FOX VALLEY (NBC 26) — As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month on NBC 26, we are highlighting Kathy Flores (She/Her).
Flores works at Diverse & Resilient in Appleton as the anti-violence program director.
It's a job she actually created.
“About three years ago I wrote a grant to the Department of Justice to open an ant-violence office in Appleton and that’s how we’re here today,” Flores said.
Flores considers herself a grassroots organizer and has spent years learning from activists in movements to end racism and LGBTQ bias in communities throughout the country.
Her identity and personal experiences have played a big role to the work she does today.
As a queer Latinx survivor with a disability, Flores says she understands the intersections of privilege and oppression not just from her experience in social justice movement building, but from her own complicated identity and experiences in both her personal and professional life.
“I’m Latinx of Mexican heritage, my mother is Mexican and I have a disability. I have multiple sclerosis, I have an aneurysm, I’m a cancer survivor. I have a number of things that have tried to push me down. I'm hard to push down. I continue to do what I can,” Flores said.
Through the years she’s worked with Kimberly Clark and was also the diversity and inclusion coordinator for the City of Appleton.
And while Flores has been thrown many curve balls, she says she keeps going even when its hard to get up.
“I think part of my resiliency is my ancestors and I connect very deeply to my Mexican ancestors. And my grandmother was a woman who was a single mom with three children in the depression in the 1930’s. They wanted a better life for their children and their children. So sometimes I feel driven by that,” Flores said.
A mission driven more by her day to day interactions.
Flores says she often passes as white and the reality is that matters.
She hopes some day it won't.
"Because I'm white passing, because my skin is light skin I have so much privilege that other people who are Mexicans don't have.I have so much pride in my heritage, I have so much pride in who I am as a Latina and I also recognize that I have a lot of doors to open and help others that are coming in too who may not have had those doors open," Flores said.
Today Flores provides numerous training workshops and educational presentations on LGBTQ issues, workplace discrimination, violence in communities, racism, developing resiliency, LGBTQ aging, and various other presentations about working with marginalized communities.
“It’s amazing when your passion and your purpose kind of come together and create your vocation or life’s work,” Flores said.
