had limited.

The peso was not as good as the dollar. And so one day a person got into an accident in front of my dad's shop. My dad fixed the car. He really liked my dad and he owned an auto body shop in the US So he invited my dad to come work to the US and earn dollars, which would be more than what he was making in the auto body shop. He did that for quite a few years and he will visit home every weekend. And then when he went back to work and my mom just kind of said, you know what? We need the family together. So we crossed the border. We didn't become legal residents until the Amnesty act and all of that happened and the paperwork went through. So as a young child, we knew but didn't know what immigration status was. We just knew how to live. But we did make fun. Whenever it was a helicopter flying overhead, we were like la migra immigration. And we play hide and seek. And I laugh at that because it was funny at the time. But at the same time, I think about that's a reflection of some trauma that a lot of young immigrants carry, whether they're documented or undocumented, because there's the sense of being watched or limited or controlled by forces outside of their reach. But that's my journey to the States. When we moved to the States, my mom didn't speak English. My dad barely spoke English. My mom, who had been the director of a state program for Mexico, found herself making tamales for school and cleaning houses.

She was a child development expert, but couldn't use those skills until she launched her own childcare business. And again, what that taught me was if you want to do something, you just do it and you can figure it out. And there's nothing wrong or.

Judgmental about work. It is work, it is a valid work and you just work it. And so she actually cleaned houses and she sold tamales and she. I Remember, she took us on tours for colleges and middle school, not understanding what it was. She just climbed on the bus that the middle school was trying to organize and she got enrolled with the parent groups. Again, there was not a lot of Spanish, PTA or bilingual resources at the time. But the courage and.

To just step up in uncomfortable spaces, in learning curiosity spaces, to hold your ground as a human being and also to pursue what you can and make your own opportunities is something that I learned from my parents. I think for me and my journey is that constant reminder that one, I don't know everything. I have so much to learn, but that doesn't devalue what I have to also contribute. The same is true for everybody. I like to tell people that my greatest strength is that because I've been blessed enough to have many experiences. My point of the world is that I can see the galaxies and I can see the connecting points to things that may not seem immediately related. And my greatest weakness is that I see all the connecting points and then I sometimes move a little faster than I should. But I hope that gives you a little nuance into.

That's a wonderful story. I get reminded. I know we've just barely met and you don't know. I work with people from very humble beginnings, from the Barus. But I also work with really famous Latino musicians and artists that are very iconic people. I have kids that are, you know, 18 years old that are making millions of dollars. And I've got people that have just crossed over the border. And what reminded me of your story of your parents is that what intelligent, highly intellectually intelligent parents you had, but who were willing to do, to cross, to also maybe probably provide a better life for their children. And. And so whenever I speak to someone that comes into my office that's either an immigrant or first generation, and I hear their stories and sometimes we forget how much savidoria, how much wisdom they have just because they're working in the fields or their auto body or My dad was an ornamental iron worker. I get sometimes more wisdom in a meeting with them than I do sometimes with meeting with CEOs of big companies that are doing millions and millions of dollars. They just were in the right place, right time did it. And we have to always remember that every soul is special.

And so now I can see where your heart comes from. So tell me the transition. So now you graduate, you get your master's in business, right? Do you plan to go into the corporate world? What does this college change you? Or does college just give you More.

Or in college, you start thinking and working more with organizations or with people who need help. Because college will change certain people.

Thinking one way and come out thinking another. Talk to me and tell me a little bit about your college experience in the US Coming out and then your career path after that.

Yeah, so my undergrad experiences, I didn't know where I was going. It took a middle school, a substitute teacher who was sitting in a class who returned. My homework is like, you know, you did a really good job. You should go to college. And I was like, what the heck is college? You know? And my mom had taken us to tours, but I hadn't internalized a thought about it. I just said tour. And my mom is not a college graduate, Neither is my dad. They dropped out, but they would have been the first generation for them. I went to college to a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. And I tell people I was 18. What do you know at 18, all I knew is I wanted to write. And they got a little postcard. Instead of the gigantic books telling you how great they were, they sent me one little postcard that said, we have the best grade of writing program. And I was like, oh, that's nice. That's unique. And they had a little turtle mascot that was their unofficial mascot. And I was like, that's even better. And my teenage self was excited. But it was a Latino counselor that was working for that college that called me out of class my senior year and said, are you applying because you belong here? And I'm like, what? And this is little Latino from Texas in Wisconsin, calling little me in California, where my idea of warm weather was a jean jacket and socks and sandals. And he's like, you belong here and you should come. And I said, you know what? I can't come here. Wisconsin. I can't even visit the campus. It's too expensive. Because I should point out, when we moved to the states, it was a Great Depression, so we lost all our wealth. We were going to food pantries and that kind of stuff. So navigating poverty in the US Was a very shaping experience for me. He coordinated alumni to meet with me in San Diego to do the interview there instead of flying to the campus. Then in that interview, they approved what they called scholarships, four year scholarships for me to go to that school. They said, but you know what? You shouldn't say yes just because of the money. You need to visit the campus to make sure it's your right fit. And then those alumni, and I wish I knew their names, but they donated Their frequent flyer miles so that I could fly to the school and visit the school and I tell people, look, I'd be very blessed. And the school was the best choice for me. It was a great fit. It's Cobalt Lloyd College. It's like a thousand students, but the whole thing is about creative thinking and liberal arts thinking, which allowed me to do creative writing and business double major and to study abroad. But I was a first gen. There was a lovely counselor at the college that worked with first generation students and students of color to make sure that we had the support we needed because it was a very privileged space as a private school, thousand students. Most of the people there were affluent families, white. It was.

An opportunity of learning other lenses of the world. I had never navigated in wealth, right? And I didn't know, like I was the kid who was saving the pennies and the dimes to buy the cocoa in the weekend, you know, And I didn't. I had to understand how others navigated when there was wealth and access and opportunity. And my first job out of college.

Was with Accenture. Back then it was Anderson Consulting. It was a tech consulting enterprise. And I got that job because the college provided interviews and a career counseling set up. And the counselor there said, you should come and just practice your interviewing skills as you prepare to graduate.

What was your major?

Business administration and creative writing. I did a double major.

And so I went in there and I said, I'm going to practice my interviewing skills. And then I got the job. And I'm like, well, I have a job. I don't have to worry. I'm good. So I was a tech consultant straight out of college. And the reason I got the job was just because it was that interdisciplinary critical thinking approach of effort. And I was doing tech consulting back then. It was around the time that Salesforce was really growing. I was doing tech implementations for the state of Connecticut and HRMs, like human resources setups and learning a lot. And at the same time, I was questioning my contribution to the world because then you're just a worker within the system. And 911 happened and I was flying at that time. I was young and it felt really well. I was flying in and out every four days to Connecticut or Detroit or wherever they placed me. But when 911 happened, it made me stop for a moment because I did skip one thing. When I graduated undergrad, I thought I was going to go to the Peace Corps, but I didn't know that you had to be a citizen to participate in the Peace Corps. And I didn't yet have citizenship. I was still in my process to finalizing my residency in order to qualify to apply for citizenship. So that's one of the reasons I didn't do that route in my journey.

And so then I did join a Accenture by the time I left the west accenture. But when 911 happened, I saw the pushback against immigrants, predominantly Middle east descendant immigrants, Muslim communities, but also in the whole anti immigrant sentiment that was at the time. It was really, we saw increased rates of Latino enterprises businesses.

And it really concerned me. So I thought I'm going to use my gifts and my talents to give back in a different way or to live life differently. I left my consulting position to join the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin as their associate director. At the time I said I'm going to bring down my management and organizational know how into this enterprise to make sure that it can succeed. And that's how I ended in work. But what moves me is one, I'm a curious person. I like to learn. I want to make sure that we have such a short time in this earth. I want to do what I can to contribute to make lives better and make that worth it for me. Sometimes you learn in a corporate office, sometimes you learn in a non profit. I don't think every journey needs to be the same. But for me it was important to leave consulting and learn more about what we can do to protect immigrant rights at the time. And that was really my immediate experience. Right after undergrad. I didn't get my MBA until much later.

I had been already a nonprofit and I had been running a foundation for a while. I recognized that I, I didn't know enough. With the foundation there's a lot of assets and philanthropy there's a lot of assets. And those assets are not necessarily being invested in a way that reflect the values of the mission stated by foundations. Some of them are anti poverty foundations, some are other foundations, but their investment portfolio looks like anybody else investment portfolio. So even though they may be funding say.

Climate or funding women rights, back then nobody was talking about the portfolio diversification and investment strategy to protect, to ensure that the assets invested were also going into those values. So I started to, I sought my MBA really to go deeper into our economic structures and systems to fully understand how they were functioning so I can advocate for changes in it. My theory is you can't change something if you don't take the time to actually understand and see how it functions. So I sought my MBA after having been in the foundation world for A while and wanting to. Recognizing that I needed to explore some things a little bit more.

So let me ask you a question during all that time and all that process, because now you're in the nonprofit world, right? You're working with aclu and then you're working for the foundation. Were there mentors or books or, you know, were you. Were you reading a specific type of information or books that were guiding you or. Or inspiring you to continue the work that.

Or.

Or maybe seeing the disparities.

Besides just what, you know, what you were going through the MBA program or through the, you know, creative Writing at Wisconsin and, and the business program.

Yeah, I think one, I like to read a lot or even listen to podcasts. I mean, it's just so much knowledge available to us that why wouldn't we. What I started to see was the connection between books like the Borderlands, which is Latina lesbian feminist lens of Intersection. They have Audrey Lord, right. And then you have. There were all these books that were coming out around like the triple bottom line spaces that. It just didn't quite rang true to me. I was trying to match this. Discussions that were happening around racial equity intersectionality, that kind of personal.

Awareness of self and belonging and the importance to be able to just be right. Because sometimes we put this pressure of you have to be a thriving immigrant or you have to be a. You just have to be. So I was reading books around.

Explaining systems really and, and. And connecting systems to identity at the same time that I was reading books around.

That were more or less functioning within the system, you know, but. But couching it around equity. And I was trying to thread the needle between all three because a lot of the. So those books for me were fundamental. But in terms of mentors, I tell people, you know, some of my greatest mentors and people were actually white men. You know, it's surprising to many, but they were.

They were people who saw me as a person who were willing to give me time.

And treated me with the opportunities they treated everybody else right. And it's hard sometimes in the culture and the spaces that we have for people not to label you or to put on their own expectations based on what they think a Latina or an immigrant should be. And so.

The person who hired me at the ACLU.

Is a very calm person, very insightful, but I learned a lot from him. The person who hired me and I work with over when I moved to California for the corporate philanthropy job was also one of them. And then.

I always said, my parents are always my greatest Guides, because I can tap into them, and they're very wise. But the biggest mentors are those who showed me and told me what they said honestly, with care, because you can have honesty that is harmful, and you can have honesty that is kind and graceful.

That kind of mentor for me has been great. The woman who was the counselor for my undergrad for kids of first gen happened to move to the city that I moved after graduation and left that position, and she stayed in touch with me. I remember one day I got locked out and I called her, and she came in, made sure I got in, you know, so people like that who are there for you and continue to guide you are really important.

I love Epiphany for me is, you know, they've always said, say what you mean, but don't say it. Mean. But I love what you said, that someone could be honest with you, but with care. Right. Asking somebody to be honest with you and also still be hurtful or harmful.

Wow. What a great.

That's a great viewpoint. Thank you for that. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you said that, and it just struck on me that. That. That's so ne. That's so true. I see that when we're mentoring, because as I get older, right. I get a lot of people that ask to be mentored or come to me, and. And as I've gotten older, what you just said just really has resonated with me that I'm very careful about when I'm trying to be honest with someone.

Because I think when I was younger, I think I was probably the opposite. I was very direct and very honest, and maybe sometimes too honest, and people couldn't accept that honesty. But I'm sorry to interrupt you keep going. It just brought something up to me, so. So I just wanted to share that with you, and I think that's a great point. That again, for the audience that's listening to us, because we. We are inspiring a lot of other mentors that are listening to people that you're inspiring. I think one of my goals, Maria, is that there are a lot of people doing the work that we do but don't realize how hard it is. And they think it's easy sometimes because we're. Or just because that has a lot of meaning and impact and it's very purposeful doesn't mean that it's not hard work and that we still have to overcome as we still have to help each other out. The other thing that you mentioned is that you said you've been helped by Several white men and most of the people that I've talked to, especially me, like for example, in my life I have been helped, to be quite honest with you, by a Jewish man. Maybe in my prior life I was Jewish, I don't know. But the thing is that in every most synchronistic moment in my life, when I needed a hand up, it was, for whatever reason, it was a Jewish man that came to my help and helped me and got me to the next point. So it's just an, you know, what you're saying just kind of strikes a chord a lot in alignment to some of the stuff that I've been through too. So I know that you're resonating with a lot of people that, that are hearing you right now.

And I, I like to put it like in, in contexts I, I like to say, masa melo por viejo, que por diable, you know, and.

As, as, as young as I may look, the cannas are overtaking the hair, you know, so it's like, so the experience is there. But like you, when I was much younger, I would just, I don't think kindness was at the front, front of my honesty. There was a sense of we need to get this done, this urgency of caring to get it done. I think for me it's been over time that the reality that we're dealing with issues that have been centuries in the making.

We'Re not going to undo it in a one grand cycle, in a one year portfolio analysis, um, it's going to be a matter of consistency and communication. And that's a long game. And we can't do it alone and we can't do it without helping each other up. The one thing I would say is, for me in consciousness is that when I think of that young self that was brash and honest.

There was a lot of hurt that actually led to that energy. There was a lot of healing and unlearning that I'm still doing. But that was important to do in order to step into the space with that different energy and different. And I still mess up. God knows I still mess up. But it is that space of when we're talking about change, when we're talking about, you may say, a social movement, it is not a social movement for the sake of creating change. For me, when we talk about wealth gaps and we talk about poverty, we talk about our economic system, it is a movement for change to make sure everybody can thrive, that we're not leaving people behind for the comfort of others. That's A hard conversation. Because at the end of the day, when I talk to people, most people care for each other. They want their kids to have a good school, good food. Most people are not dreaming of the private jet in a private island at any cost.

It doesn't matter. The political party, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter the background. Most people just want to care about for the people they love and their communities.

What happens between those feelings and the systems that they're navigating that give us different results? If we can engage in those honest conversations from the heart to heart and people to people, and recognize that these barriers or these wealth gaps are not necessarily created by individuals, but individuals in a system that other individuals created and that we keep propagating. But just like other individuals created it, we can undo it and create something that actually lives up to what most people want, which is healthy schools, good water, good food. You know, so that. That drives me. And in the terms of mentorship, what. What I have also come to own is that they have been really generous individuals, and a lot of them are white men. But also it happens that they have the most ability to give and time and money and social contacts and understanding of the system that benefits them. Things that I wouldn't be aware of as one of the greatest gifts of going to a private college is I saw systems that I didn't even know existed, doors that I didn't know even were there to be opened, or working in tech consulting, which is predominantly a white male space, I still think it still is. It was definitely back then, you know, it opened opportunities and senses. So for when those men mentored me and shared their knowledge with, you know, freely, without fear of. Of competition or fear of, like, saving me, but just being my partner, that was really critical and important. I think as a community, as Latinos, as immigrants, as women coming into the space not from fear, not from the sense that I need to grab what's mine, but in the sense of building each other up and lifting each other up and leveraging each other up, that mutual prosperity is possible, and it includes healing. I think we do have to be honest about that and. And make peace with our relationship to money, understand our relationship to each other, and then we can build from there.

Well, you talk about being in the system. I'm in wealth management. Been wealth management since I was 24. I think I'm 62 now. I can see how the entire industry was never set up to really focus on the needs of most people. You know, right now I will share with you that if I have somebody who's coming in, like a immigrant family or first generation family going to college and we're doing financial planning for college, the average person in the industry would be talking about a product, a 529 plan in which they can start saving for college. Where, you know, we don't take into account. Nobody ever asks, has a family, does the family have any experience of going to college? Are the parents engaged in going to parent teacher night? What are the grades of the student? What are the, what are the, what are the positive things? What are their unique abilities and talents?

What's, you know, how's their self esteem? What kind of experience do they have? And nobody asks these questions before they talk about opening up a 529 account and getting them to start putting money away. Because at the end of the day, the neighborhood that I grew up had over a 50% dropout rate that didn't include the kids that dropped out of high school. I mean, before high school, that went into high school. And then only 3% would ever graduate if they went to community college. And so.

They didn't. Nobody talked about the skills, abilities and habits.

That was needed not to get into college, but to graduate. Because that's where people made the most difference. Because when I would ask the mothers and they would tell me in Spanish, what is it that you want for your kid? And they go, I want them to go to college. And I say, no, tell me. And they would close their eyes and they would tell me in Spanish and they would tell me, I want. And they say.

And they said, you know, I want my kid to defend herself, because with a college education, you can't take that away. And I said, so the goal is not to save enough money for your kid to go to college. The goal is for your kid to graduate from college and graduate with a degree in something that they're uniquely inspired to go out and be successful. And so we would take step back and sometimes we would see that these kids, I mean, the best grade they had was probably a C or the family was very dysfunctional. And so we would use some of that money instead of putting into the. Back then there were ugma accounts, my accounts 529 plans were barely just starting out. We put the money in family counseling. We would use the money in sending the kids to Telacu in East LA to send them to a self esteem workshop up in Big Bear. We would save money to send the kids out of their community and to travel a little bit and so to get some experience to give the kids what we call cash, the knowledgeability, skills and habits. You know, K A S A to knowledgeability, skills and habits, to not only get in, but to graduate so they can really be successful. So. And the industry that I'm in is very product driven. Right. And we teach young Latinos coming into the industry that I'm in when it comes to finances to be very product driven, to think that products will change our communities, where sometimes it's just not about the product, it's a lot about more of the people and the processes that we've set up for them than anything else. Share with me now.

Your step back into ventures and how you end up going back to California and how you end up working in ventures and the work that you're doing now and what you're trying to do in the California coast areas, the Central coast area where you're working. Tell me about what kind of people you're helping out, what your programs do, and then what kind of outreach you've got in your community.

Yeah, so I left public philanthropy to join corporate philanthropy for an ad company. They do marketing and distribution of. Of fruit. And so in that role, I was providing guidance for the global strategy of the philanthropy portfolio. And then I was overseeing the philanthropy for the U.S. mexico, Chile. This company's philanthropy strategy had been historically more focused on what I would call charity, you know, winter drives, school drives, that kind of sponsorships. And they were really interested in looking at, from an impact standpoint. And I was really curious about what we can do within corporate structure which, you know, touches people's lives every day. That's your job, that's your health insurance, that's your vendor contracts.

Right.

That you do outside of the philanthropy portfolio. So I was just really curious about what can we take from public philanthropy, the best practices of philanthropy, the corporate philanthropy. And the thing is, you know, a funder, you know, a funder, every funder is different. Every corporation is different, you know, So I don't want to say this as the field, but for me, the other aspect of the work was because it was going to take into the Americas and it was focused on farm workers that were really interested in working with the employees of the. Of the corporation and connecting it to farm workers, which made their product possible. They just weren't clear how to go about it. So I focused on kind of moving that portfolio towards an economic development lens of the rural areas where they had their growing operations across the Americas, and then influencing the strategy for the global. Because they were also like, they were expanding into China. They were Morocco. So it's a global company and really looking at, if we look at economic development or rural areas and the farm workers on those rural areas, what kind of work needs to happen.

And so that was my time with them and internally kind of working as partner, thought partner with hr, with marketing, with research, to make sure that the philanthropy aspect, what I call the heart of the company, and this was a unique structure at the time because it was not part of the marketing department, it was its own department directly under the CEO. So we could have a really focus on trying to get those values out versus trying to get the brand out. And that's unique and in corporate philanthropy.

So I was just working, kind of making sure that if we work in a new economic development and say that it included, say, growing the number of small growers, for example, or growing the number of say, farm worker to farmer models, that the business model was not undoing that work, that somehow they were complementary and aligned. So I was working internally to support and encourage seasonal worker benefits, just as we were doing the other aspects of economic development. And economic development in each region looked differently. Some regions were ready for, say, business incubation or like, you know, B2B kind of structure. Some needed academic and educational pipelines, Some were around health. People just needed not to have more access to health. So it was an interesting thing. What did come from that role for me was.

The issues that I was seeing in Chile, in Mexico, Morocco, were the same issues that I was seeing in Florida and the Pacific Northwest and in California, Central Coast. What I saw was intergenerational poverty in these rural communities that is continuous even as we have multinational, rich, quite frankly, financially successful enterprises that are making the money out of these communities. Yet these communities are stuck in intergenerational poverty in a low wage structure that facilitates this wealth building.

On top of that, you had limited educational mobility. People were not graduating high school. And I'll give you example of my region. In the Santa Cruz county. You have the city of Santa Cruz, which is 82% college educated, white, and not even 20 miles south. I'm talking maybe not even that much is Watsonville, the other second largest city of this county, with 82% less than high school graduation rates. Wow. And the income gap is 30,000. The cost of living is the same. The cost of living of this region is one of the highest in the country, if not the highest. Takes about 120,000 to barely make it to just pay the bills.

In the part that is Watsonville is also predominantly Latino. Over 60, 80% of the population is Latino versus the city Watsonville, which is predominantly white. Yet demographically speaking, you have an aging, affluent, well educated community in the city of Santa Cruz. And ag birth rates decreasing, average age going up. Okay. And a young, young population in the Latino part. Average age is 25. Right. And so I saw this thing like, well, if this is happening here, it's happening in Chile, it's happening in Mexico, it's happening everywhere else. If we can't figure out this wealth gap, income gap.

Then something's up. So what if I said like, I'm just going to hang my hat from a global stage. I'm going to join this nonprofit which at the time was like, I called it the Little Sleepy Giant. It was established in 1999, 1989, but it never had a year in the black. And it was just the community outreach arm of a credit union. But it wasn't really doing much of anything at the time other than serving some classes to the members of the credit union. I was like, what if we took that 501c3 status and that relationship to financial institutions to try to figure out how we can look at the income and wealth gap in this region which can inform, quite frankly, global trends. Like, what can we learn from here? That's what made me come to Ventures. I called it my sandbox because my context was this is not unique to Latinos, this is not unique to immigrants. This is something that we're seeing at the global stage in terms of how capital, income and wealth is distributed. So what within the systems can we learn locally so that it can be shared globally in ways that we address it? And so adventures, what I tell people is it's hard to understand is that we're think tank, we imagine with the community, we work mostly with farm worker, immigrant households. To have the conversations you had with parents, like what are your dreams? What are your hopes? What are your barriers? What do you see? Right? And then we go with the nerds out here, like, who love data, like me. We're like, what are the models out there? What's going on? And we come back and talk together and then we talk to electeds and we talk to government and then we come up with ideas that are part of the world we want. So for example, in the college here, one of our programs is called Semi Gitas. Semi Gitas creates a college savings account for every single child born in Santa Cruz County. That's not a new model. Other people have done It. Right. The idea is that the earliest you get into a family's thinking about higher education is how quick you can shift aspirations. Sometimes people write off that their kids don't have a future because they don't know how they could do it. Right. You change that aspiration at birth, it changes everything. The biggest difference between Semritas and other, what they're called children's savings account programs is that we connected it to health because the data showed that that was possible. What Semiguitas aims to do is we work with hospitals and with insurance providers and other health providers, including dental care. As the child goes from the ages of 0 to 5, we call it, we walk the milestones with them. We say the community is with your dreams because we're trying to change the aspirations of the family, their expectations. For many of these families.

50% are low wage households of all the births and 50% don't have a college education.

Most of these families is their first time with an interest accruing account because we're using a 529 model. And it's the first time thinking that it is possible. We work with them and say if as your child grows, their account will grow with them. And how do we grow it? Well, you're going to take care of your kid, right? So when you take them to the dentist, the dentist is going to give them 25 bucks for the college account and they went to the doctor. A doctor is going to give them $25 for taking care of their health. And if you go to a parenting class. So the growth of the child's account is not tied to the parents disposable income to make additional contributions. It's just basically there for the child in their journey. And that's about shifting aspirations. Yes, building assets, but really shifting aspirations about the possibility of post secondary education early on. Because what the data showed was that a child with this account, especially moderate to low income household, they're three times more likely to go to college, four times more likely to graduate even if the account has $1.

The assets are important but like you said, the biggest shift is that mindset is the is what is possible. And so that's one of our programs. We help others. We've talked to people in Texas and I'm like just borrow from our models because that's what we do. We, we imagine, we create, we launch and then we share that. That's what ventures.

Yeah, you know I work a lot with the mindset of the parents as well because I've had I've been doing this for so long in east la. I've had young women who had been accepted to, from East LA to Stanford, to Harvard, to Princeton, back East. And the parents wouldn't let the kids go. Right? The parents wouldn't let the daughters go. And it was a specific mindset. And sometimes it wasn't a mindset where it was a poverty mindset.

What am I going to do? But at the end of the day, they were holding the child back. And once we knew some of the kids were doing really well in school, we would try to bring the parents into the schools and try to educate them about education and what their kids get and what college is like. I worked for the UCLA Partnership program when I was at ucla, bringing kids in from Compton and from CUCLA and East LA to UCLA. And I would bring and invite the parents, the kids would say they're weak, to acclimate them to a different environment. I mean, I went to UCLA, which is only, I would say, less than 20 miles from where I grew up. And to me, it was a completely different world. It was a different planet. It was a completely different planet from where I grew up, right. East LA, where even the McDonald's sign is all in Spanish.

And. And so it's just the work that you're doing is so incredible. And I'm sure that.

You know, you still, though, deal with certain issues. So I just kind of want to share. What is it that now, like, we're talking right now to other people working in the profession that is on your career path, do you still. What do you struggle with? What do you tolerate? What do you still have to kind of sometimes bite your tongue with? When it comes to working with foundations to get. To get money or, you know, grants or even in your own community, what are you still tolerating that that you wish could change or you know that it's going to change, but it's going to take some time. Are there any things that you still get frustrated with or.

Well, there's plenty of things, but. So when I'll share it more like a story that kind of tells you kind of how we landed. When Covid hit.

We were doing. We have a program called Familias con Mas, and Familias was workshops, but a lot of coaching, again, trying to make sure people had the knowledge to understand the system so they could change it. So that's Familias con Mas. When Covid hit, we couldn't do that work because. And actually we were about to launch Sanitas we launched Samitas right as Covid hit. So it impacted the outreach to families and making sure families knew that the accounts existed.

And basically the organization was like, what do we do? We can't. And we were not alone in this, right? Everybody was like, what do we do? And we talked about, do we close the doors? We don't want to fire people because that goes against our values. We have enough resource. What can we do?

At the time, we were talking about developing local economies, really, that were inclusive, et cetera. But when Covid hit, I had a call from a colleague, Maria. I have this woman who came here. She's undocumented, you know, of any resources. And I said, there is nothing for them. There's no state safety net, there's no federal safety net. In fact, they have explicitly been excluded from those safety nets. I'm like, hold on a second. And then I got another call from a similar colleague, and I'm like, hold on a second. And I just sat there for like five minutes, and I'm like, I called him back, like, if I do something, will you support me then? I can. I'm like, all right, word of mouth, mou. That's fine with me. And I. I sat with my, my. My fund development director at the time, and I said, ileana.

We'Re just gonna do something. Like, we're just gonna do it. She's like, okay. I'm like, we're just gonna do it. We knew of an undocu fund fund that had happened for fire relief a few years back. And I called that that or a person who act, you know, who amazing leader. And I say, hey, Marela, how you do it? How did you do it? She's like, we just kind of did it. I'm like, all right, that's good enough for me. We're just going to do it too. And I thought, you know, we're just going to do. But I didn't want to. I'm like, we're going to have to figure out a way to help our undocumented families, Right? That was my gut. Because in California, and I'm sure it's true for other areas of the. The country, most of the immigrants in this country have been here for 20 years, 20, 15 years, documented or otherwise. And so this is their home, this is our neighbors and their economic activity. Spain the local, taxes and Spain the local. You know, and so leaving them out, to me, morally is wrong, but economically is foolish. I mean, you're just. Is your economic engine.

So I was just like, okay, we'll figure it out. And at that time we're like, what are we going to call it? I said, you know what we're going to call it? As it is, we are doing an undocumented relief fund and we're not going to put restrictions and it's going to be cash because we trust our people. They're not thieves. They're not trying to con the system, they're just trying to survive. And we're going to test out this whole guaranteed income thing with them and we're just going to treat them as people because that's who they are. And there are people in need just like everybody else. We're not going to make them jump through hoops. We were doing basically at the time things that have been in theory talked about how you create better safety nets. But we have this system of judgment and almost like patronizing approach, as if poor people or people with limited income are somehow dumber or less able or less wise on how they use their money. They just have less money, period. Could they use some skills? Maybe? Not everybody though, right? There's still people that are adults, that are taking care of families. We should, in the most part, we can trust them. We spend more money in policing how people with limited income use their money than in actually helping them. And I think that's just ridiculous as a society also from an economic standpoint. But for me at that moment, it was a clarity of purpose, of getting out of our own way. Because sometimes in selling this, not selling, in sharing what you're trying to achieve, you feel like you have to bend to what the, quite frankly, racism or sexism or homophobia of the people holding the wealth. So you can like, please give me the money. And at that moment, at that crucial moment, I'm like, that is their money. It was their payroll taxes. It is those tax exemptions that allowed for those conference to be filled. And I'm done excusing it. I'm just going to go out there and ask for it. And will I get everybody? No. There are some funders that didn't understand why do you need undocufed when we have a relief fund? But there were many others who did, who understood that this wasn't about just the relief fund. This was about a reflection, a mirror of communities controlling their own financial destiny and relief. Because it's led by people who were immigrants to people who are immigrants. Right? There's a huge value in self determination in doing that. Some funders were still holding to the charity model and a lot of them still do. There's nothing wrong with that. I'll take anything that helps our community bring it. And others are really moving to the point of recognizing that.

In order to move to the world we want. It also means letting go of some of the power, including assets in ways that's the land back movement, that's reparations, that's other spaces that are really critical. I think what I still face is that there are people who are still in the charity model. They are people who are still in the savior model. Regardless of ethnicity. There's plenty of affluent Latinos who still look and let me help this poor little immigrants out of the field. Right. Same as white people. They're like, I would love to be your mentor, but they don't see you as a colleague. There's a difference that's still there, but there's a lot of more allies and a lot of more people already. So at ventures we like to say, look, we work with everybody because we'll find the space that makes sense. I used to joke, you take the money and run. It's the community's money. We're using it in communities purpose. But it's really about partnership. And sometimes we've been very blessed in finding foundations and partners who understand where we're coming from. Some who may not understand everything but are willing to work in the sliver where we do have similarities and some who just don't and it's okay to let them go. I think that my advice to those in the field or who may be thinking going in the field is be true to your values and your people and don't tokenize others, including yourself. You're no better than anybody else. And be to that, don't, don't dance around or put mask or pretend to be because in the end it actually reinforces everything that's forcing you to have that mask to pass to do what you need to do. I mean, you always have to be respectful and you be mindful, but not at the expense of your humanity, your dignity and that of the communities.

Fantastic. We're wrapping up now. We're heading towards the end of the hour, but I'd love for you to share.

Just kind of what brings you the most amount of joy in the work that you do. What do you do? I can have an entire day of meeting with a lot of wealthy people, whatever, but then I end up meeting the abuelita that I get to help and I just feel the most inspired. What brings you the most amount of joy in the work that you do?

Just people, the community in general. I mean, it could be an affluent donor who is willing to ask really simple questions or to be hold to account. It could be just a conversation over coffee or like, you know, sometimes we have the families.

Yeah, people. I think the human experience is at heart joyful and at heart giving. And it is those conversations where you're not, when you're comfortable enough to be that that's what brings me the most joy. I think one of the comments that I got in conversation with a community member is like, you see me.

That, that was very meaningful because for her, the other safety net programs or the other partners, for some reason she always felt like a client or somebody that was not seen as a human being. And so that brings me joy when they, they can see their power and they can see it and recognize it, that, that fills my heart.

You know, we're talking about.

Society and economics and the wealth gap, but listening to you and the approach that you take with the people in your community sounds very spiritual to me. It's like from a very spiritual kind of side where you're really.

Not just helping people, but really like you said, you see me. The person who said you see me, it's like your soul saw their soul and it wasn't, here's another person I need to help or here's another person getting lie, we're going to give you a check or we're going to help you out or whatever it was.

You identify that person, but you acknowledge that person and you. So I see the work that you do is very, very spiritual. What's next for you? What I mean, is there a book coming out in the future for you? What, what? You know, I, I see you as a, as a thought leader.

As someone who's kind of ahead of the curve, who's seeing things that maybe needs to shift. Share.

What you're seeing with others who are still not awake yet, who still have not seen it. But what, what's next for you?

I don't know. I tell I leave the doors open to the universe. I wouldn't say no to a book. I just need to make time to write it. I, I, I think for me is sharing the thoughts like you mentioned, right.

Getting people to see themselves. And if I can help in conversation, whether it's through books or podcasts or presentations.

That would be the greatest opportunity for me.

Maria Cadenas, it has been an honor and a pleasure. I would love for you to tell everyone how they can get a hold of you if they want to donate or just want to reach out to you or maybe want to donate their time. It's anybody in the community there. I know that I've got a young advisor that works for me that's close to you that I know that after he sees this podcast or listens to this podcast is going to want to probably volunteer some time helping you out, especially on that semi itas program. But let us know how we can get a hold of you.

Yeah, so you can go to my website is mariacadenas.com and then ventures is sccbonline.com so feel free to find us online and our social media. I always love chatting with people and connecting. So the more the merrier. That's how we create a world together.

Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate the.

Energy, the vibrational energy that you bring not only to us but to your community.

And all the great work that you're doing. We wish you the best and continue the best. If there's anything I can ever do to help you, just reach out to me as well. But thank you so much for spending an hour of your time with us. We really appreciate you and we hope to see you soon.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you for listening to the Wealth Gap warriors podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. I love the show, guys. You're awesome.

Join Lewis next time as we continue our Wealth Gap Warrior journey, creating a brighter future for all.