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NORA DE HOYOS COMSTOCK
President and CEO of Las Comadres Para Las Americas
Las Comadres is a nationally known Latina organization empowering women to be actively engaged in the growing Latino/Hispanic communities through online and face to face networks. Nora transformed the informal in-home gathering into the national and international Las Comadres network.
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What is Las Comadres Para Las Americas?
Las Comadres Para Las Americas is made up of informal internet-based groups that meet in person each month in a large and growing number of U.S. cities to build connections and community among Latinas. The Austin network was formed in 2000 and Nora de Hoyos Comstock has brought together many local small groups and started new ones to form the international networks under one umbrella. Since April 2000 our members have been building relationships, doing business together, helping each other find jobs, sharing news and introducing friends. The monthly city events are called a comadrazo™ – comadre gathering. The Las Comadres News Network (LCNN) shares emails concerning jobs, scholarships and other education information, community events, health-related postings, and much, much more.
Comadres meet once a month for community building and informal professional networking. Attendance is optional but you won't want to miss the fun, the food, the friendship! The COMADRAZOS(sm) are potluck dinners in the homes of comadres, where possible.
There are no due, no officers, no meetings, no commitments. All that is needed is an email address. And for those who do not have an email address, a colleague, library, church or other agency is a great source for connection.
To date our email list includes an approximate total of 12,000 comadres. We are in 28 states and Puerto Rico, Canada (in process) and London, England. Our city networks include over 100 cities. If we are not in your city, it is not hard to start a network…just ask us.
Our vision is that we exist to create an international community of Latinas strengthened by actively building community, networking and connecting and with a mission to create opportunities for Latinas through community, culture, technology, and education.
Why a Las Comadres Organization?
There are several reasons why this organization has survived ten years and continues to grow. One is that even though Latino population numbers are high, we still find ourselves in relatively small numbers in the professional ranks in a given area or city. It seems like yesterday that we were saying that one of the reasons for starting this organization was to provide more opportunities for our comadres and compadres to move into the professional jobs available. Today we still hear many Latinas tell us they are the only Latina in their department or their organization…and this is ten years later. So we are as relevant today, maybe even more so.
My personal reason for creating and building this organization was that because I was born and raised in the United States of America and I was fourth generation Tejana, my roots were slipping away and I was dangerously close to losing my identity. I realized that I did not want this to happen. I wanted to retain my identity and my connections to all my ancestors. But since I did not know my history, it was very hard to feel grounded and connected. I felt that I was alone in feeling this way but I soon found out that many others had the same feelings and desire for community and connection to our culture in order to preserve and celebrate who we are and where we came from. Others who are more recent immigrants felt isolated from their Latinidad and we were looking for each other.
And for many who live in areas of the country where they are surrounded by the Latino culture, their reason for participating in Las Comadres is to get to know each other as comadres, to share resources and to build community in their cities.
Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Book Club
Association of American Publishers (AAP) have joined us in a partnership to promote reading of Latino authors by creating the first national level book club: Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club. Membership is open to anyone. Most of the books also are available in Spanish. The initial launch of the Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club included 15 cities, and future plans called for expanding the book club to all network cities where Las Comadres members are located. If interested in starting a Las Comadres Network in your city, please fill out subscription form and indicate your interest.
The national book club has grown out of a series of highly successful monthly teleconferences which we host, with each teleconference featuring one book club-selected author. Comadre Johanna Castillo, national organizer of the book club and a Comadres past board member said, "We are launching the book club to promote the work of Latino authors to every book lover, to bring our community to bookstores, and to support our writers.” Book club also serves to preserve and share culture.
The books are written by Latinas or Latinos who were born in the USA or where brought to this country as young children.
Esmeralda Santiago is our initial National Spokesperson for Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Book Clubs, she also is the best selling author of three memoirs: When I was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman, and The Turkish Lover, and of the novel América's Dream. Her film adaptation of her memoir for Almost a Woman for PBS Masterpiece Theatre was awarded a Peabody Award. Esmeralda also is an essayist, anthologist, children's book author, and a guest commentator on NPR.
Spanish Language Book Club
Since the inception of our National Latino Book Club we have planned to complement the English program with a Spanish language version. As with the English language book club, we plan to start with a series of teleconferences with the authors of the selected books until early 2011 and then proceed with book clubs that meet in various network cities. We are currently working on the list of Spanish language books. These will be announced in September 2010 on our website and via email to our various networks. These books mostly will be written by authors born outside the USA.
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