‘We need these stories’

At ¡Yo Quiero Dinero!, Midwest Mujeres' annual storytelling event, women share tales of struggle and achievement

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"According to society, I wasn’t supposed to be here today,” declares Jenise Judon, standing tall in a brown business jumpsuit on center stage at the MYArts’ Starlight theater. She takes one step closer to the audience and begins her story.

Judon tells the crowd that she dropped out of high school after having her first child at 17.

“I fell off, but I didn’t stay off,” she says. Judon worked three jobs and returned to school to graduate on time with her class — her son was in the audience when she received her diploma. She began her career at a bank, and became pregnant with her second child. But when the bank went bankrupt and she was laid off, she and her children had to move back in with Judon’s mother, sleeping together on a couch.

“That’s when I made a promise to myself,” says Judon. “I don’t tell myself ‘no’ anymore because I stand in my power and I know my purpose…I continued striving for more, and I continued to grow.”

Judon, now the CEO and founder of Never Say No Enterprises and Urban Triage’s director of programming, is the first speaker at ¡Yo Quiero Dinero! Our Stories Have Value on Nov. 8. It’s an annual storytelling event hosted by Midwest Mujeres, a Madison-area nonprofit whose mission is to empower Latina and Black female entrepreneurs.

Midwest Mujeres founder Araceli Esparza welcomes the crowd at the start of the evening, noting the political and economic forces bearing down especially hard on women of color.

“With mass layoffs, incarceration and deportation, we need these stories that didn’t make the evening news,” says Esparza, an author and storyteller herself.

“Nobody is going to tell you how to run a business,” she adds. “These women tonight are going to tell you how they did it. How they overcame racial discrimination, poverty, violence, all kinds of things that they overcame to make their dreams happen.”

The stories, promises Esparza, will make people cry, laugh, feel inspired and regain hope. “If we are going to become formidable opposition to what is happening right now, we need these stories.”

The women speaking at ¡Yo Quiero Dinero! are members of a cohort that met every Wednesday for 16 weeks, “donating 400 hours towards their empowerment,” says Esparza.

¡Yo Quiero Dinero! — which translates to “We Want Money!” — was created as a storytelling space to “elevate ordinary women telling their extraordinary journeys.” It reflects the idea behind Midwest Mujeres: Storytelling empowers women to reclaim their narratives, confront their past and acquire the skills necessary to overcome economic injustices on their path toward achieving their goals.

Aida Leflore, another of the night’s storytellers, enters stage right, salsa dancing to upbeat Latin music. “My name is Aida Leflore, and I am far from boring,” she announces.

Leflore recounts how she quit her job in 2022 with no contingency plan. The day she walked away, she says, was the day she gained her freedom. “Released from the golden shackles of being a Black woman in corporate America” was her first step toward achieving her dreams, she says.

“I was tired of toxic managers and microaggressions. I was tired of being underpaid.”

Leflore founded an accounting business in 2020, but thought of it as her “side gig” at the time. That changed after she quit her corporate job. Today she is the owner and financial manager of Leflore Accounting Services, where she works full time, pursuing her passion for numbers and helping people understand their finances.

“Instead of trying to find a seat at the table,” she says, “I built my own table.” 

4: Years ¡Yo Quiero Dinero! has been held

1: Number of years Midwest Mujeres has been an official nonprofit

11: Number of speakers at this year’s ¡Yo Quiero Dinero!

Wisconsin median hourly wages*

$28.54: White men

$23.66: White women

$20.29: Black women

$17.57: Hispanic women

*Wage data Source: The State of Working Wisconsin 2025