An elected official who never forgot who she was & who she represented.
A women who I respected has passed on.
When I first started Morivivi Language Services, my interpreting business I had met Senator Olga Mendez and told her about the business. She thought it was a good and necessary business. A couple of months later, still trying to get myself together and promote the business, I received a phone call from an executive of Isabella Geriatric Center in Washington Heights. The women asked me if I could translate several broshures for them from English to Spanish? This was my first written translation request and I asked her how did she hear about Morivivi? She said from Senator Olga Mendez.
Olga was not my Senator I called her to thank her for the referral. She told me I was a good person and providing an important service, but most important, she said I was Puerto Rican and the future of our community. I thanked her again, but expected that at some point I was going to get a call to help Senator Mendez with her fundraising campaign, or as I had experienced with all the other elected officials an invitation to buy some tickets to some birthday party for her, or some other creative event that elected officials organize to solicit money.
To la Senadoras credit and my surprise I never received one solicitation for me to donate money to her campaign. We went on to develop a great personal relationship that allowed me to give her many hours of consulting advise since she valued my assessment of things and would call me once in while to ask my opinion on some events.
Our community, especially the Puerto Rican community will miss Olga Mendez, “la senadora que no tenia pelos en la lengua.”
May she rest in peace.
Read the following article written by David Gonzalez of the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/nyregion/04mendez.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Olga%20Mendez&st=cse
No related posts.