A Sense of Justice

When state proposition 187 was placed on the ballot in 1994, something stirred inside Citlali Sosa-Riddell ’97.

A third generation Mexican-American, the initiative would not have a direct impact on her or her family. But she found something clearly unjust about the measure, which forced agencies using public money, including those providing essential medical, welfare and educational benefits, to turn away anyone who was not legally in the state of California.

"I was really angry about what was happening," Sosa-Riddell says. Only a freshman at the time, she remembers already feeling uneasy about being a minority at Pomona College, but her sense of antipathy toward the initiative (which would later pass before being mostly struck down by the courts) spurred her to further action.

"I didn’t have to think about it," she explains. "I threw myself in without realizing I had changed, had stopped being that selfish teenager…I was politicized."

She protested in downtown Los Angeles against the proposition. She joined several on-campus groups, like MECHA, and found refuge and understanding in places like the Chicano Studies and Women’s Studies Centers.

She also found it liberating when some of her professors encouraged class discussion about these issues of ethnicity and minority rights, where she could express her own concerns "without feeling stupid." Some professors were more accommodating than others were, she notes. She was particularly fond of sociology professor Gil Cardena—sociology would eventually become her major. "We talked about things so obvious to me but that had never really been verbalized," Sosa-Riddell says. "Things right below the surface but that had never been articulated."

Of course it is not unusual for a first year student to find it difficult to adjust. But for Sosa-Riddell, there was an added component that she says few of her classmates could understand.

She had enrolled at Pomona hoping to take advantage of its smaller setting, as well as its proximity to family in nearby Colton. From the start, however, she felt she was being judged because of her ethnicity, that some thought she must only be at this prestigious school because of affirmative action.

"I felt like people treated me that way because of the way I looked—they didn’t know anything about me."

She grew up in west Sacramento, attending a Jesuit high school considered second best when compared to its more well to do rival. Her mother was a Chicano studies professor, her grandfather had been a union organizer and her grandmother was involved with a Mexican-American mutual aide society. Sosa-Riddell was familiar with social action.

As time went on, Sosa-Riddell found comfort not only with certain instructors at Pomona, but also through the student organizations concerned with minority and ethnic issues. She says now that she can appreciate the school’s encouragement of such programs.

One result of her experiences at Pomona was she decided to seek a graduate degree in ethnic studies. She enrolled in a master’s degree program at the University of California San Diego shortly after graduation. It would prove to be serendipitous.

Nearing the end of her course of study, Sosa-Riddell began looking for a job, one, she says, where she could have an impact on peoples’ lives. She was working with high school students doing community organizing in the San Diego area when she learned a friend, fellow Pomona alumnus Elena Briones ‘97, had taken a position with Justice for Janitors.

Briones was doing research for the group, which is associated with the Service Employees International Union. It was an attractive opportunity for Sosa-Riddell, who felt it had a worthy goal and a good philosophy behind its organizing.

"It is well-known for being the most democratic of unions," Sosa-Riddell notes.

In addition to the obvious, Justice for Janitors represents security guards, airport service employees and, until recent legislation federalized airport security, airport screeners.

Sosa-Riddell took a job as a corporate researcher. It was her responsibility to develop useful intelligence on the companies employing union members. To be effective in negotiations, especially if one needs to "get ugly with them" as Sosa-Riddell puts it, one must know more than just the company’s bottom line. There are also partnerships, hidden assets, liabilities, subcontractors, important development projects in the pipeline, and political affiliations, both friend and foe.

One thing Sosa-Riddell says she learned, which disturbed her, was how few companies there really are at the root of the various business entities employing the represented workers.

The information culled by Sosa-Riddell and others was used to take direct action on behalf of the workers to facilitate favorable negotiations. This could mean something as simple as pointing out that the company had more money than it was reporting, to something more complex like protesting before a city council where a company is planning a new development.

The corporations themselves also "got ugly", Sosa-Riddell relates, sometimes locking workers in a break room to ensure a captive audience while they disparaged the union or taking their pictures while involved in union activities.

One of the biggest problems was that the parent company would often hire a subcontractor to be in charge of hiring the represented workers, creating a buffer and allowing the parent to point the finger when negotiations got heated.

Worse yet, the various groups under Justice for Janitors’ umbrella were racially stratified, Sosa-Riddell learned. The airport porters were mostly African-American, the screeners Phillipinos and the janitors, considered the most unskilled, mostly Hispanic.

Sometimes, when one group got a favorable contract, they were less likely to join the fight to help another community, Sosa-Riddell says.

"I wish some groups would see how recently it was them" fighting injustice, she adds, "How similar their problems were."

What kept Sosa-Riddell committed to the union was the fact that it involved the workers at every level of representation. She found its claims of democratization true.

"The union was all about them," she says. From the morning coffee to the annual Christmas Party, it was all done for the benefit of the workers—in stark contrast with some of the other SEIU divisions.

"The workers themselves transformed the union," she says. "Our workers were always there, always had a voice. Justice is not just about getting gains for people, but making sure they have ownership of it."

Ownership and sense of one’s own power to feel justified in demanding fair wages and equal treatment are the result of what Sosa-Riddell considers effective, just social action.

Sosa-Riddell left the organization at the end of 2001. "One thing I found out is I want to be an academic," she says. "I miss the intellectual discourse."

She is now teaching at California State Northridge and planning to go back to graduate school for her doctorate in history.

However, she does remain involved in promoting social change. She has focused now on helping promote the Hispanic culture, like the popular Rock en Espanol.

"We are taught to feel sometimes our culture is not as good," she says. "I want to show them our culture is proud, that we create things, we have ideas…Pleasure is also good. It is important when existence is sometimes so hard."

--Gary Scott