Familias en Acción is pleased to announce Margarita Gutierrez Lemus as its new Executive Director. After a months-long and very intentional search process, we are thrilled to have a new leader for the organization. Margarita brings personal and professional experience along with a deep commitment to Familias en Acción’s mission and values.
“I am honored to join the Familias en Acción team as Executive Director. I am eager to work alongside the staff, board and community to further the incredible work Familias en Acción has been doing in strengthening the health and well-being of Latine/a/o communities in Oregon,” said Margarita Gutierrez Lemus.
Margarita’s career so far has been centered around economic justice and serving communities in ways that empower and foster communities to thrive. Most recently, she served as the Senior Program Director at College Possible, responsible for all programming within the organization. Margarita has a Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies from Willamette University and brings with her knowledge and experience within equity, inclusion, and anti-oppression. Margarita was born in Michoacan, Mexico and immigrated to the United States when she was five years old. She grew up in Salem, Oregon. In her free time, she enjoys experimenting with baking and cooking, painting, and traveling.
In her new role, Margarita will be responsible for driving Familias’ mission forward by advocating for changes to institutional systems of oppression, supporting recognition of Latine/a/o communities and supporting staff in their efforts. She will strive to ensure the organization’s continued stability and community impact.
Familias en Acción is excited to announce that we have formally transitioned to a 4-day workweek, effective January 1, 2023. Familias was built on the mission to strengthen the health and well-being of Latino families and communities in Oregon. We recognize that in order to accomplish our goals within the community, we must first protect and strengthen the health of our staff.
In 2021, Familias en Acción piloted a Summer Fridays schedule from July to August. A Monday-Thursday summer schedule was set in response to the emotional and physical exhaustion that navigating COVID-19 brought onto staff, and in alignment with a shifting work culture. In Summer of 2022, we brought back the 4-day workweek with a Fridays off policy set through December 2022, and with the intent to establish a permanent 4-day workweek operating schedule.
To better inform this decision, Familias staff were surveyed for input and feedback on this new work schedule and its impacts. The impact that this schedule has brought onto our work has been overwhelmingly positive. A 4-day workweek supports prioritizing our staff’s wellbeing, which is vital to us as we continue to be dedicated to serving our community.
100% Have had more time for self-care and overall well being
100% Overall feel happier and more satisfied
94% Have had more time for family and friends, other personal interests
50% Have done some work on Fridays like emails, meetings and phone calls
22% Have saved money
“It has brought up a lot of positive changes especially in my health. It has given me a better work life balance. I have been able to schedule Dr. appointments and find a mental health provider and attend my sessions.”
“The 4-day work week has really improved my mental health and overall wellbeing. It has given me one day each week to really dedicate to self-care.”
Staff Members
When asked about addressing challenges with the new work schedule, staff reported:
“Some meetings have been turned into working meetings, and other meetings that are low priority are now being dropped and worked over email, to make time for others.”
“We are a meeting heavy group. A compressed work schedule should perhaps also create conversations about how we’re using our time and make changes.”
Throughout 2023, staff and leadership will continue to assess and evaluate this implementation to identify and mitigate barriers and challenges that may arise through this work-culture shift. Familias will also need to work differently and reevaluate how we meet and collaborate as a team, our future commitments to funders and partners and how we report and measure success. It is unlikely that this shift will come without reasonable challenges; however, we are committed and will continue to engage with staff at all levels to achieve a new normal of a better work and life balance.
After a two-month search process, Familias en Acción is proud to welcome its first Deputy Director, Patricia Patron, to the team!
Patricia has over eighteen years of experience in healthcare and social services administration and has a passion for working to enhance access to high quality and equitable health care and wellness services for the most vulnerable in her community. Her professional work experience has been dedicated to serving individuals and families who struggle to access quality healthcare, behavioral health, and wraparound services. She is also deeply committed to dismantling racism and to applying a racial equity lens to her life and work.
Patricia has served as Executive Director at Outside In in Portland, OR; COO and Deputy CEO at Native Health in Phoenix, AZ; and CEO at Family HealthCare in Fargo, ND. She has expertise in strategic planning; equity and anti-racism; change management; staff and community engagement; program development, implementation, and evaluation; fund development; advocacy; and partnership building and cultivation. Patricia enjoys collaborating closely with her team to fulfill their mission and appreciates the opportunity to mentor people and see them realize their potential. In addition, she enjoys the challenge of problem solving, developing systems, cultivating partnerships, and interacting with staff and leading teams.
“I am excited to be part of Familias en Acción, and I look forward to contributing to the agency’s commitment to uplifting human dignity through health equity programming and investments that promote and improve the wellbeing of the Latino/e/x communities in Oregon. Familias en Acción’s dedication to create equitable communities aligns with my personal values and the professional work I have dedicated my career to. Mil gracias de corazón por esta oportunidad de servicio a mi comunidad Latina.”
Familias en Acción is honored to be selected as this year’s recipient of the Oregon Hispanic Bar Association’s (OHBA)La Voz Latina Award. Community Health Worker and long-standing member of the Familias team, Zoraya Uder, accepted the award on Familias’ behalf during OHBA’s 20th Anniversary Dinner on July 22, 2022.
The La Voz Latina Award recognizes organizations for their exceptional provision of legal or non-legal direct service to Oregon’s Latinx community and seeks to uplift organizations that enhance opportunities for the Latinx community of Oregon by:
Empowering members of the Latinx community;
Providing free or low-cost services to underprivileged members of the Latinx community;
Creating and expanding opportunities for Latinx youth;
Advocating for causes that positively impact vulnerable members of the Latinx Community.
Thank you, OHBA, for this honorable award. We are both humbled and excited to be this year’s recipient and to continue providing resources to Latino/x/e communities in Oregon.
Pictured (left to right): Zoraya Uder, Jacqueline Alarcón and Octavio Uder at the Oregon Hispanic Bar Association’s 20th Anniversary Dinner.
Paul J. De Muniz Professionalism Award
Familias is also incredibly proud to announce that our board member, Jacqueline Alarcón, was the recipient of this year’s Paul J. De Muniz Professionalism Award at the OHBA Anniversary Dinner. This award honors individuals who are carrying on Paul J. De Muniz’s legacy – he became the first Latino Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court in 2006 and was also the first Latino member of the Oregon State Bar Board of Bar Examiners. He was the first Hispanic person to be elected to the Oregon Court of Appeals.
Judge Alarcón was recently appointed to the Multnomah Circuit Court, and has over a decade of legal experience representing clients throughout the Portland metropolitan area. Jacqueline is the current Board President of the Multnomah Bar Association and former Board President of Adelante Mujeres and the Oregon Women Lawyers Association. As part of the Latinx community, she has first-hand knowledge of the importance of health issues affecting Latino/e/x communities.
We could not be prouder of our staff, board, and community for all of the work we are doing to help Latino/x/es thrive. We thank the Oregon Hispanic Bar Association for this recognition and look forward to continuing to empower Latino/x/e communities.
At Familias, we are very intentional about the people we bring into our organization. From staff to the Board of Directors, each person brings a unique perspective and a shared passion for the work we do to support Latino/x/e health.
Acquaint yourselves with our newest board members – Jacqueline, Martin, Eva, and Jonathan. Learn about their personal stories and why they’ve become a part of this familia.
Eva Galvez
Family Medicine Physician – Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center
“I always like to start with the story of my family because my family’s past is an integral part of my story today.”
Eva is the daughter of two immigrants – her dad from Mexico, her mom from California – and both came to Oregon in search of a more prosperous future. Hood River, abundant in orchards and farming opportunities, is where her parents met. It was there they decided to settle and start a family of their own.
One thing people might not know is that Eva is an identical twin. She always warns people, “if you see someone who you think looks like me but I don’t say ‘hello’, it’s probably my sister. It actually happens pretty often, and people used to get us mixed up all the time when we were in medical school together.”
Eva is inspired by family and community. “I do believe it is important to accomplish things. Accomplishing goals is important for progress, but if you’re only looking at those goals without valuing relationships, you are missing a lot. When building relationships, you’re really learning people’s stories, and everyone has a story to tell.”
When asked which Familias value resonated with her most, Eva stated: “Inclusividad. It’s important for people to feel included. I feel that our aim to lift the health of Latinos really helps everyone in the community because we are all so interconnected. I love the fact that even though we are looking to improve the health of the Latinos, we are not being exclusive, we are making a point to be inclusive.”
Today, Eva is a primary care physician at Virginia Garcia Medical Center, which focuses on serving Latino families and migrant farm workers. “This is the community I grew up in, so my passion is to give back and serve this community,” she shared. “As a physician, one thing I have learned on this journey is that health is a community matter. We tend to look at health as something that is happening in clinics or hospitals but it’s the opposite – it’s really happening in the community, and doctors step up when someone is sick.”
Eva felt that being on the Familias board was a way for her to really make an impact in the community. “I’m now helping to address health at a community level not just within the walls of healthcare.” In our culture ‘familia’ can refer to blood relatives or the people in your close community – it can be your 3rd…4th…5th cousin, all your primos, your tias. There are really no limits to what your family can be and I’m so excited to be a part of this one, with all of you.”
Jonathan Garcia
Associate Professor and Director of the Global Health program at Oregon State University
Jonathan is a Colombian immigrant, who moved to the US when he was 5 years old. “I moved here with my great aunt, and grandmother, who petitioned her 10 children and all her grandchildren.” To raise enough money to bring the whole family, Jonathan’s grandmother sold arepas, which he says are a huge staple in Colombian culture.
Of the Familias’ values, Jonathan says that Familias, Empoderar, and Inclusividad resonate most with him. “Family is such a core aspect of the Latino community. We know how families drive our decision-making and our understanding of well-being in Latino communities. We are really driven by helping each other out and providing that support. In my own work and Familias’ work, I saw that common thread.”
Through his work, Jonathan says, “I’ve learned the importance of not doing for people, but more importantly to amplify people’s voices and create an environment where people can do and speak for themselves. There’s usually a dichotomy between helpers and people being helped, but that’s a false dichotomy. We all have something to learn from each other. Empoderar and inclusividad really connect with each other in that way.”
He says that the north star in all of his work is “to bring my whole self and my authentic self. I’m an immigrant, I’m also gay. I’m always thinking about ways to bring the things that I’ve learned about myself and what I’ve learned professionally to bear when working with others.” He’s developed programs that help people bring their own identities when connecting with each other and how to build equity and social justice by “tapping into who we are – being proud of who we are, learning about others with an open mind, and being empathetic by understanding our similarities.”
Jacqueline Alarcón
Family Law Attorney and Shareholder – Yates Family Law PC
Jacqeline – or Jackie to friends and family – was born in Los Angeles, but she grew up in El Salvador. “I give my parents a lot of credit for having the awareness of what citizenship status meant. Each of my siblings and I were born in the States and that brings a level of privilege that I’m very aware of as an adult.”
Jacqueline’s family moved to Oregon in 1999 as she was starting high school. “I was a Gresham Gopher,” she jokes. “I never envisioned moving here and it was such an interesting experience because I had never been in a situation where I was considered a minority. I didn’t even know what that term was. It was overwhelming to be in this culture where, for the first time in my life, people didn’t look like me and the assumption that I was less than was always really troubling.”
Jackie says she’s always been against using language that minimizes people and advocates for people-first language for all identities, drawing from her own experiences growing up.
She says her biggest pet peeve when talking about her past is: “people always say my accent isn’t identifiable even though I moved here at 13. When I came to Gresham High School, I could speak English because I attended an international school, but I was automatically put in ESL just because I came from a different country. I remember thinking ‘I don’t need to be here’ and everyone shutting me down.” Finally, she advocated with her school counselor. “I still remember him, he is Latinx. And he said, ’I believe you, but your accent is an impediment to other people believing you.’”
And so Jackie enrolled, as a sophomore in high school, in a phonetics class at Mt. Hood Community College for 3 years. She would take the Max all the way to Troutdale after her high school classes, where she worked on overanunciating her words in order to minimize her accent.
“It’s my past experiences that draw me to certain organizations. I care about my community. Serving a community based organization is so much more holistic than a logical organization. Tapping into that perspective of yourself – the community we serve operates this way.”
In her professional life, Jackie is a family law attorney, which deals a lot with divorce. Everyone always asks: ‘why do you do this work?’ As the product of a divorced family who had a very ugly divorce, she remembers the deep depression and isolation that it sent her into. “It completely isolated me and I never want a child or a person to feel that way. It’s what drew me to family law. Now, seeing the transformation and growth in my clients – especially in women – and seeing them get stronger as the divorce gets closer, it’s the best feeling.”
Her clients and personal aspirations keep her going. “I serve as a judge part-time in both Washington and Multnomah County. I recently applied for a judicial vacancy in Multnomah County to be full-time judge. It was a huge interview process, you’re vetted very heavily. I was one of the finalists, which means I got to meet with the Governor. I didn’t get the position, but I was second up and I received a direct call from the Governor, which is rare. It was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life.”
When asked what she hopes to bring to Familias, Jackie says, “when I agree to serve on an organization, I commit entirely to it. It’s not something I do on a whim. What I am hoping to bring to Familias en Accion is my perspective about what happens to an organization that grows exponentially and how to grow efficiently, effectively, wholeheartedly while still staying true to the mission.”
Martin Taylor
President – Taylor Insights LLC
Martin grew up in the Puget Sound area and came to Oregon to attend Willamette University, where he’s lived ever since. He is very close to his family and has an 18-year old daughter, a 5-year old daughter, and an 8-year old son. “I’ve been the primary caregiver for the little ones the past 2 years and I’m very grateful for that time together.”
Martin says his family loves to travel and their favorite place they’ve been is Morocco. “We visited just before the pandemic and we’re really excited to start traveling again. My teenager is going to college in Madrid, Spain at the NYU Global Studies Program, so I’ll visit this summer to drop her off there.” Martin also has a dog named Charlie. “He’s the best, terrible dog you could imagine – he’s great unless you want him to do what you ask…but he’ll grow into it,” he jokes.
“At various stages in my life, I have been inspired by different things. I started off being very political and started my career in Oregon state politics, centered on topics about social justice issues and community organizing. I was an organizer at the Oregon Nurses Association, but having a family shifts things a little bit.”
Martin spends a lot of time reading – around climate change and things that feel like they’re too big for any one person to resolve. He says he’s always inspired by people who are making a difference in things that are definitionally bigger than themselves. “I’ve been very inspired watching the recent Supreme Court hearings.”
In joining this board, Martin says he is trying to help create new ways for the state to contract with Latino-led groups. Medicaid and healthcare is one avenue where he sees that cross-pollination. “For me, the board is where I can put into practice a lot of the learnings we’ve been asked to participate in – both that landscape and the vocabulary. I’ve been on a lot of boards in the past and this one is really good. Everyone really cares, you can feel it. One of the first things I did on the board was attend a meeting in the board president’s backyard and it really felt like a family.”
“As long as I’ve been a professional, I’ve been around organizations that are working on their values, but I think the things about this time that sound so obvious now were not the things that were most important two decades ago. I started in an environment where people said you should be able to prove something with data, but we know now that speaking your truth doesn’t mean backing things up with data. It’s more about the relationships.“
