Meet Beto Mendoza | Community Organizer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Beto Mendoza and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Beto, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?

In the past I just to value production and over come , the most important for me was the result of my work. I did want to change the word and there was not time for rest of vacation. Always it was an emergency to attend, new law threaten our community or a new family in town how was facing deportation and where needed support.

Many times I found my self burn out, but decide to keep going, many times I put at risk my own health, fiscally and mentally I was bad, but keep going.

A group of friends rised money to rent a cabin for me so I can take a brake for few days. At that time I start realizing that, my close circle knew something was wrong and I was not taking care of me.

Next year I take few days alone at the end of the year, to reflect on my work and my life over that year and start making plans for the coming year, that was the first step, the way I was working in start to change. I start identifying when other people is stressed and how it affects their work and behavior, that did changes everything.

I start valuing people over the goals, production or success. I notice that, when people work under stress is not happy and will not volunteer for much time or will just “do the job”, but when people feel welcome, apreciated and not be rush to do the work, they volunteer for more time and would bring more volunteers or they stay and be part of the movement.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

I’m a community organizer, my field is human rights area, specifically immigrant rights.

At the beginning was difficult to label the work I do, many people star calling me activist, but that label didn’t cover the many aspects of my work. Sometimes I was the trainer, who do workshops for the community about immigrant rights or their constitutional rights, other time I was training a group of people on who to facilitate a community meeting. Other time I was planing campaigns for an specific issues the community had or I was fundraising or creating the reports . So it was difficult to label the work I was doing.

On day a friend of my and comrade co-funder of DIA, was explaining me his carrier choice, he told me UGA let him pick his own field of work and choose his classes, but he didn’t find the tittle of his profession and the closes title would be “community organizer” and because our work was to organize the community to advocate for their struggle I did adopted that label.

The biggest issue where always to rise founds, funding my salary was a big step. For the first 10 years of my work as a community activist, I didn’t receive a monetary compensation, for the contrary I had to fund the workshops and programs from my own packet, also the cost of transportation, food, offices expenses and even photocopies. My brother and I we invest thousands of dollars on sound system and sound equipment to make happens the LatinxFestival, until few years ago when we fund raised enough money to cover all of the expenses for the festival, even today, we is still volunteer a lot of extra hours, because grass grassroots are underfunded. In this word of nonprofit, more that 90% of the funding is going to charity and less that 10% is for grass roots and other nonprofit work, add to this the fact that most of the funders won’t give much money for salaries most of the money should go to make the programs happen. That make it difficult to find money for my salary, even today I get pay as part time on a full time job, some time work up to 60 hours or more per week.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

depends the person. If is some one how like traditional Athens food I’ll take them to eat to Food for the soul, Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods, Scot’s barbecue at northwood. May be downtown have some music at 40 whats or the top roof of the Georgia Theater. If some one who is interested in culture and I’ll take them to CINE and drinks at Manhattan or Little Kings downtown, eat at The National or Southern Kitchen bar. If they are Latinx I’ll take them to eat at Tlaloc and the taqueria at the Mexican store Los Amigos, and Saturday morning walk to the J&J flee market.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My brother Noe Mendoza, who has been working at my side all this years to start the different initiatives and groups that pave the road to create Dignidad Inmigrante en Athens.

Dignidad Inmigrante en Athens (DIA) has make happen 13th LaltinxFestivals where the migrant and latinx community can celebrate their culture.

Also DIA did help dozens of families affected during COVID-19 pandemic, responding before the governmental institutions, creating the channels for institutions and organizations to connect the services to those who most need it.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cacaobeto/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humberto.mendoza2

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@betocacao550/featured

Other: https://betocacao.bandcamp.com/ https://open.spotify.com/artist/2tRroKPamEmPTI4UmvXyaH?si=DYZ6WFyxRJqUnAQHDG74EQ