Selina Hayes

Selina Hayes: There's a generational respect that that needs to be there, I think, for a lot of these women that have been working this craft forever. These promotoras that have been helping get our votes out for decades upon decades. And I always felt like when I first started working in it, I just thought, "Wow." They were seen on such a negative way at times, and I didn't see them like that. I quickly learned how hard their work was. There was times that they have to go visit a family six, eight times before they can get the two voters that don't want to vote to understand why they have to vote, and to go vote. And just the encouragement that takes place and the way they have to interact and be even interested in their life...

Jennifer Nájera: Yes.

Selina Hayes: You know what I mean? Like,

Jennifer Nájera: Yes.

Selina Hayes: It's not just going and saying, "This is so-and-so. He's a great guy. We need to vote for him." No, it's, "How are you? How's your husband?" And I've seen that... I mean, I'm running a hundred miles an hour. I don't know that I can sit there with 30 households and pretend or not pretend or really care to hear all about how your kids and your husband and your grandmother are doing. And, "How can I, you know, let me see how this guy can help your needs." And that's hard.

Jennifer Nájera: Yeah.

Selina Hayes: That's time consuming. And that's, este fastidias. So I quickly noticed, and I did it a lot in nonprofit. Because when I worked in nonprofit, I worked for Dress for Success, who, Aaron Peña's wife was the president of that board. She got me the directorship there. And when I was working there, I learned really quick organizations like ARISE and Mujeres Unidas, all those women that did the outreach for those programs, they're kind of doing the same thing. And it was so hard for them to go out there and do that kind of caseload and be able to keep the engagement. It's hard.

Selina Hayes: And so when I came on, I remember one of the first things I noticed was I liked working with them. I liked helping them, because I couldn't do what they did. I knew I couldn't. I don't have that kind of patience. I don't. But I knew that I wanted to do whatever I could to give them the tools so they could go do it, because I knew that it was important. And as much as people say, "Well, we don't need them anymore." No. Our numbers are bad in Hidalgo County. We don't have the kind of numbers we should have. Nobody does. It's not just Hidalgo County... its the state. We don't come out and vote like we should. And as a minority, we definitely don't. But if those women weren't bringing out votes, we would have even less people voting.

Selina Hayes: I mean, all of them have been good. But the Beto campaign, I mean, nothing will ever... I will never be able to top the Beto campaign.

Jennifer Nájera: What was so great about the Beto campaign?

Selina Hayes: Well, the Beto campaign was just, I always wanted to do a gubernatorial race, and I had never done one. And in this case I was political director down here. And so it finally was kind of... On the one hand, it was me being able to introduce this campaign to this area and kind of be the spokesperson for it, which I was so proud to be because I adored him. And I just thought that he should have been elected a long time ago. But aside from that, it was also kind of the trust coming full-circle for me. I've been trying to probably retire from this for a few years and had thought this next campaign season will probably be my last. And so this kind of was like, wow, somebody's trusting me to be the political director amongst the peers of people that I've worked amongst for so long for this huge campaign. And I just felt very honored to do it.

Jennifer Nájera: So we've talked a little bit about how your work has influenced, or how you feel like community people are viewing your work. I guess I'm just wondering how your work has affected your personal life?

Selina Hayes: There is none. [Laughter]

Jennifer Nájera: Easy answer. [Laughter]

Selina Hayes: Easy answer. No. I mean, I have kids, so my children have always taken up a lot of my time. When I'm not at work, I'm at home. And during campaign season, you abandon your home in a major way. My kids ate way more fast food than they ever should have. Laundry could pile up till Sunday, and Sundays were the days to clean. And so it's always been, you know, the on season is crazy. The off season is more like, okay, I can like sit down and eat and cook and I nest. I start baking and cooking because I'm making up for lost time. But I think it's... There's always a little bit of guilt in that this is a lot of work that I do. And so when I'm not doing it, I need to do more at home because I've abandoned my home life so much.

Selina Hayes: My second husband used to work with me. And so that made it really easy to still continue to tag team and raise my kids. He was very helpful in that aspect. We were able to still swing by, pick up kids, I'll do this, you go do that. And so it worked, and it was very helpful at the time. We're no longer married and so now I'm kind of doing it alone again. But, I think if I can get out once a month for myself, it's like a big deal. But I would say, yeah, it takes a back seat. There's not much left after work and then family to actually have a personal life in itself. And it's like my daughter says, "And when you're out, all you do is talk about politics anyway." So what would it matter?

Jennifer Nájera: It kind of seeps into all aspects of your life.

Selina Hayes: It does. It does. Because I love it, not because it's my job.

Jennifer Nájera: I think that's why it makes it. Yeah.