March 24, 2000

Politico Profile

By Julie Amparano

The realizations came to her during childhood.

Sitting at home in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, an 11-year-old Irasema T. Garza realized that she could never play on the Dallas Cowboys football team, that she would not work in the fields all her life, like her parents, and that she needed a college education to succeed.

"It was so demoralizing for me to see that I would never be able to play football for the Dallas Cowboys," says the petite Garza. "I was a football fanatic. I was always playing in the street. I wanted to be the next Roger Staubach."

Today, Garza is director of the U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau. She was appointed last November to the post. It's not the Dallas Cowboys, but Garza says she loves advocating for the rights of working women.

She isn't new to the Clinton Administration. In January 1994, Garza was appointed executive director of the Congressional Commission on Family and Medical Leave. During her stint there, she laid the foundation for a commission's report on the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act on workers and employers across the country.

In August of 1994, Garza became head of the U.S. National Administrative Office, a position which she held until taking leadership of the Women's Bureau. The NAO administers the labor side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States.

As its first Secretary, Garza worked closely with her Mexican and Canadian counterparts to establish critical procedures for handling labor issues related to free trade.

She says she's proud to be part of a major Latino contingent in the Clinton Administration. Clinton's other Latino appointments include, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson; Small Business Administration chief Aida Alvarez, former cabinet officials Federico Peña and Henry Cisneros, and Maria Echaveste, a top advisor to the president on Latino affairs.

Garza says, "We've made great strides. But there's still a long way to go. I think about the day when there will be more of us. Latinos provide a different perspective. There's a big need for more perspectives."

Before joining Clinton Administration, Garza practiced law in Ann Arbor, Michigan for nine years. She earned her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan.

"I got a scholarship from the state of Michigan for the children of farm workers,'' Garza says. "My mother always told me that she could see that I hated to work in the fields. She told me to find another way. That's what I did."

E-mail the writer at Jaamparano@aol.com. Reprinted from Politico Magazine V3-21, 3/16/00