CHAPTER 11

Gozar la Vida: Leadership That Celebrates Life!

I TELL FRIENDS THAT I sometimes get on my knees and just thank God I was born Latina because it is so exciting and so much fun. Latinos introduced the word fiesta into our society! In a “we love people” culture where resources have been scarce, it’s easy to gather folks together; everyone brings something (we have to eat anyway); the music starts playing and … ¡Orale! Everyone is having a good time!

My working-class family didn’t have money for vacations, eating out, or entertainment. My parents didn’t have hobbies or leisure time. Their good times centered on their children, outings to parks, church events, and family celebrations. Like many other Latino mothers, however, my mom had a knack for making everyday things fun.

Although my mother worked five days a week in the school lunchroom and Sundays at the church nursery, on Saturday, her day off, she would organize a “housecleaning party.” With salsa music blaring, my brothers, my sister, and I would find ourselves washing walls, sweeping the sidewalk, vacuuming, and making everything spick-and-span. Housework was a family affair. My sister Margarita called us the “busy beaver club.” My mother loved música, dancing, and singing. She was a fantastic cook who could s-t-r-e-t-c-h a single chicken to feed a whole tribe. She stayed positive and happy during hard times because her deep-rooted philosophy of gozar la vida—to enjoy life—was grounded in her spiritual beliefs.

My mother taught me a valuable leadership lesson, which I found again in Rich Castro, a civil rights activist who began his political career as fiery campus radical and at twenty-five was elected to the Colorado state legislature. During the 1970s, when Hispanic political power was just budding, he became one of Colorado’s most significant leaders.¹ Today an elementary school and a city building bear his name. A bust of him sits in the state capitol, and the University of Denver awards the Richard T. Castro Fellowship each year. Yet he was only forty-five when he died of an aneurism. How could he touch so many people in such a short time?

Yes, Rich served ten years in the legislature, was a key ally of Denver Mayor Federico Peña, ran a city agency, and contributed to the emergence of countless organizations, but that still doesn’t explain the special place he held in people’s hearts. Rich was intelligent and always willing to help people, and he lived for his community. He also had a hilarious sense of humor, corazón (heart), and pasión. He truly loved people and made the hard work of civil rights exciting and fun. The personalismo that encourages self-expression was certainly evident in the life of Rich Castro.

Rich often dressed up in a dark suit with sunglasses and a black fedora hat. He and his coworker Michael Simmons, who headed up Denver’s Youth Commission, would entertain gente with rocking renditions of songs by the Blues Brothers. Rich also talked a group of high-level leaders into forming the Latino Temptations to sing hits like “Get Ready” and “My Girl.” When I asked Rich why he did this, he said, “People have to have a good time if you want them to keep doing the hard work. And they must be able to laugh at you, to see you are not taking yourself too seriously. This way they know you are one of them.”

Today when I teach leadership, one of my adages is “Nobody wants to follow an uptight leader or one who stresses people out!” Making work fun is a key dynamic of Latino leadership and one that was first taught to me by my mother and was truly lived by my friend Rich Castro.

A Cultural Tradition

THE CULTURAL TRADITION OF gozar la vida can be found in the oh-so-good-for-you salsa, the spicy, hot condiment giving food flavor and bringing zing to the palate. Since each batch of salsa is different, it is a good metaphor for Latino diversity. And yes, salsa is also a dance. But remember, salsa is also a way of life—the spice, the energy, vitality, and gusto! Salsa is a communal celebration to be shared with familia and amigos. One bowl with everyone dipping their chips puts a little gusto into life. Salsa reflects the culture’s festive nature so beautifully contained in gozar la vida—to enjoy life, relationships, work, and community.

Life can be difficult and, like a roller coaster, it has ups and downs. For minorities who have struggled economically and have not always been validated for their contributions—life can be even more trying! For immigrants separated from their families, for migrant workers, or for children starting school not knowing English, life can be difficult indeed. The feeling of not belonging can be disorienting and defeating. Latinos have faced all of these obstacles, but they are still dancing, singing, celebrating, enjoying their families, and having more fiestas than any other group in America.

The banda is blaring, people are conversing at full throttle, waving their hands and making expressive gestures. Everyone is talking at the same time. The noise level is decimals above a nice Anglo cocktail party where people are chatting. Latinos are loud! Bright colors, spicy food, and having fun are mainstays. Latinos commemorate many occasions by entertaining family and friends. Supporting this tendency are consumer studies: Latinos spend more money on food, entertainment, restaurant meals, and music than other market segments.² Gozar la vida fashions a celebratory leadership process.

Gozar la vida reaches back to the indigenous people of the Americas, who had many community celebrations and festivals that honored the changes in seasons, rites of passage, and people’s special feats and accomplishments. Community celebrations strengthen bonds, bolster collective identity, and create communal memories.

Similarly, the highly sociable Spanish are devoted to their días de fiestas—a one-week community celebration where everyone eats, drinks, and dances together. Main streets close as people promenade dressed in red and white, which adds to their sense of camaraderie. Días de fiestas are a community vacation. Everyone is off at the same time and public funds are set aside to pay for bands, parades, fireworks, and entertainment. Bread, sausages, wine, sardines, and coffee are free on special days. Since each town has its días de fiestas, some of the folks attending come from other places. No importa—if you are there, you are welcome to share in the food and festivities. (Another antecedent of Latino inclusiveness and bienvenido.)

Like their indigenous and Spanish ancestors, Latinos will find any excuse for a fiesta: hosting visitors; celebrating births, baptisms, birthdays, anniversaries, Holy Communion days, or quinceañeras (when a girl reaches fifteen); or getting a new job, moving to a new place, getting a promotion, or retiring. Although Anglos celebrate similar life events, the Latinos’ large extended family, which is more like a tribe, makes fiestas into community celebrations. For hundreds of years, it was the propensity to gozar la vida that shaped the optimistic, hopeful, and festive nature of the culture and its leaders.

Leadership as Celebración

IN CELIA CRUZ’S LAST recording, the venerated salsa diva sang, “Ay, no hay que llorar, porque la vida es un carnival.” No need to cry, because life is a carnival. La vida can be difficult, but it is still an amazing, interesting, and festive journey. Just imagine how this good counsel uplifts people when they are having a crisis, don’t have enough money, or are dealing with social inequities.

In a cultura that regenerates through fiestas and celebrations, gozar la vida flavors the leadership process to be congenial, to include good times and laughter. Before and after any gathering or meeting, a social window must be open to allow people to connect and communicate. Like good cooks, Latinos are stirring the gusto into leadership. Leaders make tasks exciting, meaningful, and a chance to work with friends and make new ones. Commemorating group achievements and individual contributions, recognizing anniversaries and birthdays are ways to celebrate people. A hard and fast rule is to celebrate small and large wins, and always serve food.

Remember the old business adage, “You don’t need to like someone to work for him”? Well, my answer has always been, “Yeah, but wouldn’t it be a lot better to like or even love and admire him?” Great Latino leaders care about their people, and in turn, they are loved by their communities. Dora Valdez was once asked about her husband’s close relationships with people. “It was very simple,” she sighed, “Bernie loved his people. And his people loved him.”

The love of socializing, dancing, and sharing food is even evident in many national Latino conferences, which are always headlined by several popular singers or music groups. Lunches might feature a jazz conjunto or mariachi group. Conferences close with a big fiesta. Many Latinos dances are with partners so people get up close and personal even at business events. Yes! People dance with their leaders. Intergenerational aspects are also evident, since young and old dance together. Conferences still have information, learning opportunities, and workshops, but just as important (and maybe more) are venues for sharing good times, seeing friends, and strengthening relationships.

Communicating with Carisma and Cariño

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE PASS ON values and history through storytelling. The Spanish are loquacious and expressive. Rooted in both cultures, Latinos cherish the oral tradition. Integral to gozar la vida is the ability to charlar (converse)—as a way to express feelings, share appreciation, and get close to people. Latinos are a talk, talk, talking group that loves chatting about ideas, interests, dreams, plans, possibilities, and people. Being able to converse is part of being simpático, a great leadership asset. Communication is quintessential in a community that centers on getting things done through people. Leaders assume many communication roles: as translators, storytellers, community scholars, dream makers, consensus builders, and the voice of the people. Let’s take a look how leaders leverage their ability to converse in a heartwarming, inspiring, and convincing manner.

Being able to charlar—make small talk and friendly conversation—is the prelude to any leadership action! A leader must understand the Latino experience, culture, and speak the people’s language and not use fancy or technical terms. A leader can’t swagger, brag, or act important. (That would go against the grain of being humble and modest—a valued trait.) Raul Yzaguirre says, “When I speak to Latinos, if I say a dicho, it resonates. Or if I speak a few words in Spanish, and it’s genuine and relevant, it establishes a bond. People know I understand where they come from because of my background. I have lived with many of the same issues they have, so I can connect and use this as a springboard. I know the levers that attract Latinos and can get a response from them.” Connecting with people in this manner can be a highly effective tool not just for Latinos but for other leaders across a wide spectrum.

On a collective level, since the community is still in the identity-formation stage, leaders must traverse the diversity of Latinos, communicating with recent immigrants, grassroots people, youth, and elders, as well as educated professionals, and speaking to their common elements. They must be able to talk with diverse Latino groups, help them identify commonalities, find consensus, and agree on collective action.

Leaders are storytellers who share the lessons about the courageous deeds that have kept Latinos moving forward and who integrate history into the present. Thus young people connect to their roots and take pride in their community’s accomplishments. Building on the successes of yesterday, leaders help people believe in the possibilities of tomorrow. Latino leaders are thus dream makers, sharing a vision of what could be and pointing the way for collective advancement. culture.

Leaders function as community voices speaking in a strategic, convincing, and culturally appealing manner. They are translators, ensuring that the interests and concerns of the Latino community are represented in mainstream culture and that partnerships are built with mainstream groups. Finally, they serve as “community scholars,” reaching out and bringing information and knowledge to people in a way they can understand and utilize.

As discussed, leadership has a community organizing and social-change orientation. Because of limited resources, leaders can’t compensate people with money, special perks, or pork-barrel rewards. Community leaders must find other ways to inspire and unify people. Two revered ways they do this is through carisma and cariño (charisma and affection).

Con Carisma

LATINOS VALUE EMOTION, SELF-EXPRESSION, and spontaneity. They admire charismatic leaders who speak with passion and conviction. Carisma is the ability to convey ideas with influence and persuasion so people are moved to action and overcome doubts and difficulties. “Carisma,” reflects Carlos Orta, “is the ability to use your charm, your wits, and personality to get people to do what you need them to do. Charismatic leaders are positive and likable.”

Yzaguirre frames carisma as inspired leadership: “When people are asked to take something on, there is no concrete reward. They have to be motivated, not ordered around. It just won’t happen without inspired leadership: being able to encourage folks to take on perhaps an impossible task, against what might seem like insurmountable odds, is the ultimate leadership task.”

The fiery and powerful Janet Murguía has a special knack for stirring a crowd. She often starts in the oral tradition with the story of her parents: “They were two people with very few means, from a small town in México, who worked very hard, sacrificed much, and dedicated themselves to the education of their family and service to their community.” Then she speaks to the obstacles they overcame. “In Kansas City in the fifties, when my parents went to the movie theater, they had to sit in a separate section. My father, other Latinos, and persons of color had to use a separate bathroom at the steel plant where he worked.” She has touched people’s corazones.

Since carisma can move a crowd to action, people must be assured that the leader is motivated by service to her community and their well-being. By developing conciencia and preparing themselves, leaders temper this special talent and ensure their carisma is not serving their own agenda. Speaking to young Latinos at their college commencement, Murguía reminds them of their responsibility to serve others: “The American dream is now officially within your reach. As you go forward on your life’s journey, my hope is that you will help to open the door to that American dream a little wider so that others can see that their own dreams are also possible.”

Con Cariño

BY EXPRESSING AFFECTION, OR cariño, leaders establish personal relationships. Latinos surveyed by National Community of Latino Leadership indicated they wanted loving and kind leaders who could be considered part of the family.³ Cariño is the emotional current connecting people with their leader. In a world where many feel isolated and alienated, expressing cariño is a special contribution Latinos make. Leaders demonstrate how truly caring for people and seeing them as familia holds people together during difficult times and makes the journey more enjoyable.

As a contact culture, Latinos are comfortable with physical closeness, touching, and self-expression. Leaders are expected to relate in this manner and have close interactions. Many Latinos, for instance, don’t shake hands; they give each other abrazos—warm hugs. Leaders routinely hug and kiss people and give them warm abrazos. Traditionally, Latinos kissed each other on both cheeks when greeting each other!

The warmth and affection Bernie Valdez showed toward people aligns with the concepts put forth by the Spanish Association on Personalismo, which emphasize the dimensions of feelings and affection. The association promotes the belief that the heart rather than the intellect is the key element in human relationships.⁴ They stress the relevance of love. Love? Now there is a concept that would transform communities and leadership theory! A congenial, charming, charismatic leader that is muy simpático and makes followers feel loved is the Latino ideal!

Expressing Feeling—
Living with Corazón and Pasión

A GREAT WAY TO EXPRESS cariño is sharing sentimientos, or feelings. Emotions and feelings are the joy of life—a way to show love to family and friends. Feelings join people together. The prominence of feelings and passion is one of the distinctions between the Latino culture and the Anglo-Saxon one. Sentimientos influence the way Latino leaders relate to their people and actually reflect a different philosophy of life.

Suppressing one’s feelings would stifle the flair, gusto, and passion that bring color, vibrancy, and amiability to the culture. Since feelings and emotions are so cherished, I distinctly remember sitting in my college philosophy class when suddenly my mind shattered like falling glass as we studied René Descartes—one of the fathers of modern philosophy (European, that is).⁵ I instinctively knew that his renowned quote, “I think, therefore I am,” was not on point! But how does a nineteen-year-old immigrant from the back hills of Nicaragua validate her belief that I feel, therefore I am, when she is up against seventeenth-century rationalism?

Many years later, I went to España. On the very first noche (night) at a fiesta, I was approached by a dashing Spaniard. After the customary niceties I asked, “What do you think is the main distinction between US culture and the Spanish?” “Yo siento, ergo soy,” he replied, as if he had been waiting all his life for someone to ask this question. The shattered glass became a mirror in which I could see myself clearly. I feel, therefore I am.

Descartes saw the mind and body as separate. As an integral culture, Latinos tend not to compartmentalize but rather to embrace mind, body, and heart (feelings) as well as spirit as glorious aspects of life. Sentimientos are charged energy and light life’s fire—the source of ganas, or desire! Feelings spring from the ever-powerful subjective, or right, brain, the source of vision and inspiration. And feelings allow people to gozar la vida and to nurture close relationships!

Cultures that are more intellectually oriented and self-contained may be uncomfortable or think that Latinos are “hot blooded,” volatile, or overreacting when they express their feelings. Ideas and opinions may appear emotionally charged. Several studies seem to confirm this tendency: Latinos who respond to surveys are more likely to choose the extreme response categories (strongly agree, strongly disagree) than the middle categories, to a greater degree than Euro-Americans.⁶

Sentimientos Are Good for You

LATINOS ARE A “HUGGY-FEELY” culture and convey this by drawing physically closer and being more likely to touch during a conversation. Something to consider is that expressing sentimientos is actually good for you. Keeping emotions bottled up negatively impacts health, well-being, relationships, and longevity. Emotions are tied to the autonomic nervous system, which controls the heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, respiration, and perspiration.⁷ Feelings signal that something is happening that we should attend to. We know our hearts beat faster when we are excited. The challenge for leaders is focusing this energy and using it to nurture relationships as well as to get results.

Living la vida latina means tapping into the wellspring of our emotions, so we can enjoy better health and lead a more fulfilling life. Expressing positive sentimientos can bring happiness and joy to our lives and to people around us. Daniel Goleman in his revolutionary book Emotional Intelligence relates that learning to express feelings can have a larger impact on living successfully than our intelligence quotient.⁸ People from backgrounds where expressing emotions is not encouraged might find that learning to share feelings is one of the advantages to becoming a Latino by corazón, or affinity. (This process is described in more detail in chapter 13.)

Passion has been described as a powerful and compelling feeling. Antonia Pantoja, a charming, courageous, and charismatic leader, urged people to tap into this energy: “One cannot live a lukewarm life. You have to live with passion!” Leadership experts James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner have espoused leaders to “encourage the heart” because this will provide the emotional fuel to inspire and motivate.⁹ Latino leaders bring this passion to their work—a fire ignited by their love of people, commitment to social justice, and desire to improve life for future generations.

Achieving a Cultural Balance

STRATEGIC THINKING, PROBLEM SOLVING, and the ability to analyze and synthesize information are key leadership functions that require objectivity. These actions often necessitate a mental separation from a problem or group. This can sometimes be difficult for Latinos because the culture is feeling and process oriented and centers on We, or the collective, and not the I. Closer connections and identification with people can make separating oneself and being objective more challenging.

Another consideration is that many leaders have traveled the path of social activism. Their sense of urgency can be unfamiliar to people who come from the majority or from an affluent group. The many needs and challenges in the Latino community drive its leaders to want action now—not at a more comfortable timeline. The stakes are high! This may lead to the perception that they are too emotional or too pushy, and perhaps do not have good manners or know protocol. Latino leaders must learn to step outside of their emotionally centered culture, channel their feelings, and moderate their expressiveness and tone of voice when dealing with the majority culture. They must step out of their collective cultural field.

The leaders interviewed for this libro all have advanced degrees from prestigious universities. Julián Castro, Anna Cabral, and Janet Murguía have law degrees where they learned to integrate the analytical, strategic, and problem-solving abilities of mainstream leadership with the passion, feeling, and celebratory tendencies of Latino leadership.

¡Ándale!—Moving Forward

UNLIKE THOSE IN THE Anglo-American culture, which tends to focus on production and “getting things done,” Latinos accomplish many things but strive to balance doing with being. This means taking time for people, sharing feelings, telling stories, and enjoying good food. Gozar la vida generates Latino optimism, cultivates relationships, encourages self-expression, and puts salsa into leadership.

The next chapter explores the spiritual roots of leadership. Concepts such as personalismo (good character), community stewardship, a respect for differences, valuing every person, and social responsibility all flow from the deep well of faith.