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Hola!

Welcome to Salud.

Celebrating South Texas Latino leaders.

I'm your host, Melanie Mendez Gonzalez.

The path to careers and justice and entrepreneurship are more similar than you might think.

Both require determination, grit, and focus.

On this episode, you'll meet three diverse women who have excelled on the bench, at the bakery and in the gym.

Salud.

Starts now.

Rebecca martinez took the skills she learned from growing up in a military family, applied and studying and making her way into the legal profession.

Today, she leads as a chief justice at the Fourth Court of Appeals.

The fourth court will now call.

Case number of 04231.

I am Rebecca martinez.

I am the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals for the State of Texas.

I am one of seven justices here at the court for the last 14 plus years on the court.

In fact, we're all female here at the fourth court as chief justice.

My added duties are making sure that all of the administrative matters are resolved, keeping our lights on, making sure payroll is done, managing the, the systems that are across the state and working together with other sister courts in Texas, along with the other state agencies that, help us help the Wheel of Justice run here at the courthouse.

I snuck into a movie called And Justice for all with Al Pacino when I was probably 11 years old, and I saw Al Pacino as a criminal defense lawyer in action in and outside of the courtroom.

And that's how I got inspired to become a lawyer, go to law school.

I wanted to be al Pacino.

I was accepted into Boston University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, and I graduated in 1992.

I'm told that I may be the first Mexican-American to graduate from the law.

Back in the day, of course, those demographics weren't collected.

It was usually black, white, other.

but I was one of seven Hispanics in my incoming class that was a member of the first minority orientation.

In fact, hosted by the law school.

And, one of the most proudest things I have now is I was invited to now and to now serve on the board of the Dean's Advisory board at my alma mater in Boston.

I'm a Navy brat, so I was raised in military bases across the country from California and Virginia, and it's a melting pot.

And so I never grew up with the lens of like, identifying myself as a minority.

But I did, recognize that I was often the only in the entire room, certainly as went to, to college and then, of course, to law school.

I was one of a few, not just as a woman, but as a woman of color.

I think the biggest challenge for me, and I think it remains for many still, is that we, suffer from this notion that there's some sort of measuring stick that we have to be somewhere before we can go further.

We have to look a certain way.

We have to have so much education.

We have to have a certain amount of experience before we're qualified, quote unquote, to pursue an opportunity, whether it's a job or a seat, in a classroom, a grad school or last for I'm not ready to go.

I often hear I'm not ready.

Went to law school not knowing what law review was.

It didn't know what to expect, other than I was going to be taught how to be a lawyer, how to think like a lawyer.

But there are obviously, challenges or.

Well, I'll say more like I felt like I wasn't quite prepared when I realized that there was a lot more informed individuals in the classroom that that I was I felt like I was a few steps behind, but that never really stopped me.

Even in my position.

Now I feel like I have to work harder, spend more time, be more prepared, overly prepare.

and that that I think is just a common denominator of any successful individual.

they just don't let fear get in the way.

Don't, perceive obstacles that are the movable.

There's always challenges.

It's helpful to be aware that there going to be speed bumps along the way.

But if you know that they're there, you hurdled them, you slow down and you jump over the hoops and you do what you need to do.

But they shouldn't be, viewed as just doors closed permanently.

The best advice I heard was heard early on, certainly by my parents and my grandmother.

don't worry about what other people think.

Don't worry about, what other people's expectations are.

Summit.

It wasn't probably until my late 30s that I remember the moment that I fully embraced that, and it just sent a wave of physical waves through my body.

It was like a light bulb that finally was turned on.

And it's now my mantra, and I try to share it whenever it's there's there's nothing you can ever do or say to change how someone else feels or thinks that you.

Governor Ann Richards, appointed the first Latina justice on the Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi, the 13th Court of Appeals, and she was the first Latino run for Texas Supreme Court.

So I was already in private practice at the time.

And, you know, I carried her bag and drove her around Texas.

And so that was my first experience of really being on the campaign trail for a judicial position.

And, so I was, you know, ten gently involved in campaigns, but not one to aspire to be a judge.

I didn't aspire to be a judge when I was a law student.

Like some of our law students here, they want to be a judge right off the bat.

I never saw myself pursuing that until I.

Until, until I moved to San Antonio.

And I had already scratch that itch of trying cases, which I did for about 20 years.

So when I when I first saw that there was a seat available and there was upcoming elections on the fourth court, I felt like that was a, a seat that I could pursue, that I was prepared for.

So I tried criminal cases and civil cases, and I believed I had the perspective that citizens wanted on an appellate court.

If we're reviewing appeals from criminal civil cases, there should be a judge here that has been there, done that.

In my practice, I've represented both plaintiffs and defendants families.

I ran in 2010 for the first time and lost my first race.

I ran again in 2012. and was successful.

So, that also was, eye opening to realize that that has, less to do about us individually and more about the, the political waves, the that occur across the country.

I'm very proud of what I do.

I'm very humbled by the opportunity to be able to do it, even for, you know, for the time that I'm blessed to be here.

and I hope that we're, we're, improving that sense of justice.

And, and people have more confidence, in the outcomes.

We have a number of cases that I think, that I know I lost sleep, I could lose sleep over, that's that's those are things that are the most challenging for me, I think, because you are, you could change lives or change or have a significant impact on, the status of the law.

And those are challenging.

They're what makes my job exciting.

I'm proud to be in this moment in time, where we have been able to see how Latinos on the bench have transitioned from being one of the few to now many.

we celebrate recently the in the Bexar County Courthouse next door to me.

for the first time in history that all of the civil district court judges are women.

in fact, currently they're majority Latina.

And I believe very soon we'll be all Latina after the next, elections cycle.

That's a moment in history that no other county, I believe in the United States can share.

Much like when our court became all female, that was celebrated, in small circles.

I wish those circles were bigger, so that it casts a wider net for more individuals to recognize because it changes the idea of what a judge or justice looks like.

From the courtroom to the bakery, Garcia Ramos started baking as a teenager on the city's south side when she and her husband opened a barbecue restaurant.

She kept on baking, creating the desserts for the business.

Now, she has become a successful baking entrepreneur with her own shop in Castroville, appropriately named Bake.

Hi, my name is Gracie Ramos.

I am the owner and pastry chef of Baked Ramos in Castroville, Texas.

I attended the, Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio.

I always liked baking since I was younger.

I would do them at home for parties and whatnot.

throughout my 20s, I was selling them on the side, doing that as well as an flans and, you know, little things here and there.

when I met my husband, he was doing barbecue and barbecue and desserts.

Just go.

So he encouraged me to start making different desserts for his barbecue restaurant, which, I started getting opportunities to, just be in different places for different pastries.

They didn't have the background in him, so he encouraged me to go to the CIA.

And I ended up going, and it was probably one of the best decisions that I ever made.

I grew up on the south side of San Antonio.

I attended a West Campus high school, but I graduated from Southwest High School.

it was it was nice growing up in San Antonio.

It's it's a different culture, just the people, the environment, the food.

It's it's such an amazing city and it's growing so quickly.

It's very nice to bring some of the flavors that I grew up with, with some of the new techniques that we've had that I've learned in school or I learned from different people.

So it's something that I like for people to know.

Is there tasting me?

They're tasting a piece of my childhood and a piece of what I where I grew up.

But then what I was very familiar with growing up.

My mother was the main cook in the house.

she had a lot of flavor, a lot of stuff on.

And thankfully I got I got a little bit of that, I think, so it was really good as something that was definitely passed down from my grandmother to my mother to myself.

Now it's a learning experience every single day.

I can say that, I don't think you ever truly have it nailed down.

There's always something that's going to be thrown in the mix, whether, it'd be the business side, the production side, the customers from marketing, it's just a little bit of everything.

So it's been an experience.

The way I deal with challenges is taking them head on.

you can't avoid things.

You can't just try to fix things right away.

It's more of finding the core and building from there.

I always let my team members know I'm also learning.

I'm also going to experience things that I do not know, or that I may not be very comfortable or have experienced before, so we all take it on together.

I make sure that they understand what I'm learning.

where there's going to be something new and we either tackle it together or I ask for help and mentorship from a lot of the other mentors that I had before.

I've had mentors who I truly appreciate, just the stuff that they have taught me from the techniques to business side.

I have had Michelin star, chefs be my mentors.

I have had James Beard, mentors, which is amazing.

It's the fact that they're willing to pass down something that they worked so hard for is something that I truly appreciate and take in, and I make sure that I give that back to my teams as well.

Something that I've learned through these nine months have been, always, always communicate.

And that was one thing that I did not fully have before.

And I wasn't, fully not capable of not doing, but I wasn't I was never brought up to be able to communicate, efficiently.

And those were some of the challenges that experienced at the beginning was communication.

Communication goes a long way.

whether it be something small or something big.

Communication, communication, communication.

And I've learned from then.

So now that we have been able to overcome basically anything with enough communication.

Latino women are finally being heard.

We're finally being seen.

We're finally making our way up.

We've been the silent majority.

So it's very nice to finally see, people like me, you know, on TV, showing that they can.

It's not just, working for someone or working, just to work and do nothing else but work.

you see women, women who are now having their own businesses, not just one, but several, multiple.

They're now in, you know, boards.

They're now becoming leaders.

They're now becoming politicians.

and it's really nice.

It's really nice to finally see women just coming up and showing themselves for who they really are.

And it's amazing being part of it.

I feel that, the way we're we grow up, we are.

We grow up to already be leaders.

We already grow.

But that nurturing in us, we either take care of our younger siblings, of, our parents or grandparents.

some of us may have, family members who are, handicapped or have some kind of disability.

And we also have been as a village and take care of it.

So we as women notice what our grandmothers and our mothers are doing.

So it's something that kind of comes natural to us to be those leaders, to be those women, to step up and say, you know what?

Let me take care of that.

Let me be the one to lead you, let you sit down and enjoy yourself for a minute.

Let me take over real quick.

So it is one of those things that has definitely, been encouraged and embedded in us from young.

I feel that one of the things that's going to help us survive, what it is, what is going on in the restaurant industry, or at least in the hospitality industry, is leadership.

I feel like appreciating your staff, appreciating your team, giving them credit and, just really let them be seen, let them be able to give you a part of themselves in this.

We not everybody wants to open up a place.

Not everybody wants to have the pressure of being a leader and a business owner and having that over in.

So just giving them that little piece to where they can still be themselves and create something and know that it is appreciated and other people are able to enjoy it and be fulfilled, is one of the things that I feel will have a very small turnover with people, and that they will have that loyalty with you to where they know this is the place I want to be.

This is where I want to give my everything.

That's how I was at to him.

It was something that they encouraged me, they nurtured me.

They let me be able to, create and fulfill things.

I was with them for seven years, and it was the best seven years of my life.

And now I'm able to do the same here.

No, this is not what I thought I would end up doing.

To be honest with you.

It would be between a pastry chef or a hairstylist.

esthetician was one thing that I wanted to do, but then I really thought about it, and I was like, do I really want somebody in my chair?

And then I mess up their hair, and that doesn't come back very quickly.

And I was like, no, I think I'd rather feed people.

That's something that everybody wants to be fed.

Everybody loves sweets and lamination.

Just called to me.

Best advice?

I never took was start putting a brain on your inventory.

Stop having fitting inventory.

Start taking care of your numbers in the background.

I had a mentor tell me this and I was like, oh, we're fine, we're good.

No worries.

Bring in new flavors, bringing new things.

Just continue to, you know, expand your menu.

You can, but it has to be done in a in a certain way, a certain process, without putting yourself over in the overhead.

And that was probably one of the advices that I wish I had taken a lot sooner than I did.

Best advice that a mentor ever gave me was to always think of the customer as yourself.

So when a person is working, they're busting their butt to earn those dollars and they're going to come spend it somewhere where they want to know that they're fulfilled, that their dollars will spend just as we do.

So I work long hours, and I know that I want to go spend my money somewhere where I know it's going to be appreciated.

I know that I'm going to get, you know, something good.

And that was the best advice that I ever got, was three things.

As if you were the one buying them.

Those skills used to land on the bench as a chief justice or as a business owner, also apply to creating the job of your dreams.

Suzy Quintana has done just that, but part of her determination came from a serious accident she shares with our Jesse Diego ladder how she overcame that challenge to become a leading Latina mindset coach.

I'm happy to say that I'm joined by the wonderful Suzy Quintana.

She is an amazing person in terms of what she's trying to do for other women.

Yet another example of women helping women.

Your website Q movements.com so that our viewers can understand what is it that you are trying to do and how are you trying to do it?

Thank you Jesse, thank you for having me here today.

what I do at Youth Movements is I am a mindset coach, and my focus is working with women who are high achievers, career driven and family oriented women, who want to be better, do better, and not just in the workplace overall, especially when it comes to their health.

Health is everything.

And I really believe that combining what I do for women is bringing in the mindset as well as the fitness, the physical health.

Combining that, to me is is the key to success and being not just successful in your work and your career or your profession, but in your life.

So how did it go from having the best of intentions to actually getting started, to making it happen?

How how did you do that and what obstacles, if any, did you run into?

I'm sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

when I was working at the university in Fort Worth, at my dream job, I was the health emergencies director for the university, and I was in a car accident.

And that car accident left my life around physically, mentally and financially.

So it was that experience that really was the crux of getting me to realize at that point in my life, I'm not invincible.

And I ended up having a, double lumbar surgery.

And my biggest supporters, how I got through it, Jesse, was my family.

The support system, whether it's family members, whether it's coworkers, whether it's friends, you need a support system.

I was very motivated and I thought, you know what?

There's more to this for me on this, pathway.

Often we say we are we can be our best friends, but we can also be our worst enemies.

Even when we reach a level of success.

We have this little voice in our heads that sometimes can work against us.

How can we overcome that?

And what are the biggest pitfalls that women, especially those in successful, apparently successful?

But what pitfalls do they have?

a big one you just mentioned is the self-talk.

It's what we tell ourselves, Jesse, every day in the morning when we look in the mirror, I look good, I look bad, I look this, I look that, and those words are very powerful.

And no one else here is, let us.

So they become even more powerful.

So I always encourage, let's acknowledge it.

We are telling ourselves these things, not anybody else, not our husbands are our coworkers.

We are doing that.

What I provide for my clients is mindset.

Coaching is an opportunity to start working on how we think.

Because different things come up as we grow up.

You know, we're influenced by culture, we influenced by people, family, and so we can get some things in our head that maybe not necessarily are true or accurate.

So recognizing that doing some activities, doing some activities that can help us get our mindset in the right path, having somebody to coach you, listen to you and give you honest feedback.

And I feel that when we can do that for each other and help them by getting our mindset on the right path because we're the mind is the body will follow.

So this going back to that self-talk, self-sabotage, those are issues that women, in high levels, professions in all areas struggle with at times and can get better.

But when you're successful, I'm too busy for x, y, z, self-care, even just taking care of myself, even getting enough sleep those basic things can really work against us over time.

As a Latina, our culture is family, right?

We want we want to take care of our family, our parents, our sisters, our cousins.

So what I like to work with my clients is to get them to think, okay, let's first of all, what's our priorities?

Of course, I hear all the time my family is my party.

My work is my priority.

Okay, great.

Now how are we actively making them?

Priorities that have to say, and how are we actively making priority.

And I work with them to look at their schedule.

Where can we fit in ten minutes of that ten minutes of meditation, a five minute walk?

We don't have to make big strides.

We can start one simple step at a time, and little by little start increasing that amount.

Whether it's a ten minute walk next time or you are, you know, doing a breathing exercise at your desk in the office, that is a form of self-care.

Once again, opening up the mindset is very important to make that growth moving forward.

So in closing, what is the best advice you can give someone who so often says yes to everyone else but they deny themselves?

Give us some parting thoughts.

Boundaries.

Laurie.

To set boundaries is very important, and I feel that has given most women the opportunity to accomplish the things they want to in life, to include prioritizing their health.

When you say we can say no to somebody else, we're saying yes to ourselves.

And I like to use the analogy of when you're flying and you know something's happening and that mast falls down where they say, put the mask on first yourself.

You got to save yourself first before you can save anybody else.

And that's the same thing as it goes for ourselves, for our families.

If we truly want to be there for our families, and if we truly value our families, then we're going to put that mask.

We're going to take care of ourselves and save ourselves so that we can help others.

Suzie Quintana, you have given us so much to think about, so much to do, and so much to aim for, but yet it's doable.

Amen.

Doable.

Thank you again for being.

Thank you Jessie.

Thanks, Jessie.

Wonderful inspiration as we finish this episode of Salud.

Thank you for being here.

We'll see you again next week to celebrate San Antonio's Latina leaders on Salud.

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