Maria de Remedio Martinez

In honor of upcoming Mother's Day I will be posting EVE's all week who are mothers. Enjoy.

Today's EVE: Maria de Remedio Martinez

"I give thanks to God that I am a woman so that I could have my sons and my husband and live a happy life." - Maria de Remedio Martinez owns Zaragoza, a Mexican deli/market in the East Village.#damnrightiatetheapple #mothersday

Sarah Wilen

"As a kid I read a lot of books and I noticed how male or female protagonists took different life paths. I learned there were acceptable paths based on gender. Sometimes novels give you a societal message, like Pride and Prejudice and sometimes the message is subtler. My interest in psychology is related to all the reading I've done and the questions I have about how someone's background influences what kind of character they become." - Sarah Wilen is a sociaspatial analyst at PLASTARC.

Deborah Cannon

"My parents raised me to believe I could do anything and gender was never a part of it. When I was 18 years I went to Florida to pick up a car from my father and drive it back to Texas.  He gave me his car and he also gave me his gun.  He said, "You never point this gun at someone unless you plan on killing them."  That was the first time he showed to me that he is scared to have a girl in the world and it was when I realized I may not be as powerful and untouchable as I thought I was or as they raised me to be." - Deborah Cannon is a photojournalist and lives in Austin, Texas.

Danielle Cohn

"When I was a young girl I was encouraged to be a performer, to be an actress and singer. My grandmother would take me around as a cute little girl to sing at different community places. That enabled me to be a storyteller, to be able to walk into a room and be comfortable. I was one of the first women in tech in Philly and that has given me good access and opportunity because people were looking for diversity.  I don't see being a woman as a challenge I see it as a benefit." - Danielle Cohn is the Director of Entrepreneurial Engagement at Comcast and leads the Lift Lab for entrepreneurs.

Kirin Kalia

"My father passed away a few months ago. He was from India and when he moved to the United States he didn't want to maintain strong connections with his roots. Eight years ago I went to India and I got to know my Indian family. One of the happiest days of my life was when I realized I had didis.  "Didi" means older sister in Hindi and can include cousins.  My didis are the eldest daughters of my father's youngest sister.  The warmth and love between us was immediate. It was unconditional. They didn't know me and I didn't know them. I didn't know I had didis growing up. I mean WTF. Now we have a didis group on Whatsapp.  My Father wanted me to take a safe path, be a lawyer and I pursued a different path.  We butted heads until my mid-30's and then this trip to India was a new beginning for my father and me. He started telling me stories about the bumpy path of his immigration. When he was on his deathbed, he told my brother to bring his ashes to the Ganges River. It is the son who has to bury the father. There's no role for the woman in the ritual, as my mother told me.  I couldn't take the trip to India this year,  to the Ganges - the day my mother and brother went there I cried so hard. But I was with them in spirit. And I'm so glad our Indian family took such good care of them." -  Kirin Kalia is the Director of Communications at KITE.

Jen Lee Reeves & Jordan Reeves

"The entire adventure Jordan and I are on started the day she born. I knew I would get her all the resources she needed. What I didn't know is that she would be bringing the resources to me." Jen Lee Reeves is the Founder of Born Just Right and is the mother of two children. "The boys won't pass the basketball to the girls at all unless the teacher tells them to. It's so annoying. But unless I am on an all girls team I don't ever get the ball.  And even then I don't get the ball that much." - Jordan Reeves is the Co-Founder and Innovator at Born Just Right. She is 12 years old and designed her own prosthetic arm that she is pictured with, which is a purple unicorn horn that shoots biodegradable glitter. She is currently designing another prosthetic arm for herself that has various tools on it, similar to a Swiss Army Knife.

Rakia Reynolds

"I used to think procrastinating was a good thing. But when I was pregnant with my third child, I was at a photo shoot when the contractions started.  I kept working, I said, just one more photo and then I'll go. But I waited until the contractions were four minutes apart to go to the hospital and I never made it to a room, he was born in the hallway. The hospital staff called him "hallway baby". Now I don't procrastinate." - Rakia Reynolds is the founder and CEO of SkaiBlueMedia and the mother of three children.

Emily Chang

"Listening to the stories that women shared with me inspired me to write my book, "Brotopia: Breaking up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley". If I weren't a woman I wouldn't have had the understanding about their experience in Silicon Valley.  I hope my contribution starts a conversation that makes the world a better place for all of us."  - Emily Chang is a journalist/author and the host of Bloomberg Technology.

Sonya Zhang

"The customers like coming to the women artists. They think we have more patience listening to them and with the design process.  I don't really think we are more patient.  I'm not more patient, but people perceive us to be." - Sonya Zhang is a tattoo artist in the East Village and she is originally from China.

Naqausia Pollard

"I don't think I would have been given as much time if I were a man. I was sentenced to 18 years for robbery in the first. They charged me as though I were a predicate, but I was a first time felon.  I appealed, but it was denied because I had taken a plea bargain. I was 19 years old and pregnant when I went to prison and I served 15 years." -  Naquasia Pollard turns 34 years old today.  This is her first birthday at home since was 19 years old.

Chloe Siegman

"Everything I I have experienced I have experienced in a certain way because I am a woman. The way I connect with people would be very different if I weren't female. I feel there is a learned behavior that is common in women. It involves listening and reflecting in a way that I don't see in my male presenting friends. I don't think it is a behavior that can't be learned by them, but me and my female friends have practiced more. This way of communicating leads me to see a lot of beauty in other people and opens up a depth of connection that is extremely useful." - Chloe Siegman is a theater arts major at Boston University.

Melissa Tomback

"I gave birth to my younger child, Jacob in my home and that was so empowering.  It made me feel like I could do anything. In contrast to my first pregnancy and my daughter's birth, where I had so much doubt about becoming a new mother and read books and got lots of advice.  Also, after she was born I had postpartum depression.  With the second pregnancy, I realized I had the intuition to deliver him and raise him myself. We had a family bed and I was just calmer, not as anxious." -  Melissa Tomback is a mother, lawyer, photographer and doula.

Singeli Agnew

"I've traveled a lot for work and it's rare to get real moments of intimacy and connection when you are in and out of places very quickly. Yet, I feel I have this collection of images in my mind of women connecting with me just on the basis of being a woman. In Iran I was filming the Supreme Leader and I was having a hard a time with my head scarf - I am just not that good at putting them on correctly. And then, in the kindest way possible, a woman come up to me and took our her own hairpin and fixed my headscarf so that it didn't get in the way of the camera. She saw that I was struggling with it and we were only speaking the language of womanhood. I think this sort of intimacy is particular to being a woman." - Singeli Agnew is an American producer/cinematographer currently based in Beirut.