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Young Activist Series: Lorraine Zapata, Part I
Lorraine Zapata, an Organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice, kindly agreed to an interview with the WWHP about her work.
Zapata is originally from Los Angeles, California, and moved to Chicago this past year. Her childhood had a lot of influence on her choice of careers. She says, "I grew up in East Los Angeles, which is a very poor neighborhood, and I also grew up in the foster care system. So from a very young age I had a very different set of life experiences, I think, than most people. I had to go through a lot of challenges. So I always knew that I was going to do something under the umbrella of social justice. I didn't know it was called social justice at the time. I just knew there were things that I saw happening to me, and my family, and people that looked like me, and people that lived where I lived that I thought were unjust, and I wanted to change that."
She started out trying to help others by working in education. "I was working at Head Start, and the preschool that I was working at was organized. It was a union Head Start, which there are not that many of, through the AFT, which is the American Federation of Teachers. So I was a member there, and I became educated about, you know, what unions were, and the whole struggle for the labor movement, and I got really involved. I became a shop steward, I became a member of the Executive Board, and then I became a member organizer. You know, I had done some political phone banking for different propositions we were trying to pass in 2010, and I got paid for it, and I liked it. So I became a member organizer, and they sent me out on a campaign, and after that I decided I wanted to transition to being a full time organizer." Zapata researched different unions and discovered Warehouse Workers for Justice, where she now works. "Really, I found them, because I liked what they stood for. So that's how I got involved. That's why I moved out here... You know, the warehouse industry is something that is important that we organize it right now," she explains.
In the end, Zapata says, "No, I didn't know I was going to be a union organizer, but I knew I was going to be involved with something, and once I did get involved, I felt like I had found my niche... I think my favorite part of the work that I do is when I get to see people move out of a state of apathy, or being complacent, or just being misinformed, to this place of empowerment."
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Watch out for Part II in our November newsletter, where Zapata talks about contemporary labor issues and the gains she wants to make in empowering workers and increasing their rights.
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