Maria Filomena Leo

Maria Filomena Leo: While I was growing up, beginning in my middle school years, my brothers would pick cotton during the summer. And they'd go off early morning, they'd get on a truck and go off and come back all dirty and whatnot. And I wanted to go too. And I asked my father again, "No, that is not a girl's place." I said, "But, Pero papá es un poco más de dinerito." I knew that might appeal to him, "Bueno vas." And he gave me permission. I got on the truck, came home the first day. I was so tired and I said, "Ya no voy." And he said, "Ah no, usted quería ir, usted sígue." And so he would not let me step off the truck. And so I kept going. And then he made the decision that we would go to California where a brother in law of his was talking to him about how there was field work year round. And there were about four of us at the time who could still work the fields. And so we started going to the San Joaquin Valley during summers. And yes, we picked just about every crop that they put in the ground. And certainly during that time I made the determination that I would not be a field laborer all of my life. I even had the opportunity one winter that I went to go see them to work at a nursery tying trees and bundles, and it was freezing cold. So summer, the heat. Freezing cold in the winter. I said, "For sure, I'm getting my degree and I'm going to do something other than pick crops."

Cristina Salinas: So do you think that experience is what led you to participate in school activities? I mean, what was it that...

Maria Filomena Leo: No. No.

Cristina Salinas: That pushed you?

Maria Filomena Leo: No, I was already participating. And again, the only thing I knew was that I wanted a career that wasn't as strenuous and dependent on the environment as field work was. No, I think the call to lead came from a different avenue. And I go back to my Catholic school upbringing. My eighth grade teacher, who was a nun, one day gave us an assignment to write about what we planned to do in our future. And I wrote that I wanted to be a secretary. And she was going around looking at what we were doing, writing. Sister Mary Magdalen, bless her heart, and she saw my paper and she said, "Filomena," out loud for the whole class to hear, "Filomena, you want to be a secretary?" I thought she was going to say, "You can't do that. You don't have the intelligence or the ability." I said, "Yes. Yes, ma'am." She said, "Oh, no." And she picked up the paper and she said, "Filomena is not going to be a secretary." And she looked at the class. She said, "Filomena is going to be an astrophysicist." And I said, "Ah jijo [laughing]." I thought, "Wow." I didn't know what that was, but I liked the sound of it. I said, "Thank you, Sister Mary Magdalene." And, of course she took the opportunity to say, to pass the message along to others, "Be more than you think you can. Do more than you are able to do now." I've never forgotten that moment. And so.

Maria Filomena Leo: So I come here to this place that is 97%, and that's a loose figure, 97% Mexican Americans and who spoke Spanish primarily their first language, and who incorporated into their daily lives a lot of the Mexican traditions, whether it was having menudo, which, uhh, I did not like, but I learned to love. Whether it was that, or whether it was the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration at the school that was so beautiful that celebrated the culture of Mexico. Going to church here, hearing the mass, and the homily said in Spanish. All of that was different. And politically on the outside, there were these personal clashes. There were camps, and you either belonged to this party or that party. And we're not talking Democrats and Republicans. And every school board, every year, the school board election was a bitter battle. And yes, my husband was very involved. So there I was alongside him and his father going to visit voters to get them to come and vote or passing out leaflets, becoming a political activist that I had not been before. And depending on who won or lost, there was this event that would always take place. The winning side would parade in their cars around the communities that are in the La Joya district, starting in Sullivan City, way to the west, Los Ebanos an even smaller community. And the caravan would wind itself around the community and then come over to the next one and so on. So of course I rode along, and the opposition would be at their doors hurling ugly words. And I thought, "How funny." I just thought it was humorous then. But the more that happened, the less comfortable I was with that or the name calling and the accusations and the leaflets with innuendos and false statements about our side and our side putting something together to counter that. I was very uncomfortable with that. And I remember having a number of discussions with my husband about the value of fighting back with those ugly tactics. And he said, "We have to do it. We can't allow them to, what we now recognize, we can't allow them to manage the narrative, as is the popular term now, because whoever spoke the loudest and the most often people listen to. That's human nature." And so all of this... Fast forward 46 years later, when my husband passed away, right here, as in the Mexican custom. We prayed the novena, the nine days of rosaries. And friends and neighbors would come. And as one dear lady who is my age and who had not been involved politically, but her mother had. Her mother was one of those who would stand outside with a broom and say, "We're going to sweep you off next year. We'll get you," and wave the broom. But, so she shared with me about those caravans and she said her mother would always make them stay inside the house to protect them because she was worried that the caravan, if we happened to have won, the caravan there would be not just ugly things, objects thrown toward the house. I never saw that. But she shared with me. She said, "All of that was happening until you came." And I said, "But you're not saying I made a difference." And she said, "Yes, you did." She said, she thought, I don't know why, that she thought I had anything to do with calming things down. That I would not hesitate to try to influence my husband, to change the culture, or my father-in-law until he passed away. But the three of us would have conversations about what was going on politically.

Maria Filomena Leo: Again, and I said earlier, educational leadership is my passion. And I think that one of my strengths is building capacity in others, recognizing the talents that others have, placing them in decision-making situations where they can develop their skills and encourage them to seek higher education so they can be ready when positions open up. Many times I would have the conversation with those who worked under me to say, "You have to be ready. You have to be ready academically, philosophically." I said, "So here's what we're going to do. Here's your role in this and why you need to listen to what is happening in your own life, in in your mind, to hear how you are growing. Because that's what you're going to tap when you get into a position of leadership." Having those conversations.