Last Tuesday, Southern California family child care providers with CCPU rallied in front of the Women's Conference, held by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California's first lady, Maria Shriver, to protest the governor's veto of Stage 3 child care funding for over 60,000 children.
Stage 3 child care assistance is available to low-income families where the parents work and aren't receiving other public assistance. Attendees hoped their presence would encourage the governor to restore funding through the end of his term.
The next day, I spoke to rally attendees Tonia McMillian and Socorro Avitia at the SEIU offices in Los Angeles about the rally and their advocacy for child care providers and the families they serve. McMillian and Avitia then spent the evening calling fellow family child care providers to ask them to continue their political participation by volunteering in get out the vote efforts before Tuesday's elections. They hope the next governor will continue the program in years to come.
The rally was "awesome," McMillian said. "Every time I have an opportunity to get together with providers, I'm excited."
She continued her advocacy beyond the rally, McMillian said, because "there are so many more who have a voice on the phone. I want to find a way to bring them out of the shadows. I know some of them feel intimidated. I know they're worried that if they complain, some networks will drop them, and some have."
McMillian also underlined how important working to protect Stage 3 funding is to the families they serve. Cutting it, she said, "takes children out of safe, educational environments. It cuts at the families who are working, who get no cash assistance and who pay a family fee towards their child care. It just makes no sense."
Avitia expressed the same sense of urgency and concern over the outcome of the governor's race.
"If you want to buy a dress, you can wait a week, a month. For the election, we only have this weekend," Avitia said. "And if we don't get Jerry Brown in office, we might not even have a daycare anymore. The political moment won't wait for us. You have to act when the moment comes."
"People think if they vote for somebody's promises, they can go home, sit and wait and it'll happen. But I see now that we have to be there," Avitia said. "Sooner or later, we have to do this for ourselves. You can't wait for everything to be coming to you from someone else."
Avitia talked about how working with the union had prepared her to advocate for what she wanted in all stages of the political process, everything from attending a rally, to the phonebanking she did that night, to meeting with government officials in the state capital. She said she felt that she'd grown a lot as a person by working with the union, both politically and personally.
"If our organizer, and I see her like my daughter, didn't push me," Avitia said, "I wouldn't do anything. She tells me I have to go to Sacramento [to meet with state legislators.] I ask who's going to be with me. She says I'm going to be alone. And maybe I don't do the best job, but I learn. I feel like I've done something for others. I can count on them for support."
Avitia said she her political work with the union had also given her better tools to interact with her children and helped her set a good example. "When my daughters see me going to Sacramento," she said, "they're proud of me. They see me doing something with myself, not just sitting at home at 50, watching novelas."
