Oregon Voices Podcast: Episode 13 - Teresa Alonso Leon, Democratic Candidate, Oregon Senate District 11

Teresa Alonso Leon was four years old when she was separated from her family at the border, placed in an orphanage until her father found her, and lost her voice completely in the silence between those two moments. She has spent the rest of her life finding it again, first as the oldest of six children interpreting for her parents through a home purchase at eleven, then as a farm worker's daughter navigating a country with no systems built for families like hers, and finally as the first immigrant Indigenous Latina elected to the Oregon legislature, where she passed the driver's license law, strengthened sanctuary protections, and raised nearly a million dollars from a community that had never seen itself on the ballot before.

She left in 2022 to run for Congress, watched the seat flip Republican, and came back because her community knocked on her door and asked her to. Now she is running for Oregon Senate District 11, carrying thirty years of lived experience into a political moment that is asking the same questions her childhood asked, just louder and with more at stake. In this conversation, Teresa talks about what it means to legislate from a body that remembers, why affordability and safety mean something completely different depending on which side of the system you grew up on, and what gets lost when the people making the laws have never had to be the child who holds everything together.

This is what the table is missing when people like Teresa are not at it.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:02

Lean B-Kick Lady From the clothes to the highlight line. We've been talking about the same old line. Big suits taking up all our time. Kitchen table feels like town hall. Grandma cousin at the late night call. We don't fit in that shopping mall. So we built this show and we set it all.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome to another episode of Oregon Voices. I'm Eric McGuire.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

And I'm Catherine Watkins.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Today we are joined by Teresa Alonzo Leon, the founder of Peracata Consulting and a Democratic candidate for Oregon Senate District 11, covering Woodburn, Kaiser, much of Salem in Marion County. In 2016, she became the first immigrant Indigenous Latina elected to the Oregon legislature. She served three terms in House District 22, the same seat that Leslie Munoz now holds. She left that seat in 2022 to run for Congress and lost, and watched the district flip Republican before Munoz won it back by 161 votes in 2024. She is back, she is running for the Senate, and her likely opponent in November is Tracy Kramer, the Republican who questioned the legitimacy of that 161 vote win. Teresa, welcome to Oregon Voices. It's so nice to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation.

unknown 1:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So, as we do with all of our guests, the very first thing we like to get into is kind of your roots and your background. And you have a very interesting and um just amazing background to get to where you are right now today. And so I was wondering if you could share with us kind of what that background is and how it has impacted you.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, thank you so much. Well, um most people know my story um that our family came to this country when I was four years old. Um, but what people don't know, um, and I just started sharing this part of my story, was that I got separated from my family at the border, and I ended up being taken into an orphanage until my dad found me, and I lost my voice. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

What what what year is this that we're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Oh, I was four years old. So many moons ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Many moons ago. I shouldn't ask that I shouldn't have specifics. But at four years old, you were uh at the border into the country.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yes, and um, yeah, and so my dad had to uh find me and um yeah, and I guess then you know we were all reunited, and um and it's interesting because you don't really realize how much trauma impacts your life. And as a four-year-old, I completely lost my voice, I couldn't say anything, and I would um shake my head yes, shake my head no, but uh I I knew in my heart that I would be reconnected to my family, and and that happened, and I think that was probably um the beginning of an interesting life. Uh many people who come to this country obviously want a better life for their families, and that means sacrifice. And this was one of those, I guess, sacrifices, unintentional sacrifice. But, you know, our our family worked really hard. We were farm workers. Um, we initially lived with this uh farmer in Clackamas. That's kind of where my dad had established a place for uh my mom and I, or my mom and my dad to work. And um they didn't speak English, they didn't understand uh about any resources. So I would say that my first time in this country was um sitting um in the car with my baby sister watching my parents work in the fields, and we did this um in the rain, in the sun. And I, as a young person, thought, wow, my parents are amazing, they can sustain their work in all kinds of climates. I thought they were superheroes. Yes, and um unfortunately, after about a year and a half or almost two years, um, my my parent, my mom ended up having a baby during that time. And so then there were three kids in our family, and we were told that the farm was not meant for families, and that we needed to leave. And so we got booted out because our you know, our family started growing. And then we couch surfed in the um along the I5 corridor with family members and friends, and we ended up living in a little studio apartment in Hubbard um that summer. And so that was my first exposure to um school, summer school. And so I got to go to summer school and experience or you know, this country's education system, and that particular time, um, I want to say it's the early 80s, we also had immigration raids happening. And I remember our family and our relatives, you know, just like holding on, and I remember hearing them because they never really directly talk to kids about what's going on. They didn't want to freak us out, but we listened and we knew something was happening. Uh, so much so that during one of those raids, um, I just remember um my uncles hiding under the the bed the beds and stuff, and um my dad had gone to work, you know, and I just remember everybody just shushing each other and hoping that we didn't get that knock on the door. Thankfully, that didn't happen, and we were all safe.

unknown 6:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah, and so I'm like I'm trying to think about like your experience as a child going through an experience that's so similar to what's happening right now. Correct. And so what did that uh inspire you, motivate you then to jump back into politics after you'd been out for a while?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So oh gosh. I want to say that um my lived experiences definitely got re-triggered with uh this administration, right? In 2016 when he ran and I ran and he won and I won. And um what happened during that time? He separated families, he engaged children that definitely and I think some of it, yes listening what's happening now to those times of year and my community came to me we need your strength, we need somebody like you who understands us to go work at the Capitol and remind people what that really means because not a lot of people have that experience as an immigrant, and I I think publicly you're the first people I've shared that part of my story. Because I think it's important to acknowledge truly the trauma that a lot of our families are experiencing, yeah, and that needs to be elevated. Um, and I, you know, I'm I we were knocking on doors today before we came for this interview, and one of the the common theme that has come up as we're knocking on doors is that a lot of our white allies are acknowledging just how awful this administration is. And um, and when I share the things that I had done as a former legislator, it was almost like you have you were thinking ahead by passing um the driver's license law, strengthening our sanctuary law with accountability measures, um, universal representation. If those bills hadn't passed, our families would be in a worst situation right now. And it's almost like I'm thinking, I didn't, it wasn't like I had foresight, but I am so glad that some of my colleagues and I were thinking, we need to do something now. Yeah, with this, even though we have this administration that is um traumatizing our families. Fast forward he becomes our president again. And the same thing's happening, but worse, right? Right. And so um, so to answer your question, yeah, part of it, yes. The trauma experienced absolutely fueled my my wanting to come back, uh, but it was mostly because community asked me to do it.

unknown 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I was wondering if um you might take us back a little bit to 2016 and give us a little bit of insight about how the process you went through. Yeah. As, you know, in your lived experience up to that point. Um, you know, what you were doing, like how how you because you lived in Woodburn at that time.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

I have lived in Woodburn most of my life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

And so like doing whatever you were doing then, yeah. And in 2016 thinking, it's time, it's time for somebody that looked like this community to represent this community.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Um, I I do want to go back, but I also, you know, one of the questions you asked is you tell us your story, right? Yeah. I I want to go back and share some of my lived experiences. Please do. That I think, and I didn't know this at the time, but um that you know, the injustice is one experiences sometimes you collective in your head and you don't think about it. And then there's then somebody says, Hey, you should run for office. And then you're thinking, maybe I can fix the things that happen to our family so they don't happen again to sure, you know, our our um our our families now. So I shared that part of my history because I think it's important to um just as I mentioned, just the trauma that a lot of families are are experiencing. Um, and as you can tell, it's still, you know, in my heart, um, and it still hurts. When we, after we were living in this apartment, my mom said, we can't live here, we need to find somewhere permanent, you know, because we have been couch surfing. So my dad found a house. And we were all excited, thinking, oh, we're gonna have our own room. Well, not quite. I can't believe that a landlord thought it was okay to rent a house to a family that had no functioning plumbing. We had an outhouse, we um had to bring water in from the hose. Um, we had no heating system. And for my parents, that was the best they could do with the money they had for our family. And this was outside of Jervis. So then I started school, elementary school in Jervis, and um, and that's how we lived from first through fourth grade. And then we moved to Woodburn, and my mom, because I was the oldest, obviously, and I learned to speak English before all my siblings. So I was their interpreter and translator. And when my mom, when we were told we needed to leave this house, we were now like, what are we gonna do? We can't afford what a traditional uh apartment would be. And plus, there's a bunch of us. It was so hard to move into an apartment. And my mom's and my my dad started talking about well, maybe we can move in with another family temporarily until we find something more permanent. And my my my dad had heard that um from another relative that we should consider the outskirts of Woodburn. And so we drove around the outskirts of Woodburn and we were on a street called Sleepy Hollow. And my mom said, Hey, there's a little trailer house over there. And my dad's like, Yeah, let's pull over and see if that's available. And my mom said, Okay, Mija, let's let's go knock on the lady's door because there was there was a lady, there was another house, a beautiful old school house. And and this most beautiful, amazing older lady came out when we knocked. And my mom said, Ask her if the apartment or the little trailer house is available in Spanish, of course. And I said, Mom, I would like to know if the little trailer house outside your house area is available. She goes, Why, yes, it is. And um, and I translated from my mom, and she said, Okay, ask her how much she wants um for the little trailer house. And and so, you know, she responded back, and she goes, Oh, honey, how many of you are there? And I said, There's my mom, there's my dad, there's, you know, there's um by that time, there was uh six of us, um, including my parents, and then I had a baby sister who was born during that time, and that made us seven. And she said, um, it's available, and I don't remember how much the rent was, but it was obviously something my parents could afford. But she said, one thing that she mentioned was that, you know, she wanted to rent this, she was fine with renting the place to us, but she really wanted us to find a home because I was so tiny, you know, but she was so sweet. And um, we lived there for I think a few months, and she could tell we like overflowed the little place. But her her property was pretty, it was like maybe about an acre and a half. So us all of us kids were outside playing all the time. Right. And then she came up to me and she said, Um, my my parents in my family call me Tere. And so we and I told her Tere in English was Terry. So she said, Terry, come here. And I went up to her and she said, Ask your mom if they're okay if you move into my house, you and your sister, and you'll have a room you can share. Wow.

unknown 16:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

And I walked over and I um told my mom, and she said, Wow. And she became our grandma. Yeah, she became our honorary grandma, and um so we lived there for a few years. During that time, I I didn't know this, but my parents had been saving every single penny they could. And um after living there for a few years, my parents said, Teresa, uh, we need your help. And I said, Of course, what can I help with? And they said, We think we're ready to buy a house.

unknown 17:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

And I said, Okay. And they said, Well, how do we do it? I said, I don't know. I don't know how we we're gonna do it. So, um how old were you at this time? I was probably 11 or 12 and in middle school. Yeah, and so we went to this real estate agency in in Woodburn. Of course, nobody spoke Spanish, and there was a sweet lady who had just finished her training, and she said to us, I'm happy to help. And so I translated and interpreted this whole process and helped my parents buy their first home at 11.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

That is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

And um, fast forward when I when I after I got my my first degree um and worked for PCC, I I thought I had made it because I was making pretty good money. And um my parents had five only five thousand dollars to fully purchase the house, and I told them I would pay that off for them. Yeah, and so I did that, and so now I want to share like all these personal experiences happened to me, and there were a lot of injustices, right? Because think about it. So um fast forward, I I moved back to Woodburn in 2010, and I I start thinking about how I'm gonna get back to community because I I'm also thinking about going back to grad school and everything. And um, my sister and I had this really awesome conversation about, you know, maybe we shouldn't get involved with the city of Woodburn, and you know, because both of us always thought about how we can give back to community. And so I'm the oldest of five. I have two sisters and two brothers, technically six. We had a little boy, little brother who died uh when he was two weeks old, and I don't I want to honor him too. So there were six in total. But one of the things that I also told myself that I needed to do was that I needed to invest in myself. So I got to buy my first house, and I say my first house, my own house. Um, and so I bought a house in Woodburn and moved back home in in 2010. And in 2012, I decided that I should become a citizen because through we were eligible through the uh Reagan administration, and I didn't have any money to to have a lawyer represent me. Um I said, you know, um I'm in college, I should be able to fill out the application, and I did, and I became a citizen in two uh that happened in 2011, I became a citizen in 2012, and in 2013, uh members of the uh Woodburn community started approaching me about considering an appointment with the city of Woodburn as a city council person. Wow. And I researched and I saw that we um had only had two people of color on the Woodburn City Council in the his city's history, yeah, and we were a majority, Latinos were a majority, and I was thinking, how could that be? So when we don't have representation, we don't have people thinking about the needs of the Latino community or even the Russian community, because you know, we have a large Russian community too. So I thought, okay, um, maybe this is a way I can give back. And I I told one of my mentors, I said, so can you tell me more about what a city council member does? Right. Because I didn't know. And in combination with having conversations with mentors and me researching, and and I thought, okay, well, I think if if I'm getting comments from community about considering this appointment, then maybe this is what I'm supposed to do now. So I went ahead and submitted, you know, um, all of the documentation the city wanted and went through the whole appointment process. Um, and there were two other gentlemen who were vying for that position. And by that time, I already had my master's. But you know, as women, we could have all the credentials, but we still question. ourselves whether this is we're ready for this opportunity. And uh and here I am asking everybody, do you think I should do it?

SPEAKER_07 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

And thankfully I got I got a lot of positive reinforcement. Yeah, of course you should do it. You know, you have a master's in public administration. Yeah. Like literally, this is what you're supposed to be doing. Yeah. And so I went ahead and um uh mayor figley Kathy Figley appointed me and that then I became the third person of color to be on the Woodburn City Council in the city's history. And I served for three and a half years. And then in 2015 people started asking me to consider um the state rep position and um I had a lot of conversations including a conversation with uh former city count or former state rep Betty Comp who also said Teresa you're on my short list and I think you would be an amazing leader. And you know I also again I question myself like what you know am I ready? Is this something I should be doing? Will people support me? You know there's just so many questions that as women unlike men they're ready nobody tells them you know you should do this.

SPEAKER_06 23:18

They're like let's go no one asks them if they're ready.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Right yeah that's true. Right right yeah and so after having conversations with people with folks I started thinking about all the injustices my family experienced and I thought it's not just my family it is many families and I knew that too because my mom would often because I spoke I was bilingual she often uh nominated me to go help other families oh and I interpreted for other families wow and um so I got to hear and experience what other families had had gone through which in some cases were similar to ours and in other cases um you know more serious than ours and so yeah it just I at one point I realized that this is definitely a way to give back to community and elevate the issues that weren't being elevated especially farm workers I hadn't heard a lot about legislators really elevating farm worker issues uh with the exception of the driver's license yeah but as we know you know we lost that fight and when I started talking about seriously considering running for state office that was the one thing that a lot of our community members said please please please pass a driver's license law yeah and so that's what I ended up doing is I made a decision to go ahead and run then I got uh felt like cold water was thrown on my face because I was told that I had to raise half a million dollars for my campaign.

SPEAKER_07 25:06

What?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah yes oh I'm sorry um I was in shock I mean I've never been associated with that much money yeah that's when it was like real okay Teresa you want to run for this seat to run a serious cut seriously competitive seat even though it's an open seat you have to raise half a million dollars it's a swing district so it could go either way and oh by the way your opponent has 20 more political years experience than you wow and so um I'm not one to um step back after making a commitment so I said okay well if that's what it takes and of course everybody reminded me you're not alone um we're gonna help you raise this money um and we're gonna do this together and so yeah that's what we ended up doing and one of the well several things um that I made a point of making sure happened in my campaign that we ran a multilingual campaign because that had never happened before and uh so we ran Spanish English and Russian I wanted community to see themselves in my campaign that was really important to me and I had never raised money before so that was one of my most fearful things to do is to get on to make cool calls and ask people for money and um even my family because I know they didn't have money yeah I know that was gonna and and that's not something we do. Right you know as an immigrant I had to remind people I just got here I don't have institutional knowledge I don't have generational knowledge from families who have been here for many gener I don't have any of that. So I'm literally asking other immigrants will you donate to my campaign and um thankfully my parents they stepped up and they did a bunch of door knocking for my their their friends and our relatives so we had a bunch of five dollar donations and $25 donations and and they you know um worked really hard and $2,000 is a lot of money for farm workers to collect and because you know you had to pick up a bunch of some like what I call baby donations but they had to knock on so many doors that um I didn't do they did and I was I was just floored how um involved my parents ended up getting in in and supporting my campaigns that I just you know I was just in awe of them that it really became a family a family um project yeah and and I ended up winning by a landslide wow and did you did you get up to that $5000? We ended up getting we ended up raising almost a million dollars get out wow that is amazing my opponent ended up getting $5000 from um uh Phil Knight sounds familiar and so yes and so then we had to figure out how to raise even more money and I I'm a former member of SCIU Local 503 um uh my union at the time because I was working for the state uh as a GD administrator and um they came together and applied for for uh funding from the national organization and we were able to get $50,000. Wow it's amazing and then I was shocked to then hear that um president Obama was gonna endorse me what yes I was one of I think it was 500 or 600 people around the country that he endorsed and I became one of them. That's crazy and I was floored yeah I could not believe it and I said how did he even know about me you know and of course you know our our our team had submitted whatever it is that they need to do to see if if the president of the United States would be willing to endorse a candidate um and there were a few of us in Oregon who were endorsed by the president and I just remember hearing he he had submitted um voice messages in case we wanted to use his voice in our marketing and uh I remember the message hearing the messages and him saying my name that's wonderful that is it was amazing yeah and so proud of that and I don't share that with very many people because you know we didn't actually we didn't end up promoting that a lot we just you know I think we did one thing and and that was that but you know community really came together to support my campaign and I really do believe because we ran such a unique campaign that people were paying attention and the beautiful part about that experience is that in my upcoming campaigns our immigrant community started to um become citizens so they could vote for me.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah including my parents oh that's beautiful so having been in the House uh for three terms and knowing your way around yes um and now moving into the Senate with a win what are the one or two things that you feel like are on the front burner for you that have not been dealt with or were left behind in the last session that you want to address right away?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yes. So one of the first things I want to do um is related to education. We are three decades behind and fully funding post-secondary education what that means is that the cost of going to college or having postsecondary opportunities and what I want to be really clear about what that means post-secondary education is in the trade CTE um apprenticeship all the way to four year degrees we are not um in a place where our students say I'm ready to to do CTE apprenticeship or go to four years. We're not there and that makes me really sad because we have so much talent and when we talk about having a strong economy well and we're only pushing for four-year degrees if that's all we want to do that means that we have to wait until our students go to you know university for four years and then hopefully find a job after where where I think we need what we need to do is help our families and students know that we have all these spectrum of educational opportunities the trades all the way to four years and help our families guide the the children into those areas because if they're gonna start work because they're gonna be able to start work in six months or a year and um and our economy really needs certain people to start working now and and we have jobs available and we have jobs for tomorrow and then we need to obviously invest in jobs for the future and I feel like we're not being strategic about that. And um so that's one thing I really want to work on the other thing is um I mean our immigration situation is it's just our families are so scared. You know I I grew up in Woodburn as I mentioned and our community is finally starting to come out again and we see them you know uh in our little placita we see them buying ice cream again but um similar to 2017 we there we had um a city desert where nobody came out and that is so sad to know that our families are that fearful that they're not gonna go to work that their children don't want to go to school because they don't want to come home and their parents this you know disappear um and even parents told their children don't go to school because they were seeing in the news what um ICE was doing right going into our schools which is ridiculous. Our kids should not be living in fear our kids should be focused on learning. And so I want to work on policies to strengthen um the safety of our community um the the other thing that I think is really important for us to um focus on is this idea that we want to have affordable housing. We do I think that we've we've done a great job at investing and and creating those opportunities but you know what we still have families who are living in two two or three families per apartment or per house and that's not okay in Woodburn alone our houses are $300,000 to half a million dollars how are our families supposed to afford these houses right and so um and so I have to question what does affordability really mean right because affordability to me is not the same what affordability is to you absolutely and so we need to work together to figure that out so that all of the families who need a place to call their own that they can truly afford it and that they have a place that their children can grow up and and feel safe and and know that um it's not going to be taken away.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah. Yeah affordability and I think also sustainability correct and and thinking about the time might be over for having single family dwellings having community dwellings and having shared spaces and where people come together. I just we've we're stuck in a model and a way of thinking that is not conducive to the times that we need especially in Woodburn. I mean especially where there's a need for that much housing.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Correct we need to be innovative and we need to think outside the box and we need to bring in more revenue into the into the state because we're one of those states that has to balance a budget and that is incredibly hard with the funding we have so we need to figure out how to bring out bring in more more funding to help offset the cost of our new realities. Yeah so um I and I'm I'm just I'm ready I'm fancy to get started just because um you know I know how to navigate the system I know many of my colleagues still work there and um and and there's just so much to do. If it wasn't for a community who said Teresa we want you back we need you we need somebody with your thinking I would just be focused on my own business you know but my mom re had reminded me several times that um growing up was always helpful right I was I was helping my families other families and that that was my gift to help.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Well this is why it's just so important that we get you because I'm not trying to try not to cry but you were a four-year-old who was robbed of having a childhood. I mean you were a child you didn't get that essence until that sweet angel gave you guys that pause where you had that land to play and be children, but you still had the interruption of going and doing adult things for your parents and so you have so many lived experiences where people are at this table making all of these judgments not considering the little child who's navigating adult situations and the parents who are trying to keep their children young and innocent but relying on them. Yes. Like it's the essence of surviving America and so to not have you at that table when we have the populations that are begging for you would just be a vast injustice for us not to vote for you. And I I just wish I was in your district so I could vote for you but best believe you know I'm talking to all my people in that area but we need you so bad. Yeah because I think this would also be healing for you as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Completely completely and you know and I um I I feel like I I continue to get gifts um when students tell me or when I go out and talk to young people and they tell me that's my experience too I'm the oldest night and I have to do all the interpretation and translation I have to cook and clean I have to watch my brothers and sisters and that means that our systems are not working. Right we need to uh make sure we have language access uh agencies so that our kids can stay in school and we're not pulling them out to go interpret for their families. Absolutely we need to have um childcare systems that are affordable we live in a childcare state uh desert right we don't have enough childcare providers and it's not that they're not training it's that it's we have such a complicated system that it makes it so hard to have you know these services and so it just yes I want to come back and and and you're right it's a way for me to heal from the things I experienced because then I'm problem solving yeah and it's not the same thing but you I'm assuming you would be in favor of the universal pre-K absolutely because that's a huge chunk of that time. Yeah for sure yeah because guess who took care of my brothers and sisters when they couldn't go to daycare when they were sick. Yeah yeah I was I was that person yeah um and I love school and I hated when my parents would say we need you to stay home because your brother's sick and the daycare's not going to take him ah okay I mean I had no choice right yeah but um you know I did my duty as a as the eldest in my family and uh you know my sense of responsibility obviously um helped my family get through a lot of things but as you mentioned um I also lost a lot of my own childhood and um thankfully I am a um I have a little a little dude a little guy who um you know my with my ex-partner that he has has a son and um and I he helps him be a kid because we go do a bunch of fun things and so I get to experience being a kid through him and with him. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Yeah and it it's such an important thing that most people that look like me don't think about is that um our institutions have all been set up by people that look like me. And so to me the more people that are in those institutions that can break down people's preconceived notions of what things are. Yeah. So working in education you know I've always been aware even when I wasn't aware that when kids are out of school yeah oftentimes they're not out of school for themselves. That's right. If you if you pay careful attention to who they are and what they what they talk about they're at home because their family needs them to be at home.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

And they don't have a choice. And yet our system sees them as absentees.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

That's right and delinquents.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

You know and so it's I think it's really important to have people making laws that have had those lived experiences and and Oregon is is kind of bereft. It's like absence of people of color in leadership positions that can make rules.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

So well and it's the tale of two childhoods you know those who are privileged to have a childhood where it is aimless and the world's your oyster and then the other where children have to help their parents navigate and they have to pick up the pieces because the system isn't set up to let a child be a child if they are of certain marginalized communities.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Yeah. So we need to preserve this and help our children Teresa with just a couple minutes left would you like to just take a moment to address your community your your Senate district 11 and and give them a final message from you before they go to the go to vote with their mail and ballots.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Thank you for that opportunity well I I want to say to um House District or Senate District sorry because we were talking about my serving um so Senate District 11 um it would be just an honor to represent you I've you know I I have such a vast lived experience perspective that I know I would be able to represent this district in A way that no one else could. And I, you know, I am an extremely hard worker. I have passed some of the most historical policies that we've had in a very long time during my time as a state legislator. And I can I can absolutely commit that I will continue to do that work moving forward. So please vote for Teresa Alonso León. If you want to learn even more about me, you can go to my website at daresaforesenate.com. And uh we only have until the 19th for people to vote. So please vote. Um and uh and of course you can reach out to me if you have any questions through our website, and I'd be happy to answer any any questions that people have.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Thank you for being here today. Thank you for sharing what is a difficult thing to share uh with your with your constituents and with us. So we really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Thank you for having me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

And that is another episode of Oregon Voices.