100 LATINAS SINDY BENAVIDES
CIVIC LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY Bill Sarno
SINCE 2018, Sindy Marisol Benavides has served as chief executive officer of the League of United Latino American Citizens, the nation's oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organizations with more than a 132,000 members across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. In this leadership role, despite the "abnormal" environment created by the coronavirus epidemic, Benavides, a Honduran-American, has been fully engaged in revising the narrative that has left too many Latinos outside the American mainstream and treated as if they don't belong here. "We are creating the change now, going from invisible to being very visible and being very clear in our actions and our words," Benavides said. In moving forward, LULAC is committed to the struggle for greater Latina and Latino representation in the highest echelons of education, business and elected office. As for her position at a top rung of Latino nonprofit world, Benavides relies on a sense of leadership based on consensus building and listening to others, a commitment to giving derived from her family background and a recognition of the strength and ability within the Latino community. Moreover, Benavides has experienced first hand the struggles and hardships many Latinos face as members of the nation's largest minority group. As a one-year-old, Sindy Benavides crossed the border into the United States in the arms of her mother, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, accompanied by her father and three-year-old border. The Benavides family first settled in Los Angeles and endured hard times. She remembers picking up cans in the streets of the California city and later cleaning houses with her mother in Virginia to help her family subsist. Whatever the situation, Benavides held onto her vision of the United States as a land of opportunity and drew upon the values imparted by "pioneering parents" and a clear understanding that she came from a community that is "very strong, resilient and determined," she said. Initially, Benavides found herself moving swiftly through the political ranks as a volunteer. "I have always been involved, she said, and willing
to take on whatever task was needed, even serving as a greeter. Moreover, Benavides "had a lot to say" about her Latino community. What Benavides had to offer was observed by leaders in Virginia's Democratic organization and at the age of 22, she was chosen Latino director in Tim Kaine's gubernatorial campaign in Virginia. The following year she became a senior member of the governor's cabinet. "I was always the youngest in the room," she recalled. Benavides would take her youthful determination and skills on to the Democratic National Committee and then shift into her current vocation. "It felt like a natural pathway to go into state government, to then go into the non-profit world to continue to serve," Benavides said. "I did not even know what public service was," Benavides said, but credits her parents and grandparents for preparing her for this career. "I always knew that we served others. I grew up in a house where my parents kitchen door was always open, even to strangers. Anyone could walk in through that door to be fed, hear stories and stay for the night," she recalled. Moreover, if when Honduras was hit by a devastating hurricane or someone passed away, her parents would provide whatever help they could, Benavides said. Her grandmother, who had nine children, also always served others. "For fun times she would make Rosaries for her local community and if someone knocked on her door she would make sure to provide food, even if it was the little she had," Benavides recalled. Now the parent of two children herself, Benavides is very much influenced by her mother and the "courage she had to leave everything behind and come to a country she did not know."
40 LATINO LEADERS MAY / JUNE 2021
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