Her Story
About Candace
I really wanted to go into public administration, though my original background began in business administration. I chose that degree because it seemed to be what everyone was doing at the time, looking at entrepreneurship, but it never sat with me. It never was a passion, it never driven me to do anything or to be greater than I was. As life went on and I got able to focus on myself, I wanted to know what did drive me, and our political climate did - the things that we're seeing in our communities. I also began to work in mental health as an executive assistant, and I began to see how our political climate affected the co-occurring disorders as mental health and substance use disorder. It just ended up triggering that question: how can I make a difference on a massive level? That led me to public administration to focus on policy - rewriting policy, changing policy, doing reform policy. My ultimate goal is to be an advocate lawyer. Right now, I'm still learning, still growing, still getting a grasp of everything. It's so much bigger puzzle than it looks like when you're in school. I'm learning the branches and the depth of how public administration works and the avenues that it takes, whether it's the budgeting or the human resource side. There's that part where you have to put your biases down and ask what's the big picture for overall everyone. That's what the day-to-day basis is - learning to set myself aside and seeing the greater within.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Candace
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my faith and my family. My mother believed in me even when I strayed, even when I was not sure or unsure, or walked away from the goal. She believed that I could achieve it, and when I told her I was ready, she did everything in her power to make sure that if there was an obstacle, she helped me remove it. When I'm under pressure or whatever, I can just go say I just need to lay on your lap and just take a moment, and I'm able to do that with her. My children saw the struggle as a single parent, they saw the divorce, and they just focused with me. They did what they had to do, they finished school, and then when it was over, they were like, it's your time, and how do we support you now?
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Don't give up on your dream deferred. I had to wait 20 years before I could go back to school to get my degree. Just because it is deferred, or it's not happening in a linear place, understand that mountains don't begin linear. There's ups and downs, and there's one day that you're on the mountain, but there's a quote that says not to stay on the mountaintop often, so you'll understand what the value is. Most people are in the Valley. If you're always on the mountaintop, you'll never understand the people that you are there to support. People will say, what's your why? But I don't want that as the reason. What is the legacy you want to leave?
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest opportunity I see is to have more Black and Brown people on the political force. We need more of us in the spotlight, because as we can see, our communities are under attack, our schools are under attack. We still have to worry about this post-administration - when it's over, how do we bounce back from that? The only way we're gonna do it is if we're there in the trenches, not just watching, but we are there in the voices. Even if you don't go so far into politics, going into policy, learning policy, understanding governance is critical. We need to speak clearly to those who were not there, and help educate them on their voting ability and how powerful our voices are. How powerful they are - they wouldn't be trying to take it from us if it wasn't powerful.
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