Imagine how terrifying it must be to have to end your business. You put all this work and effort into a passion that you can actually monetize and for what? A microscopic virus to bring your biz to it’s knees?! That’s bad biz-knees! (Pronounced “biz·nuhs.”) And nobody knows this better than Navajo Designer Glenda Bennett, with roots from the Diné tribe. Luckily, she’s already rolling in this job that she has started her new career.
Glenda is a trucker. And she’s proud of it.
Took her a lot of tragedy to come across this new venture in her life. Her company, Glenda Bags, had inspiration from Diné culture. This led Bennett to design handbags in a unique “fashion.”
However, with the Corona Virus in full swing in the states by May, Bennett didn’t feel enthusiastic about asking friends to buy her product when they weren’t even working themselves. Whatever could Bennett do? After all, she had an four-year old child at home.
After much thought and deliberation, Bennett knew there had to be something else she could do. Her father, encouraging as ever, had a good point: truck driving could always be a source of money.
Several weeks of training and helluva lot of paperwork later and Bennett had acquired a Class A commercial driver’s license (CDL).
From that point on she’s been trucking with the help of a Freightliner Cascadia tractor, equipped with a Detroit DD15 engine and a DT12 transmission. The truck-stop life is considerably decent. And though she loves the job and cheers on other female drivers, Bennett wasn’t thrilled about the sexism.
“I’m a woman and I’m indigenous,” says Bennett. “This means wherever I go, I’m more likely to be targeted.” Furthermore, she had experienced some sexism in her class and had to realize this.
She even brought up the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls coalition to her trainer.
Finally, It’s a good thing she’s making money and enjoying her job. Not to mention the CDC has said truckers, working virtually all the time from their truck cab, were very safe from the corona virus.
