Civid Leadership in Times of Uncertainty
Bill Sarno
SINCE 2018, Sindy Marisol Benavides has served as chief executive officer of the League of United Latino American Citizens, the nation's oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organizations with more than a 132,000 members across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
In this leadership role, despite the "abnormal" environment created by the coronavirus epidemic, Benavides, a Honduran-American, has been fully engaged in revising the narrative that has left too many Latinos outside the American mainstream and treated as if they don't belong here.
"We are creating the change now, going from invisible to being very visible and being very clear in our actions and our words," Benavides said.
In moving forward, LULAC is committed to the struggle for greater Latina and Latino representation in the highest echelons of education, business and elected office.
As for her position at a top rung of Latino nonprofit world, Benavides relies on a sense of leadership based on consensus building and listening to others, a commitment to giving derived from her family background and a recognition of the strength and ability within the Latino community.
Moreover, Benavides has experienced first hand the struggles and hardships many Latinos face as members of the nation's largest minority group.
As a one-year-old, Sindy Benavides crossed the border into the United States in the arms of her mother, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, accompanied by her father and three-year-old border.
The Benavides family first settled in Los Angeles and endured hard times. She remembers picking up cans in the streets of the California city and later cleaning houses with her mother in Virginia to help her family subsist.
Whatever the situation, Benavides held onto her vision of the United States as a land of opportunity and drew upon the values imparted by "pioneering parents" and a clear understanding that she came from a community that is "very strong, resilient and determined," she said.
Initially, Benavides found herself moving swiftly through the political ranks as a volunteer. "I have always been involved, she said, and willing to take on whatever task was needed, even serving as a greeter. Moreover, Benavides "had a lot to say" about her Latino community.
What Benavides had to offer was observed by leaders in Virginia's Democratic organization and at the age of 22, she was chosen Latino director in Tim Kaine's gubernatorial campaign in Virginia. The following year she became a senior member of the governor's cabinet. "I was always the youngest in the room," she recalled.
Benavides would take her youthful determination and skills on to the Democratic National Committee and then shift into her current vocation.
"It felt like a natural pathway to go into state government, to then go into the non-profit world to continue to serve," Benavides said.
"I did not even know what public service was," Benavides said, but credits her parents and grandparents for preparing her for this career. "I always knew that we served others. I grew up in a house where my parents kitchen door was always open, even to strangers. Anyone could walk in through that door to be fed, hear stories and stay for the night," she recalled.
Moreover, if when Honduras was hit by a devastating hurricane or someone passed away, her parents would provide whatever help they could, Benavides said.
Her grandmother, who had nine children, also always served others. "For fun times she would make Rosaries for her local community and if someone knocked on her door she would make sure to provide food, even if it was the little she had," Benavides recalled.
Now the parent of two children herself, Benavides is very much influenced by her mother and the "courage she had to leave everything behind and come to a country she did not know."
Benavides never considered herself a leader. "I always was that person working behind the scenes for the governor or for the DNC," the LULAC CEO said. "It was always about getting things done, and I did not care who got credit."
What was important, however, is trying to understand all sides, to a seek consensus and to let others talk, said Benavides. "Part of being leader is opening up the pathway and the door for others to lead and serve," she said.
Benavides takes pride that during her tenure, which includes the "abnormal" pandemic period, LULAC's membership has doubled and its visibility has grown.
Much of this increased attention comes from the grassroots work of thousands of members, who she describes as the "power of LULAC," to help Latinos experiencing food insecurity, housing insecurity and financial insecurity.
LULAC has been hosting drives in cities such as Dallas, Miami, and Los Angeles. "We do all that work," Benavides said.
In addition, LULAC gained national recognition when it intervened last year to demand action by the military when Latina soldier Vanessa Guillén disappeared and later was found murdered at Fort Hood. "We helped create that awareness, the momentum nationally about what was happening," Benavides said.
During this campaign LULAC unexpectedly found it had opened a Pandora's Box, Benavides recalled. "So many women were using our hashtag IamVanessaGuillen to tell us about sexual assaults, the culture of the military and what they had experienced," she said.
The coronavirus pandemic brought new challenges. When LULAC asked the Centers for Disease Control for information in Spanish about COVID 19, it was told "we don't have it and don't know when we will," Benavides asserts.
So LULAC took on the task of disseminating information about COVID-19 in Spanish. Not only was their need to explain precautions such as wearing a mask and about vaccinations, the Washington, D.C.-based organization had to counter misinformation. "We want to make sure our community understands what they are getting from Facebook and other social media and question the source, Benavides said.
As for the present, Benavides said, "We have never been so busy." This activities resonates with the course charted when LULAC was formed in 1929. This mission ranges "from education, to health to housing, to civil rights, to economic empowerment, to political empowerment. You name it we do it," she said.
For example, she cites the recent demise of the pay equity bill in the Senate. It is not tolerable, she said that women are still discriminated against when it comes to pay equity.
LULAC also is working to stop "hate for profit" and online disinformation that targets people of color, Muslims, the LGBTQ community," Benavides said.
What needs to be emphasized, she said, is "how resilient we are, how intelligent and smart and how proud we are to be Americans. So many in our community are working in terms of their identity, understanding their identity as a Latino, a Latinx in the United States."
Since May 1, Benavides has been the vice president of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a conglomerate of activist organizations.
"Coming together will be important," Benavides said. "This includes making sure all national organizations are thinking of that big picture plan as well as what we can do collectively to create that impact for our communities across the United States, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
"Part of it is really looking at big picture and making sure we are shifting from being tactical to having strategies, not only having the immediate, long term, short term plans, but also the contingency plan in terms of having the policies whether it be immigration reform, or whether it is infrastructure, health care reform, or education, Benavides said.
In addition, Benavides said, "it is important that we begin the hard work of making sure that corporations who market to the Latino community, profit from the Latino community but don't have any Latinos on the corporate board understand that it is unacceptable, that diversity, equity and inclusion, includes Latinos."
"There is clearly lots of work to be done," the Honduran- American said. "It starts with us today."
In 30 years, Latinos will comprise about one third of the U.S. population, or 130 million people, Benavides said. "Yes, America we are part of your destiny."