The Risk of Winning
By Maria Ibarra-Frayre, Deputy Director, We the People Michigan
The Risk of Winning
There are two things I know to be true:
I was born to write
And I was born to organize.
Those things are more intertwined than you think.
But is anyone born to be a Deputy Director?
Deputy Director.
What does that even mean?
I spent the first six months trying to define it to my team.
I spent the next two years trying to define it to myself.
People like me don’t end up in positions like these.
People like me, being undocumented, poor, afraid.
Afraid of making mistakes,
Afraid of getting it right
And seeming like a know-it-all.
Afraid of feeling like a fraud.
Because sometimes it’s hard to not feel
Like a fraud.
To not sink into myself
When I’m in a room full of men
Talking loudly,
Making decisions faster than I
Realize the room is mostly white,
Mostly male,
Mostly not-like me.
But fear is nothing new.
Fake-it-till-you-make-it is kind of the
Motto of undocumented people.
So I did what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years
as an undocumented immigrant living in this country:
I problem-solved.
Organizing is about solving problems
By inventing solutions.
Some conventional, some not.
And being Deputy Director was no different.
Except I was different.
I was not the same 23 year old who was told by her supervisor
To “Not be afraid to rock the boat, take some risks.”
How could I tell her my whole life was a risk?
She was white, U.S. citizen, middle class.
I was the opposite of all those things.
Because people like me don’t take risks
Because we want to.
We take risks because there is nothing
Else for us if we don’t.
So I took the risk
Of being the supervisor,
Of being the director.
Director of coaching organizers,
Director of approving sick time,
Director of asking why,
Director of problem-solving.
If I can spend 20 years fighting
For the right to exist in this country,
I can figure out how to be a director.
Because I know how to fight,
And I know how to win.
And I am here to win it all.
Even when I don’t feel like being the head of a non-profit.
Even when it feels like we’re tasked
With crossing the ocean, and we picked
The most inconvenient vehicle to get through.
Last week one of my organizers,
Exasperated in frustration,
Told me all the ways they
Wanted our organization to be different.
I listened.
And then I went home and cried,
Because I also want those things.
I want to work only 40 hour weeks
And not check email on weekends,
And not feel like I’m constantly sinking,
While crossing the ocean on a leaf.
On these days,
I remind myself to do the opposite of sinking.
I float.
I float so much that I am anchored,
And I am anchored so tightly that I am safe.
I am anchored in the knowing that what I'm fighting for is worth it.
I’m fighting for my people to be safe,
To be cared for,
To be here.
Because at the end of the day,
The only risk that matters
Is the risk of allowing yourself to believe that you’re going to win.
And I’ve been doing that for years.
-Maria Ibarra-Frayre
Return to the main page to see more highlights from “Navigating Change: Toward Equitable, Democratic Organizations,” a series on bridging generations, expanding leadership, and envisioning the future by ten Content Fellows.