“Guille is resourceful and gives back to Boyle heights with what little she has,” said Juan Escobedo.
Guillermina Quezada visited her often. It was part of her work as a promotera at the Promesa Boyle Heights organization and part of her misssion to help abused women.
“Why do you let him?” she would say to this woman. “She would turn away, not wanting to talk about it or confront it. And then her little son would come out behind her and tell me, ‘Nona Guille, if I had a gun, I would kill my dad for everything he does to my mom.'”
However, Gillermina doesn’t back down. She continues to fight, conducting ‘talleres callejeros,’ educating and fighting.
“This woman’s husband would follow me and would attack me. One day he tried to run me over with his car. I stood in the middle of the street, I told him ‘come on, keep going, you ‘cabrón’, you don’t know who you’re messing with.’ His wife begged me not to press charges, she pleaded with me not to do it,” she says.
This is the reality of the domestic violence that women in Los Angeles suffer daily and the hard work of a group of promoteras who fight daily to reverse this situation. This story is being documented by filmmaker Juan Escobedo.
“Guille is resourceful and gives back to Boyle heights with what little she has,” said Juan.
Guille’s or Nona Guille’s story, as this child called her, is like a soap opera.
Born in Belén del Refugio, Jalisco, Mexico and from a large family with strong belives true to that era, her father had strict and non-negotiable believes.
“We have to fight against that, educate ourselves, and fight to change things. Now I am in a better place, I have my own business, I help women with the same.”
“I always wanted to study, but my dad used to tell us that women were made for two things: cooking and having children,” she says. “That marked me for life.”
She was also marked by the abuse of her younger sister when she was a child.
“I was filled with anger, I didn’t allow any man to come near me. I would tell them, ‘you can leave the way you came'”
Until her first husband arrived, he came to visit the town of El Norte, saw her, and said to her, “I’m going to steal you.”
She didn’t believe him. But one day he came back and was waiting for her, and he reaffirmed it. Guille… or Nona Guille said to him, “wait for me, I’m going to church first and I’ll be right back,” she says, laughing.
She went with him to the plaza to have a drink, and he said to her, “now you have no way out, every one knows now that you are with me after wandering around town, now you have to come with me. Thats how things were in those days”
She was 19 years old.
“Later he cheated on me, I found out years later,” she says.
Now in Los Angeles, she struggles to move forward every day. She was wary of love but found her new love, a mariachi who won her over with his words and his treatment.
“One day he said to me, ‘you are alone and so am I.’ My children supported the decision.
She thinks that domestic violence can be addictive.
“We have to fight against that, educate ourselves, and fight to change things. Now I am in a better place, I have my own business, but I still help women dealing with domestic violence. I don’t work full time with the Promesa Boyle Heights, but my dedication is still one hundred percent. I believe that women who suffer domestic violence deserve a second chance, that’s what my children told me, and I gave myself that second chance,” she adds.
Now, this new partner lulls her some days with her favorite song, ‘Esta noche clara de inquietos luceros…’ (En esta noche clara de inquietos luceros…)
En esta noche clara de inquietos luceros
Lo que yo más quiero
Te vengo a decir
En tanto que la luna extiende en el cielo
Su pálido velo
De plata y zafir
Y en mi corazón
Siempre estás
Y no puedo olvidarte jamás
Porque yo nací
Para ti
Y en mi alma la reina serás”They say to my old man… ‘what kind of woman did you get.'”
Her website:
Guille Designs LA Eco Friendly
“I had to make changes, help in the community, dependence fosters abuse”
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