252 - Do It For A Cause with Veronica Gutierrez

Apr 24

252 - Do It For A Cause with Veronica Gutierrez

Listeners, we're back this week with Veronica Gutierrez

Veronica Gutiérrez is the author of Bella Books’ upcoming As You Look, a mystery novel. She is a former community organizer, civil rights attorney, and corporate executive. She draws from years of experience in those worlds for her fiction. Veronica was born and raised in Boyle Heights, the Los Angeles neighborhood that her protagonist, Yolanda Avila, calls home. Veronica and her wife Laura split their time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both are home bar enthusiasts and avid travelers. They host cocktail-lesson-themed fundraisers—called Mixology on a Mission—to help Los Angeles non-profits grow their donor base. Veronica published My Little Black Cocktail Book, a journal to organize her research and help others do the same.

During this episode we talked about:

06:26 - Growing up in a big family
08:41 - Challenging authority
10:56 - LA Riots
13:55 - Her journey to become a lawyer
18:09 - Working in a city council campaign
23:56 - Religion
23:59 - "Chinga quedito'
31:26 - Deciding what kind of law to practice
34:09 - Deciding to write a book

Hello everyone. This is Pam de Cafe con Pam, the bilingual podcast that features Latine and people of the global majority who break barriers, change lives and make this world a better place. Welcome to episode 252 of Cafe con Pam. Today, we have a conversation with the Veronica Gutierrez.
Veronica Gutiérrez is the author of Bella Books’ upcoming As You Look, a mystery novel. She is a former community organizer, civil rights attorney, and corporate executive. She draws from years of experience in those worlds for her fiction. Veronica was born and raised in Boyle Heights, the Los Angeles neighborhood that her protagonist, Yolanda Avila, calls home. Veronica and her wife Laura split their time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both are home bar enthusiasts and avid travelers. They host cocktail-lesson-themed fundraisers—called Mixology on a Mission—to help Los Angeles non-profits grow their donor base. Veronica published My Little Black Cocktail Book, a journal to organize her research and help others do the same.
Listeners, this conversation with Veronica was great. I had a lot of fun talking to her. I really love her story because she grew up with parents who were highly involved in the community. She grew up as a Catholic, went to Catholic school and she is also a queer Latina woman. And all of her experience, one of the things that we talked about in the interview, is how her experiences weaved in who she is, including the modeling of her parents. And how she's able to hone into all of her intersections and be the strong woman she is.
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***
Of course, we talked about her book and how she came up with this story. What it's like to go through a publisher receiving nos. People really telling you, like, this is not the story that I would sell. Like it's cool and all, but it's not a story that I would sell. And I love that Veronica was persistent enough to believe in her story so much so that now she is published author. We need more, more Latina authors. One day I'll write a book, listeners. But for now let's listen to these awesome authors, just like Veronica and here's my conversation with Veronica.
***
Pam: Veronica, welcome to Cafe con Pam, how are you?
Veronica: I'm well, thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having me.
Pam: Good morning! Yes, thank you for coming. The question that we always start with is what's your heritage.
Veronica: Well I'm Latina. So my heritage is Mexican first-generation. My parents were born in Juarez and Zacatecas. Chihuahua and Zacatecas.
Pam: En el norte.
Veronica: En el norte, right.
Pam: So they came and then, and you were born here.
Veronica: That's right. We were, there were nine of us in my family. So nine of us were born-- actually one was born in Juarez, and the rest of us were all born here. Seven of us were born in LA in the same hospital, at Lincoln hospital in Boyle Heights.
Pam: Okay.
Veronica: And my brother who was the sixth was free for the hospital because he was a 6 to 1.
Pam: Wow. So they did like a package deal.
Veronica: Right. I don't think they do that anymore.
Pam: [laughs] That's so interesting. Nine of you, and how was it to have a big family growing up with immigrant parents?
Veronica: I was great. I'm in the middle of the family. So I'm the fourth girl in a row, but I'm also the older of the second half of the family. So I'm kinda like I'm the oldest and the middle child. My sister once called me a bossy diplomat as a result. So my parents were very active in our community. My dad moved out here when he joined the Marines in El Paso. So he came out to Camp Pendleton, my mom followed and lived here in Boyle Heights. And that's why we were all born here, essentially. My, my dad was a Korean war veteran as a Marine. And my mom mostly stayed at home. She had some jobs sometimes when we really needed the money, you can imagine we would with nine of us and raised us, and was very active, both of them were very active in our family. In fact, my mom was the founder of a group called Madres del Este de Los Angeles, an environmental justice group, one of the first environmental justice groups in the country. So we were, we were very active, uh, politically and it started with school, of course, and then went from there.
Pam: And why do you think your mom had that, like, I don't know if I want to call it a need, but to take action?
Veronica: Well, I think she saw an injustice and, uh, saw the need to do something about it. Um, they were going to build yet another prison in east LA and what we really needed was support for schools. In fact, their activity, their activism started in schools. Um, my oldest sisters were in public school, in kindergarten and first grade when a teacher told my dad that it was a shame to have an English speaking parent, and yet have the girls speak only Spanish. And my dad's response was, well, you're going to teach them English. We want to make sure they know Spanish. You're not going to teach them that at school. So we speak Spanish at home. And at the same time they were going to a church, Santa Isabel, where a German priest, father Sheen, Monsignor Sheen at the time said from the pulpit that it was a shame when you saw a brown face walking down the sidewalk, and yet not being able to speak Spanish. He loved the Mexican culture. So my dad said that's where I'm putting them. Of course, Monsignor Sheen did not control the school sisters of Notre Dame. So the school sisters of Notre Dame actually expected us to speak English, anyway. It was definitely interesting growing up that way because my dad challenged the school, my mom challenged the priest and we saw that often. So challenging authority was something that we grew up with.
Pam: Um, did they ever talk to you all about it or was it something that was more modeled?
Veronica: It was more modeled, I think, but we were active in it as well. You know, my mom once told my sister, my brother had been, uh, getting, uh, written on his, on his back and his, he had a white shirt and we were in Catholic school and the kid in the back kept writing on his shirt. And my mom got tired of cleaning it, a ballpoint pen. She told her Tim to tell the, the nun and she didn't do anything about it. So finally she told my sister, look, next time he does it. I want you to hit him. He won't do it again if you hit him. And sure enough, he did it again. And at the school ground, my sister, you know, separated everybody and had them, you know, my brother's like, oh, you know, he is a softie, right? He's like, oh man, I gotta do this. So he did. He hit the guy. That guy never did it again. And the, and the nun comes out, you know, Beatriz, how can you do this? How can you let your brother do this? She says you wouldn't do anything about it, so my mom told them to do it. So it was modeled and told.

Pam: Right.

Veronica: But at the same time, my dad, who, you know, was seeing there were gangs in the neighborhood and all, my dad's advice to one of my brothers, one time was, if they come after you and the group go after the leader and make sure you let the leader know that you're not going to let them do this, they will follow the leader. Don't bother with any of the others, but they'll never bother you again. If you do that, I don't know if he ever had to use that advice actively, but the family was fairly well respected in the neighborhood. So they kind of left us alone a bit.

Pam: I mean, it was a ton of you.

Veronica: That's right. That's right.

Pam: That's awesome. I only have one sister and one brother. So when I talk to people that have lots of siblings, I'm like, Ooh, I bet that was fun.

Veronica: Yeah. Yeah, it was fun. You know, we grew up across the street from El Hoyo Soto, the Boyle Heights rec center and it was our front yard. So it was like, we own the park. It was a, it was, it was quite fun. We say that we probably would not have chosen each other as friends because we're alll so different. But we're very fortunate to be in the same family. And for the most part, we enjoy each other's company. So it's a good thing.

Pam: Did you grew up during the riots, the LA riots?

Veronica: Well, which ones?

Pam: I know.

Veronica: There's the Chicano moratorium. And then there's the, the alley riots that happened in mostly in the Southern part of LA, south central. I was seven years old when the Chicano moratorium happened. In fact, we were coming back from Juarez. So we had done a trip out there and we heard on the radio on the way in that streets were blocked off, that there were fires on Whittier Boulevard. And at that time we lived in east LA proper, in the county the incorporated area, two blocks from Whittier Boulevard where the riots were happening. That was a little scary coming back to that. I didn't quite understand what that was about at seven years old, but, uh, my parents made sure that we, you know, got home safely. I would say that the term Chicano was not an attractive one to me because of what I saw when I saw Chicano moratorium, I associated the riots and the looting, because it happened down the street from me. I didn't know about all of the other organizing ahead, got on. And I certainly embrace the term now, but, uh, I didn't know that at the time. And then with respect to the other riots, I was actually working at a law firm when they broke out. I was somewhere in Mid-Wilshire at a civil rights law firm. And from our windows, you could see the fire's getting closer and closer to Mid-Wilshire. Now they actually jumped us and went further north into Vermont and Normandy area. So we went home and then, uh, got involved in trying to clean things up. Quite frankly, there was a, there were a lot of organizations that were doing a lot to try to bring people together after that. So we were involved in that as well.

Pam: So many questions. Let's go back to when you were seven years old and you see all of this happen. As you're coming back from Juarez, do you have a conversation, was your family one to talk about the things or it was more like, well, "está pasando" and let's just be safe.
Veronica: We did talk a little bit about it and we didn't, we didn't know what was going on. And my mom and my dad was still trying to figure out what was going on at that time, I guess were following all of it because my dad was a veteran. He didn't necessarily agree with the antiwar stance. Although he did become very active in the community as well and understood that it was an unjust war and did speak to us a little bit about that. There were times too, you need to fight and times not to, kind of like the way he explained it to my brother. He was generally supportive of what was going on. But at that time, you know, we were also small. They were busy trying to raise a family and make ends meet and all, so they weren't quite as involved then as they were, when we moved into Boyle Heights, where a lot of the social activities revolved around the school at the time.
Pam: Yeah. And Boyle Heights is a whole thing.
Veronica: That's right.
Pam: Are you still in Boyle Heights?
Veronica: I'm just north of Boyle Heights, in Montecito Heights. My mom is still in Boyle Heights.
Pam: Really?
Veronica: Yeah, I just got here from, uh, from my mom's. I do home care for her now we all split it up. Fortunate that we have a lot of siblings to share the responsibility. And last night was my turn.
Pam: Nice. Nice. All of this happens. How did you decide to become a lawyer?
Veronica: At first I thought I wanted to be an educational psychologist and I studied psychology.
Pam: Very different
Veronica: Very different. A lot of my TA's I found in psychology had a need for psychological counseling. I wasn't interested in that part of it. I was more interested in how the brain work and how you learned. And I thought I wanted to be a bilingual ed teacher or counselor of sorts. And at the time there was a visiting professor from ETS, the Educational Testing Service, who mentioned that there was an internal study within ETS that showed that there was no correlation between sat scores and your grade point average in college. And that was a very poor correlation, which was something he wasn't supposed to reveal. And I don't know if that internal memo has ever become public, but that told me that, you know, there's a lot more at stake here. Right. So I was more interested. I became a little more interested in politics. I was very politically active as an undergraduate as well. And then I didn't quite know what I was going to do. So I applied to law school and I figured it would give me three years to figure it out.
Pam: Were there any other lawyers in your family?
Veronica: No. No, but we're all activists, you know, fighters. So it almost seemed natural to try and do it. Plus, it would give me three years to figure out what I wanted to do. And I had a chance to come back to Berkeley. So originally I wanted to go to the school in the bay area. I just wanted to get away from home and go to the bay area. But when I was admitted, I received two packages. One was from Princeton and one was from the university of San Francisco. Princeton wasn't asking for any money. The university of San Francisco was asking for $900 for room and board upfront. We didn't have $900. I figured I had all summer to raise the money for a flight to Princeton. So I figured, okay, if I'm going to go away, I may as well go away. And that's where I went. So for law school, I came back to Berkeley. I really wanted to be in the bay area and, uh, was fortunate enough to get it in.
Pam: Why did you want to go back to the bay?
Veronica: I just love the bay area. I, you know, I just thought it was a beautiful place. Eventually I might end up there. And in fact, my wife and I now go back and forth because we both ended up working there. In fact, we, we both met there and we discovered that we had homes a mile apart from each other down here in LA at the time.
Pam: No!!
Veronica: Yeah.
Pam: Did you meet like, as adults or like when you were in law school or how that happened?
Veronica: Oh no. As adults, we were both working for the same company and I was working in the San Francisco office. She came up, she's a lawyer as well. And I, because I was from LA, I usually took out the visiting lawyers to dinner or whatever, and I offered to do that. And she said, well, I have my mom with me. So she speaks mostly Spanish. If she's not all that comfortable in English. Yeah. I don't know that she'll go out. So I don't think I'll go. So I said, oh, well, forget them. I'll take you and your mom. And I took them to dinner. I gave him a little tour of San Francisco, got a picture it by the golden gate and took him to a Chinese restaurant. And that's all she wrote.
Pam: The rest is history. So cool.
***
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***

Pam: Ok, so, let's go back to your story. So you you're like, okay, let's go to law school. We have three years to figure out what we want to do with life. And so then you go to law school and then what happens?

Veronica: So then I became very active politically again in law school. And I came back at a tie back to LA at a time when the first Latina was running for city council, Gloria Molina. Um, and my mom was, uh, supporting her. It was a very actively supporting her and she happened to have an opportunity for me to work on her campaign. So I went and worked on her, on her campaign for that first council race, which is loads of fun. I was much younger then and could work, you know, 20 hours.

Pam: How was it?

Veronica: It was quite an experience. It really felt like a strong movement. You know, there was so much support, so much hope placed on her candidacy. And we were always running from behind. We figured we would, we were going to lose. So we had to try extra hard.
And you know, some of the more establishment politicians don't think that way necessarily, they think they have it in the bag. And I think we were running a little scared. And fortunately for us, it worked, that helped us. When she referenced a county supervisor, we did the same thing. We couldn't believe the data that was coming from the opposition saying that they had X number of votes already lined up. And I remember Gloria coming to me one time. I was the field coordinator at the time. She said, how can they have them in exit their line? There's no way we can't identify how many we have or don't have, you know, we have this many, we know these for sure. These are solid votes, but it's, uh, you know, a fraction of what they were claiming. And then it turned out that yeah, they, they were throwing darts at the wall to get out. We have this neighborhood, oh, we have that neighborhood. And we were actually interviewing voters. We had, uh, an army of volunteers who came out for that race. Um, it was wonderful to, to see that.

Pam: I love that. I mean, that makes me think of how it's powerful to have community and you know, like, while she was the face, there was a whole team in the trenches and like making things happen. And I, it made me think of like, yeah, like she was the one running, but there was also, like you said, a lot more people running as well.

Veronica: Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, as a result of that, a lot of people who worked on those campaigns or who've volunteered on that campaign and several of those campaigns ended up in public office themselves. It trained a lot of people to be really active in a lot of ways as any kind of community organizing does. It's something that always gives a community, a boost. It's a, it's a good thing. So it's very good to get involved that way.

Pam: For sure. Is your dad still here?

Veronica: No, unfortunately he passed in December. So they were together for a long time. Yeah, it was, it was hard, specially hard on my mom. But, but she's, uh, she's plugging away. 90 years old next week.

Pam: Wow. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Happy early birthday.

Veronica: Thank you.

Pam: And the reason why I'm asking this is because having a dad who came from the military and you mentioned it already, they have a different set of ways that they believe in things. So how was it for you to be an activist and working in the community and making change and having a veteran dad? Was there ever any conversations or ideas? Conflicts?

Veronica: No conflicts. In fact, my dad was right there in the middle of it. My dad was extraordinarily supportive of all of our activisms, my mom's activism. In fact, one time when they drove up to Kettleman city, I think, they were working on different environmental justice causes up and down the state. And that's what created the environmental justice movement. All of these different causes were supporting each other and they were up at one there we're going to start a march and there was a reporter there. My dad was sitting, standing kind of on the sidelines a little bit and he asked my dad, so, you know, what role do you have in this organization? And he said, well, I'm, I'm, I'm the driver. And the guy said, well, that's, that's a pretty important position to be, if you're driving this organization to do you know what it's doing? And my dad said, no, I'm the driver. And he, you know, motioned like this.

Pam: [laughs] I'm taking people.

Veronica: He's the one who drove my mom and all of these women who were going to all of these marches and was very involved. In fact, uh, when different people would interview them, to tell the story of the mothers of east LA, my dad was an integral part of it. You know, we did, um, a lot of the, uh, the posters. My sister is a graphic artist, so she made up some really great posters and logos and stuff, and we would paint them at my mom's house and my mom and my dad's house. So it was the headquarters for it, if you will. And they started a scholarship program. And, you know, my dad was very involved in the scholarship program, toilet recycling program for water conservation and got very involved in the community. And my dad, I think, was the kind of person who had he had the opportunity would have been a professor. You always had encyclopedias in the house. And you know, when he was the, he was the original Google for us, you know, you would ask him a question and he'd pull out the volume of the encyclopedia and tell you what the answer was. Right. So he definitely got involved, learned a lot and, uh, was extraordinarily supportive of everything that we did.

Pam: That's awesome. Encyclopedias. Oh my gosh. I don't think I've seen one in a long time. [laughs] I don't know if they exist anymore.

Veronica: We still have them, we still have those old ones.

Pam: My parents used to get one every year. Because they would like, last year's was obsolete because there wasn't Google, you know? And so, I mean, I was little and then eventually they couldn't afford it because they were expensive. Encyclopedias were-- cost a lot of money that's right. But it was the original Google, indeed. And like searching things like you had to learn how to search things, kinda like the dictionary, you know, like, I don't know if the youth knows how to use it actual dictionary.

Veronica: I think you're right.

Pam: I want to quiz my niece.
One of the things that I often talk about is Calladita Culture. You know, the fact that Latinas grew up hearing "calladita te ves más bonita" and it's deeply rooted in religion. So talk to me about religion. And what happened when you were 15 years old.

Veronica: Okay. Well, there's an interesting relationship with religion I think. The calladita thing, I can tell you one of the terms that my mom taught us was a "chingaquedito". Which is a almost like there's the reverse side of the coin of the calladita concept. Right? So you can still do what you need to do and get it done. And, uh, you do it quietly if you need to. But my mom was not averse to doing it with a lot of noise. But, um, with respect to religion, I think my mom got a break from the family a little bit on Sundays. Cause my dad would take us to church and she actually cooked the church kitchen, made tamales and made the best tamales ever and menudo and everything else. And that was kind of her break from us. If she wasn't doing that, she was at home that Sunday. My dad would make breakfast on Sunday mornings. But in terms of the religion, we went to church, but they didn't really push it all that much. When we got older, we lived two blocks from the church and we went on our own and I actually went a lot when I was maybe up through the eighth grade or so. But when I was in high school, my oldest sister took us to a bookstore in Hollywood. And there was this book that almost fell off the shelf called Mr. God, this is Anna. And I thought, okay, well, I'll get it. It looks like an interesting book. The author is Fynn and it's based on a true story of a little girl who is a runaway on the docks of London. And he takes her in, takes her home to his mom. Cause he's only about 18 at the time himself. And he, she teaches him about everything. She's a philosopher, a spiritualist, a mathematician, a naturalist, whatever has these wonderful insights into all parts of, of life. And one of them is that organized religion basically is, you know, just for show. And if you really want to do what the Bible said or what Jesus said, you live it, you don't go to church and hear about it or preach it. Exactly. And that really resonated with me. Cause my mom often talked about the hypocrisy of the church, you know, that kind of thing. So in that sense, it wasn't. It wasn't a stretch if you will. But I found it very liberating to say, okay, well then Catholicism really isn't for me, I was sitting in church one time during there, during the act of faith. And I was thinking, no, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I don't believe that either. So, um, during the retreat in high school father Tim who looked like Pierce Brosnan, beautiful man. We used to call him Father What a Waste.

Pam: Oh my gosh. That's awesome! [laughs]

Veronica: He was a wonderful guy and he's young guy. Right. And he said, you know, it's okay to have doubts. We all have doubts in our faith. You'll come back to the church. It's okay to go and, you know, and explore what you're exploring. And I did. And then, you know, that year I gave up religion for Lent and never went back.

Pam: That's awesome.

Veronica: There you go.

Pam: So you gave a religion for Lent, which is amazing. Did you get pushback from your family? Like what do you mean? You're giving up a religion for lent.

Veronica: No, I just stopped going to church, but by that, at that point, I was one of the only ones who was going to church. So it wasn't that big a deal. I was very involved in, in exploring spiritualisms. So the Bodhi tree bookstore in, in, uh, in the west side and Hollywood was definitely something that someplace I went to a lot, you know, I explored as much as I wanted and, and quite frankly, my mom too has, uh, has a spiritual side, you know, and we'll get to in a bit, but my sister's godmother was a curandera. Here in Boyle Heights and she went to, she attended a church, a spiritualist church that was very active at the time. In that sense, I think my parents and my mom especially was very receptive to other spiritual influences if you will, that, you know, Catholicism, isn't the end-all and be-all.

Pam: Some people believe that, though. So tell me more about your mom, what you were going to say about her spirituality.

Veronica: You know, she, she didn't go to church very much. Like I said, it was her break from the family. So she didn't go to mass. Now, having said that, in their later years, they watch mass every day at 5:00 PM on TV and they receive communion on Sundays. You know, someone comes to the house, right. And that's, since they became a little more traditionally religious, but growing up, I don't remember seeing my mom at mass except for special occasions. You know, even though she told us to go, even though she, you know, she would pray, it was her own version of praying. And I think maybe that's why the Mr. God, This is Anna book resonated with me a little bit. Like there were other options, there were other ways to express your faith. And I think from my mom's perspective, the hypocrisy, what she saw is that hypocrisy of the church, not following its own teachings is what motivated her to stress that it's better to do than to say.

Pam: For sure. And we can get into this conversation, but we'll leave it at that. Let's take a coffee break.

***

Pam: Veronica, do you drink coffee?

Veronica: I do.

Pam: What's your way?

Veronica: Café con leche and with con canela.

Pam: With canela. Nice. Nice.

Veronica: I break up the cinnamon stick in the coffee maker, along with the, uh, with the coffee grounds.

Pam: Nice.

Veronica: And make the coffee that way. How about you?

Pam: I am a black coffee drinker and sometimes I do throw in the canela because so lately, well, it's been like a year, I used to do my favorite way of, of drinking coffee is pour overs and they take a long time. And so since my mom moved in with me, I'm not going to make her a pour-over nor does she care. Like, you know, just give me coffee. It's just like, just coffee is coffee. And I'm like, no, but you know, the flourishing of the cotton, like, and women drinking drip. And that's why we have added the canela because it's just so much easier. And I, I drink it black. Así como sale, así me lo tomo.

Veronica: Good for you. Yeah, my mom still makes it in the percolator, the old fashioned percolators and on the stove. Yeah. I used to use a French press.

Pam: We used to do French press, but then I wanted more coffee and she was, and so we got a drip. But the only time when I add half and half and I make café con leche is when I go to like diners because diner coffee is like, not the best. So I kinda like, dilute it with half and half. Do you add sugar or just the canela in the leche?

Veronica: I add Splenda? I don't use sugar, but I do add a little bit of Splenda. It makes it taste, reminds me a little bit of how my grandmother used to make it because she used to make café de olla, with a little bit of piloncillo and leche, canela, and we drank it as kids, it was delicious. I have not approached her ability, but, uh, it reminds me of it anyway.

Pam: Yeah. Café de olla is my my fav. It's kinda like, you know, pozole, not all café de ollas are made equal.

Veronica: That's right.

Pam: So you have to find it like the perfect one. There's one place, I'm in San Diego. There's one place in San Diego that makes café de olla, and it's a restaurant. And so sometimes I go for breakfast and I'm like, just let me drink my café de olla and then like, get me food, you know? Cause it's so good, but it's one of those like only like far few in between places. Okay. Let's get back to the show.
***
Pam: So, Veronica, tell me how did you decide what kind of law to practice?
Veronica: At the time I was working in politics and I decided if I was going to practice law, I wanted to do litigation, you know, actually be in court.
Pam: Yeah.
Veronica: And I wanted to try it before writing it off altogether because I had gone to law school. I worked in politics and I thought, okay, you know, I've worked a lot of campaigns. I want to try this before I write it off. And I want to see if I like it. And fortunately, there was a firm that had a two year fellowship that didn't pay very much at all. In fact, I took a major pay cut to go do it, but it was a wonderful, wonderful experience because I had already passed the bar. When you pass the bar, you get a barn number, and the lower the number, the longer you've been practicing. So I had passed the bar five years before I actually practice. So opposing counsel that I had, I was much more experienced than I was. Which was always nice, but, um, I figured I was going to try litigation and if I was going to do litigation, I wanted to do civil rights. And Litt & Associates is a long established civil rights firm here in Los Angeles that I went to work with. And I absolutely loved it, [inaudible] there are just wonderful, wonderful people, great teachers and great intellectuals who really know the law and are willing to teach it. And I loved it. I got to writing for the first time in my career, I had the time to actually sit down and think and write and compose something. And I love that part of it. But of course the law doesn't change all that much. I mean, I love my clients. I did a lot of slumlords litigation, employment discrimination, police abuse, that kind of stuff. Those kinds of cases, Justice for Janitors case was a case that I was involved in way back then in the early 90's. And because the law doesn't change, the fact patterns do so you do a lot of motions for court-- I was in court every week, which was nice because a lot of my friends had been practicing for five years was still writing memos at big law firms. So I was in court, arguing motions and stuff. And because we only took good cases, you know, we're winning all of those. So it was a great experience. But after a while, I kind of felt like a glorified clerk of the court. I'm just pushing paper through. And eventually all these cases settled because they were such good cases and the defendants didn't want to lose more money. So I ended up going back to politics at that time and working with Jackie Goldberg, who is now back on the school board again, is one of the smartest people I've ever worked for. She's a wonderful, wonderful soul. And I went back to that, but it was a great experience. I really-- I'm glad I did it. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot. And I loved my clients, great people.
Pam: For sure. I hear you. And you say, you know, the law doesn't change, so it's like just kept pushing through, pushing through it. Makes sense. How did you decide to write a book?
Veronica: Well, I think part of it had to do with the time that I actually got to sit down and write, when I was practicing law, I loved it. I just enjoyed it a lot. I love to read. So, my two older sisters are huge readers and they read all of the Agatha Christie books when I was growing up. And I've followed in their footsteps, if you will. And mysteries where my favorite genre. So I've always read is my form of relaxing. If you will. And I started developing an idea when I was working at the city, you know, these different scenarios that happen cause you meet so many people, so many personalities and that the work is really, really interesting. There's never a dull moment. You never know what's going to happen from one day to the next, you can go in with your day planned out and then something happens and your whole agenda shifts. So I just thought there were interesting stories in a lot of the people that I saw and came across and I started noodling it a little bit, thinking about it, a detective, a PI. Also, because I was reading a lot of books by women who were writing about strong women, but none of them were Latinas. So I thought, you know, I can do that. And I would say maybe 95% of the books I read. I think, God, I wish I could write like that. About 3% of the books I think I could write like that. 2% of the books, I think, I think I can write better than that. So that 2% I think is what inspired me. So thank you to those authors who wrote those books, because that inspired me to think that I could do it and I didn't have time to, but I started developing the story that thinking I could do it in my spare time. And you really do have to dedicate a lot of time to it. But you know, those people who write books on the subway are very impressive. And it's not, certainly not me. I have to focus on it. So I ended up retiring early, uh, from the corporation, I was fortunate enough to do that. And the first few months I just read everything I could, I just spent so much time reading-- that I didn't have time to read a lot of books, you know, with the jobs. I read a lot. And I came across a book by Lisa Cron called Story Genius. And it's about the psychology of story and the human need for story and how you can grow people into your story. And I went through it and some of the exercises, and basically you develop the backstories, which isn't even the book. This is just the backstory of your character. The middle of the story. It was is the aha moment when the character's mind shifts somehow. And then the final part of the story, the end. And I did those exercises. And then I found that she was doing a workshop and got involved with the workshop with a group called Author Accelerator that put together and promoted book coaches for your book. And I worked with them. So I did the 10 week program with Lisa Cron. Then, um, I did the book coaching for another nine months or so and got the book out and here it is.
Pam: Did you know, like early in your career that you were going to write a book?
Veronica: You know, I didn't know it for sure. I, I was wanting to, I think way back when I was working in the city in the early nineties, I was very interested in doing it. And the more I read, the more I thought I could do it. So it was just a matter of finding the time to do it. And I was also reading a lot of books published by Bella Books. My publisher that focuses on women loving women. And a lot of those are, you know, the romance or mystery, mostly the mysteries, I thought my book would fit with them. So, uh, I went through the process of trying to look for an agent and all that, and that wasn't going so well during the pandemic. Uh, I went to another publisher that published some books that I, that I really liked. I think they were going through some stuff in the pandemic. So they, they weren't able to respond right away. And I'm part of a group on Facebook called, uh, Women Writers of Color. And someone there asked, where are you in your work in progress. And I mentioned that this manuscript was at this publisher for, you know, seven, eight months. And they said, oh, get it back. Don't, don't leave it there that long, you should definitely go somewhere else. I'm like ok, I guess I got to get on it. So I sent it to Bella Books and within a week, Linda Hill, the publisher called me and said, we'd like to publish your book, which is always fun to hear.
Pam: Oh my gosh.
Veronica: Yeah. It worked.
Pam: I love this. So basically you've got one no, kind of.
Veronica: The other publisher, right?
Pam: I think it's important also to acknowledge that sometimes you believe in this story and other people don't, but that doesn't mean that the story isn't good.
Veronica: Right.
Pam: That's one of the things that the Author Accelerator folks really focus on. When you go look for an agent. Uh, a lot of the feedback I got from the agent. So I got a lot more than one no. The agents were very complimentary, so this is good. It's well written. It's, you know, it flows well, the, you know, all this stuff, but I don't connect with the story. It's not a book that I would sell, but good luck. And it was all positive. So I didn't, you know, they say, you know, you go through a hundred agents before you find one. And I thought, wow, I'm not going to bother. Going that route. When I know that if I go to Bella Books, they're likely to publish it. So that's what I did. But yeah, you, you have to go through a lot of that. And I think part of it had to do with finding the niche, which I already knew existed. And was lucky to found them and to have them embrace it.
Pam: For sure. So tell us about the book. What, what can we expect?
Veronica: So the book is about, uh, Yolanda Avila, who is a former LAPD cop kind of booted out of the LAPD who becomes a private investigator and she is dealing with some guilt and grief associated with her mom's death the year before. And she starts to have these prophetic dreams and she is, she doesn't like the juju. She doesn't want to have anything to do with the juju. You know, she's a detective, she's focused on facts, and she's dealing with all in the process when her godson is kidnapped and then his parents are accused of murder and her wife who was a doctor, an African-American woman is, uh, is stopped by someone who was warning her away from the story. So she's dealing with all of that, but she has to deal with her grief and guilt and the juju at the same time. So that was very fun to write. Part of the book involves this lesbian relationship, which I thought was very important. I wanted there to be a positive relationship. You know, there are a lot of stories with private investigators who are these broken people, which is fine because it gives you a lot of room for character development. But I wanted someone who was closer to what I knew, the women in my life are all fairly, very strong women. And I wanted that to be reflected. And I also wanted, a positive lesbian relationship. That existed from the get go because. You know, and a lot of books that they develop it and then, you know, may they may or may not live happily ever after. Here I wanted something that was already established, which you don't really read a whole lot of, you know, and people who like romances and the tension of romance and building and all that. This isn't necessarily the book for them. Although there is a lot of love, here. In fact, one of the readers that have what they call them, advanced readers, he's a doctor, and I had him read it because of the medical stuff that I have in the book. He sent me back an email when he started reading and he said, you know, I know this is supposed to be a mystery, but what I'm reading here is a romance about a woman who loves her wife and whose wife loves her. And I thought, oh great, he got it. So, that was the first chapter. So I think, um, I achieved what I wanted to in that respect. And that, that part was important to me.
Pam: Totally. And I mean, it makes sense when the agent was like, well, this is a cool story, but I don't connect with it because you're talking about a queer Latina.
Veronica: Right. That and did Juju, some people don't connect to that either. And some people don't connect to even Boyle Heights, the neighborhood, that kind of thing.
Pam: So, so how connected is Yolanda with Veronica?
Veronica: Um, I would say maybe the childhood might be connected, but you know, all of our characters are composites and any writer who writes is going to write composites. And so the characters are all, I think the childhood is probably what's reflected the most in terms of where I grew up and what was around in the neighborhood at the time and that kind of stuff. But I would say parts of me are in her. Parts of me are in Sidney, her wife and parts of me are in Jessie, her brother. So it's all around.
Pam: I love this. Was there any healing that happened as you wrote this?
Veronica: Healing. That's a great question. I don't know if there was healing per se, but it really did feel wonderful to write it. I mean, in the book there is definitely healing. There's, you know, the whole thing with the egg, you know, el huevo, right? Most Latinos know it, right? So it's great talking to you about it because you know what I'm talking about when I say the huevo, and a lot of folks in the mainstream, just have no idea what that is, would never have come across it. And, uh, when I tell them, you know, this is part of everyday life in Latino neighborhoods, in Latino families, even if you don't believe in it, you know, sometimes as a last resort you do it. You know, you have the, the meme of the little kid, you know, not feeling well and going to the refrigerator, getting an egg and giving the egg to their mom, you know, do something, right? That kind of thing.
Pam: And the remedios and, and all of the very interesting parallel that we live in the Western medicine world. And you know, you, we drink tecito and we pass the huevo and the sage and the hierbas and all this stuff that only if you've had the lived experience of like, yeah, I go to doctor and also my abuelita gives me, you know, the things to cure me. I think it's, it builds a different kind of connection and more stories are needed for that. So I'm glad you wrote this one.
Veronica: Yeah. No, thank you. Yeah, it was, it was fun writing it.
Pam: For sure. Where can we find the book? Where can we find you and all things?
Veronica: You can find it on Amazon. You can find it on a bookshop. You can find it at Barnes and Noble. You ask for it at your bookstore and hopefully they'll order it for you. So, yeah, there's definitely that. The book is out now, came out March 17th. So it's available everywhere. It'll eventually be an audio book as well, but it's available right now as a hard copy and as an ebook.
Pam: How fun. Tell us where can we find you? If people want to connect with you, where do you hang out? Do you hang out in a social media? Are you more like my website?
Veronica: So there's several things. I'm on Twitter at VG_author and a on Instagram at VGauthor. And I'm also, at my website, which is, uh, veronicagutierrez.com. So it should be easy to find. And, uh, and you can find that book and another book that I have on mixology that I have published just to try to see what self publishing was like.
Pam: Nice. How did you find the love for mixology?
Veronica: You know, when my wife and I met, I was first working in San Francisco, then it turned out we switched, I came back down and she was working in San Francisco. So I would go up every weekend or so, and she would arrange for a nice dinner and all, and I thought, you know, I don't really don't want a big, heavy dinner. You know, what I really want is just, I want to go somewhere, have a drink, maybe some, you know, appetizers, bar food, and then maybe go somewhere else and have a drink. So she started curating all these bar hopping ventures. You know, when I would go up there on weekends at speakeasies and other bars in San Francisco, and there was so fun and the bartenders were so generous with their recipes that, uh, I had to figure out some way to write them all down and not just have a bunch of cocktail napkins all over the place.
Pam: Right. Right. So you wrote the mixology do book.
Veronica: It's actually a journal. It's a journal with prompts where, you know, you can take it to a bar and pull it out to, Hey, can you give me the recipe for this? And you'll find that bartenders love it. They love sharing their recipes. And then I would make the cocktails here while we watched football with our group of friends.
Pam: Nice! So el book se llama As You Look, a Yolanda Avila mystery. So for those of you who will buy it because it's very important to support others, especially others of color, buy the book, everyone in all the places and spaces. It's important for authors to not only write the book, but also sell the book, so support. And buy the mixology journal too.
Veronica: Thank you.
Pam: Veronica, the last two questions. Do you have a remedio that you want to share?
Veronica: Sure. Estafiate. Estafiate is mugwort herb, and we grew up with it. When you, where you have a loose stomach, it takes care of it in 15 minutes. I came across it in San Francisco, one time at the Psychic Eye bookstore, and it was labeled as good for astral travel. Ao I bought it because I wanted it for what I needed it for. And the clerk said, you know, this is really good for astral travel. I said, well, I don't know about that, but it's really good for a loose stomach. And it really does work, tastes terrible, but it works within 15 minutes, put a little bit of cinnamon in it in the tea and a, and as long as it's not something viral, you can always count on it. There's absolutely no doubt about that.
Pam: Mugwort.
Veronica: I let it grow and then I cut it and dry it and send it off to people who want it so.
Pam: Nice!
Veronica: It works.
Pam: And what's your quote or mantra that you live by in this chapter?
Veronica: Well, I'm going to give you one that actually in the book As You Look. "Como te ves me vi, como me ves te verás". So, as you look, I look, as you see me, you will be seen, which is a lot of what our mothers tell us. Right. And that's where the title of the book comes from. Um, cause there's some similarities between Yolanda and her mother that she discovers.
Pam: I love this. Tenía mucho que no escuchaba "como te ves me vi, como me ves te verás". My mom has said it before. And it's like, tell us this when we would like, like not go to sleep or malpasarnos, like not eat, you know? And she'd be like mira, right now, you might feel like you're good, but that body is not gonna take take it [inaudible] Amazing! Veronica, it was great talking to you. Thank you for coming to Cafe con Pam. What's your next book?
Veronica: I'm working on a sequel, it's also going to be based in Boyle Heights. I don't have a title yet, I'm doing some of the research for it now, and it will involve, um, one of the characters will be, uh, a Japanese survivor of the concentration camps here in the US, because there were a lot of Japanese who lived in Boyle Heights as well. And I'm noodling that story a little bit.
Pam: Wow. That's fun. Well, thank you again for coming. This was super fun.
Veronica: Listeners, stay shining.
***
Okay. Listeners, that was my conversation with Veronica. What do you think? What are your thoughts? Are you curious about this story? Are you excited about reading a story about a queer Latina in Boyle Heights? I feel like those stories are not usually represented and like Veronica said in the interview, one of the things that she wanted to do is to make sure that the story was strong since the beginning, that it was a story of love from the get go and not the stereotypical queer relationships that are full of drama and sorrow and despair, because we're done with that. People in the LGBTQIA+ community deserve happiness and also the stories to be told about joy. So I'm excited to read this book. Definitely go get it. I will have the bookshop link in the show notes. So you can check it out. The bookshop is my affiliate link. So if you buy the book through my link, I get a couple of dollars thrown at me and you spend the same money. You support also your local bookstores. Everyone wins, everyone wins, this is why I love using affiliate links because everyone wins.
Y bueno, if this is your first time here welcome to Cafe con Pam. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I hope you feel like you're at home having a cafecito with us or kind of like hanging out while we have this conversation. I would love to invite you to leave a rating, a review, and to subscribe because if you haven't subscribed, then you won't know when the new episodes get released. So the first step is to subscribe and rate and review afterwards, if you feel called to do it. And I so appreciate your stars and your reviews, they mean so much. They support the show in such a way that I don't even think you realize, but it really does make a difference. Some questions that you can ask yourself to leave a review. What do you love about the show? What were you expecting before you started listening to the show or before you tune into this episode, what happened post episode? What lessons did you learn? What thoughts came up from the conversation? Another question that you could ask yourself as you write the review is how would I describe the show to your best friend, or to someone whom you think would benefit from. These are some questions that I leave you with to consider as you leave the review, because sometimes you're like sure I'll leave a review. And then you're like, Ooh, where do I start? Thank you so much for taking the time. Again, grateful for you doing it and grateful for your ears, because you lending me your time for this hour or whatever that I'm here talking to you. It's amazing. And I'm so grateful for that.
I would love to stay connected with you. There are different ways to stay in touch. Number one, social media. It's the easiest one. You're already there. I'm already there. Let's stay connected at cafeconpampodcast on Instagram and Facebook. I have an online group-place-gathering spot in the interwebs in Discord that you can join. Stayshining.club and this place is super fun, because we, we play games. I ask questions about productivity. Cause you know, I'm a recovering procrastinator, I'm a recovered procrastinator. And like I really hang out there all the time. I'm literally on there all the time. So it's a different way to stay connected outside of social media because we hang out there, stayshining.club to go there.
If you're interested in my work and the things that I do, I have two ways of working with me. One joining Power Sisters, Power Sisters is my productivity group, and we work on liberated practices. When it comes to getting things done, I pair you up with a power sister and you walk along side each other in your productivity journey. And we don't glorify productivity though. That's the thing. We embrace rest. We embrace joy. We embrace expansion, abundance and getting things done. All from the lens of liberation, powersisters.club if you want to check it out. And if you are a first-generation business owner, I have a mastermind that you can also check out alignedcollective.club. And this one is for first-generation business owners who are looking create and build businesses from a liberated lens. And what we do is we remove all supremacist principles that are so oppressive to people of the global majority. And we really lean into the teachings of mother earth. We'll lean into the teachings of honoring our humanity. And so if you're interested in that alignedcollective.club, those are the two ways that we can work together or come hang out in Discord, stayshining.club. That's one of my faves.

Y bueno, I'm so grateful that you're here. You made it to this point. If you made it to this point, Hey, you're a strong human. Y, as for me, I dunno. I dunno, what news do I have other than like, it's been two years since the pandemic and we just had a full moon that was so powerful and it kind of dragged me in a way that I'm like, okay, let's pick ourselves back up. And so if you're one of those people that went through the full moon in Libra on April 16th, 2022, and we are here. I mean, give yourself a hug, a pat on the back, because that was a good one. Y ya, I don't have anything else to report. To all of you who I owe you stickers, I've sent them. I believe if I haven't then send me a DM, tell me that I didn't, but I crossed everything on my list actually. Those of you who came to the quarter planning workshop. Amazing. It was so great to see you all. It was super fun. There were people that had never been to any of my classes. And so I was like, oh my gosh, new faces, super-awesome. Ya me voy because I'm rambling now. Thank you so much for being here. Much hugs, much love to you. Y como siempre, stay shining.