A4 • Friday, January 25, 2019 | Cannon Beach Gazette | CannonBeachGazette.com
Views from the Rock
WINGS reaches out to Latina community
W
INGS offers educational oppor-
tunities for women who have had
their education interrupted and
are yearning to go back to school.
The American Association of University
Women sponsors the all-day program, to be
held Feb. 9 at Clatsop Community College
in Astoria.
Women may fi nd their studies interrupted
for “all sorts of reasons,” Ane McIntyre,
president of Seaside’s AAUW, said in a visit
to the Signal offi ce late this month. “Their
car broke down. They lost their babysitter.
Their mother died. They are married to a
military man and they bounced around the
country. An unexpected baby — almost all
the time, the thing that interrupted their edu-
cation was money.”
A new push, McIntyre said, is outreach
to the Latina community — a drive, she
admits, that should have been undertaken
much sooner.
“Last year 64 women went, and 16 were
Latina,” McIntyre said. “They hadn’t been
coming before that because we didn’t make
it easy for them to come. This is our 17th
year, and I’m embarrassed to say, we’ve
only reached out to the Latina commu-
nity two years prior to this — and not very
well.”
Program organizers have a welcome
addition to their team.
Gudelia Contreras, who participated in
the WINGS program in 2012, is “instru-
mental” in reaching a new audience, McIn-
tyre said.
“One of the things that Gudelia has done
for us is we realized there is a whole pop-
ulation we were not serving. She can reach
out to Hispanic women who may be afraid
to take advantage of WINGS.”
Originally from Veracruz, Mexico, Con-
treras came to the United States in 1990,
fi nding work as a migrant laborer and rais-
ing a family.
In the mid-’90s, she enrolled in English
classes, but because of family and money
issues, she left school.
Moving to Clatsop County in 2008, she
found employment as a cannery worker.
Contreras made contact with Clat-
sop Community College on her daughter’s
behalf.
“In 2011, my daughter was in high
school and she didn’t have enough credits
to graduate,” the Astoria resident said. “So I
tried to reach somebody to get information
about how she could get her GED.”
In 2012, she reached out again to the col-
lege — this time for herself.
“I said, ‘What can I do? I don’t want to
be in the cannery for the rest of my life.’”
Contreras took a pretest and scored high.
An adviser urged her to attend the WINGS
conference.
“I said, ‘Sign me up,’” Contreras
recalled.
At the conference, she expected to see
only teenagers and young people. Instead,
she encountered people her age — she is 52
now — “some younger and some older.”
“I thought, if they can do it, I can do it
too,” Contreras said.
She received vouchers for testing, appli-
cation fees and three college credits.
She passed the GED three months later,
receiving her high school diploma and sub-
sequently enrolling at Clatsop Community
College.
Going to school and working full time
was “really diffi cult,” Contreras said. In
Courtesy WINGS
WINGS alumna Nayeli Cruz. Cruz has fi ve
children and continues her schooling.
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
R.J. Marx
Gudelia Contreras and Ane McIntyre celebrate a focus on Latina women seeking to continue
their schooling.
2013, she had no car and worked at the
cannery from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m.
At the end of the shift, she walked from
the cannery back home, returning around
3:40, only to set the alarm at 7 to get to a
math class at 8.
Contreras left the cannery in 2014, fi nd-
ing part-time employment while she con-
tinued her schooling. She earned her asso-
ciate’s degree in general studies in 2016,
and her goals began to take shape.
In 2016, she earned her degree and
began working full-time at the Lower
Columbia Hispanic Council as an Ore-
gon Health Plan outreach and enrollment
specialist.
This spring, she will continue her under-
graduate education with online classes from
Portland State University.
‘THIS IS OUR 17TH YEAR, AND I’M EMBARRASSED
TO SAY, WE’VE ONLY REACHED OUT TO THE
LATINA COMMUNITY TWO YEARS PRIOR
TO THIS — AND NOT VERY WELL.’
Ane McIntyre, WINGS conference
WINGS CONFERENCE
WINGS 2019 is a free one-day conference open to all women, Saturday, Feb. 9, from 8 a.m. to
3:30 pm at Clatsop Community College, Columbia Hall, second fl oor.
Sessions and workshops on Clatsop Community College degrees, certifi cate programs and
pathways, GED, job skills, student fi nancial a id, scholarships, career planning and non-tradi-
tional careers, conquering math anxiety, CCC admissions and support services for students
and the Lives in Transition Program.
Overcoming barriers
The WINGS program — a loose acro-
nym for “Women INterested in Going to
School” — is free and available to citi-
zens and noncitizens alike, but, Contreras
said, the country’s political environment has
made some Latinas wary. “It is kind of diffi -
cult now because people are kind of scared.
They don’t know if it’s really free or (a
way) to fi nd out where you are.”
Contreras said many Latinas work-
ing in the cannery come from countries
where they may have received schooling
or a degree, but are unaware of education
options here.
“They don’t know,” she said. “And when
you don’t know what you can do, you are
blind. But after you tell them what they can
do, answer their questions — ‘Do I have
to quit my cannery job tomorrow?’ No. It’s
going to take time. It is not going to take
just six months. Just learning English is
going to take a year, or more than that.”
After learning about the WINGS pro-
gram, she added, more than half opt for the
education.
The biggest obstacle, McIntyre put in, is
the “fear factor.”
“You’d be amazed at what the self-es-
teem issue can to to people thinking, ‘I’m
too old,’ ‘I’m too far down the road,’ ‘I
won’t fi t in,’ ‘I don’t know enough English.’
The event is a collaboration of the Seaside and Astoria branches of the American Association
of University Women and Clatsop Community College. Free breakfast, lunch and professional
childcare are provided.
We tell them we are 50 women who are
here to help you — there’s no catch.”
Women in the program pursue varied
interests, with many approaching the medi-
cal fi eld, where “there’s always going to be
a need, no matter how old you are,” Contre-
ras said.
Corporate partnerships
Members of AAUW now emphasize out-
reach both to Latina women and the compa-
nies they work for, McIntyre said.
“We’ve helped over 800 women, but it
wasn’t until we met Gudelia a couple of
years ago we said what could we do for the
Latina population?”
The WINGS conference, to be held Sat-
urday, Feb. 9, at Clatsop Community Col-
lege in Astoria, will offer women of all
backgrounds educational vouchers and
counseling, lunch and a full day of child
care.
Providence Seaside, Seaside Kiwanis
and Walmart are among businesses to con-
tribute to the program. AAUW is reach-
ing out to local employers, including the
canneries.
These companies feel their workers will
get a sense of “hope and inspiration, and will
probably continue working when they’re in
school,” McIntyre said.
A Walmart manager told McIntyre not
only can any woman who wants to go have
the day off, “but she will be written on the
schedule so she will be paid on Walmart’s
dime.”
“She’s one of our success stories, some-
one who’s really made it after graduating
from WINGS,” McIntyre said.
“I keep telling people that the WINGS
conference was the best payday I ever had,”
Conteras said. “I had my GED paid, my
registration, my placement paid, the col-
lege credits paid — over $500. That got me
started.”
For Contreras, the experience has been
life-changing.
“Oh my God. There are not words to
express how I feel. I come from Mexico, a
family of seven — and I’m the fi rst person
to go to university.”
She is confi dent others will benefi t from
her example. “They see if I can do it, they
can do it.”
Dining out and its pleasures, with an occasional bout of heartburn
VIEW FROM
THE PORCH
EVE MARX
I
t took me months to decide the
news coming from the White House
couldn’t be the cause, or at least not
the sole cause, of my acid refl ux. Six
months or so ago (if I’m feeling partic-
ularly sour I mark the start of my affl ic-
tion the day this president was sworn into
offi ce) every night, right after dinner, a
burning sensation starts. The burn is very
sharp at times, quite disagreeable. Some-
times, when I swallow, sharp acid fl ows
into my throat.
For a time I tried to remedy the situa-
tion by limiting my diet. I stopped eating
tomatoes. Anything spicy is off limits. I
gave up squeezing lemon in my water and
I avoid carbonation. Fried food is impossi-
ble, as is chocolate.
As you might imagine, this problem
impacts eating out. My entire relation-
ship with my husband, you could argue,
has been forged in restaurants. From the
nascent moments of our meeting and
courtship, we grew to know each other
across public tables on the east coast and
Publisher
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Editor
R.J. Marx
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Brenna Visser
Eve Marx/For Cannon Beach Gazette
These cups aren’t for you unless you’re a regular.
the west. After we married and our son
was born, we continued eating out. We
took him for Chinese food; we introduced
him to Indian, Japanese, Thai, and Korean.
We raised him in a small town boasting no
Contributing
writers
Katherine Lacaze
Eve Marx
Nancy McCarthy
CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
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less than three fi rst-rate Italian restaurants.
Our son is an adult now and responsible
for his own food choices, but I wouldn’t
be surprised if one day he told a scolding
nutritionist he was raised in a pizzeria.
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To this day, my husband and I spend the
bulk of our entertainment allowance din-
ing out. We rarely travel; it seems to me
we rarely venture further than Astoria. We
have places we frequent in Cannon Beach,
including but not limited to Screw & Brew,
Castaways, and Surf Bird. I’m psyched to
try the new Mi Corazon.
The nightmare of acid refl ux, offi cially
known as gastroesophaegeal refl ux dis-
ease, or GERD, is it ruins your pleasure in
food. I’ve read that many people experience
refl ux from time to time, but if it’s happen-
ing to you more than twice a week, you
might need medication.
My symptoms include serious heartburn
and chest pain, sour liquid in my mouth and
diffi culty swallowing. I fi nally went to my
nurse practitioner and she prescribed Zantac
75. I was also advised to cut way back on
my coffee habit, which as habits go, is slim.
Last week the husband and I met our
friends Rex and Diane at Cheri’s Café. My
husband had his heart set on Cheri’s pizza,
which she makes a pan of once a day. She
sells it by the slice and when it’s gone
it’s gone. We dined at the table under the
“Trump Free Zone” sign. He got a slice of
pepperoni. I got the plain cheese. True, it
had tomato sauce and was technically off
my GERD diet, but a girl’s got to live. A
girl’s got to live.
THE NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING