By Terry Gibson
When Holyoke mayoral candidate Dr. Gloria Caballero-Roca mentions that she was born in Cuba, she hopes it would call to mind a host of skills and abilities that she would bring to the office of mayor.
“bell hooks writes about the authority of life experience, and through those experiences is how we learn”, Caballero-Roca says, commenting on the bell hooks journal entry written as a critique of the common understanding of feminism and Blackness.
Starting in her mothers home, Dr. Caballero-Roca first learned to be a “mediator”, understanding that open dialogue is key to solving issues; she learned to be “direct” and speak plain language that everyone could understand. By age 13, she began seeing herself as a community organizer.
“You need to be an activist to survive in a place where you must carry water for miles or stand in a line for hours just for soap. These situations had to change”, she comments about her time living on La Isla de la Juventud (The Isle of Youth).
Dr. Caballero-Roca has two masters degrees and two doctorates but she says these degrees would be the wrong reasons to vote for her. She isn’t relying on academic achievements or any political connections to be elected mayor. Instead, she hopes that her ability to connect with people will be the driving force for her campaign.
“I want a complete paradigm shift; one that makes Holyoke’s government more participatory and focused on community”, she says.
Throughout the years Dr. Caballero-Roca has only grown in her work as an organizer and activist. She’s worked with the Latin American chapter of Mass Peace Action. She’s served as a translator for Chilean refugees and assisted migrants from the Caribbean to Massachusetts after hurricane Maria.
“Being an interpreter brings you into people’s homes; where they are most vulnerable. In that work, cultural humility is important.”
It’s this judgement free approach that Dr. Caballero-Roca wishes to bring to city leadership. Even further, understanding that Holyoke being a “multicultural, multi-ethnic and multilingual” community is something to be “proud” of and celebrated.
To bring the people of Holyoke together, Dr. Caballero-Roca hopes that her initiatives focused on leading the city towards zero emissions will be an umbrella which everyone can be brought under.
“Climate change is something we all are facing. Reducing our carbon footprint should be our number one priority, but we must also look at the bigger picture and understand how issues of race and gender intersect. Addressing climate change is tangible — its effects are in the air and in the water, these are tangible.”
Though Holyoke has many green initiatives taking place, the effects of extreme heat, drought and the lingering pollutants from the Mt. Tom Station, a coal plant recently shuttered in 2014, has yet to be tackled. Exacerbating the issues are poorly maintained public housing where mold and other air pollutants cause severe respiratory illnesses.
“This is not our children’s future, this our children’s present”, Dr. Caballero-Roca says about the high asthma rates in Holyoke.
Among her ideas for helping Holyoke embark upon zero emissions would be to attract greener businesses to the city. But for Dr. Caballero-Roca, these are not just big businesses from outside. She’d like to inspire the growth of small businesses being developed in Holyoke.
“I want to see more local businesses; this is a way to diminish our carbon footprint. Supporting your neighbors’ business is going green.”
These plans focused on climate change reach deep into Dr. Caballero-Roca’s roots. Cuba has long been known as one of the most environmentally sustainable nations on the planet. The long standing embargo imposed upon the island in the 1960s to “reduce the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers”, according to John F. Kennedy’s Proclamation 3447, stopped trade with the U.S., but also lessened the amount of fertilizers and pesticides Cuba used in agriculture. As a result, the majority of the island nation’s farming practices are organic.
Another silver lining of the blockade is Cuba’s culture of recycling, reusing and an overall reduction of consumerism. Perceptively, The Cuban Federation of Women, Che and Castro issued books like Con Nuestros Propios Esfuerzos (With Our Own Effort), that served as handbooks for home gardening, cooking and repairing household items. These books were the Cuban Nations guides for becoming more self-sustaining.
“Consuming more is always at the expense of someone else; we need to consume less and become more creative”, she says.
Dr. Caballero-Roca knows this level of responsibility may be unfamiliar for many, but this is what it means for her to challenge the status quo; presenting out-of-the-box solutions.
“If you don’t live it, you can hardly change it. You can write policy but you never change the situation because you don’t know that struggle.”
Though the personal is very much political for Dr. Caballero-Roca, she understands that she must “set the table and invite all in to share” in order to be elected mayor.
Dr. Caballero-Roca faces an uphill struggle encouraging the city to lessen its consumption. Her greatest challenge will be getting the community on the same page. But she’s been teaching since she was 23 years old and feels confident in her ability to lead Holyoke. Furthermore, her understanding that Holyoke consists of multitudes and being able to resonate within those various groups of people, provide valuable insight and perspective.
“I only hope to be a conduit of a greater conversation. Bring different people together so we can work towards solving some of the city’s greatest issues.”
