1. Yolanda & I, Nicole Melnick on the Venice Boardwalk
2. Yolanda & Philip Melnick circa 1980
3. Yolanda at an International Women’s Day Celebration March 8, 2018
I first met Yolanda 27 years ago when I was 21. She was overjoyed because it had been hard to have a meaningful relationship with my late husband Philip Melnick, aka Felipe, only because they had been separated due to Felipe‘s former wife making it hard for him to visit. That is what she told me, anyway. She would always remind me that she was overjoyed that I was in his life and that he could be back in her life.
Yolanda and Felipe met in the late 70s or early 80s as they were both union organizers. They weren’t just any union organizers. They were the greatest union organizers, in the upper echelon of the greatest union organizers in California history in fact, it’s possible that they were so good that when they organized the psych tech workers of the California state mental hospitals, and one one of the largest campaigns in California history, shortly thereafter, Ronald Reagan would enact policies that would drastically undermine all the state hospitals, leaving the mentally ill without proper care and oversight, which may have contributed to the worsening of today’s mental health, crisis and homelessness epidemic.
Whenever we went to Venice, I would always see Yolanda going out to help the homeless, collect things from around the neighborhood to refurbish with her own beautiful style, and always staying busy. We will talk about her heroes that were also my heroes like Ernesto Che Guevara and the great labor leaders she grew up with as a campesina (migrant farm worker) and young community organizer.
Whenever we go to Venice, Yolanda would let us know just how happy she was to see us. She always made me feel special like part of a family. A strange but amazing family. In 2010 my late husband, Felipe and I would come back from Yucatán where we were looking for a place for us to move with my father-in-law who I cared for in his home. We knew we would need more help for him and wanted a better quality of life for all of us. What we didn’t know was that we were going to meet a very special curandero who would find the need to treat my husband as apparently he was sick.The treatment was 14 days of Ayuasca. Don Antonio would immediately tell him in Mayan, translated by his daughter to Spanish, that the pain in his back was not coming from his back. Hence the need for the treatment. We asked our healer Don Antonio, if it would be safe to come back to the United States while on this treatment. He said yes. The reason that it would be safe was because of Yolanda and the spirit of her abuelita. Felipe needed help during the treatment. He was having trouble coming down off of the tea Medicine. He was too high and too overheated.
When we arrived in Los Angeles, Felipe would say he wanted to go to Venice, not home. Jim picked us up and brought us to his house. It was the last day for he and other free Venice beachhead participants to get the paper out, and it was a little difficult with Felipe not quite being himself. I tried to keep him out of their way. I put him to bed in Karl’s room and went to sit in the dining room to collect my mind after a long journey. Yolanda comes out of her room seemingly aggravated. She asked “who’s here!?” I said to her “Yolanda it’s Nikki.” She argued “no it’s not Nikki. Don’t say it’s Nikki.” I told her come over here and look at me.
When she saw it was me we had a good embrace. I explained to her what was going on with Felipe and she immediately sprang into action. I never saw anything like it. She started saying, no, chanting “the shaman wants him to come down. The shaman wants him to come down. The shaman wants him to come down.” She went over to Felipe and took his head in her hand and put her other hand over his forehead.
She started speaking a language that I never heard her speak before. I believe it must have been Yaqui like she heard from her grandmother, or abuelita. It almost seemed like she was in a trance. She was very deliberate and even forceful in a gentle way. I looked around to see if anybody else was seeing this or hearing this. I was the only witness besides Felipe. He looks like he was getting great relief, and when she was done, she tucked him in and told him to sleep. I don’t think he would’ve gone to sleep any other way during this time. It helped him transition back to this world. she and I ended up staying up all night talking, her telling stories, and us crying together.
Her actions were truly inspiring, and I felt that her abuelita had somehow come together with our curandero in Yucatán in spirit to help Felipe through that difficult time. A couple of weeks later, Jim would report that whatever took place that night seemed to help Yolanda out of a funk that she had been in for some time. A few months later, we would find out from Don Antonio that he was extremely worried about Felipe‘s health and believed that that treatment with ayahuasca was the only way to help him. That he knew it would be hard but necessary. Felipe ended up living eight more years.
During the time that Felipe was sick with lung cancer soon after we lost his father, he became very depressed and even a little angry. I did my best to try to keep up his spirits, but it was definitely a heartbreaking and challenging time. Suddenly he started to emotionally come back to life. He wanted to see his friends and the number one friend he wanted to see was Yolanda. He got on the phone with her. He told her that we had a room for her to stay in for as long as she wanted and a van for her to drive. Tragically that would not be realized while he was alive. He passed away a couple of weeks later.
About three or four weeks after Felipe’s passing, Yolanda would come to take care of me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, I could barely even get out of bed and mostly I did not for some time. We cried together because Felipe was more than a friend to her. He was family. After Felipe talked to Yolanda for the last time, he said to me how beautiful she is. I agreed and said “ yes, like Katy Jurado. He objected “ No! More beautiful than Katy Jurado.“ I had to agree with him.
Yolanda did the things that I could not do. She tried to keep up the house; cleaning, sweeping, vacuuming, wiping. I didn’t even see most of what she would do because I just couldn’t be that present. But her presence there meant the world to me and my daughter. She would tell me how important it was for us to celebrate international women’s day. So even though I was really in no shape to do that, because she had been there for me so much, I decided that I would do everything I could to make it a good one. We would put together little gifts to hand out. Rose petals and lavender in little sachets. Postcards of the legendary Frida Kahlo. I still have mine of course. And we went to the favorite Venetian Mexican restaurant, La Cabaña, and many amazing women showed up to help ring in international women’s day. I saw her in her element: empowering working class and artisan women and mothers. That was the first time I would meet her gorgeous daughter Rebecca, and I could see the resemblance, especially in the way they carried themselves.
Finally, she would help me, my mother, Karl, and Jim prepare for Felipe’s memorial. She worked so hard that she knocked herself out that day and wasn’t able to attend much of the memorial. I was so grateful. I even called her mama in front of my own mother, which would normally be a sacrilege to my mother. I said “Mom, this is the only person besides you that I will ever call mama. She deserves that.“ My mother nodded her head in acceptance.
Over the next year after Felipe‘s passing, Karl, or as we often refer to him affectionately as Karlos, would help me through the most difficult year of my life. Every day, I would wake up to find myself in the same nightmare, that my husband really was gone. Some nights I could barely sleep, even though I felt like I had been hit by two Mac trucks. When I spent time with Karl I felt a little lighter and definitely cared about. He even loved Felipe. I loved the fact that he loved my husband very much and would’ve done anything to help him through his cancer crisis. I love that he loved Yolanda very much like family. She always said that her mother told her that angels walk the Earth and Karlos is an angel walking the Earth. Probably the most positive person I’ve ever met. Not to mention kind. After a year of deep mourning , Karl would confess his love for me very tenderly. Couldn’t help but love him back. When I told Yolanda she said to me that she knew before I did. I was not surprised.
Karl and I would help.Yolanda return back to California after living in Utah and Oregon. While she stayed for some months in Venice at our friend Lisa’s Airbnb, I would drive several times a week from Studio City to help her connect with doctors for her chronic pain and other necessary, medical treatment. We would go shopping, get a bite to eat, and have great visits. Eventually, I would officially become her caregiver, and eventually she, Jim, Karlos, and I would move into a house in Woodland Hills just a couple of miles away from my own home in West Hills. I’m not gonna say it was an easy time, but I’m glad I did it. It was an honor to take care of Yolanda despite the fact that sometimes there were difficulties. She was a Taurus, so I believe her being stubborn at times was what developed her chongona status. That is the same status that would carry her throughout her union career. I aspire to her chingona greatness.
We would have many great laughs, especially when I had to give her injections of arthritis medication. She taught me the Spanish word lonja , which means love handle. I would say, “OK get out your lonja!” She would laugh and say “oh, you like this you vampire!“ We both cracked up.
I would end up having to unexpectedly move back to my home where my daughter was still living due to unforeseen circumstances. I was glad we were still close to where she was living so that I could check in on her often. Like anybody would for their mama. We would still get to tell stories, share many memories, and laugh, usually hearty gut wrenching laughter. She reminded me of my husband in many ways, so I longed for it.
She ministered a healing session to me when I came to her shaking and desperately in need. I had been betrayed by “family” and after so much heartbreak, my nervous system was bonkers. I brought her sage in abalone shell and a fan to smudge me. I knew took this very seriously. She had done this for Felipe when he was sick. Just like before, Yolanda spoke and moved with force and focus. She bathed me in smoke and invoked divine protection. She told bad spirits to get away. My shaking and sickness from sadness was largely lifted when she was done. I hugged her and thanked her. I told her I knew she was the only one that could help me.
The next day she told me that she got very sick and vomited from the cleansing ceremony or limpia she gave me. She said she wasn’t telling me so that I would feel bad. Instead, I had to really guard myself and not hold onto others hate.
Thank God Karl and I got to see Yolanda in Utah a couple of weeks before she left us. She was beautiful and in rare form. She was beaming that we were there, and she had a special light around her. She helped fix my medicine bag, the one with my curandero’s medicine pouch. She blessed it and put her heartbeat in it and told me to keep it close. I have so much gratitude for her for all she did for me and all she did for so many. I saw her son Timoteo lovingly caring for her which filled my heart. I love her children as my own family.
Two giants passed away very close to each other in time and space on September 15, 2025. Yolanda Moreno Miranda in Richfield, Utah and Robert Redford in Provo, Utah. May they continue their work from the spirit side, along with Felipe. May we make them proud. May they watch over us all in these challenging times. It was an honor to consider Yolanda among my most intimate of friends.
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