Speaker 1: hello Speaker 2: And welcome to salute celebrating San Antonio's Latina leaders.

I'm your host, Jenna Saucedo.

And over the next 30 minutes, we have a chance to visit with three local Latina leaders, and also to learn about some of the struggles and challenges that they overcame.

Let's find out more about how they position themselves as successful leaders in San Antonio.

First, we're here at the famous Los Barrios restaurant that was founded in 1979 by Viola Barrios.

And today we have a chance to visit with her daughter, Deanna body of Trevino let's head inside and meet Diana.

So we're here in front of this beautiful portrait of your mother.

Tell me a little bit about the portrait, but also about your mother and her inspiration.

Speaker 1: Well, you know, the portrait was done by a family member, Kathy salsa.

Kathy knew my mother so well.

And so she knew the colors had to be five brunt and bright and beautiful, and you see the loaves of bread and the, and the fish.

And that goes back to the biblical parable of how Jesus fed so many with so little.

That's what my mother did.

She fed so many with so little.

She started Liz butter's restaurant in 1979 in an old boat garage with $3,000.

She sits there.

She oversees everything.

Her guests especially welcoming them because that's what she did.

She did it.

She didn't speak a lot of English and her English that she did speak.

It was very accented.

And she was very self-conscious of the fact that she might not be saying the right words or the right tense.

She could communicate with her guests wow.

Through her food and her delicious food.

And so people love my mom.

Speaker 2: Have there been any other role models in your life that have inspired your career Speaker 1: Right there, right there, or tirelessly?

Selflessly sacrificially did it for her children after our dad died.

That's my go-to every single day.

You're going Speaker 2: To make me cry.

That's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

But you know what?

You're driven by that.

And when times get tough, that's what you go back to, right?

You go back to the core and what drives you and why you wake up every morning to do this.

Tell me how you worked through COVID and the snow storm and everything.

Speaker 1: A lot of prayer, just like mama taught us.

I'm grateful that we had the leadership of my brother and our team, because it was a team effort.

When the pandemic started, we did shut down the restaurants for between three to six weeks, some for three, because we have four restaurants with 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks.

You know, we had to lay off a lot of people and we'd kept our core because we had to figure out, we knew we were going to have to figure something out and gratefully.

We had an opportunity with HEB to sell our foods in, you know, several of our HEB stores.

And I bought them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And it, it was such a lifeline.

They extended to us.

We're so grateful for that because it really, really helped us.

And it was, we were able to bring more and more and more of our boys back to work.

And because of that, we decided, okay, we can do the curbside.

People are looking for it.

And so we, you know, incrementally opened each restaurant.

We started out with our loss and the scenic loop, and we just did curb site there.

And then we opened up LA Hacienda that Lowe's batteries on Redland.

And then those batteries and last was and people were ready to get back out.

They, they were, but they couldn't come in because we could only do curbside, but we were able to bring our team back to work.

And they were grateful because, you know, everybody was scared.

They didn't know how am I going to support my family?

What are we going to do?

I mean, including ourselves.

And, you know, there was a lot of thinking and soul searching and, and, um, trying to figure out how to do it, right, because there's a lot of people that depended on our business to provide for their families.

And it's not just the food on the table, it's their rent or their mortgage or their cars, insurance, everything.

So we're very grateful to HIV.

We're very grateful to the people that came out and, you know, May 1st was the day we could reopen at 25%.

And the one thing that really helped us a lot was that the 25% occupancy was for the inside of the restaurant, but we have big patios at our restaurants and all my goodness, our guests flooded those, those patios.

And we were grateful that we could do that and we have great weather and it just helped us a whole lot tremendous.

And those patios continued to be full and where would bring our musicians back.

So it gave them the help that they needed also because you know, who was, who had live music, everything was shut down.

And so it was great.

You know, when we did curbside, when we were just doing curbside, we'd have a musician playing.

That's great.

People just loved it.

You know, we also had a lot of people that would go to the restaurants, to whichever restaurant they were picking up from.

And then they'd sit in their parking lot and eat.

And they'd say, this is our date.

Speaker 2: I'm curious if you know, when you were thinking about your career, if you contemplated anything outside of the restaurant industry Speaker 1: For a little while I was in college, I worked for fragrance companies.

I was a spritzer.

And then I was an account coordinator and I did stuff like that, but I always still worked in the restaurant, even if it was just a few hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you know, my mother opened this restaurant.

It wasn't her dream.

It was her last hope because after my father died in a car accident on labor day, Monday, 1975, you know, she was on her own.

And, and she had a little restaurant that my father had bought her, but it was tiny.

And it was, my father was the breadwinner of the family.

You know, when we were little, when my father was still living, um, my mom had a little side business of making beautiful wedding cakes because she loved it and we'd go to Mexico to visit her family.

And was the month in, in Monterey.

And my mom would buy the jewelry from her favorite little vendors, and then she'd bring it back.

And sh and every Sunday we would make the rounds.

We'd go to church.

We'd go to my grandmother on my dad's side, we'd go to my dad's aunt and her daughter and we'd visit the family.

And then we'd go see my mom's sisters.

And anyway, she always had somebody that she was selling jewelry to and they, they would do it in a bonus.

They would do it like in little payments.

So she always had these little businesses.

Right.

So I guess that's how I learned it.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: You had the good example.

You were basically from your parents.

I mean, that, it's beautiful.

So let me ask you this.

Have you ever been given advice that you didn't take?

Oh, yeah.

For sure.

What was it?

Write Speaker 1: It down.

Oh, gosh.

I've driven some people crazy because I didn't write it down.

And you know, if you don't write it down and you've got a million things going on, which we all do, sometimes things fall Speaker 2: Through, you know, it's so funny you say that.

I S I still write things down.

Even when you have a phone, even when you have a file, I still write it down.

I still stick to that.

Yeah.

That's great.

And it's Speaker 1: Advice that everybody should take.

I agree.

Three things that I will tell you that I know I learned from, from our mom humility, kindness.

Oh my gosh.

She was kindness person.

And would give the shirt off her back to anybody.

Hard, working hard, hard, hard working.

You know, when my brother Louie came back to take over the restaurant in 1986, he had graduated from college and gone to work for Johnson and Johnson, but knew my mom needed the help she bought with bought or her partner out.

And it was just my mom and Maria.

Who's still here today.

My mom's right hand.

She showed him this notebook.

And she, and he's like, what's this?

Well, these are all the people that I've loaned money to.

You know, this is what they owe me and she'd go.

He took her and he showed her the sign.

And he said, mom, that sign, it says loss, bad restaurant, not those bottles, bank loan and trust or whatever.

He says, mommy, you know, you really can't afford to be doing this.

And she said, I know, but they need it.

And I have to help them.

So my mom didn't pay herself for a very, very long time.

I mean, a very, very, very, very long time.

She was too busy helping everybody.

She used to say this, and I'm going to say it in Spanish.

Not that, doesn't cost you 1 cent to be happy and you can keep it going.

It's a choice that you make.

It doesn't cost you anything to be happy to be kind to be forgiving.

Those are lessons we really need to share with the world.

Speaker 2: Can I just say that I, I feel her in you, you are, you were living out her legacy and I can only imagine how proud she is of you and your family.

I mean, Speaker 1: She was always very proud of this, but look at what we get to be proud of.

So this is the dairy queen I was telling you about that.

My mom bought back in 1980.

So she opened up downtown and stayed there for eight months and then bought this dairy queen.

She wanted to own her own property.

And so many people still come in today and they look for the dairy queen because they want to see it.

Uh, you know, there's so many people that come here that used to eat at the dairy queen because they went to high school at the food's better.

Yeah.

Much better, but we don't have ice cream.

However, we do have frozen margaritas.

All right.

Speaker 2: And you have frozen.

Margaret is a multiple locations, right?

What are the other locations we have Speaker 1: Here?

The original, those batteries.

Then we have LA Hacienda that road.

We have Elizabeth Anna's out in the beautiful west realist community over there by SeaWorld.

And then we have the Los and the scenic coupon Verde stage road.

So real out close to Bernie.

And it's wonderful.

Everybody has been very welcoming, you know, in the different areas of Speaker 2: Town, but this is the core.

This is the history.

Next let's head to the south side where we'll have a chance to meet with April month at OSA media entrepreneur, who grew up on the south side, looked around and said, there are stories to be told here, we'll have a chance to visit with her and learn more about her digital publication live from the south side.

Let's go meet April and hear about her story.

So April, tell me a little bit about yourself and your business life from the south side, Speaker 1: From the south side shares about the south side culture, uh, interesting places to visit and cool people doing things in my community.

Speaker 2: Excellent.

And so what motivated you creating life from the south side?

What was your inspiration?

Speaker 1: I think the most, uh, motivational thing for me to start the magazine was all of the negativity I saw on the bigger media outlets about my community.

Uh, I never really saw the positive things being shared.

And I was a travel writer for about 10 years and built up this unexpected following.

And I decided to utilize that, to bring positivity to my community.

What Speaker 2: A great thing, you know, I think that's a challenge with national media in general.

So good for you.

Thank you for doing that.

Uh, tell me about how you got started in media for your career Speaker 1: Was an accident.

Actually, I owned a spa business for about 10 years and, um, I wanted to practice using social media to promote my services.

So I started posting and beauty tips.

And, um, before I knew it, I was just sharing places that I was visiting.

I go hunting and fishing with my family.

Don't let them make, so I was just sharing all these fun things to do.

And, and my following just grew.

That's how it got started.

Speaker 2: That's wonderful.

That's wonderful.

When you're clearly using that to the benefit of, of your hometown.

Yes.

So, um, let's talk about your career trajectory.

Did you have anybody, any champions, any mentors that supported you along the way that you can point to and say, man, they, they inspired me to be who I am and where I, Speaker 1: Yeah, Lisa peach.

She's an author.

Uh, she actually caught my beauty tips on social media, reached out to me and said, I want you to contribute to my magazine.

And, uh, I thought it was a joke at, this is of course, 11 years ago.

We're now really good friends.

And, um, she's the one that's kind of pushed me to be where I am today.

She's she's still like, well, mentor me in her own way.

Now.

She was like, oh, you don't even need me now.

But if I were to name anyone, it'd be her.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

And, and the dogs did the dogs Speaker 1: so yeah, he's been through all of it with me.

I love that.

Speaker 2: So, so that all sounds wonderful.

And by the way, I can already picture kind of a hunting, fishing, makeup lifestyle, a TV show coming on.

Um, but, but tell me about some challenges.

Tell me about some obstacles in your careers as you work to grow your business and or startup any other businesses where you face some real challenges and you had to overcome.

Speaker 1: Um, I think my, my biggest challenges would be, I've always been the underdog.

Uh, I don't have biological children.

Uh, I was single for a very long time and being in like the, the writer blogger world, if you're not the typical mommy soccer mom, you don't get invited to the fun stuff.

That was very challenging because I was putting so much work into my content and sharing.

And I was getting, um, a lot of recognition and building a lot of relationships outside San Antonio, but not in my own city.

So that was really, really challenging for me because I'm like, why don't like me?

Like, you know, what is it, what am I doing?

You're five.

Exactly.

Maybe I'm too fun.

That's what it is now.

So I, you know, and then I started meeting other people in the, in the same industry that was struggling with the same thing.

You know, they, weren't the stereotype, mommy blogger, mommy rider that people were looking for and no disrespect to that niche.

Cause I get it.

That's a niche.

So I created my own and I, it's funny because all of those other women and men, uh, that kind of didn't fit in that realm.

Uh, they're all in my network.

Speaker 2: And, but I think that's what makes you unique and interesting, right?

I mean, because you stick out, you created your own niche.

I, I just, I love that.

So what advice would you give other young Latinas that are hoping to follow in your footsteps and be as successful as you one day, Speaker 1: Listen to your intuition more so than anyone else?

Uh, I've had people trying to, uh, mold me, steer me in directions and I've never listened to any of it because I didn't feel right.

That that would be it Speaker 2: Sort of my last question I was going to say, has there been any advice that you didn't follow or that you didn't take?

And it sounds like there's been a lot, Speaker 1: If any advice came my way and it didn't feel like it fit, I just didn't listen really good for Speaker 2: You.

I think that that in and of itself, the way you responded or have responded is advice in and of itself for, for young leaders.

I mean, you clearly know who you are, you knew who you were and you just kind of charted your own path pretty much.

I'm inspired by that and inspired by you.

Um, how about the south side?

So a lot's changed on the south side and in recent years, how do you feel about your community?

Speaker 1: Oh, the change is good, right?

As they say, of course, things are getting more expensive.

I think people are coming back to the south side that once smooth the way, or they have families that own businesses in this area, they come back, they see all the growth and they want to be a part of it.

So that I liked seeing with what I do.

Um, I guess the growth, I mean, we have so many pretty places.

Have you been to store it?

Yes.

The missions, the green line, hot Wells.

We have so many nice parks mission reach.

I was actually just on there this morning.

It's so pretty.

I don't care what time of the year you take a walk along the mission region.

It's very pretty.

Speaker 2: So we talk, it's a little bit about challenges that you faced in your career.

Tell me a little bit about being a Latina, young Latina, as you were charting your course, um, some of those challenges and how you reacted to them or how you responded, Speaker 1: You know, to be honest with you, I didn't really have very many, uh, because I ignore things like that.

I'm very ambitious.

Um, I come from a family of boys, so it was either hanging with the tough guys or don't hang at all.

So I I've always had that mindset growing up and I never really let the naysayers bother me if anything, it's motivation for me.

Yeah.

Fuel deal pretty much.

So I really, I really can't say that I had challenges, especially being Latina.

I have anything it's like, yeah.

I'm Latina.

And watch me, I can do this.

It's more like that.

It's been your plan.

Speaker 2: So you're named as a challenge.

You've leaned into it pretty well.

You created your platform and really your business and your identity.

Have you ever thought about how many young women you've, you've motivated and inspired without even having spoken to them during?

Speaker 1: No.

Um, it's funny because I do get women that approach me and do tell me, like inspire me, motivate me.

And I'm like, oh, what are you going to do now?

You know, it's more like, I don't know.

I just never really think about that.

Um, Speaker 2: One of the greatest economic assets on our city south side is Texas a and M university, San Antonio, Hispanic serving institution that opened its doors in 2009 and is expected to be one of the largest campuses in the university system.

Within the next decade.

Today, we have the rare chance to sit down with the university's president, Dr. Cynthia, then Anthem Mattson, Dr. Mattson is a native San Antonian, who is extremely passionate about her community and higher education.

Let's head inside this beautiful campus to meet Dr. Mattson, Dr. Mattson, can you tell us about how you got started in your academic career?

You know, it's really interesting.

Like most students, when I think about my college career, I started off as a petroleum engineering major.

And, but after about one semester, I realized that not only did I not like it, it wasn't something that I found a lot of energy in.

And so eventually I became a business major, but finding your pathway in higher administration often starts with being a student and it was straight out of college.

Practically.

I started in purchasing and procurement and got the shoulder tap early on about joining a university.

At the time I was at the university of Alaska in Fairbanks, where I had gotten my undergraduate degree, many people in higher ed they'll come at it in lots of different tracks.

And so I'm considered a very traditional candidate, uh, and having been a chief financial officer and a Latino CFO that is definitely a very non traditional track to end up in the kind of seat I'm in now.

Well, We are lucky that that path led you to San Antonio.

Uh, you mentioned getting your shoulder tap.

So my next question for you is have you had any champions or mentors that have supported you along the way?

Like all of us, I think we start with our parents.

And so when you have a strong family unit, like I did my mom and dad always felt like I could do anything, I could be anything.

So because of that, I didn't really have any boundaries in that were imposed on me other than what I imposed on myself.

Uh, I'm curious If there have been any other obstacles that you've overcome.

I'm sure there have been many, You know, it's interesting in, in higher ed there aren't, there's never been a lot of people that looked like me or act like me quite frankly, in terms of thinking about this pathway.

And so I had a gentleman tell me once this was a person in a pretty significant position.

Say to me, something like we're really fortunate to have people like you who also want to work hard.

And it was implying that they were still trying to figure out what this affirmative action was all about, particularly in higher ed.

And there was, there was a real emphasis at the time to hire people of color.

There always have been, but you have to remember, I came up in the nineties, what struck me about that conversation.

It was like a backhanded compliment.

And I think the person was trying to be complimentary, but I understood exactly what he was talking about.

And so it reminded me at an early and young stage in my career that you always have to work harder.

You always have to do more.

You have to have the top end credentials and you always have to be the best, but this is where this narrative sort of germinates from that you always have to remember.

There there's somebody that could be questioning why you're even in the room and to be savvy enough and confident enough to know whatever it is that you're there to do and that job and do it well and do it great.

And not let that sort of narrative park in your head.

And I do think that remains an obstacle for women and for women of color, especially now as we're coming out of the pandemic.

And there's been a lot of questioning about equity and equity in the workplace.

And I think there's still people trying to figure out what does that mean to be equitable?

When I worked in the Alaska system, I was often the, one of the only Latinas in, in any sort of position of influence.

And when I moved to California, I was at Cal state before coming here.

That was still true then that when I went there as a CFO, working at Fresno state, I had a wonderful boss, a wonderful mentor person who again, gave me a shoulder tap about moving forward to earn my PhD, earned a doctorate, and to think about other opportunities in higher ed.

At that time, I was deliriously happy doing what I was doing, but there were very few Latinas or Latinos in the biggest state in those, those CFO top administrative positions.

Uh, I'm Curious, you mentioned a couple of folks that you've interacted with a couple of bosses.

What is the best advice that you never, I take it, you know, I, I, this is a tough question.

Pace yourself, be patient and try and find balance.

So I think I've never taken any of that advice.

Although I work hard at trying to find balance, I've learned how to integrate that into my life, especially as my kids were younger and the pace yourself business comes from it.

I think this depends on who you are and the kind of drive or ambition that you have now.

I've always had long days and they were even longer when my kids were at home.

When I was working on my doctorate, I would get up in the middle of the night and do writing or reading and then go back to sleep for a little bit to get back up again, to get started for the rest of the day.

I don't Think you'd have it any other way.

I think that's your pace.

I think it feels you, it energizes you and stimulates you for what's next.

Let me pivot a little bit.

So, you know, we're coming, we're on the heels of a global pandemic and you're obviously a leader in academia and education.

And so I'm curious your thoughts on specifically how the pandemic has impacted, uh, young Latinas and or future Latina leaders.

Um, and what you went in a and M are doing to, to position yourselves and position, uh, those future leaders, no COVID Has, has really shined a light on what I call a lot of disparities that have always been here, here at a and M San Antonio.

We've known about the digital equity.

We've known about health equity.

We've known about educational equity.

What I say to people is now you can't unsee it.

So what are we going to do about it now?

And that's my, that in five years as we come past this, that we're looking backwards at the digital divide, we're looking backwards at some of the health inequities and we're really making progress in educational equity.

What advice would you give a 20 year old Dr. Mattson or Cynthia at the time because you weren't Dr. Mattson, what would that advice be?

That advice would have been, it's important to have purpose and to understand what your purpose is.

And I think that changes depending on where you are in your career and where you are in the organization.

So Dr. Mattson, it seems like every time I'm out on the Texas, a and M San Antonio campus, there's another crane or another building.

It's true.

We've Speaker 1: Been doing a building a year and we just opened this classroom hall in which we were able to do during the pandemic.

And because we opened it, but it allowed us to space out for Speaker 2: Instructional purposes here and spread people out Speaker 1: Amongst all of our facilities.

So it was really quite perfect during the pandemic.

We launched Speaker 2: Our athletics program.

We launched our e-sports program of Speaker 1: Just this last spring.

We started with softball.

Uh, excellent.

Have you come to throw one of the pitches soon?

And when we come back in the fall, women's softball, men's golf, and this coming fall, we will start with men and women's soccer.

So we've got a lot of new academic programs on the horizon, but we're also inviting lots of CEOs to come here to be part of the south dare county story.

Part of the narrative, the San Antonio economic development foundation is leading.

We're all in.

And we're all in, in creating job opportunities, creating content and educational curriculum and workforce development that meets the needs of our community.

So we try to tell CEOs about the a and M system excellence and to leverage our geography being right here in south bear county.

And it's been great.

We have the new housing development project.

That's also underway.

It's called Veeva.

And we call that the true smart community, not just because it's near a university, which adds the term phrase smart, but because we're planning to integrate technology, digital equity, all of those things right into the way the homes are developed and sold and packaged.

So a lot of good things to come.

Speaker 2: That's a wrap for celebrating San Antonio's Latina business leaders.

Thank you for joining.

We'll see you.

Next time.

Soludos is presented by Texas mutual insurance company, WorkSafe, Texas.