Hey Chica! | Dallas News Live

The Dallas Group is working to connect Latino women to expand civic participation. Their fourth annual Power to the Chica Advocacy Brunch is focused on getting people involved in voting. Joining us live, the Hey Chica founder, Veronica Torres-Hasley. Tell us about the event. Hi, hello everyone. We're so excited. Tomorrow we'll be hosting, our organization is called Hey Chica, the No Mean Girl Movement. and we're hosting our Power to the Chica Advocacy Brunch tomorrow in West Dallas at Winsome Prime this is our fourth annual event that we're hosting bringing Latinas and our allies together to talk about how they can engage in the community without being so overwhelmed by what's happening right now with the elections and whatnot yeah this is a big election to get involved and to jump in if it's the first time if you're if it's your first time voting how does your organization help women specifically get out and vote? Yeah, we like to make it fun, right? We want to bring it together as a sisterhood, talking about the power to the chica, which is, chica is just another word for girl, right? So bringing power to all women where they can activate their voice, they feel included. These are a lot of women that we've been gathering for the last eight years, empowering them, showing them the tools that they need to engage in the community. And we do it with fun. Obviously, we're having brunch, but we're actually educating on the nonpartisan parts of voting. So we're utilizing a lot of resources that the city has, the League of Women Voters put together to give people the right information to make the right choices when they're going to the polls. You talk about being a nonpartisan organization, just getting the information out there for everyone so that they can make their own decisions, but at least be informed. How important is it, not just this election, but local elections and all elections to get out and make your voice heard? Well, we know it's important because a lot of the women have never really thought about how the local and the midterm elections really affect the community that we're living in. I know this is not a national presidential election, so our goal is to educate, to explain to them what the actual midterms mean and the people and the players that are in their community and the elected officials that are out there representing us and how do they connect to those people. It makes it a little more approachable as well. We'd like to say to our Latinas and non-Latinas, we don't have to do everything, but one girl can do one thing. And even if that's educating herself on what the midterm elections really hold, and also who are the people that are representing them in their own communities, from judges to elected officials, even who is the lead of their homeowners association. So it gets very organic to a point where if women want to lead, they may not want to run for office or participate in a huge campaign, but they can lead in their own communities. And that's where leadership starts. It starts at home and how we integrate that in our everyday life and also empower women to know that they can do things like that with women behind them to support them. And Veronica, of course, everyone should vote. Everyone should exercise their right to vote. I know there's been a greater focus on the Hispanic community. And I've talked to multiple Hispanic leaders who say, hey, we're not a monolith, just like African-American voters, don't just vote one way, everyone has their different opinions. But why is it important for minority groups to get out there and make their voices heard? Well, I think we're the ones that are most affected with the resources that are being talked about right now, right? So we started Power to the Chica because we, a long time ago, had heard that there's not a lot of investment in Latina voters because we don't vote. So a lot of the people who are running for office didn't spend a lot of resources. So that's what sparked up us a conversation about why power to the Chica mattered, because, you know, for us not to be seen or not to be heard or not to be taken seriously is really our onus to go out and make sure that we are making a noise out there and that we are actually activating our powers. Right. So for us, it was all about educating and making sure I mean, Hispanics are predominantly the population in Texas. right and even in Dallas it's it's a large population of Latinos that live in Dallas and if we're not moving that needle on really getting invested in the community then we are not doing our children's children the service that we need to open up those doors to make it normal to go vote to make it exciting and make it fun and take away the stigma of not having the power to do that Veronica Torres Hasley founder of Hey Chica thank you for stopping by thank you for having me