State Voices

I have to always deal with the challenge. First of all, you’re a woman, secondly, a woman of color, and also the language. …And [corporate leaders] think because you are a woman immigrant and you speak the language, you’re maybe not smart enough to be sitting at the same table. And not only me now being in the [union leadership] position that I have, but sitting with the group of housekeepers. Sitting with them trying to negotiate something, you can feel the [derision] of like, ‘You guys don’t even speak good English.’…But it’s educating these people…it’s because they are afraid of you. The power that you have…you can go back and mobilize all these guest room attendants or all these workers and they, with their good English and their color of their skin, they are not more powerful than you."

Our state legislature meets every other year. It’s a citizen legislature so that [puts] a harder burden on working families, working women, women of color, to run for office [and] be elected to office because you have to have a job that allows you to take this leave to be up there for like a few months of the year. And then also, because it’s a citizen legislature, [legislators are] just not paid enough so the types of folks that usually…could afford to be an elected official were typically white men who were lawyers. And so there are a lot of lawyers who are in the Nevada Legislature. And our union has had a really intentional, purposeful goal of changing that to make sure that workers could participate in that process. And we have a long track record in our history of hospitality workers being elected to office."

When I came in [to the city council], I’m like, ‘Oh this is a very boring place. I’m not with the gray, black, blue suits. I don’t even think I own one.’ I have a green, I have a pink blazer…and that just brought light and sunshine into the space and I believe in bringing joy into everything I do. And I refuse to conform to that. And it sounds like something so small. But as women, we’re so often put in this little box that there are the things that we have to do. We also constrain our minds and our abilities to yield our power. …If I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin, I’m not able to be the force that people elected me to be. …I’m not asking a whole bunch of permission for stuff like certain things that people expect you to do as a woman. We just did it."

I think a lot of the women that are winning across this state are bypassing that system about waiting your turn. My turn is when I decide to run. And I think we’re seeing that more and more, and I think that demonstrates the power of women."

When I think about women and political power, I think we as women have to continue to build our collective power. We’re coming to a system that has been traditionally led by old white men and now we’re shaking up the system. We need to make sure that we’re not perpetuating those systems by feeding into these systems that were created by old white men. And I think part of it is finding equal ground, fighting around issues that we can definitely stand tall on."

I also think that the current women in leadership really do rise to the occasion. I know that I have felt very blessed and very lucky that everyone has reached out to me to support me. …And it’s been ongoing. It wasn’t just when I was appointed like, ‘Congratulations. Good luck. I’m here for you.’ It’s been continual check-ins. …I call that intentional. That’s when we’re intentional about our work and intentional about our actions. So making sure that as busy as they may be in Washington D.C., they are on a continual basis carving out time in their schedule to check in and to touch base to see what it is that I need and how I’m doing. …That’s what we call mentoring and having someone that is in your corner. Sometimes [that] is half the battle, right? Knowing that you have someone that you can just call and ask questions or run things by is so important, and so that mentoring piece of the women that are in it. But not just even women who are in leadership roles in state politics. I think it’s the community of women who are in leadership roles in a variety of different organizations all coming together and helping one another. [Interview conducted in August 2022 before Burkhead left office.]"

How is it that you can go away for three months at a time to make laws in the state Capitol? Think about that concept. That [concept is] built around a man. Women can’t be away from their ecosystem because everything in that ecosystem is dependent upon her leadership, her voice, her input, her labor. And so the very fact that men…have the ability to move – that means they have a woman at home figuring it out. We make their lives possible in the way that they get to work. Now what if we want that life for ourselves? Who’s there to make you work for us? Typically, it’s other women, women from [within] your family, your friends and family grouping. …If we are mothers or even if you want to become mothers, we have to know that there is childcare available that is affordable. We have to make sure that it is accessible for us. Going to state capitols and being there for a concentrated amount of time is not family-friendly."

The role of women in leadership particularly in politics is to bring their whole selves. …I don’t need women to come into this work and think that they can out-man a man. Minimize that shit. They fucked it up long enough. We’re all on fire as a result of it. That perspective is antiquated, incomplete, and has failed. And we’re going into rooms as women [and] because we lack the repetition, we lack the institutional understanding and knowledge, we lack the power in these places,…we capitulate to that patriarchy and we capitulate to the white supremacy because we want to be in the room. Fuck their rules. Build our own rules."

I have an extraordinary amount of influence as a labor leader. And women are workers. So think about that opportunity that I have in this role to lift up the multifaceted, multidimensional, very layered experience of women in our society."

I do think that both Democratic and Republican parties and leadership have been more intentional about recruiting women candidates. And I think that maybe sometimes it’s also because they think that women can get the message across to their party but can also reach [out] to independents, right?"

I know there [are] a lot of different things out there [to support women], but…how can there be more? And then when women do run, how are the current systems really supporting those women to be successful, right? Because I will tell you that if you were to ask me to run for office right now I would say no because I have a seven-year-old at home and I also have a full-time job, and running for most positions within our state would require me to also work another job. And so like how are we really supporting [women]? …It’s about being able to pay your bills and also do your job as a legislator or city councilperson or representative…or a school board trustee or what have you."

I think [creating a support infrastructure for women] sometimes [is] having someone that will just listen. I think being a woman, whether it’s an elected official or…whatever type of leadership position, it can really be lonely. And being able to have someone to talk to about like, ‘These are things I’m currently struggling with as an executive director in this nonprofit political space. Are you also dealing with these issues or not?’ I think that is something I can think of right off the top of my head that would be really helpful. I think especially when I’m thinking of a lot of women of color leaders who are newer to the space…I think really being able to give them whatever the tools…that they need of how to be successful. …Because I think that oftentimes…this is a first time and a lot of times I also see that we are coming up to clean messes left by white men or white women. And there is a whole toll that it takes on us. …There are so many instances where it would have been great to have somebody just sit down with me and listen to what I was going through and say, ‘Okay, I hear you. I’ve experienced something similar. Here are a couple recommendations of something I think you should do.’ And I feel like I try to do that now with the women on my staff or women that are partners, but it would be great to have something…a lot more elaborate."