Balancing Your Life; an Interview with Maria Blanco

Last week's defeat of the proposed Immigration Bill in Congress was another setback for the many Hispanics and other immigrants who work in this country. A survey conducted by the American Friends Service Committee found that more than 66% of Americans supported a legal path to permanent residency and eventual citizenship should be available to all immigrants who have built a life in this country.

Maria Blanco has been a leader for racial justice and immigration rights in California for more than 20 years, yet she only became a citizen in 1997. Here's what she had to say on "Balancing Your Life" about advocacy, citizenship and parenthood.

Ellen Susman: You've done a lot of work regarding immigration rights. What is your position on people who have been living and working in the United States for a long time but who haven't obtained status?

Maria Blanco: I think people that are here and working here are doing just that--they're contributing to the economy. They're working. They came here to work. They provide a lot of services for all of us, things we don't even notice: the price of our produce, the fact that people have nannies, all kinds of things. They're a big part of the economy. And I think that they should be given full rights.

ES: You litigated an incredibly important case, which caused the first women ever to be hired by the San Francisco Fire Department. In fact, I read that the woman you helped is actually now the Fire Chief.

MB: This was an amazing case. There were no women in the department at the time, which is not hard to imagine. It's a very, very male club. And the reason women couldn't get in is that they kept failing the physical entrance exam. To win the case, you basically had to say, "You know what? All these measures of fitness don't mean anything." It's really like going to the core of what makes men men and women women, at least in how people stereotype what they're able to do.

ES: How do they feel now?

MB: I think that women have performed well. It's like anything -- you work side by side and you go into a burning building and somebody throws up the ladder or does the hose and maybe saves your life, and it begins to happen.

ES: You have two daughters. How is their life growing up different than yours was? And do they have the same thread of activism running through their genes?

MB: Their life is very different. First of all, I had a stay at-home-mom who didn't speak English and couldn't really work. And, you know, from the day they were born, I've been a lawyer. I was not only working but I was a litigator. I was in court and traveling. And they grew up with two working parents.

ES: Now you're divorced, so you're parenting alone for most of the time. You have one daughter who has epilepsy, which is a very hard thing to manage.

MB: It is.

ES: How do you deal with that?

MB: I have a really, really great emotional support system -- a lot of women friends. Most of them are professionals who have gone through the same things with children, children of similar ages and we share stories ... you know, tell each other, "Yes, we are good moms, we're not bad moms."

ES: Why do we sometimes feel like we're bad moms because we're not baking cookies? Not that there's anything wrong with baking cookies ...

MB: I can only figure out that it's still because we haven't had that many generations that have done it this way.

ES: So you think we're making progress?

MB: I do think we're making progress. I still don't think that society knows what to do with working parents in a lot of ways. But I think we're making progress in that you're not seen as an anomaly if you work full time and you seek satisfaction in your professional life and not just in your family. You know, I think people don't view it as selfish or indulgent the way they used to.

ES: So here you are, going along in life and you yourself weren't an American citizen until almost ten years ago.

MB: Right.

ES: What made you decide to become a citizen, and why did you wait so long?

MB: There was a lot of pride in my family about our roots and this kind of bicultural bi-national life we led. I always had this kind escape clause, you know, of, "Well, you know, I'm not really American."

ES: But you couldn't vote.

MB: There were times that I thought, "What if somebody were to ask me, are you an American citizen? Here I am, very involved in the nuts and bolts of American democracy, as an attorney, testifying..."

ES: "And I'm not one of you."

MB: Right. It started feeling very awkward. And I was always telling other people that you have to participate in the process!

ES: So you did.

MB: So I did. I became a citizen.

Balancing work and family becomes especially challenging if you live in a country where many people feel you don't belong. Maria's opinion that immigrants who have been here working should be given full rights isn't universally shared. What do YOU think?