Episode 4: Learning from Cynthia Mendes

Speaker 1  00:06

Bell, this is from ideas to impact, where students, professors and professionals explore the question, how do you change the world in creative ways, no matter what industry you're in? My name is Jocelyn Bell, and I'm the professor who teaches the human spark a class at Bryant University in which we delve into the sociology behind the overlap of creativity, innovation.

Jocelyn Bell  00:36

This is the final guest discussion episode from the spring 2025 semester, and we're hearing from Cynthia Mendes, the Massachusetts State co director of Clean Water Action. As always, you can find a link to her bio in the episode description, as well as a link to the rough transcription of the episode. Check out the link to her bio because she, at one point, was a Rhode Island State Senator, which you will hear more about in this episode. Please excuse the audio quality, since my laptop had to act as both primary audio recording device due to technical difficulties, as well as the resources to help keep track of the flow of Cynthia's visit. I first had a discussion with Cynthia about the overlap of the relationship between love, redefining power and Civic Engagement back in 2022 so I was happy that she agreed to join the human spark class this spring to share her thoughts on that overlap that have developed over time. So thank you to the politics, law and society department for sponsoring her visit. Our discussion with her was a little different from those with previous guest speakers, and if you haven't checked out those episodes, I encourage you to do so we had some amazing people come through the class, but her discussion was a little different, because hers was the last visit of the semester. Our time together unintentionally became a space for the class to collectively reflect on our progress to that point, which turned out to be very fruitful. Cynthia helped that process along by some of the questions she ended up asking the students. In order to reach one of the goals for the human spark class, the students were learning how to facilitate a guest speaker event. So the questions asked during the discussion were primarily crafted by students before Cynthia visited, and the CO facilitators of the discussion were Augie Izzy and myself. Enjoy.

Speaker 2  03:02

You. Question.

Speaker 3  03:09

Oh, that's right, thank you. See, I'm off key. Look, you got you got me. August audit, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2  03:18

I'm really excited to be with people do intros, really, yeah, share. In a conversational way, and I know we're going to have a conversation, but I would love to know who I'm talking to. So names would be, would be great if we could go around. Yeah?

03:37

Michael,

Speaker 2  03:40

yes. I'm Denise. Hi, Denise John. John, so nice to meet y'all. Okay, so I'm really happy to share a little bit about who I am, how I got here, and also my how creativity and love kind of impact my my work, both in policy, organizing and community work. The first thing that I like to do is recognize that this started before me. This was a legacy that i There are parts of what I do I actually inherited from my parents and really even my great grandfather and my ancestors, and they were things that I take from, from their experiences that kind of very much informed the work that I do. And so you heard a little bit about that in my bio. So my, you know, my mom and my mom's family's from Puerto Rico, which is a historically colonized Island, and then my dad's family from Cape Verde Islands, from nine islands off the coast of Africa, which were also colonized by the Portuguese and then was liberated in the 1940s and in that process, before the Cape Verde Islands were liberated, my great grandfather. I was able to escape colonized Cape Verde and come to America. And he came here with very little money in his pocket, but with the commitment that he was going to then get enough money to get a boat to bring others here. And decades later, I'll say to this long story, he was able to do that. He was able to secure a boat go back to Cape Verde. And he was part of something, if you research it's called the Cape Verdean packet, and it was part of the fleet of ships. He captained the schooner Ernestina, which is now a historical tall ship, which brought many first generation Cape Verdeans to this country. And then my father, so his his grandson was going to law school and abruptly gave up law school with the decision to become an inner city minister and a prison chaplain. And so what my legacy, what my ancestors have taught me, is that whenever you have an opportunity, you it is our duty and my duty and my obligation to make opportunities for others. That's what my ancestors and my legacy is taught me. So I watched that with my dad and his choice to kind of give up a pretty successful life of privilege to work in the carceral system and to work with folks who are unhoused or housing insecure. And so taking that mindset of whenever you have any opportunity that you fight for the people everybody else forgot about. In my adult life, I very much took that with me and just to kind of ground you in the upbringing we I grew up in the projects, and, you know, different projects in New Bedford. So I did not grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with deep in this kind of wealth of joy love, and this commitment to loving others. And so I considered myself wealthy in those in those values. And so fast forward into my adult life, I found myself in Rhode Island. And although I never, kind of forgot those basic things, and knew that I always wanted to do that. I worked in healthcare for for a long time, but when I wasn't working in healthcare, in my personal life, I was working in the community. So I walked and work in my faith community, educated on women of color around in the Cape Verdean community, destigmatizing mental health. I was doing community organizing around housing justice and expanding shelter. And in the state, we were doing some organizing around preserving green space because the mass development of green space in certain communities. And I always saw myself as that. That that was something I was always going to be doing. I was always going to be kind of working to help people and my day job, but then also in my in my life, with my life and one, one important distinction there that I do carry with with me, it's even though I work in a non profit world has shifted from the health care into working into nonprofit, first in HR and then organizational design, and now I work for a climate justice organization that does policy and advocacy a lot of time. I'm naming this because this is a really important distinction that happens in the nonprofit space. There's this thinking that because I do work professionally, that is good work, that which is important, that that is, that is all of the good work that I have to contribute into society, and there's this whole wealth of other kind of participating with other people to do good work in the community. And that's really where my got my heart pumping. So how did this translate into kind of getting into politics and political work, the A friend of mine who founded Matthewson street friendship breakfast several decades ago, which feeds 300 to 600 people every week that are unhoused. And he's a deep good friend, and he asked me to consider running for office, and I had done a lot of work with him, with housing justice. I first laughed in his face because I thought that was the most absurd thing that you could ask me. But then I had to think about, when I wasn't working in healthcare, how there were moms and teachers that were turning down treatment plans because their health insurance was not designed for their health I had to think about my work in with Scott, which was my friend's name on housing justice. Now I could give my last dollar away. I could give my last shirt away. I could give my last volunteer hour of my day away, and still couldn't make a dent in the the need that people had that were unhoused and and similarly, in the other issues. And so I had to ask myself the question around power. Who has the power to do decide these things? Who has to just. Who has the power to decide love, like, who is loved, who is cared for? Right? Like, who has the power to design these things? And I had realized that a lot of the people that were fighting or demanding that people were cared for were not always the same people in power. And so had to think about power. And I think I put this in my original in my in my original biography, I think it was really, it's really important to think of power as an element of love. It's okay. We're kind of conditioned to not think about power, or think power is bad, power is good, love is power, and so we are actually, it's, for me, it was exciting to actually bring, bring those two things together and think, Okay, if I love people, then I have to think about power. And to neglect that conversation means to neglect to not think. I think love is this nebulous nice thing. It is not. It is power and so and it has an element of power to it. So I went from laughing to saying yes, and that was not a decision I made alone. I think you met Brianna rep Henry's as soon as I said yes to running, there were several other people that were considering running for office, I quickly found Brianna. I was like, you, you know, you need to consider running. And several other people had also shared that message with her, and she had considered running. But there is this also, this idea that, that I was, that we were grounded in doing this policy work and political work is that it's, it's going to take all of us. It's not a hero thing, where it's just one person with, you know, a message that is going to save it is going to be the collective, and then it's also going to be shared power, right? It's not just okay. How can you move on the political ladder and acquire enough power so that we can change everything that is not was not the mode that we were coming from. We were people that were in the community and wanted to actually see these things change. So we ran for office, and we won in the same year in covid and covid laid bare a lot of the ways in which our society had left some people out and more or some people to feel the burden of disparity in whether it's with health care, whether it was working, even though it could cost you your life working and not being compensated well, like who lost their jobs, who lost their homes, and so the message of listen, if we love people, that we should make policies that reflect and fight for everyone, resonated, I think, in a very particular way, in 2020 when everyone's thinking and looking around, going and volunteering and trying to help their neighbor and still saying something wrong, somebody, things are not right here. And so to have a group of people who were not career politicians to kind of come in and go, there could be a different way to do this. Was sure we ran very strategically successful campaigns. But there, I do think there was something about touching the heart of people, where we were at that moment, where we were really crushed by the system was exposed for what it was, and be able to speak to that moment.

Speaker 2  13:28

I'll fast forward a little bit. I obviously got into office. Was one important thing about power, is power is also and the power of love, it means it's also risky and it can be very unconventional. And so there was this idea when we, when we ran for office, when I ran, the political establishment wanted nothing to do with me and us. Little bit of caveat. I ran against one of the most powerful men in the state. He was the Senate Finance Chair who was not supposed to beat him. He had more money than God. It was just it was not supposed to be able to touch him. We beat him 62 to 38 which was quite embarrassing for the establishment. But the political establishment at that time had to then reckon with all of these wins and saying like, maybe we need to start doing things so the $15 minimum wage, which they would not touch with a 10 foot pole. After those losses in elections, they passed the $15 minimum wage that first session, the Act on climate, which was a historic kind of climate bill that set really important benchmarks for us to meet as a state. They passed that unanimously first session and then legalizing cannabis with automatic expungement, that meant clearing the records people that were kind of carrying records for a really long time before other states of Massachusetts hadn't even done and addressing the kind of carceral harm that had existed before. And so that was all risk they had to. Do that. They had to do those things, because all of a sudden, now there were people that were like, I'll risk my political career to make you embarrassed. I'll risk my political clear career to say this no, because I didn't, never felt like I was supposed to have that anyway. This was a gift that, again, what did my ancestors teach me is that when you have an opportunity, you have to use it to fight for other people and and you do it collectively. So it wasn't just me, but we were tag teaming, both in the House and the Senate, about how we were going to make these things happen. That also comes with knowing that there will be blowback. And so I had bills go missing. I had, you know, political establishment would put out awful things in the press that were negative about me, and so there was this also breaking of my heart, and that process of kind of understanding that love and justice, yes, is collective work, but there is resistance in that there is pain in that you will get your heart broken, but it's still worth it. It's very, very, very worth it. The last thing I'll share with you, and then we can kind of go into the question and answers, was, you know, there was a lot of us told when we're in the Senate about what you can and can't do. So the day I won, those same people that said you shouldn't be in here. We're not talking here, ignoring you. The day I won, they called me said, Oh, we're so happy you won. I'm gonna have coffee to show you the ropes. And these are cultures that would never speak to be before they want to be my friend. And then they're like, just so, you know, this is how it works. You don't vote no here, you don't speak up here. And there was this understanding of like compliance and there for this is real, also really important to know in a place that is designed, the place within the State Senate, but the state house in general that's designed to make rules, to codify, to put into law written, it is run by a whole bunch of unwritten rules. And those unwritten rules this that that is where creativity really comes into play. And I recognize pretty early that a lot of what was happening was theater, and there were things that were meant to seem like they cared, meant to seem like they were listening. I'll give you an example. You go into a committee hearing, and they would hold all the bills for study, which means they weren't going to move on any of those. And then they would let you testify, which was insulting to the people that were coming and waiting hours to testify, because they were not going to do anything. There was this theater that they were listening, theater that they cared, but they were not going to move anything based off what you said or what anybody said. Is it okay? You want to do theater? Let's do theater. Let's let's do a show. We're gonna do a show. Let's do a show. And so that is when I really started to find my voice on the third floor, and really started to to figure out how to say things, when which they did not enjoy when the session ended, and I realized that they were not going to move on housing justice, particularly, which had been a lot of what I was motivated to kind of work on. My heart broke again, and I had went back to the community, the community again that I worked with my faith community and other communities that have worked on housing justice, and I said, What are we going to do about this? This is the Endicott. We have the most unhoused people in the state that we've ever had. We have the most money the state has sitting on a surplus, most money the state has ever had. And then the federal government gave us so much money, we were the last democratically controlled state to do anything on this housing justice issue. And so I asked them, What do you want to do? Meaning some faith leaders come to housing organizers, etc, and they said, We've tried everything. We don't really know what to do. And then I remembered the theater of that building. I remembered the way that they acted like they cared and listened to people, but didn't do anything, and we closed out the session. Didn't move on any of the housing justice bills. So we together, decided, a group of us, to stage a protest outside of the state house steps where we were going to be sleeping outside. Now we were not unhoused. So was this theater? Yes? Was it creativity? Yes. Was it norm and acceptable? No, did it break all the unspoken rules that you were not supposed to 100% senators do not do that. You want to get something done. You go in the back room, you go have lunch, you go talk to somebody, and have a little bit more powerful you wheel and deal, and then that's how you get things done. That is not what my community that I believe, what my ancestors taught me is love. Taught me that you're in community, you're risky, you also do it out front, in front of everybody. It's not something to be done in private. Love is something to be done in front of people. And so we decided, as a group of us, to go pitch Ted's outside of the state house steps and. Right? The police kind of harassed us. I'll save that story. If you guys have some questions about that, and threatened to arrest us. They ended up not arresting us. Next night, 10 people came out. Next time, 13 people came out. 616 nights later, were 200 people outside. It covered their local and national news, and finally, they had to start unlocking some of the money that they had been sitting on and create 400 new shelter beds and a program for helping with some affordable housing and housing assistance. And the reason why I'm kind of ending with that story, even though that's not quite the end of my story, is that it is that is the example of what I was sharing about how if, if you care, if you care about love, you care about power. That is what that means. That was a powerful way of weaponizing that position I had, which positions don't mean power. Positions are positions can give you power, but power is the ability to execute change, and it empowers the ability to move love and make it happen and realize and I wanted a different way of being so anyway, I'll kind of wrap up there, but that was one example of a few of the ways that collective action. We had, faith leaders, formerly unhoused, people, advocates, people from all walks of life, political spectrum, out on that State House steps in the winter, sleeping outside with the idea that they were not okay with a state that didn't reflect their moral compass. So we end we end up making this message that said no one should in Rhode Island, no one should be outside freezing to death. And the thing that ended up collecting all of those people wasn't necessarily a policy, it was a moral message, and that moral message brought a lot of people together and created enough power to be able to actually enact a policy. The policy came after the love and after the power.

21:58

Thank you for sharing,

22:02

and now Augie has,

Speaker 4  22:06

I mean, I was gonna save this one for Dr Bell wanted me to save this one for later. But, like, since we're already talking about about love, and you know how love is power, and power changes things. Yeah, I just wanted to, like, my computer, just wanted to talk more about how, how you use love and care in a in a political like, in a world that's so, like, greedy and so, like, you know,

22:43

like, I want it all for myself. Like, how do you use love in this in this world?

Speaker 2  22:53

That's a really great question. I'll give you an example in three different stages. I'll give you an example in the campaign, and then in the Senate, and then, you know, kind of afterwards on the campaign, one of the ways in which love kind of showed up was, there's an there's this idea that you gotta, you gotta knock on doors in Canvas in order to get those and it's not really expedient or efficient to spend time getting into the weeds with people, but we did, and I did, because people needed to be heard, and I also knew that part of loving people was listening to them and hearing them and hearing their perspective and their burdens, and then we end up finding that a common ground was feeling as though they cared about their community a little bit more than maybe the people in power did, and that was a that was a place that we unified on, and maybe even the way that we thought the problems should be solved may not be the same, but we could agree that somebody's house burns down, they should have some options in that, and that teacher Should probably definitely be paid more. And then, like, how were our nurses not, you know, we went down and down and down the things that were not okay, and we knew the actual impact. And so love was listening to that pain, like, how that impacted that household, and then agreeing that the thing that we, collectively as a community thought how somebody should be cared for, should be reflected by the people that represent us. So that's that was one and the rules in the Senate. One of the things that I was really energized was de stigmatizing and de Miss demystifying the state house for young people, so I had built an internship kind of program for high school and college students to kind of work with my office and start to read policy, even though they did not have to be policy experts. Actually, some of the best people are doing it are high schoolers. They will read and evaluate policy, and the only criteria. That this internship had, and they were, they were a key part of my work, because I couldn't just give you one aside, the expectation for other senators, they did not read bills. They were told how to vote, and they just voted for it. Sometimes they would commit some of them, but most of them were like, What are you talking about? So if you care about the bills, you actually have to read them. That mean as a working class, and you also had, I had a day job, go to work all day and then be up to 4am reading bills. So I needed help as well. So the students, we were working together to kind of like, read bills. And some students were like, I can't read legislation. I can't do this is way beyond me. And I said, there are only two questions we need to ask, and you should be able to answer by time we're done here is, who does this help and who does this hurt? If you can answer, who does this help and who does this hurt, we've done our job because we don't, we don't have to get into the we that is what we're kind of unified on. And that one demystified the process for them, a little bit demystified kind of legislation, but also centered what I thought was important, which is our values and the moral compass about clearly saying, actually the lens that you have on about how you view other humans is the lens that's your starting point. Not this, like, you know, this very kind of technical ability to kind of like, write policy that's great do that, but there's a lot of amazing policy that's collecting dust on some old man's desk right now that we need, and it's not moved forward because either has not been championed by people with enough love in their heart to build Power collectively and or hasn't been evaluated through that lens. So that was one way, and some of those students have now gone on to like, shift their their major shift, their degrees. So some are organizers. Some are now like studying policy, working on campaigns, etc. But it was part of this idea that whoever feels like they're being left out. For me, that was young students in my district who felt like this was all beyond them, and saying this is totally yours, and find a way for your values and the way that you view humanity to be centered here, and then I will do this with you. They would help me craft talking points so these weren't my words we they were like ways that we were able to do that together and and they'd be thought partners in it. And so love that that's it's also a way of the State House created this disparity. We're so lofty and separate, and we're we, the people are down here. And it was also a way of even playing field in a very intentional way. And I think that is love and care as to to kind of make things that are unaccessible accessible. And so yeah, and then I think the last way for me was recruiting other people and saying not just being satisfied that I want to see it, or that I were running a campaign, but also putting on the table for other people that didn't think it was for them, whether in whatever capacity that they were interested in. So that was another way I think, that I kind of showed love and care in a way that I think was very specific into bringing all of those things. Meant bringing people

Speaker 4  28:20

I like, I like, and then after this, I'll just, you can ask your question. I mean, it can we can talk about love, all we want, but like, I just like how I like you, just like how you explained it, like even reading your your bio, saying, like, how you care so much for the community. Because you could, like, even after talking to their faith people and gain them, like, knowing what they want and still not getting the results you wanted, you could have just give up. Could I just give up? And you know, after all, you, you have your house, you you have a comfortable life, you get Yeah, but you still, like, push forward and made it work for them and in terms of bringing people in, one of the things that inspired me the most from your from your bio, was when you're given an opportunity Give it to others. It's a very sports saying that, you know, leaving the boat better than you found it. And you just like, you know, kind of product to like, like, just very practical way of, you know, bringing all the students in and making it easy for them to be part of of a change. So, yeah, thank you. You're welcome.

Speaker 5  29:43

Okay, my question is, what role is your grassroots organizing plays in creating real change?

Speaker 2  29:49

Oh, that's such a good question. So I think grassroots organizing is a. A really critical for a couple of reasons, grassroots organizing, and just to kind of use terminally, there's these grassroots and grass tops, right? So grassroots means, and for me, and the way that I kind of understand grassroots means, this is a community that has been impacted, and it has come together with the understanding that they want to create change for this common good and around a particular way that they are being impacted, organizing. And so when you have the one of, there are several reasons why that is really important, one in one of which is that a lot of times, and I think we've all witnessed this with an attempt for policy or initiative to solve a problem, and you kind of just sit there and go, did you talk to anybody? Anybody that lives that like some call, phone, a friend, right? And so there's the practical element of actually having policies that meet the actual systemic need, that speak to the system problem and the way that it's impacting people, and being able to identify it, because when you have someone that's lived with a lived experience that's impacted, they can tell you what the problem is and how it got here. But the reason why community kind of really grassroots organizing is it's more than just an individual in the lived experience. It is this collective moving toward we are going to champion something for all of us and create creates a community mindset versus this kind of very society has set us up in a very individualistic type of way. And ultimately, when you have a group of people that are together and say, we are being impacted this way, through this system that is impacting us this way, you then have to talk about power. As soon as you talk about love, then you have to say, what are we going to do about it? What are we going to risk? How are we going to solve it? Who has the power to change it? How? What are we going to risk and make sure that person does what we need them to do? Does that person even need to be there do that? Is that person the person that we need so grassroots organizing is a centering of the common good in very practical ways, but it also when you have people together, then you also are able to have a real conversation about power. One of the things that I really get frustrated with is this idea grassroots organizing can sometimes get in this can so often, sometimes default into a submissive state where we are asking And asking, but when we look at our history of the civil rights movement, movements where love and justice have, like, brought a lot of people together to do a lot of work, you can ask, but then you just kind of, you're going to force it, you're going to make something happen, and you're going to find subversive and very creative and theatrical ways to expose the problem and then in into pressure to make it happen, to make that change happen. And so that starts with grassroots organizing. But grassroots organizing does have a commitment to keep growing and not to stay one of the, I guess, the ways in which I always guard or kind of encourage grass to guard from staying in an only asking type of way if we're organizing fully to our full potential, that means we have to use radical imagination. We have to what are the suite of options available to us? How could this look differently? Who's standing in our way of making this love and justice policy? We and then what are we willing to do about that changes the scope of how we organize, and it can get pretty creative, and it can also

34:15

get pretty risky, huge,

Speaker 4  34:18

I guess I'm a next question. Yeah, we're just gonna take a step back and just, Okay, I'm just trying to find a better way to so there's this phrase in Catholic schools, you know, since Ignatius, cannibal moments where, like, because for athletes like, I know I want to play soccer and I just train, and then, you know, I became a soccer player, you know, but you. Went from being a healthcare practitioner to, like, you know, working in there. Yeah, exactly. So. Was there, like, was there, like, a specific moment or experience in your healthcare or nonprofit work that made you realize, wait a minute, I need to, you know, like I need to get involved in politics or something.

Speaker 2  35:27

No, it yes and no, it didn't happen until somebody else had exercised enough radical imagination to think that that was something for me. So I didn't. It wasn't a path that I pursued or something that I had in my back pocket as an aspiration. I did stay open, and I'd always kind of held loosely the ways in which my purpose could manifest itself. There are a lot of ways I could do the good work in this world. So one option is being in politics. And that's not the only way to create change, to love people and to do this. And that wasn't what I had it was one I had queued up. I don't tell the story very often, but I'll tell it here. This is a little Yeah, I don't was one of my friend asked me to run and had coffee, and I literally laughed in my face. I'm not exaggerating, but I thought they were crazy. Afterwards I left that, and I was just like, oh my gosh, these people are insane. He had also introduced me to a former Secretary of State, so this was another person that was previously in politics and was recruiting. So I knew that, I knew the path was possible, but it was just not. I never thought of it for myself. I was leaving. My dad had suffered a stroke a couple years prior, and I was going, I would go on Fridays to go read to him, and this was a Friday when I had coffee with these friends. So after I'm like, driving to go to the rehab facility slash nursing home where my dad is, and I'm just like, What are these guys thinking asking me to run for Senate, they've got to be out of their mind. And I throw up to the universe and to God, and it's like, you need to idiot proof this for me, this needs to be stupid clear, like, and I go to see my dad, and I happened to be reading him a book on and several times I've been reading the book on Martin Luther King, and Martin Luther King's kind of career. And early on in Martin Luther King's career, he kept being shoved to the front, shoved to the place of leadership, and he was a little trepidatious in the beginning, about being in the beginning of his career, about being a young person, new person, like put it in the place of leadership. And so I get to my dad's and start reading to him. And the place that I left off was Martin Luther King was struggling with this trepidation. And his response to it was, if they believe I can, then I will serve. And I closed the book, that's gonna be a lot of fun. So in 48 hours, I went from thinking this is absolutely ridiculous to let's go big or go home. And so then my response to a couple of the people was like, who's the biggest dog? I'm not doing this well, doing it all the way. Who's the biggest thing? They're like, that's the Senate Finance Chair. Was like, great. He's out of office. Let's do this. And that's how it started. So it was not on my queue. Was not something I was ambitious about, but I did leave myself open to the way that love and justice and my purpose could be realized in the world, could show up in many different ways. That's not how I planned it, but that's how it happened.

Speaker 4  38:43

But would you, would you say that your healthcare or nonprofit experience like prepared you for

Speaker 2  38:50

for that it did because it gave me an inside view of the ways in which the system was intentionally leaving people out. So before I had moved into the nonprofit space. I'd worked in healthcare. I was handing, I'll never forget this. I was handing a mom that was my age, similar as me handing her a health care treatment plan. She could never, ever she would die before she finished paying this bill, and she was and she tears in her eyes, kind of said, I'm not going to do this. I am not going to get this. And she was looking at, like, really high interest loan, things that she would never finish. It would it would cause pain for her financially and the rest of her family for the rest of her life, and or she was going to reject treatment that she needed. And so I knew there was something fundamentally wrong about that. And so it prepared me in a way that I knew that the current system needed a jolt, needed a jolt to the heart, massively. And so if I didn't have a very long and sexy. High School political career, I could at least be a Jocelyn to the heart for a little bit in our state, and because I knew those things were very, very real, and we couldn't keep acting like they weren't. So yeah,

Speaker 3  40:15

Izzy, yeah. Want to, like shift gears. A little bit advice for for people who are

Speaker 6  40:21

coming in. So this is kind of like an invite for students you kind of talked about, like the love and the power

Speaker 5  40:26

kind of thing, and even like her, like frustration when she was upset because she couldn't really afford that. It's kind of what are some ways people can turn their frustration into real change, even when they're against

40:39

powerful politicians with lots of money.

Speaker 2  40:44

I think there are a couple of ways, one in which we talked about those in the grassroots. It's done in community. It's done in the collective. I think there is a I think it's really, really I cannot underscore, and I probably didn't explain this a lot in my story, but it's really important to keep your imagination intact in really intentional ways, like allowing your imagination to be intact and exercisable. So if you have an art form, if it's poetry or drawing or whatever, like keeping that intact, because when you are in community and you hit that wall about what's possible, the thing, there are two things that will save you your values and your imagination. And so like being in community and on the collective purpose of what is possible and and how we can build power together and then to really a commitment to your values, and we can keep your imagination. And sometimes those things are not centered, in a way, learn more. Take this next experience, this next career, this next thing, and we kind of the two things that are not always encouraged is, what are you doing to feed your values? How are you what are you choosing to be in community, whether the people that are exercising their values in real ways that are meaningful and address the collective good. And then, how are you pushing your imagination to be intact? Like, look at your inner child. It was like, how imaginative were you when you were younger? Are you still that imaginative? Maybe you should be more imaginative. Like, how can you really bring your inner child into that conversation? And I think those two things are pretty, important, and there will be plenty of things in society that will make those things seem secondary. And I would challenge you to and my advice would be, those things are actually pretty fundamental.

Speaker 3  42:35

I'll ask the last question before we do the open it up to whatever questions happen.

42:42

So something that

Speaker 3  42:45

it strongly came out when we were talking with Brianna, and the ways in which she had, she had been involved in multiple industries, and even now, is still involved in multiple industries. And then she had the political career as well, and she was one of the things that came up is, hey, sometimes in the flow of life, the career shifts that happen are just crazy. Just like, would not have thought I'd go in this direction, or, Oh, man, I was here, and then now I'm back over in this place. And so you we've been focusing a lot on the work that you've been doing in the community, but also as far as vocation goes, part of your political career, and now you are at Clean Water Action. So what as far as advice goes, what advice do you have for students? We asked a similar question of Brianna, but advice you have for students as these like changes happen along the way in vocation, how do you how did you navigate that? What was the through line that helped you? Yeah,

Speaker 2  43:59

I think that there were a couple of through lines that can help me, because I think the idea that controlling the trajectory of my life was not something that it was always guaranteed. And there are a lot of people that think they can and or like go through an existential crisis when they realize they sometimes can't, because life will throw something at you. And so I learned early on to understand the way that my purpose and the way that I do good work could show up in many different ways, and not to be completely attached to what it is, but how I am so how I will do I will do that with radical imagination. I will do it in community. I will do it with love and justice. And it opened up a suite of options, and then that also means that you're going to so for me, I was invigorated by that, and that meant opportunities that would show up. Being in the sun, running for office could be, could be an option, but then after that, now I'm, like you said, I'm at Clean Water Action. If that was the ultimate goal, I don't know that. I don't know how that would have turned out, but for me to know, okay, I'm a person that really loves building teams and building systems and building systems and that in empowering people to organize and in ways that create statewide change. Well, that ended me up there. I ended up there. So, yeah, I think that my advice would be to to really hold tightly to like, what the good thing that you want to bring to a space in the world, and hold loosely on the hat, on what it is and so and it also created a lot of room for a lot of adventure. I think that if I had been really, really committed on a very specific track, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. There are promises we make to ourselves, and I think it's important to honor those. But I think it's also staying open to the adventure of life, about like how you can actually do this good work, and who you can do it with. You end up meeting people along the way that are in education. That's the other part of it is that education happens in the classroom, happens on the campus, but also just happens in life. So every single twist and turn I met people that I learned from, and then learned something about myself and learned about how I Oh, this is something I can contribute to. This is a way I could do this work. So it shifted from nonprofit and HR space to okay non profit and organizational design that does policy work. I never thought that policy work was going to be part of that, because I searched away from the people that was around. I don't know if that answers your question.

Speaker 3  46:56

It does are at this time, like questions have popped up for people. I mean, again, we have a list of questions that you already submitted, so we can just, you know, ask those, but just want to open it up if anything has come up, and for John and Denise as well, if you have anything. Sorry, if not, okay, then Auggie, there's another question that was in the list that you had like, you had highlighted

Speaker 7  47:29

Yeah. And if it's not a list of questions, you can just ask anything, yeah. It's like, yes, all of it's open, open season.

47:37

Jury, sure you don't have Kristen,

Speaker 3  47:42

yeah. I really appreciate how you put people on the side. Really great. What's like your favorite thing that you've done in your career? Oh, that's a really great

Speaker 2  47:54

question. I think it would be the sleep out, yeah, the protest, yeah, yeah. That definitely would be my, my favorite, because it's just, it was, I mean, it was a massive risk. It could have totally, I mean, at one point we thought we were going to be it was in November. It was cold. I'm still when I hear the wind and, like, it still kind of messes me up a little bit. But it could have flopped, because at one point they were kind of ignoring us out there, and the press got a little bit of coverage. They could have just left our butts out there in the cold and just totally ignored us. And we were building power and building people, and there was some press coverage that was super risky, and also the other things about like, thinking together with people is, you know, there's this nervousness about, like, oh my goodness, what if this doesn't work? And then people feel maybe reluctant to organize. But I am kind of, I think that's the one I'm most proud of, because it did, when it did, produce shelter beds and money and resources. But every single night, we gathered and we just had, like a community circle where we talked and sang and we people shared their experiences, and every single night with that circle got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and it just kept growing. And then there were, could be snowing on us. It was cold, and people still came out. And so that's when I kind of looked around, okay, I can, I can do stuff in that building, but nothing is more rewarding than this, I feel people kind of unified and caring about each other in a very tangible way. That's a really

49:49

big movement. Thanks.

Speaker 2  49:53

Really exciting, and I'm glad. I think the biggest thing for me is now after that, sure it did result. Interval, but it's now. Now people know that that's possible for their communities. Next thing, like, it's just kind of what having radical imagination does. It just kind of moves us and allows us to say, like, what is possible. And so, like, when we act on radical imagination in love. Now, everybody in those circles, like, you know, maybe this week of options are a little bit

Speaker 4  50:28

bigger than I thought going off that I went to, I went to South Africa on a mission trip. December 2023, and, I mean, I don't know if it's from your movement or anything, but like, there was, like, you know how like, South Africa is very like diverse, and so there is this group of people in South Africa that are being ignored, and They're basically doing the same thing. They built out, like, your tents in the in the capital, and like, they literally like living, living there, making sure that their voices are heard. So when we went there, we're not allowed to take any pictures, but we they have like, they have their tents, and then they have like signs, yes, like, you know, their voices, like written around, around the tent, so you can read and see the pain and what they're asking for. So it's all over the world. People are using, using that movement to try to get change, yeah, you know, in there. But the question that I wanted to ask is, what um, because as you're running as a, you know, woman, like, that's already like, you know, but like, what was like there? What do you think was like a key to your to your success in defeating, not only was he, like, rich, but like, very he's been in office or in like, knows people, yeah, so like, how, what do you think was the Key to to your success?

Speaker 2  52:21

I think that the Remember when I said I was knocking on doors and talking to people and like actually listening, and we were talking about the how they cared about their community a little bit more than they thought, that maybe the people in power cared about it, to be honest, I think that having previously not had a political career, but having been involved in the community in a way that was very authentic and genuine, and think about, yeah, I mean, our kids went to soccer together, and you helped with that food drive. Like, there was a very clear like, Oh, you're part of this community and care and prior to running for office. So I think there's a genuine Ness about caring and that people are craving and that people want. The other thing is, I do struggle with the idea, which is ironic, but I struggle with the idea of success. And it was just actually speaking to a training group who was training in Boston, training and how much people to run for office. And one of the questions they asked me was like, how do you how do you handle if you run a campaign the best campaign you can and you lose. And for me is that I looked at the campaign as a way to touch andor change hearts and minds oriented around either unified around this concept of love and justice and or reorienting people, if they weren't thinking about that. And so if you one of the things that I said to people that were training to run for office is like, if you run a campaign that is rooted in this kind of love and justice for your community, and in a way that you plan on touching and or changing hearts and minds, if you happen to not get enough votes, you better have run a campaign that did that and then you stole winning, because you're changing the needle and that you're having there's more message that people are collectively engaging with you on and so I do struggle with the idea of success. Yes, you should probably run a campaign with a plan to succeed and win and get enough votes. But the idea for me was never just about getting enough votes. It was about making enough connections with people that maybe could get on board on saying, like, everybody should get health health care. People should not be living in their cars in the state or on the street. Let's make sure that everybody has, you know, clean air and will. Or that we have a livable planet, and so, so, so, yeah, that, in that of like, unifying and having everybody on board on that, that's a success. It did result in enough votes, but that's the success story for me, which is very different, and I could be happy with whatever outcome because of that.

Speaker 4  55:21

So you, you would say, like the community was like huge.

Speaker 2  55:24

Community was huge, but clarity on what we actually needed collectively was huge. And then I would also say, for creativity, we also just didn't do things the same way we had town halls. We did social media a lot like things that at that time, politicians, especially local publishers, were not doing we, like, had we had to, like, commute, community cookout. So we just did things very differently. And so I think part of part of that played a role as well. Thank you.

Speaker 3  56:10

So when this is more of like asking you all this question, so when I, when I decided to include like, Brianna, when I decided to include Cynthia amongst our guest speakers, by that point in the class, were you like, Oh, I understand why this, like, political and community engagement is tied to creativity, or was it like a still not clicking, don't know where it's going. I'm just going, I'm just gonna follow you because, I mean, you the professor, that's what happens. Like, where, where were people on this? I'm gonna need vocals, because, you know, an audio recording cannot take care of head head nods. So where were ya? That much was probably

Speaker 8  56:54

when we acted lunch and then we talked about it. It was a while back. So when we reached

Speaker 9  57:02

kind of, but, like, that's when I was like, getting like, this is crazy, how everything was just tying in together. And it just kind of like opened up my eyes more, and maybe made me see, like, just the purpose of what you were doing with this class, and including the guest speakers.

Speaker 3  57:19

So all right, other people, where were you with the with the inclusion of, why are we having political and community engagement in the midst

57:27

of, I also think

Speaker 5  57:29

you've chosen, like, younger people who kind of are kind of like, kind of going against the social norms, almost. And I think with innovation, especially because obviously, like you, like innovated this brand new way of like your campaign and like advocating for others, whereas like everyone else just really, like, stuck to how it goes and like, I've heard like this thing, like the saying, where it's like people talk about how the system is broken, and it's like, no, it was made that way, like it's not broken at all. It's just been that way. And I think it's important to kind of talk about that, and I think everyone who we've talked with has done a great job of doing that

Speaker 2  58:17

question. I'm curious if, in my sharing, if creativity came through clearly enough, and if so were Is there any areas around creativity or innovation, in any point in my story that maybe you were like, Okay, that's interesting, but that I didn't hear anything about creativity or innovation? Were there were there any gaps in there, around that, that just kind of like, Where was the creativity or innovation

Speaker 4  58:49

in that? No, really, because I thought that the sleep, the sleep out then, was very creative. Yeah, very creative.

Speaker 3  59:01

See Jenna. I see you. Keep nodding your head at this point, I need you to say something.

Speaker 10  59:07

No, I think she did a great job of like, in every aspect of her life, like knowing about things creatively and like, with love. And I think that's a great way back to your question before, of like, if we understand, like, why you know, you keep bringing in these speakers and stuff like that. I think it makes complete sense. And also, like, we read all this stuff in class, we talk about it, but these are real life examples and real people who have lived like, going at everything with love and like, with creativity and finding new ways to go about things and like, really make a change. So I do understand why. You know, we met Cynthia and Brianna.

Speaker 4  59:44

Because for me, like, usually, when you talk about politics, like it doesn't usually come from a place of love, you know, they've there's, you know, people are very creative on how they do their campaigns and stuff, how they get you. Votes and stuff. But like, it doesn't always come from a place of love, but from hearing you and Brianna last time, like, how your like, how you did your campaign, right? That's like, you know, There's love in it. You know, it's not just like, trying to get as many votes you can and be in power. It wasn't just about power. Was about love first and then using that love to, like, create change in people's life. So like, yeah, it's just like, I see, I see the creativity in your in your speech, and I see the love in it, in it. So that's why I asked, I asked the first question. Because, like, for me, politics and love are like opposite, yeah, like, entirely different. I mean, people might, politicians may pretend to love, but like, they don't show it, you know, or they will show it in their in their campaigns, and after the campaign, it's like, it's over, you know. So even though doctor wanted me to, like, save it for later, I just wanted to, like, hear from you

Speaker 2  1:01:19

first. Yeah, yeah, there were little ways too. I mean, I think the sleep note was a big way, and I'm definitely proud of it, and it kind of broke into national news, and so it was, like this big thing, but there were little ways both, like the internship kind of program, but even in the campaign, like I did have people that previously worked on the campaign, but we spent time teaching, teachers and people that were retired and people that a whole bunch of people, the majority of people in the campaign, had never worked on a campaign before, and like training those people on how to work on a campaign is kind of again, that accessibility is an act of love. Inventing ways to make things accessible to people that were otherwise not accessible. It was an active loan. And so like innovating that, making sure that folks that traditionally, like I said the internship, were traditionally not a part of the policy process from beginning to end. And again, these were the same interests that were part of crafting a policy. I would show really think about this. Let's talk about this. Then they would see the bill. We'd evaluate it. Then they helped evaluate bills that I was kind of voting on, and kind of and then would watch on the committee hearing process of including so there were parts of ways that love was kind of built in, but then there was also, like subversiveness. So there the Senate had really archaic dress codes that I didn't really love. Yeah, they were trying to policing Acosta. Like, yeah, my one of the my friends that I ran with, he was known for, like, wearing Jordans and and so the the Senate has rules, and one of the rules. And every before every session, they roll out rules, and they decided they had always had some archaic stuff around dressing in attire that were kind of rooted in racism and sexism, but they kind of decided to be a little bit more specific this year, because there was a whole bunch of us that didn't kind of come in looking exactly Like what senators and reps should look like, and so in their minds. So there was rules around hair and shoes and all sorts of things that we got it. So we haven't even started legislating yet. We deserve now we're on the floor talking about about the, you know, the way that we're kind of visibly, kind of showing up. So there were things like that. And then, so there's different ways around, I think expressing love. There can be these really, really big ways, and then there are these small ways about saying, like, I'm going to take time to teach these teachers. I've never worked at a campaign how to do this. And, yeah, yeah. But hopefully that kind of shares a little bit about, like, it can be really big, but most of the time it happens in the mundane. And the ability to look at things and go, who's included in this is, this is, like, who's allowed to be here? Like, who? When we're looking for the expertise, who? Who are those people? Why are they those people? And asking the question about who's included, who's helped, who's hurt, and then, and then, moving from there,

Speaker 3  1:04:27

I completely forgot about the Acosta piece. So Acosta, he is. He actually, so we were in same PhD program together, and I've had him speak before with students for a class I did on what it means to be a citizen. So yeah, he's he's in the mix too, just like these amazing people doing this great work. And so want to build off something that came up briefly and just like as a landing point for us. So. Know something that the Department of politics, law and society has hosted before, twice, did it last semester and once this semester is pizza and politics. If you had, if I know that none of you were there because I was at both so but I would encourage in next academic year to at least stop by, because part of the purpose of the space is to

Jocelyn Bell  1:05:29

help students ask, give space versus ask questions about politics. Just no no judgment space, whatever we are going to have a conversation about politics. And something that came up often was that, well politics, just, it's so divisive, I want to be informed, but at the same time I never want to, like, really engage or talk about it. And so part of what came up is like, well politicians,

Speaker 2  1:05:55

the idea that well politicians, they talk about, you know, how they care so much, and then once they get elected, then it's out the window. But how something that you're bringing in is that, no, there's this love, there's this care, like throughout the process, so the politics need not be divisive. It's not that, you know, you don't challenge what is in the space. It's just it need not be like we're exploding this automatically so and it's true of every institution Exactly. There's a politic I was I find it weird that we put politics in some separate category, as if practicing love and justice and creativity, you will not bump into those walls in any other institution. I have friends in medical field that run into that difference in the academia that run into that everyone's on Wall Street. There's systems that are built in a certain way. And when you're bringing love and community and creativity in, you're going to see things in ways you bump up against it. Politics is not a politics is not any different than any of the other institutions that wield power in our country and our world. And so, like, we're going to opt in to be useful, like, we have a suite of options, and they're usually in some sort of care category, and politics is one of them. And like so to disregard it as like, oh, that's fundamentally broken.

1:07:18

Say that, yeah, you go.

Speaker 1  1:07:27

Thank you Cynthia for coming to the human smart class this spring. Thank you again to the politics, law and society department for sponsoring her visit and thank you for listening. Hope you join us again to hear the students reflections on ideas brought up in the discussions and throughout the semester as we once again journey from ideas to you.