For those feeling unseen and unheard by the larger Durango community, Linda Illsley, her sister, Sara, and Sara’s daughter, Gyana, are working hard to give those residents visibility and voices through their work with a series of nonprofit organizations and programs, including Construyendo Poder, The Slow Money Institute and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

One of the lesser seen and heard communities with which the three women are doing extensive work is the Hispanic population.

“Most of the population lives in the shadows,” Sara said. “They clean houses and work the labor jobs. They’re not really noticed.”

Immigrated from Mexico, the three women were disappointed to find that their community was given so little value in Durango, a town that depends on their services to survive.

“Durango would collapse if it wasn’t for the Hispanic community working here,” Linda said.

At 15 years old, Linda graduated from high school early and decided to spread her wings overseas, leaving Uruapan behind.

“I wanted to get out and explore,” she said.

She began to travel outside Mexico to various countries, including Great Britain, and eventually found her way to Durango, where she had planned to visit only for a little while. That visit began to stretch out longer and longer, until she decided to make Durango her permanent home in 2000. One year after her decision to remain in Southwest Colorado, her sister would follow, bringing her daughter, Gyana (who goes by Bundy), with her from Mexico City.

“We had no problem moving here because our parents were Americans,” said Sara Illsley, Linda’s younger sister. “They actually met when they went back in Mexico.”

“We were lucky,” Sara said. “We were privileged immigrants. We didn’t have the same experiences coming from Mexico as others did.”

Sara’s daughter, Bundy Gomar, who was born in Mexico, did not have the same easy transition into the United States. The then 12-year-old had to get representation to help her gain American citizenship, a process that took seven years.

“So many people think it’s easy to become a U.S. citizen, and it’s not,” Gomar said. “You have to get a lawyer and have a sponsor.”

On average, it takes a minimum of five years to become a U.S. citizen, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“It’s a really long, hard process,” Gomar said.

Not long after Sara and Gomar’s arrival to Durango, they noticed a definitive split between the white community and the Hispanic community.

“They (the Hispanic community) were really behind the scenes and there wasn’t much social justice for them when we moved here,” Sara said.

The three women point to lack of medical care access as one of the biggest problems they discovered for the Hispanic community when immigrating to the U.S., and only in recent years has Colorado addressed some of the issues.

“There has long been a fear of going to the hospital,” Linda said, “Most of them live in fear (of the authorities), and sometimes there is no one to translate for them when they do go to the hospital.”

Sara said she would often go to the local hospitals and clinics to work as a translator for the Spanish-speaking patients.

“Some businesses in Durango have interpretation machines that can intimidate Spanish speakers,” she said.

The three women do acknowledge the strides being made in Colorado to assist the Hispanic community, and they give credit to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis for aiding in that effort. In June, Polis signed into law a bill that would make pregnant undocumented immigrants and their children eligible for Medicaid, effective at the beginning of 2025.

“A lot of efforts are being made lately,” Sara said. “It’s much better than it was.”

Sara, however, believes that many in the Hispanic community are not getting the kind of health care they need, namely mental health care, simply because they cannot afford it.

In the United States, 2.12 million Hispanic families live below the poverty level, according to the Statista Research Department. A 2019 report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also indicated that suicide was the second leading cause of death among Hispanics, and they were also 50% less likely to receive mental health treatment than non-Hispanics.

Determined to combat this issue, Sara became one of the leaders of Construyendo Poder (Building Power), a program that seeks to strengthen the mental health of Durango’s Hispanic community.

Founded in 2018 by Executive Director Wendolyn Omaña, along with Sara and other volunteers, Construyendo Poder began running retreats and clinics that focus on teaching those in the Hispanic community how to balance their mental health through practicing yoga and breathing exercises and learning about herbs and homeopathetic remedies, as well as receiving acupuncture. The organization focuses its efforts heavily on the women and mothers in the community, those it feels are the most neglected by society.

“We wanted to focus on the caregivers,” Sara said. “In our Mexican culture, putting women’s needs last is common, especially mothers. We’re helping them learn how to cope with stress.”

Aiding her mother in her efforts, Gomar teaches art therapy to the children of those men and women who sign up with Construyendo Poder, including conducting painting and pottery classes.

“They’ve gotten to learn about so many things, like what a kiln is,” Gomar said. “Being in the studio has opened their eyes to a whole new world.”

Similarly driven to help her community and those in need locally, older sister Linda is an advocate for using local food sources and works for The Slow Money Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on helping farmers and local food systems prosper through peer-to-peer lending, connecting investors to local agricultural ventures, and offering zero interest micro loans to farmers.

Linda’s interest in helping La Plata County farmers stems back to her early days in Durango, when she sold tamales at the local farmers market.

“People couldn’t just buy a tamale,” Linda said. “I would always engage them in conversation. Sometimes they would get lectures about the importance of local food production.”

Following in her mother’s and aunt’s philanthropic footsteps, Gomar focuses her energy on helping the disadvantaged youths of her community.

“I work at Big Brothers Big Sisters (of America), and I also work at the Hispanic center at the Fort Lewis Campus, El Centro,” she said.

She also works with the FLC’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, which regularly provides students with free HIV testing.

“We were raised with the mentality of always being in service,” Linda said. “Leave the world better than when you came into it.”

molsen@durangoherald.com