Patricia Esparza Public Housing Administrator, Age 36 El Paso, Texas
Founder and director of Las Mariposas, a dance troupe for young girls
When I was ten, I was a translator for my mother and her friends, who didn't speak English. They called me the little social worker, la trabajadorita social. So volunteering is part of my day-to-day life. It's part of my personality. With Mariposas, I realize how much need is out there. I realize how much one person can change things when they give without expecting anything back.
Seeing the girls blossom is why I do this. Some don't talk when they join. Witnessing them open up gives me goose bumps.
It's not easy at first. Girls who are twelve and thirteen have such attitude. When I ask them what they want out of life, they say, para que?, which means, "what for?" They don't believe anything good is going to happen in their lives. But once they're in the group, they start to realize their potential. They freak out when they see themselves in the makeup and the outfits, and they hear the applause of the audience. They say, "Aw, man, I kicked butt! My Mom came to see this and I actually did good!"
It gives me a high. Also, my paid job is so stressful, the music and choreographing dance relax me.
Nine years ago, my daughters told me I cared more about my job than about them. I wanted to start something with them we could both enjoy. We started dancing, practicing on a basketball blacktop near my grandmother's house. We didn't have a name back then. Then other little girls started coming over to watch my four girls. We invited those little girls to join in. Their mothers came and watched too. I never thought it would grow into this.
After one of my daughters, Jennifer, had a school project on butterflies, tracking their development from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, we called ourselves Las Mariposas. It's all about development. Change within yourself.
The group has grown since then. Girls come and go with a steady base of about forty girls. The growth includes the community because the parents are a part of it. The troupe has grown as far as dancing and numbers, but one of the most beautiful things is that a lot of the mothers have found support from each other. In Spanish we say, carnalismo, which means brotherhood, but in this case it's sisterhood.
In Mariposas, the parents have to come to the parenting meetings, or their children cannot perform with the troupe. You need to teach responsibility. Nothing is free in life. I'm not asking for money. I ask for two hours of their time, and I don't think that's asking too much. Their children don't want to hear from me that they are doing good, they want to hear it from their parents. That's why they must be involved.
I provide parenting courses that I was trained to do and bring in social workers and counselors. I've brought in lawyers to talk about family law. I'm blessed with the job I have because I can do a lot of referrals to the proper city agencies. It's a relaxed setting. It's their turf, their barrio.
I had my first daughter when I was seventeen and was a mother of three by nineteen. I got my degree in 1988 in social work. My educational and social backgrounds have given me sensitivity when approaching the girls and their mothers. I help in a humble way. Other people blow them off because they don't speak English, but these women bring with them so many values and ethics from Mexico.
I'll be honest: I don't concentrate on how other people view the group. I focus on the dancing and forget about everything else. I feel extreme contentment doing this. I'm getting a lot back. We've gotten some recognition, but I don't care. I do this because it really gives me a high. There have been times when I was going to cut back on the time I put in, but I can't. I can't sit at home on weekends. I thank God for the energy I have. I'll keep going as long as God keeps giving me the energy.
The closest people around me volunteer. I think it's primarily because we had a need. We grew up in such poor neighborhoods, we didn't have our own stuff, we had to share. We had to help one another.
Do you really want to volunteer? If you say, "Well, yeah, but ...," then you want to volunteer for the wrong reasons. Why do you want to be there? Do you want to share something? Do you want to contribute? I hear people say, "I started volunteering for these at-risk kids last month but I quit, because they have no hope." You can't expect to change anything overnight. Do it because it gives you something.
I get my drive in life from my grandmother. Grandma's philosophy was that in order for you to consider yourself a part of the human race, you have to give to it. She would say the best resource we have is people, not money. It is the human element that will make a strong community and world. She had a saying, un granito de arena, a grain of sand-that's the literal translation, but it means you need to plant the seed.