Speaker 1: Lok at Our Radio is a radiophonic novela, which.
Speaker 2: Is just a very extra way of saying a podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm fiosa fem.
Speaker 2: And I am ma la munios.
Speaker 3: We're podcasting through another Trump election year. We've been podcasting
Speaker 3: through election years, a global pandemic, civic unrest, political controversies,
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Speaker 2: We're not done telling stories.
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Speaker 1: podcasting through a new decade of our lives.
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Speaker 1: From our lips to your ears, fall in love with
Speaker 1: Locata Radio like you never have before.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Season nine. Love that first listen.
Speaker 1: Ola La Loka Motes. Welcome to Season nine of Loka
Speaker 1: Dora Radio.
Speaker 3: I'm diosa and I am Mala.
Speaker 1: Loka Tora Radio is a podcast dedicated to ourchiving our
Speaker 1: present and shifting the culture forward. You're tuning into Capitolo
Speaker 1: Do two fourteen.
Speaker 3: Last time on Loca Tora Radio. We interviewed Priscadriguez about
Speaker 3: her new book Bis and Primas, which explores the Latina
Speaker 3: archetypes that we find in most of our families.
Speaker 4: I think I write for Latina's I think it's more
Speaker 4: a millennial Latina for sure. Latinas who went to pwi's
Speaker 4: Latinas were raised with really strict conservative Christian parents, like
Speaker 4: who understand when I say speaking in tongues like that's
Speaker 4: the Let's.
Speaker 3: Tune in, leave a comment, subscribe and share with a friend.
Speaker 1: Almost every election cycle here at Lokata Radio, we produce
Speaker 1: a series called Latinas in Politics. On today's episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking to multi hyphenic creative Life Garcia.
Speaker 1: You may also know her as Lose Warrior. She used
Speaker 1: to host a podcast called Let There Be Loose. She
Speaker 1: is also the author of the book titled Wealth Warrior.
Speaker 1: She has been creating workshops about financial literacy and the
Speaker 1: stock market, specifically for marginalized communities for the past several years,
Speaker 1: but now she's shifting into local politics in the state
Speaker 1: of Texas.
Speaker 3: Linda Garcia, in this new chapter of her life, will
Speaker 3: be running uncontested in the upcoming November elections for the
Speaker 3: office of Texas State Representative for District one oh seven,
Speaker 3: and she is slated to be sworn into office in
Speaker 3: January twenty twenty four. She had a very unconventional journey
Speaker 3: into elected politics. We're going to hear all about it
Speaker 3: and how a text message at a Christmas party led
Speaker 3: to this new political position for her.
Speaker 5: Stick around.
Speaker 3: It's a really good interview and you're going to want
Speaker 3: to hear all of it.
Speaker 5: My name is Linda Garcia. I am calling from Dallas, Texas,
Speaker 5: and I am currently also the Texas State Representative elect
Speaker 5: for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: So Linda, tell us about your journey and how you
Speaker 3: got into politics. What brought you to this place where
Speaker 3: you decided to run for office.
Speaker 5: You know, it's really interesting because in my early twenties,
Speaker 5: which was about twenty five years ago, I did have
Speaker 5: this intention of I want to be a politician one day,
Speaker 5: and I had big aspirations. I thought one day I'll
Speaker 5: be mayor of Dallas. I'm originally from California, but at
Speaker 5: the time I was living in Dallas, and I started
Speaker 5: working for the City of Dallas, and I got to
Speaker 5: meet some city officials and just kind of get to
Speaker 5: see some of the behind the scenes, and I decided, Okay,
Speaker 5: absolutely not. I will not enter politics. It's for sure
Speaker 5: not for me. So I moved away from the idea.
Speaker 5: And then after graduating college, a few years later, I
Speaker 5: met I had a friend that was a lobbyist, and
Speaker 5: he took me out to dinner. He's a Republican and
Speaker 5: he had mentioned that he thought I would be great
Speaker 5: to become a candidate one day and represent the Republican Party,
Speaker 5: which I thought was so wild, like wow, there's really
Speaker 5: people out here on the hunt looking for potential candidates.
Speaker 5: And I really was impressed with I mean, we're talking
Speaker 5: about twenty years ago, this idea that they understood where
Speaker 5: Latinos were headed and that they should definitely start seeking
Speaker 5: viable candidates. So I thought that was really interesting and
Speaker 5: I was like, no, I'm not doing that. So already
Speaker 5: there were two instances in my life where the idea
Speaker 5: of politics was around me, like the energy was around
Speaker 5: And then this last time, I was asked by our
Speaker 5: current state representative, Representative Victoria yavik Riado, who is very
Speaker 5: well respected here in the state of Texas. She had
Speaker 5: a very serious inquiry and asked for me to strongly
Speaker 5: consider becoming a state representative and running for office, and honestly,
Speaker 5: I was flattered, but there was a big part of
Speaker 5: me that was terrified of the idea, and I was
Speaker 5: I was kind of in limbo. She then started talking
Speaker 5: to me more about it, and I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 5: is the very serious inquiry. I asked her how much
Speaker 5: does a state representative make, as you should ask when
Speaker 5: anyone approaches you for a job. And when she told
Speaker 5: me that a state representative in Texas makes seven thousand,
Speaker 5: I was like a month and she said no, a year.
Speaker 5: I was in shock, and I started to do a
Speaker 5: lot of research. I started to research how much state
Speaker 5: representatives get paid in other states, and there's like, the
Speaker 5: comparison is crazy. And then to start to look at
Speaker 5: Republican states versus democratic states was even crazier. So I
Speaker 5: saw immediately the system at play. And then on top
Speaker 5: of that, I checked to see how much the per
Speaker 5: capita income is in my district, the district that I
Speaker 5: would be representing, which is about one hundred and ninety
Speaker 5: five thousand Texans, And in my district the per capita
Speaker 5: is twenty four thousand a year, and the Latino population
Speaker 5: is at sixty five percent, and so I really started
Speaker 5: to think, how are you going to find someone that
Speaker 5: can afford to actually run for this position? And then
Speaker 5: and that was a no brainer for me. I did
Speaker 5: it because the position only paid seven thousand a year,
Speaker 5: and I saw the system at play. I understood immediately
Speaker 5: why I was losing all of my rights here in
Speaker 5: the state of Texas. And more importantly, I see the
Speaker 5: Texas as a leading state in the sense that if
Speaker 5: Texas passes a law, then other Republican states follow, so
Speaker 5: we are in a very important territory. And then the
Speaker 5: setup of the situation was that I probably had a
Speaker 5: ninety five percent chance of not having a candidate run
Speaker 5: against me, so it would be like a straight slam dunk.
Speaker 5: It was like an episode on Scandal, honestly, if I
Speaker 5: could describe it. And I was given about three hours
Speaker 5: to make a decision. I came home, had a family meeting,
Speaker 5: emergency family meeting with all of my family members, very
Speaker 5: serious conversations on how our lives would change. My sister
Speaker 5: in law, who is a she works in politics. She
Speaker 5: works for Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and has for years. She's
Speaker 5: also asked me to run for politics. She's also made
Speaker 5: serious inquiries and thought that I would be a good candidate.
Speaker 5: Of course, she was like, you have to do this.
Speaker 5: So I had the support of my family and I
Speaker 5: was terrified. And that's how it happened. That's how I
Speaker 5: went into the journey. It was literally an overnight decision.
Speaker 5: I was then thrown into registering for the position. Cameras
Speaker 5: are on me interviews. At that point, I hadn't really
Speaker 5: established any policies or what I wanted to do for
Speaker 5: my district. It all happened so fast.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, lookamotives.
Speaker 5: We'll be right.
Speaker 2: Back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 3: So this article in D magazine talks about you at
Speaker 3: a Christmas party in December of last year when you
Speaker 3: got a text message from Victoria Criado at that time
Speaker 3: the state rep for Texas House District one oh seven,
Speaker 3: and that she wanted you to replace her because she
Speaker 3: was running for a different seat. But she had never
Speaker 3: met you or spoken to you, but she still wanted
Speaker 3: to reach out and ask you to take her seat.
Speaker 3: Why do you think she had that confidence in you
Speaker 3: when she had never met or spoken to you before.
Speaker 3: What was it that led her to believe that you
Speaker 3: could do the job.
Speaker 5: Sure. So it was actually a close contact of her
Speaker 5: that reached out first to builter out this idea. And
Speaker 5: this contact of hers his name is Ramido. He has
Speaker 5: an organization out here called Solmost Dejas. I was on
Speaker 5: the board for almost Dejas.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 5: Ramido had also been semi pushing me to run for office.
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess this is like a repeated theme
Speaker 5: now that I'm talking it through. This is definitely a
Speaker 5: repeated theme in my life. And I feel like that
Speaker 5: was probably initially more his confidence because I was sitting
Speaker 5: on the board and he was familiar with my work
Speaker 5: and he walked her through my work. When Victoria and
Speaker 5: I met the following day, one of the things I
Speaker 5: told her is like, I'm not changing anything about me
Speaker 5: because I don't know what this position in tells or
Speaker 5: what they're demanding or wanting from me. I don't understand
Speaker 5: the political process. I'm walking through it brand spanking new.
Speaker 5: So it was really important for me to communicate that
Speaker 5: I was going to maintain integrity on who I was.
Speaker 5: But one of the things that Victoria talks about is
Speaker 5: that she could see that I had been doing the work,
Speaker 5: and so the work means that I had been taking
Speaker 5: steps to work with our community and shift current circumstances
Speaker 5: in our community. And so for a lot of people,
Speaker 5: that is what a public servant does. That is what
Speaker 5: someone in politics aims to do, hopefully, if their heart
Speaker 5: is in the right place, is take action and make changes.
Speaker 5: So I know that they went through my work and
Speaker 5: my you know, my socials and all of that, and
Speaker 5: she was fine with the way I am and said
Speaker 5: that's okay, I see, you know, I've seen your stuff.
Speaker 5: We still would like to move forward and ask you
Speaker 5: to consider taking this role. She also, you know, is
Speaker 5: a strong politician here as I mentioned, and she has
Speaker 5: aspirations to move into bigger spaces to make a bigger impact.
Speaker 5: So I'm sure that was also a big part of
Speaker 5: the decision.
Speaker 1: Can you share with our listeners that maybe aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with what is a representative?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to be a Texas State rep
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee? What does it entail, what does a job
Speaker 1: look like, and what does the district look like?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so basically, rights that we currently have here in Texas,
Speaker 5: like the abortion ban, all of those are voted on
Speaker 5: by an amount of representatives that represent the constituents or
Speaker 5: the folks that live in the representatives district. So you're
Speaker 5: basically entrusting your voting rights on a state representative to
Speaker 5: vote reflecting your personal beliefs, morals, values, et cetera. A
Speaker 5: state representative can also come up with bill ideas and
Speaker 5: present those bill ideas, or carry someone else's bill idea
Speaker 5: and get those bill ideas past and then turn into law.
Speaker 5: So it is basically a body of folks that vote
Speaker 5: on specific bills that then become law, and either we're
Speaker 5: getting our rights taken away like we're witnessing here in
Speaker 5: Texas the majority of the time, especially as of late,
Speaker 5: or we're implementing additional laws.
Speaker 3: So while you were living in California, had you ever
Speaker 3: considered running for office in California or is this something
Speaker 3: that was destined to happen in Texas? You mentioned becoming
Speaker 3: like the mayor of Dallas and being a politician in Dallas.
Speaker 3: Why Texas and why not California.
Speaker 5: That's so interesting you asked that question. That is such
Speaker 5: a good question. You know, places carry energy, there's just
Speaker 5: a completely different energy in California. I was born there.
Speaker 5: I lived there until twelve years old. At twelve, I
Speaker 5: moved to Dallas. At twenty seven, I moved back in
Speaker 5: pursuit of creativity. I used to write, produce, and direct
Speaker 5: local TV commercials here in Dallas, Texas, and I left
Speaker 5: back to my home state to pursue film. I went
Speaker 5: on to launch the first Latino movie studio called Bantaion Films.
Speaker 5: I got to work on a lot of films via that.
Speaker 5: I then went into Netflix. And so for me, what
Speaker 5: California had was a lot of creativity, a lot of
Speaker 5: pushing back against the resistance that I was so familiar
Speaker 5: with here in Texas. Texas has very strong energy of assimilation.
Speaker 5: And it's almost like when I'm here in Texas, which
Speaker 5: I've spent both my entire life. I've spent time in
Speaker 5: both places, and a lot of what I did deal
Speaker 5: with here does feel a little bit more formal and
Speaker 5: more political, even just exploring the stock market and finance
Speaker 5: that just has much more of a Texas energy. And
Speaker 5: then when I'm in California, I get to explore something
Speaker 5: that is more spiritual and more creative. And it's these
Speaker 5: two aspects that live inside of me and I feel
Speaker 5: like it's because I've gotten to live in both places,
Speaker 5: and I feel like it's it's also I don't not
Speaker 5: that the word fun is the correct word. But I'm
Speaker 5: exploring these two very distinct parts of my brain. A
Speaker 5: part of me that gets to be an intellect and
Speaker 5: dive into data and numbers, and then this other part
Speaker 5: of me in California that gets to be free spirited.
Speaker 5: And I'm just both both spaces. But when I'm in
Speaker 5: California it pulls one side of me, and when I'm
Speaker 5: in Texas it pulls another side of me. I don't
Speaker 5: know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: That does make sense, And I want to ask you
Speaker 1: something because now you've shared, right, you've lived in both states,
Speaker 1: one blue, one red, and we hear and I don't
Speaker 1: know how true it is, but sometimes you know, to
Speaker 1: be a little bit of a masochist. I will read
Speaker 1: the comments on Instagram and people. I'll see comments that say,
Speaker 1: this is why I'm leaving California and moving to Texas, right,
Speaker 1: this is why I'm leaving a blue state and going
Speaker 1: to a red state. And so you know, we live here.
Speaker 2: We think it's great, yes we do.
Speaker 1: We don't live in a red state. But as someone
Speaker 1: that's lived in both, you know, what has been your
Speaker 1: experience of living in a red state during all of
Speaker 1: these huge crucial changes that have happened in Texas, like
Speaker 1: the abortion band and like so many others.
Speaker 5: So let's talk about some of the positives first. Some
Speaker 5: of the positives for me here in Texas is the
Speaker 5: ability to build generational wealth. That does come so much
Speaker 5: more easier. You can purchase a home, it is much
Speaker 5: more affordable. The quality of life increases, and when I'm
Speaker 5: talking about the quality of life, I'm specifically talking about
Speaker 5: a roof over head, roots and vegetables that I can
Speaker 5: now you know, afford much more comfortably that are organic,
Speaker 5: and that type of space. My son goes to a
Speaker 5: private school. Things that I can afford that I was
Speaker 5: never able to afford in California. That felt so much
Speaker 5: more difficult, right, So that is the biggest row. It
Speaker 5: was definitely a sacrifice in the sense of, you know,
Speaker 5: the weather and my friends and the creative space that
Speaker 5: I love so much, and the accessibility to creative spaces
Speaker 5: at this stage in my life, at forty four years old,
Speaker 5: I just felt like it was the right move for me,
Speaker 5: And yeah, there are definitely pros and cons, And again,
Speaker 5: I think something that is really interesting is just the
Speaker 5: difference of Mexican Americans here versus and I'm speaking from
Speaker 5: a Mexican American perspective as a child of immigrants versus
Speaker 5: Mexican Americans in California. So I guess navigating those two
Speaker 5: energies and seeing the pros and the cons out here
Speaker 5: in Texas, it's very behind in terms of progress and
Speaker 5: the ability to freely express ourselves in comparison to the
Speaker 5: beauty of California, continuously pushing against resistance and against a
Speaker 5: simulation coming up with, you know, our own culture in California,
Speaker 5: going all the way back to bachuco DA's and to
Speaker 5: low writer and Cholo movements where we were continuously pushing
Speaker 5: against forms of assimilation and resisting. We're here. It was
Speaker 5: life was easier if you assimilated.
Speaker 1: We hope you're enjoying this interview.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned, We're back, and we hope you enjoy the
Speaker 3: rest of the interview. On the topic of assimilation, there
Speaker 3: are so many levels to assimilation and getting into politics,
Speaker 3: I feel probably has its own type of assimilation. And
Speaker 3: what you've already shared, what you said when you first considered,
Speaker 3: you know, entering office, was that you're not deleting anything
Speaker 3: off your Instagram. You're not changing who you are. Why
Speaker 3: was that so important to you and the Instagram specifically,
Speaker 3: because I feel like there are people out there who
Speaker 3: maybe are not on Instagram the way we are, Maybe
Speaker 3: it doesn't hold a place in their lives the way
Speaker 3: it does for us and for you, And so I'm
Speaker 3: curious why, specific the social media space you wanted to
Speaker 3: protect your archive and your identity and what that meant
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 5: You know, we had just I mean, I was very
Speaker 5: outspoken after October seventh in terms of being pro Palestine,
Speaker 5: and so I think that when I was saying Instagram,
Speaker 5: what I was really saying is I'm not deleting my
Speaker 5: pro Palestine content that I have highlighted. That was really
Speaker 5: really important for me. And of course everything else comes
Speaker 5: second in terms of other things that I've spoken up
Speaker 5: on and had been very vocal. But that was a
Speaker 5: way for me to protect that space, and I had
Speaker 5: just come off of speaking on it. I was also,
Speaker 5: in my sphere, the first one to speak up about it.
Speaker 5: I also received a lot of backlash for speaking up
Speaker 5: on it. But I also came from a background where
Speaker 5: my sister in law had gone to the West Bank,
Speaker 5: you know, in twenty nineteen, and she had been educating
Speaker 5: us on Palestine for years on what was taking place.
Speaker 5: So when October seventh happened, I already had all of
Speaker 5: this context, and I just felt like this was it
Speaker 5: was going to be really important that I not waiver
Speaker 5: and not be bullied or feared into a space where
Speaker 5: I lose myself for the cause. So in other words,
Speaker 5: that I wasn't going to give up a part of
Speaker 5: myself so that I could be a politician and vote
Speaker 5: for certain progressive things, but not be able to vote
Speaker 5: for all progressive things. That's really important to me, and
Speaker 5: that was what I was mostly. That's where my head
Speaker 5: was fresh off of that conversation and where we were
Speaker 5: at the time.
Speaker 1: I love that you mentioned being pro Palestine. There's this
Speaker 1: pressure once you get into politics to lean a certain
Speaker 1: way or have certain views, And you know, that's so admirable,
Speaker 1: right because I think that pressure is intense. When you
Speaker 1: feel like there's that backlash can really affect It's a
Speaker 1: domino effect in our lives in some ways. But it's
Speaker 1: really about like, what do you really value and who
Speaker 1: do you really value? And how important are your values
Speaker 1: to you? And I feel like that is so aligned
Speaker 1: with who you are as a person and now running
Speaker 1: for an elected position. You've also had some photos be
Speaker 1: weaponized against you, So can you talk about that as
Speaker 1: well and tell us what the photos are. I know
Speaker 1: what they were for, but if you can just paint
Speaker 1: the picture for the listener, sure.
Speaker 5: So I am very inspired by black culture. I always
Speaker 5: have been, growing up in southern California in and you know,
Speaker 5: the I was the nineteen I was born in nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5: So my first experience with something that wasn't like all
Speaker 5: like uh, like my mom for example, we grew up
Speaker 5: watching Spanish television and like Quen Senerra and delenovelas, and
Speaker 5: so the first time I got a taste of something
Speaker 5: that wasn't fully white was black culture like Yo, MTV
Speaker 5: raps and so n WA and just all of this
Speaker 5: rich culture where I felt I could look towards that
Speaker 5: didn't that felt more closer than me than watching telenovelas
Speaker 5: with my mom or wal Mercado or whatever it is
Speaker 5: that she was watching at the time on Spanish television.
Speaker 5: And so I have embedded that in my book. I
Speaker 5: have rap lyrics at the beginning of every chapter, and
Speaker 5: I have pictures that I took in a Cugi sweater
Speaker 5: and in these pictures we were promo the book and
Speaker 5: just promoting the brand, and there's you know, holding a
Speaker 5: stack of money like a telephone. It was the funnest
Speaker 5: shoot I've ever done in my entire life that I love.
Speaker 5: I love that shoot, and I have to admit, though,
Speaker 5: there was this initial part of me, because I am human,
Speaker 5: coming into the space and this like desire to like
Speaker 5: I felt the desire in my head to like want
Speaker 5: to like wear long sleeves and cover up the tattoos
Speaker 5: that I have on my forearms. Like there was instantly
Speaker 5: this automatic like how should I do my makeup? And
Speaker 5: immediately I was like, Okay, I see, I am acknowledging
Speaker 5: that you're afraid to walk into this space being authentically you.
Speaker 5: This is what we're pushing against. First is my own thoughts,
Speaker 5: my own limitations about how I like to show up
Speaker 5: as a person. And so I'm in the space, and
Speaker 5: there were there were moments where I would look at
Speaker 5: my stuff and I'm like, this isn't political, like, why
Speaker 5: am I in this space? I do not fit in.
Speaker 5: I just felt like out of you know, the cool
Speaker 5: Latino elected click and sure enough, all of my everything
Speaker 5: I was feeling was projected. And d magazine did a
Speaker 5: really stupid little piece on me that was maybe like
Speaker 5: two paragraphs, and they made fun of me holding the
Speaker 5: money like a phone, stating that I believe that I
Speaker 5: could use the phone a stack of one hundred dollars
Speaker 5: bills for money. I'm a koujie swear a sweater wearing Latina.
Speaker 5: And then the rumor started amongst lobbyists and politicians throughout
Speaker 5: the entire state, and it was getting back to me
Speaker 5: from other lobbyists and from other politicians what other politicians
Speaker 5: and other lobbyists were saying. I was so livid, and
Speaker 5: I was at the same time hurt, you know. I
Speaker 5: sort of felt bullied and picked on and judged for pictures.
Speaker 5: And honestly, I'm not new to this. I'm used to this.
Speaker 5: I am a teen mom. I had my first child
Speaker 5: at fourteen years old. I've been in gangs. My family
Speaker 5: has stopped talking to me. My father still to this
Speaker 5: day doesn't talk to me. There's always been perceptions of
Speaker 5: who I am, and very rarely does someone actually get
Speaker 5: to know my intellect or what I believe. And so
Speaker 5: I just felt like, here's this thing showing up again,
Speaker 5: and I do what I feel I do best, and
Speaker 5: that is be very honest and use that thing that
Speaker 5: someone is using against me and just flip it, transmute it.
Speaker 5: I'm an alchemist at the core, and I just took
Speaker 5: that energy and said, this is what's happening. I'm going
Speaker 5: to slap this picture. Instead of being shamed into a
Speaker 5: of what I might be, I'm going to just use
Speaker 5: this as a fundraiser and I'm going to amplify the
Speaker 5: picture as much as possible. I put it on a
Speaker 5: tote and I'm like, I'm going to fundraise from this.
Speaker 5: And so that is sort of what it's transpired in that.
Speaker 3: I love it. You took it and you turned it
Speaker 3: into merge.
Speaker 1: I was going to say the branding.
Speaker 3: The branding is on point and consistent at this stage
Speaker 3: of your life. Have you been inducted? Have you been
Speaker 3: sworn in?
Speaker 5: I should say I get sworn in second Tuesday in January.
Speaker 3: Okay, amazing, So in twenty twenty five, and when you
Speaker 3: when you were first approached about entering political office. Earlier
Speaker 3: in the interview, you talked about not necessarily having like
Speaker 3: a platform, of course, because you weren't running for office.
Speaker 3: But now at this stage of your political journey, what
Speaker 3: is your platform, what are your your points and your goals,
Speaker 3: and how are you engaging the community that you're going
Speaker 3: to be representing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I wanted to make sure that I don't
Speaker 5: veer away from what I already know. And I have
Speaker 5: spent the last ten years really focusing on the stock market,
Speaker 5: focusing on understanding investing, focusing on understanding money, and then
Speaker 5: focusing on economics. And one of the things that I
Speaker 5: had been so frustrated with in the last five years
Speaker 5: is listening to the Democratic Party talk about economics, and
Speaker 5: it was just very apparent to me that they didn't
Speaker 5: understand the nuances of economics and how certain things work.
Speaker 5: And I get it. It's when you are in a
Speaker 5: space where you're a politician, you're expected to know everything
Speaker 5: about everything. One of the things that is going to
Speaker 5: make me unique on the Democratic side is that I'm
Speaker 5: going to be one of the only Democrats that understands
Speaker 5: economics in the way that I understand economics. So my
Speaker 5: biggest frustration in the last five years is that I
Speaker 5: have been watching monetary policy on a federal level being
Speaker 5: written and marginalized community members and lower income community members,
Speaker 5: which is mostly made up of marginalized folks not being
Speaker 5: accounted for and not being advocated for when it comes
Speaker 5: to monetary policy. So that is going to be where
Speaker 5: I stay. I'm going to stay in my lane. I
Speaker 5: truly believe that at the core of every single social issue,
Speaker 5: which social issues is what the Democratic Party focuses on.
Speaker 5: At the core of every single social issue is an
Speaker 5: economic issue, and economic issues is usually what we lean
Speaker 5: on Republicans to run on, and I'm tired of that.
Speaker 5: I think it's very important for us to start looking
Speaker 5: at economic impact on social issues and mitigating and solving
Speaker 5: for those issues from an economics perspective. Otherwise we're going
Speaker 5: to continue to have the issues that we have as
Speaker 5: we've been seeing, and they're only going to get worse
Speaker 5: and worse and worse because we're lacking more resources, we
Speaker 5: have less money, we're dealing with more inflation, we're watching
Speaker 5: the middle class go away, and so yeah, I feel
Speaker 5: like what I am going to be focus on is
Speaker 5: more of a bipartisan issue. Think that that's going to
Speaker 5: be really beneficial because hopefully I will be able to
Speaker 5: demonstrate the economic issues to social issues. And I think
Speaker 5: that when it comes to speaking to Republicans, which is
Speaker 5: who I need support from if I'm going to pass
Speaker 5: any of my bills here in the State of Texas,
Speaker 5: that hopefully I can speak their language and they can
Speaker 5: understand the perspective and it's not so emotionally charged. So
Speaker 5: that is sort of the plan.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for giving us that breakdown. Excited
Speaker 1: to see the work that you're going to do to
Speaker 1: wrap up. You know you're going to be sworn in
Speaker 1: in January, but we still have elections coming up in November,
Speaker 1: both presidential local state level elections.
Speaker 3: So what would your.
Speaker 1: Advice be to someone that maybe knows someone that isn't
Speaker 1: going to vote or says my vote doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: what would you say to them?
Speaker 5: Oh, my goodness, this is such a charged topic right most,
Speaker 5: especially right now in the state of Texas because we
Speaker 5: currently have just recently gotten data that the Latin community
Speaker 5: is the majority in the state of Texas. On top
Speaker 5: of that, Governor Abbott just purged over a million voter
Speaker 5: registration applications, which means that a lot of people are
Speaker 5: currently now suspended and unable to vote. So this is
Speaker 5: what we are facing here is in Texas, and I'm
Speaker 5: telling you these men they get ideas from each other
Speaker 5: on how to suppress voters. And so while you might
Speaker 5: be in California, or in New York, or in a
Speaker 5: space that is very safe pertaining to whatever it is
Speaker 5: you're going to vote for, I want to urge you
Speaker 5: to still vote because that we are closely watching what
Speaker 5: demographic is voting and what demographic isn't voting, and we
Speaker 5: fall so far behind when it comes to this demographic
Speaker 5: and whether we like it or not, whether we consider
Speaker 5: ourselves the political people or not, politics is impacting our
Speaker 5: day to day life. It controls every decision we make
Speaker 5: when we get into a car, put on our seatbelt, drive,
Speaker 5: whatever it is. It is controlling so much of our lives,
Speaker 5: and so it's important for us to start too, I think,
Speaker 5: wake up this giant that has been asleep for such
Speaker 5: a long time. It is crucial that we start to
Speaker 5: show up and demonstrate our power and the actual impact
Speaker 5: that we have.
Speaker 3: Linda Garcia she's done it all, folks, I mean, you
Speaker 3: have lived many lives. You are now shaking things up
Speaker 3: in Texas politics and eventually like national politics, I imagine.
Speaker 3: So I thank you for coming on the show and
Speaker 3: sharing your journey with us. And how can folks keep
Speaker 3: up with you? Like where can they follow you? Not
Speaker 3: just your personal work, but now the political work that
Speaker 3: you're doing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much for asking. This reminds me
Speaker 5: of something that I think is really really important. One
Speaker 5: of the other reasons that I'm doing this is because
Speaker 5: I want to see us reflected in different colors and
Speaker 5: different styles and different vibes. I want for women that
Speaker 5: see themselves reflected in me, reflected in space like this one.
Speaker 5: And so it's really really important that we take a
Speaker 5: close look at our local politicians, most especially if it's
Speaker 5: someone that you can relate to, and strongly consider donating
Speaker 5: to their campaign because a lot of us don't come
Speaker 5: from generational wealth. As I mentioned before, this position only
Speaker 5: pays seven thousand dollars, which means I am continuously working
Speaker 5: to fundraise, and so please, I urge you to pay
Speaker 5: attention to your local politicians and fundraise. If there's someone
Speaker 5: that you find alignment with You can find my political
Speaker 5: instagram at Linda the Number four Texas. There's a link there.
Speaker 5: If you feel called, five bucks to my Act Blue.
Speaker 5: It will take me a long way