Politics/Community Involvement

One of the things I didn’t mention was that after I graduated high school, I actually became homeless because my mother said, “Okay you graduated, too many mouths to feed, got to go.” [laughs]. So here I was at seventeen, which is when I graduated, trying to navigate with a two-year old, don’t have a work I.D. I really just had to volunteer and the folks at teen care really really helped support me in that and connected me to agencies.  I was in there doing dictation, filing, whatever it was to make sure my child had child care. It was tough but I look at what I do now, you know we’re not really conscious sometimes of the people around us.  We see people and we make assumptions but we don't know what people’s lives have been and so for me it’s really wanting to make sure that those people, people looked at as less than or whatever it is, I’m going back to help those folks.

I covered a ping pong table in the cellar with  these letters and started reading them and making notes. And then I had seen that the New England Historical Genealogical Society had a two-week summer camp, where you lived at Harvard [University] and so I signed up for that.  I enjoyed that and then Marcus McCorison, who was the head of the [American] Antiquarian Society at that time and was a friend of my father-in-law’s, said of course they would like to have all of that at the Antiquarian Society. That was fun and we took them over and he assumed I was going with him. I guess he knew I had been working on them so I went.  It took me five years to do that collection.  I was learning, too, and it was 50 manuscript boxes. At the end of it I stayed, so that was my unpaid work.  I’m glad to have done it that way to have been home with the kids. I saved money by being at home and later when they were off and gone I could do my volunteer stuff and have fun.

I was the head of a department when there were very few heads of department and one of the male administrators in the college said to me, “Margaret, you look like a woman, but you think like a man.” But I don't think that was intended as a compliment.  I didn't take it that way because I'm not sure what that means. Well how do men think characteristically? How do women think characteristically? I would suggest that women concentrate on critical thinking. That they work with their analytical skills and they'd be objective about them. That they consider causality and extrapolation. I’m not sure that that is thinking like a man, but it’s how intelligent human beings should be. Use the data and make a judgment on that.

Oh my God, this is like my baby. This is my world. I love the fact that we built something from nothing. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the fact that we named them after our kids, but I love that more than anything because it brings the whole family together. I take everything about this place personally – this is who I am, this is what we do. And the mentality building these restaurants was that we are going to build something that’s going to be what we want to see if we went somewhere. And that’s from the food, to the atmosphere, to the service, to the way that people are treated, everything else. So this is my world, this is my world. [laughs]....You do your best, you work really hard, you integrate yourself into the society in the best way possible.  And I feel like for a first generation immigrant, America does have a lot of opportunities, a lot of venues to use and resources to integrate yourself.  And then, do more.  I think it’s the way that this country was built by immigrants makes it easier for immigrants and generations to come to be part of this community, this society, and to continue to build this country. 

I see the YWCA as hopefully remaining as a vital part of the fabric of the community because we start with early care and education and we do youth development and health and wellness.  In fact our department is called Wellness and Health Equity, and we do housing for women, and we do domestic violence programs. We have a very diverse but important group of services and we are a collaborator.  I used to say that I would feel like I’ve been successful when we are called upon as an expert on race and gender and so we have been called on as an expert.  When the Equal Pay Act and when the nasty laws were repealed, we get calls to comment on that and I am able to say, "Yes, pay is not equal, but when you look at race then pay is even more unequal."  And then we are the place where a lot of race and gender equity groups meet, so we are a resource, plus we are in the thick of it. I hope that we stay true to our mission and that we see ourselves as a resource to community and as a safe place for people to come together and have those difficult conversations.