BY PETE DELEA

It was a bitter cold February night in Maryland's capitol, and she was standing behind the podium waiting for the annual Noche de Accion Latina, a rally for Latino rights, to begin. She finally had a moment to relax after hours of running back and forth from one senator's office to the next, lobbying on Latinos behalf.

She quickly joined in a constant chant, alternating back and forth from English and Spanish, led by the one of the speakers and echoed by hundreds of immigrants living in Maryland.

"What do we want?"

"Driver's licenses!"

"When do we want them?"

"Now!"

The chant grew louder and louder as it serenaded the governor, who was just yards away in his mansion hosting a dinner for Prince George's County legislative delegates.

Kim Propeack remained behind the scenes, coordinating speakers, for most of the night. Popping out only on a couple of occasions to please the press and to mingle with the Latino community she works for.

"In many professions people only think about money, but it's not her first issue," said Elmer Romero, education director of Casa de Maryland. "She wants to help people."

Propeack, an attorney and advocacy coordinator for Casa de Maryland, a Latino rights organization, shuns the spotlight, glamour, and money she could be receiving by working for a prestigious law firm. Instead she puts her passion towards a non-profit group fighting for immigrant and worker's rights.

Propeack grew up in several small towns but most of her time was spent in Carbondale, Penn. She was the great granddaughter of a Polish immigrant who came to the country and quickly went to work as a coal miner. Mining was the chief economic source for the city until 1940, but still played a vital part of everyone's life after. Propeack said everyone in the community felt the effects.

"The whole time growing up my grandfather had black lung," she said. "What I saw was my grandfather slowly dying."

By witnessing the struggles of the community, Propeack said she was able to identify at an early age that there was a need to improve immigrant and workers rights. With that in mind, she headed off to the University of Buffalo where she took up women's studies as an undergraduate and wrapped up her education with a law degree.

Before she started working for Casa de Maryland she spent several weeks in Guatemala where she quickly learned the Spanish language.

Propeack also spent two summers during school working on fishing boats in Alaska where she gutted and cleaned Salmon all day. She said that only about 10 percent of the staff were women and sexual harassment was commonplace, including the time her roommate was almost raped.

She also lived in San Francisco for nine months where she spent most of her time helping the homeless.

"I would spend three or four nights a week handing out food and was arrested once for serving food to the homeless in parks," said Propeack.

She decided to take her experiences and her passion for immigrant and workers' rights and move to Maryland where she worked in Baltimore providing legal counseling and representation to farm workers.

In 1999, Propeack continued her efforts to improve workers' rights when she started working for the legal department of Casa de Maryland. Some of her duties included representing immigrant laborers in wage and hour litigation in courts and lobbying on state and local legislation.

One of her major successes was the passage of a bill (SB 265) in 2002 that required the state to provide translators to non-English speakers in the court system. In her spare time, when she is not lobbying lawmakers in Annapolis, she prepares and educates Latinos on how to represent themselves to government officials. Part of the training is geared to prepare them for the annual Noche de Accion Latina event where hundreds of Latinos from throughout the state gather at the capitol to voice their concerns.

With only days to fine tune the last minute details, she organized a meeting with several of Casa's staff members in the organization's meeting room, which turned out to be a kitchen. There were a few computer desks scattered around the room, a table and some office supplies spread throughout the room including a three-hole puncher behind the sink. To the right of the table were stacks of boxes of condoms that the health department of Casa distributes. During the meeting she tied up some loose ends by verifying that the buses were going to be in place to pick up the participants and that the organizers were on the same page and were ready to go.

She then went back to her desk to make some phones calls. Her desk was cluttered and her walls were full. Hanging on one wall, opposite a picture comparing President Bush to a monkey, was a poster of Mumia Abu-Jamal, declaring the need to free him.

"He'll never be let go, but at least he is not going to die," she said.

Propeack said she doesn't really get into lobbying about the death penalty or other issues but she does attend rallies whenever they take place including the recent anti-war protests against Iraq.

The phone quickly rang and one of her colleagues called to inform her that the Lt. Governor had been confirmed to speak at the event. The event was planned and she had a few days to relax.

"I now have two gift certificates for massages and facials," she said to a coworker. "I'll have my first day off in three weeks, so I'm using one on Sunday."