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Latina Resource Board

(from left)

Cecilia Chavez, Susan Posada, Cecilia Francis, Suzie Moreno.

Latina Resource

Meeting

Networking for your soul
By Claudia Kolker

Nora Comstock doesn't want your business card.

For six years, the gregarious human resources consultant has nurtured a national Internet movement from her home in Austin, Texas. The loosely-defined club helps Latinas meet, cheer each other on, and share tips from scholarship opportunities to job leads. There are no officers, no dues. But the mostly professional "comadres," as Comstock dubs them, swap information constantly, some even meeting in person at monthly potluck dinners.

It's a networker's paradise. But what makes it Latina, says the Mexican-American Comstock, is that relationships start first.

"I do not want you to come and hand out your business card and leave," says Comstock. "That is unacceptable. I want you to come and fill your soul, with who you are and who we are."

This distinctive mole--warmth mixed with practicality--exemplifies the way Latinas have begun adapting age-old social networks to 21st-century lives. Even the name "comadres" is seasoned with Hispanic tradition. Technically, a comadre is the godmother of one's child. Less formally, it means a close woman friend. More colloquially still, a comadre is the girlfriend with whom you share a good gossip.

"The title is very culturally descriptive, of something that used to happen physically and now is happening online," says Felipe Korzenny, Ph.D., director Florida State University's Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication. Las Comadres is one of the most vibrant of these adaptations. But, fed by the Internet, the new networks take on all kinds of flavor.

One type is locally based, like Latina Resource in Phoenix. That group has a corporate-sounding mission: "to strengthen Latina socioeconomic status through connectivity, networking and communicating within our membership." Like more traditional clubs, the group also invites a monthly speaker. But, like Las Comadres, it's resolutely personal in spirit.

Inspired by several Latinas who dreamed of a more-inclusive "old girl" network, Latina Resource draws more than 100 women each month. Businesses from banks to insurance firms offer space. But unlike more formal affiliations--like LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens) or ethnic business groups--Latina Resource asks no dues or requirements except the wish to support Latinas.

"We wanted to create something as inclusive as possible," explains board member Cecilia Chavez, a multicultural organizational development consultant for businesses. "We have professionals as well as housewives, young women as well as grandmas."

Not even common language is required. Some members don't speak English, some speak no Spanish, some are utterly at home in both. The range of voices, Chavez says, seems to nourish group spirit. Each month, the women gather punctually at 6 p.m. They hear a speaker, perhaps a Latina artist or financial advisor, then form two slowly moving circles.

"They introduce themselves to the person they're facing," explaining who are, what they do and what they need, says Chavez. "What we're hoping is that they'll hit four or five women in the circle who can find someone else who can help them in their need or make a connection for them."

Far from myth or stereotype, Latinas' special wish for "connectivity" is real, culture scholars say. It even affects Internet use, communications expert Korzenny says. An online survey he conducted with AOL/DMS showed that AOL's Hispanic users blog more than those from other ethnic groups.

"I call it liberation technology," Korzenny says. "You can blog for free, and it continues the Latin American tradition of having a kind of coffee shop-style conversation, one that's harder and harder to have in this country. In Latin America, after work people go to outdoor cafes, and talk about politics and society and current affairs. Where are you going to do that in this country? Barnes and Noble?"

Latinas, it turns out, blog even more than do Latinos. "Twelve percent of Hispanic men who are online have blogs, and 16% of Hispanic women," Korzenny said he found.

This makes sense, he says: Even more than Latinos, Latinas base their social lives on group connectivity.

The conversation in these warm, informal groups often gets dismissed as chisme--gossip. But they also transmit culture, counsel, even economic strength. Especially in Mexico, women's groups often form frameworks for loan clubs, known as tandas. Each month, friends contribute money to a pool. A different member takes the lump sum home each month. Social bonds force members to save for contributions, and never to default.

To Comstock, 60, Las Comadres helps rebuild a Latino world left behind. Though she grew up in a Mexican-American family in South Texas, adulthood drew her far from Hispanic culture. An entrepreneur who guides clients toward professional connections, Comstock found herself lonely for the embracing spirit she associated with Latin culture. She longed for the proverbs, foods and social bonds of her past.

Las Comadres' quick growth suggests other Latinas feel the same. From less than 100 members in Austin, it has expanded to 6,000 nationwide. "I say Las Comadres came into our life, because it was like a family thing," says Austin artist Laura Cano, 47. "When I joined, my husband had recently left his job. With Las Comadres I could do business, have friends and all the comadres were e-mailing leads for my husband."

But if the online medium is millennial, the spirit reflects deep history.

"Remember the washing places in the river, how all the women washed their clothes together?" researcher Korzenny says. "They would share work, information, all the gossip of the community. This is the same tradition. "

Claudia Kolker is a Houston writer.

Su Conexión

Las Comadres: www.lascomadres.org/

Latina Resource (e-mail):
Susan Posada, president, sposada@sposadaagency.com
Cecilia Chavez, board member, cecilia@ceci2000.com