Elizabeth
Mendez-Shannon

She's fighting for issues that are close to her heart

Born in Ecuador and raised in New York, Elizabeth Mendez-Shannon sees the immigration issue cut across her family, friends and community.

So she takes her social work roots and expands out to help organize rallies such as the local May 1 immigration rally and Peacefest Iowa. She also spoke at last year’s Strengthening & Valuing Latino Families and Communities Conference in Des Moines.

“I am shy, but I can’t,” said Mendez-Shannon, a permanent U.S. resident. “It’s bigger than me, and I’ve got to do it.

“Sometimes it feels like that’s all do. Eat, sleep and drink that. But I guess that’s where passion comes from.”

At one point, Mendez-Shannon said she thought she couldn’t continue with her doctoral work and activism at the same time.
“That’s why you should be in school,” her parents told her. “You’re breaking the barriers.”

For the Latino conference in Des Moines, she created a workshop that talked about the diversity and unity among Latinos with School of Social Work associate professor Susan Murty.

“The work has taught me how beautiful it is to be a Latina,” she said. “It’s also taught me I have power and hopefully with that education I learn how to use that power well with wisdom and compassion.”

Mendez-Shannon said that when she came to Iowa a year and a half ago, the Ph.D. program kind of just fell in her lap. Before coming here, she worked for 10 years at a nonprofit association that helps children, including those who are homeless in crisis.
“In social work, you definitely go to help people,” she said. “In the Ph.D. (program), you realize the capacity to influence and the power of change of social justice.”

With her education at the University of Iowa, Mendez-Shannon said she “would like to continue to be part of that change,” organizing communities of color and their allies of all races. She also said she would like to work with grants to help better communities — “to change the systems that are larger to allow for access to the communities that are impoverished.”

“How can I not get involved with all these issues I’m passionate about?” she said.

— Rachel Gallegos