Cecilia Valdez

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Okay, here we go. Okay. Sorry. Do it again. So thank you so much for sitting with me today. My name is Hazel Gurland-Pooler. It is March 11th, 2024. We are in Tucson, Arizona, and we’re recording this oral history as part of the Storming Caesar’s Palace Our Stories Our Justice project in collaboration with Care in Action. So let’s start by, what is your full name?

Speaker 2 (00:26):

My full name is Maria Luisa Cecilia Valdez. 

Speaker 1 (00:31):

Beautiful. Thank You.

Speaker 2 (00:31):

You’re welcome. 

Speaker 1 (00:33):

So is there an ancestor or woman who inspires you today? 

Speaker 2 (00:37):

Yes, my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother that brought her seven children here by herself after her husband had been killed in the Mexican Revolution. She was like only four feet, 11, and she brought all of her children and two, I mean all of her children plus two grandchildren to a place that she had no idea. We were still a territory. She had no idea where she was going. She just knew she had to get away from there because they had killed my grandfather and my aunt’s husband also. 

Speaker 1 (01:10):

Wow, that’s so brave. 

Speaker 2 (01:11):

Yes. So she came here and that’s how my grandmother was only five years old at the time. And so my mom is the first citizen, and my grandmother did get her citizenship when she was like 62. She was very proud. Yeah, that’s 

Speaker 1 (01:33):

Nice. Yes. And so tell me a little bit about your mother, 

Speaker 2 (01:40):

But my mother would’ve been 94 years old now. She died when she was 92. Very strong woman, raised five children all on her own. And this movie really resonates with me because I know what my mother went through. Her first husband, she had three children with them, my three siblings, my two sisters and my brother. And when they got divorced, the father was a deadbeat dad. He had a good job. He painted, he worked at the mines, but he wouldn’t pay child support. When my father, my mom had another marriage with my brother and myself, and my father died at six months when I was six months old. My brother was a year and a half. And because my social security, my mother was able to get social security for the two youngest, which was me and my brother. And that’s what she helped her raise her children, all the five children. And she still needed help with the AFDC. So the aid for dependent children. 

Speaker 1 (02:40):

Did she ever tell you, did ever learn any stories of the difficulty she had with either accessing anything or what her experience was like? 

Speaker 2 (02:50):

Her experience was very difficult. I know at Christmas time she always would get up very early to go to, so the nonprofit organizations that were going to give Christmas, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have Christmas, and we would then also go to the food shelters and get food. During the holidays, he had to put a roof over our head and make sure that all the utilities were paid. And she always found somehow to find money to get us at least one present. Remember she would always get us ready for school and we would only get one pair of shoes. The school started and she would get so upset because I wanted to red tennis shoes. And she said, but it was not going to match everything. I don’t care, mom. I want my red tennis shoes. So I always got a red pair of tennis shoes for school. Yeah. Oh, that’s so sweet. 

Speaker 1 (03:38):

That’s really special. She still got them for you. 

Speaker 2 (03:41):

That was good. Yes, yes. 

Speaker 1 (03:43):

So how does the inspiration from your mother and from your grandmother and the strong lineage of women show up in your work today? 

Speaker 2 (03:53):

Well, that happened because I started with the phone company when I was about 20 years old, and there was a change in the officers in the union and a woman named McGrath, Frida McGrath, she was from Ireland. She came to the office and said, we’re organizing. We need a new person to take over to be a steward. And I was like, I don’t know. I can’t be a steward. Oh, she goes, you don’t have to worry about it. I’ll take care of you. I’ll show you everything you need to know. And so she was my mentor. And because of her, I got involved in the union and I was able to go to Minority Leadership School that actually taught me why I needed to be involved in politics to make sure that we elected the right people that are going to help the working families. And through her, I was able to grow. I learned how to speak in public. I learned how to run a campaign if I wanted to run for office, which I did. And so I’ve just finished a 25 year secretary treasurer for my local, and I stepped down so that I can let somebody else do the work. Now I’m mentoring them so that they can take over because I plan on retiring by May 1st is my actual day. I’ll be retiring from the phone company after 46 years. 

Speaker 1 (05:05):

Wow. Congratulations. 

Speaker 2 (05:07):

Thank you. That’s going to be exciting. There’s a really funny story to this because Frida McGrath was very, she was an immigrant from Ireland. She came to the United States to be a nanny. She realized that when she was a nanny in New York, she didn’t like children. So she had said no. She applied for the phone company, they hired her and she had no idea that she was going to come to Tucson, but she didn’t want to stay in New York. So she put in a transfer and ended up here in Tucson. And so she was very, she was rough. I mean, I’m really talking rough. Her father apparently had died on the picket line as he was, he was an organizer and he was negotiating a contract for the meat cutters and he died at the bargaining table. And so she was really strong union person, and so she didn’t befriend a whole lot of people. So if you were an FOF, a friend of Frida’s, you were special. And I’m a FOF, so I was a friend of Frida’s. So it’s a really good story. I just love Frida. She loved my children too. 

Speaker 1 (06:10):

That’s great. And she’s not with us 

Speaker 2 (06:13):

Anymore. No, no. She passed away. She moved to Seattle and I had just spoken to her the week before. So when they found that she had passed away in her apartment, the last number that she had had in her phone was me. So I was the first one to know that she had passed away. But she was a very struggle with, I’ll never forget her. She had red hair and really fair skin, blue eyes. She was just a wonderful human being that cared a lot about the union movement. And because of her, I’m where I am in the labor movement because she mentored me and she helped me. And then there were other women in the union that actually helped me grow also. 

Speaker 1 (06:55):

Well, it just makes me sort of think about how fighting for our rights and having a strong union is for everyone. It doesn’t matter sort of what color, creed, shape, size, we all need to have worker protections for us. 

Speaker 2 (07:13):

Exactly. And I say that everyone needs to know what they’re entitled to. And so the strongest union member is a union member that knows their rights. So I tell them, when you join, you know what you’re entitled to make sure you know that if you feel that something is wrong, it’s probably is. And then you look at your contract and the best member we can have is an educated member. Because if you could take care of that yourself, there’s no need for a grievance and there’s no need to bring a steward in, then the person that you’re dealing with will say, I do have to abide by this contract. Because it’s not just the union’s contract, it’s the company and the union together. They own as much of it as we do. 

Speaker 1 (07:55):

Yeah, absolutely. Something else you said before reminds me of Ruby Duncan. In the film, she sort of says, well, I had never run a meeting before. I didn’t know how to do anything, but with all working together, we can do it. That is 

Speaker 2 (08:12):

So true. 

Speaker 1 (08:13):

And something that’s actually not in the film, unfortunately, we took some things didn’t make it, but one was that she was a member of the Culinary Workers Union. Yes. In Las Vegas, which is a powerful union for a while while she was working and really saw how that solidarity and across racial lines was really important. And once you come together, you can do collective bargaining or strike essentially watching down the strip is essentially the 

Speaker 2 (08:45):

Same. You’re so powerful with together, you’re so much stronger together than alone. And that is so important. 

Speaker 1 (08:52):

Absolutely. What is of the biggest challenges you have had to overcome in your life? 

Speaker 2 (09:03):

Actually being, I actually am a fiber splicer, and what happened is the business office closed. And so I moved to Denver thinking that’s where I needed to be. And I didn’t need to be in Denver, I had to come back. But to get back, I had to work as a network technician, and the majority of them were men. And so one of the hardest things I had to overcome is the fact that I will do the work. I may take a little bit longer. I may do it different than the man, but I still can get the work done. And so that’s where it’s important for other women to know that if you are determined to work in a non-traditional job, everyone can do it if you have the support. And so I do work in the trades in the last 25 years, 26 years, I’ve worked out in the field. 

Speaker 2 (09:54):

And it’s so funny because I had just had my son and I started my blessing. I tell him because there’s 21 years apart from our oldest to our youngest, and my blessing was born and they said, oh, you have a job in Phoenix if you want to follow the work. And I said, no, I don’t want to move anymore. I want to stay in Tucson. So I went out to work as a network technician, installing telephone service, climbing poles, and still breastfeeding. So I’d have to take my break and pump my milk so that I could have milk for my son. But that was one of the hardest things to overcome. But I was okay with it. And then after I had been in there a couple of years, I ran for office and that’s when I became secretary treasurer. And that kind of took me, because that’s a dual job because two days a week I would work at the union hall two days a week I’d work out in the field. So now to this day, I work like three days out in the field at one day in the union hall. 

Speaker 1 (10:47):

Wow, that’s very impressive. I’m just imagining you up on this pole 

Speaker 2 (10:52):

Climbing down and then nursing in between. 

Speaker 1 (10:56):

What conditions would you like to see change for the people in your community or the people in your organization? 

Speaker 2 (11:03):

Well, what I’d like to see is I’d like to see how important it is for people to vote for them to realize that they have a voice and the only voice they have is at the ballot. And that by only electing people that are going to work for family values and take care of families and do the right thing or the ones that we need to get in office. And if we don’t show up at the ballot, then we end up getting the people that are trying to cut the services of those need the services the most. And we need to really get people in office that actually value public schools. Because if our public schools aren’t to par, that’s where all our children go. That and not everyone can afford to send your children to private schools and get the education that’s so different from the public sense. 

Speaker 1 (11:55):

And I wonder about local elections as well as the larger elections for presidents and things. It seems like having a strong statewide coalition is sometimes what can protect the community from different federal changes. 

Speaker 2 (12:14):

Right, exactly. And I think that that’s really important. I have been really involved in registering people to vote and letting them know that I call all my relatives and they end up calling me, telling me, who should I vote for? And I tell ’em, who are the friendly people that are actually going to take care of us if they get an office? And so I’ve been doing campaigns now for about 25 years. It’s really funny, when my son was born and he was little, you could go canvassing, knock on people’s doors, and they open the door if there’s a child there. But if later, as my son didn’t want to go with me, I’d knock on doors that people, you knew they were in there, you could hear ’em, but they wouldn’t open the door. So I really saw that the difference between having a child come with you to knock on doors and canvas and talk to people is so different. 

Speaker 1 (13:01):

That’s fascinating. You think they were just 

Speaker 1 (13:15):

That’s okay. I just have one sort of last question. Okay. Is there anything that I haven’t really asked you that you think that I should know of either about your life or what you think is important for folks to hear about the work that you do? 

Speaker 2 (13:28):

One of the things that I value the most is the unionism and making sure that the labor continues to grow because that’s where I do the work that I do for my grandchildren. I want my grandchildren to have a better, I want all my children to be my grandchildren to do better than we did. And both me and my husband, he’s a union carpenter, and we are really involved in our unions and we are middle class, and I don’t want my children not to be able to be the middle class because they don’t have that opportunity to join a union that gives you better pay and they train you because not everyone wants to go to college. Not everyone has the skills to go to college or the money to go to college. We’ve been very fortunate. Our youngest son did graduate from the University of Arizona, and we’re very proud of him. 

Speaker 2 (14:20):

He works for American Express as a software engineer, and so he’s doing great. My middle child also is assistant manager for Red Robin. My daughter is a human resources for a dental company. So all my children are doing good, but not all have the same, not everyone in the community has the same opportunity. So we need to make sure that there is equity in the schools, in the jobs that are offered. And being from Arizona, the right to work is the hardest thing. Right. To work for less. Not that it’s right to work. People don’t understand that. And so if we get involved in politics and change everything, it’s in the Senate in the house, and we have a wonderful governor, Katie Hobbs. I have so much respect for her recently, I’m just very, very honored that I got selected to serve on the industrial commission. 

Speaker 2 (15:19):

I’m the first woman of color to serve in that capacity. And my responsibility is to actually make sure that there’s the welfare and the safety of all workers in the state of Arizona. Not just union members, but all the workers. And so I’m really proud of that. I’m so very, very proud of that. And Katie Hobbs is the one that appointed me with the help of the AFL-CIO, the Area Labor Federation, and my union brothers and sisters and all the trades because they felt that I can represent what we need for labor. So I’m very proud of that. It’s been learning a lot, and I continue to grow in that capacity. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I’m amazed too, this in December of 23, I had an opportunity to, who knows, December of 2022. Was it? Yes. I had an opportunity to meet President Biden because I’ve been involved in politics so long. 

Speaker 2 (16:20):

And the two people that probably would’ve gone to meet him we’re working the Warnock Race in Georgia. So they called and said, you have 15 minutes to decide would you like to meet the president? I said, of course I want to. So I went up there by myself and I have a picture with him and I said, then me and my husband both said, who would’ve thought that a kid from the projects that we grew up in the projects would ever take a picture with the president of the United States? So I’m really proud of that. So is my husband. We both are working from the projects, but we’ve made it. And with the help of social services, it had not been that my mom would’ve been able to live in the projects and be able to have a roof over our head. Who knows where we’d be. But I was given that opportunity. Amazing. That’s beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for asking and I hope I didn’t just talk too much. No, that was great. This was perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. You’re welcome.