Today, NETWORK is proud to have Heather Boushey, the President and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth at our office to talk about mending the gaps in our nation’s growing wealth and income disparities.

As a regular writer for popular media, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, MSNBC, and CNBC, Boushey has made quite an impact on what it means to be a woman in our economy.

Focused on the inequality, Boushey has actively been an advocate for economic inequities in the social fabric of our nation. In fact, her new book Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About It is all about how economic inequality ultimately hurts people, businesses, and the overall growth of our country. Boushey argues that stagnant wages and lack of workplace benefits further complicate financial instability for many people. Our economic policy must work to heal inequality and create new solutions for people to be supported, not hindered, by our government.

Click here to purchase her new book and learn more about the author.

“¿Como te llamas?” I asked. “What’s your name?”

“Elsa,” she replied.

“No it’s not,” my friend Tracey quickly said. Tracey works at the Kino Border Initiative as education coordinator, and I had gone down to visit her and see for myself what was going on at the Mexico-U.S. border.

Still, the little girl became known to me as “Elsa” for much of the rest of my trip to Nogales, Sonora. Despite her fluency in Spanish, I learned that she came from Russia with her parents and younger brother. Only her dad – who is a few years younger than I am – was with her. Her mother had been detained elsewhere with her brother, and they were working to be reunited as they fled religious persecution in Russia and sought safety in the United States. Elsa quickly learned Spanish in the four months they’ve been waiting at the border in Nogales.

Last week, I was privileged to spend four days in the comedor (soup kitchen) run by the Kino Border Initiative (mainly Sisters Cecilia and Engracia and their team of staff and volunteers) just across the border from the United States. With many volunteers from both sides of the border – including several U.S. Americans who had come from other parts of the country to volunteer for up to a month – I shared life with migrants from Mexico, Central America, and other parts of the world. We fed nearly 200 people two meals per day in multiple shifts.

There were so many children – from infants still nursing to teenagers and young adults. There was so much hope even in the midst of trauma. There was a spirit of generosity – so many of the migrants themselves active in the work of the comedor, helping to feed and clean during and after every meal.

When I was in Nogales, MPP (the so-called Migrant Protection Protocol implemented a year ago by the Trump Administration, also known as “Remain in Mexico”) had just begun on the ground in Nogales. Asylum-seekers fleeing violence in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Russia, and many other places now have to go through asylum court before they can enter the U.S. There’s a great deal of corruption in the metering of people getting to meet with U.S. officials, and migrants must face asylum court in El Paso, a 5-hour drive from Nogales. For people without transportation, this means expensive bus tickets for a minimal chance at safety (less than 1% of asylum-seekers are granted asylum by the U.S. government).

There’s so much more to say about my time at the border. What struck me most when I first arrived was the normalcy in the midst of such uncertainty and trauma. Families were living. Children were joyful or upset, depending on the moment. One little girl, who I began calling “La jefa,” the boss, was running around re-setting the tables when I met her. She’d eaten and was now intending to be the best helper there as she put out new napkins, spoons, and cups. And as we began hearing stories (for me, mostly from other volunteers who could translate the Spanish that most migrants spoke), this normalcy seemed anything but normal. I began thinking of the lost educational opportunities for these kids as they waited. I began to see the future of frustration in school as they continued to work through the trauma they’d experienced and then had to make up for so much lost time and language barriers. I began to see the lost potential of so many human beings just seeking a place to live safely and take care of their families. I began to see the vast differences between my world and their worlds – all because of where I was born and the color of my skin.

As I begin to grapple with these realities in a new way – in light of a few relationships I began to develop during my time with Kino – I am reminded in a new way of the importance of changing the system. We need to ensure policies are created to recognize and honor the fullness of the human person, no matter what their country of origin. We need policies that recognize that poverty is itself a form of violence. We need policies of welcome and policies that create an opportunity for all to thrive.

And so I return to Washington to continue the work of justice, of building teams of advocates and organizers, of lobbying to change policy and educating to change the social narrative. And I hope you will join us.

College football. Amazing, unhealthy food. Devout Christians. Farmers. Home. What do you think of when someone says they’re from Alabama?

When I say I’m from Birmingham, Alabama, people usually react like this: “Ughhhh…Ooofff…I’m sorry…”. This is because there are often some pretty disparaging stereotypes associated with those living in the Heart of Dixie: Trump-supporting, Bible thumping, uneducated, college football-loving rednecks.

In many ways, they can be right. I remember when my brother broke our family’s oven out of rage after Alabama lost the Iron Bowl to Auburn in 2013. I remember catching catfish with just my bare hands in the river by my house as a teenager. I also remember my Dad thanking God for Donald Trump’s election during our Thanksgiving prayer in 2016.

How did I, a self-proclaimed Democrat, working for a social justice organization, come from a state like Alabama?

For a long time, I stayed away from all things political, mainly because I didn’t understand it. When the announcement came over my elementary school speakers that President George W. Bush had been elected for a second term, I cheered along like all the other kids, but I honestly didn’t even know who that was at the time. During the 2008 election, I told my mom I supported Obama, simply because I thought his name was cool.

In reality, I didn’t have to worry about politics because nothing the government changed would affect me and my family. As a white, upper middle-class woman, whose parents both worked secure jobs with benefits, I didn’t have to worry about anything negatively impacting my family. My privilege meant I didn’t have to participate in politics if I didn’t want to. So, I spent most of my teenage years living a blissfully ignorant life: unaware of the vast amounts of poverty, homelessness, and injustice occurring every day in a place I had dubbed the ‘bad side of town.’ My white, suburban bubble was pervasive and opaque. I was blind to the ways that the government and the nation are failing the most impoverished and vulnerable in my community.

For me, that all changed when my father was diagnosed in 2013 with ALS, a terminal neuromuscular disease. ALS is unique in that it doesn’t really discriminate: people from all areas of life have to endure a terminal disease if diagnosed. Throughout my father’s journey with ALS, I learned that although ALS is such a difficult, miserable disease, many of those diagnosed were more stressed by the financial instability the disease caused. Every week, my father and I would meet with others with ALS and their loved ones, and instead of speaking on ALS itself, they spoke of how hard it was to stay afloat financially, while also paying for their desperately needed care.  Most of the people would have to decide between paying for their medicine or their caregiver; their wheelchair or their home.

When I looked around at those with ALS in my community and my state, I saw a group of people dealing with a horrible, evil disease. I saw heroes who, even when their body was failing them, continued to work to provide for their families and those they loved. Even as I saw such misfortune and unnecessary evil in the face of ALS, I saw something else much more disheartening. I saw people who had been abandoned. People who had been forgotten, both by their government and their community.

Through this experience working and living with those suffering with ALS, I realized something vital to my political identity: all people, regardless of where they come from, must be considered and respected in the eyes of our government and society. Not just the white, and not just the wealthy. It is easy to disregard this when your interests are being served on Capitol Hill, but, if we are going to call ourselves the greatest country in the world, a true democracy, then no person or group can be abandoned by our government or our people.

So, if you’re reading this and wondering how you can get involved outside of your white, suburban bubble, I challenge you to speak and live with those different from you. People from all genders, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, abilities, etc., all have a different perspective to share. Meet with those who have been disenfranchised and invalidated by our government, media, and culture. Realize that they, just like you, are entitled to dignity and worth, and they deserve a seat at the table when policy is being made.

Shirley Chisholm once said, “if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” At a time when social justice is on the line and the morals of our democratic principles are in decline, there is surely a need for more folding chairs to be brought to these decision tables.

Shirley Chisholm was not only the first Black woman to run for Congress and win, she was also the first Black woman to run for President and make it to the Democratic Convention with 152 delegates supporting her ballot. At a time when one of her opponents, George Wallace, proclaimed “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” Shirley Chisholm chose to rise above what she saw and heard, and go after what she believed. She once said that she decided to run for president because “in spite of hopeless odds…” she wanted “to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.” She refused to accept the status quo and because she did, like Moses, she parted the Red Sea of what looked impossible. Chisholm worked for civil rights relentlessly, and this Black History Month, we remember her for the courageous work that she did fighting for the social justice and equality of African Americans.

The establishment of Black History Month traces back to 1926, when Carter G. Woodson, American historian and founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), established Negro History week. Then in 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized February as Black History Month, and every president then began to follow suit. Black History Month is a time to reflect and honor the lives of African Americans who paved the way for the freedoms and civil rights that exist today. For this month specifically, in honor of the centennial anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920, that granted women the right to vote, and the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Fifteenth Amendment passed in 1870, which gave Black men the right to vote, this year’s Black History Month theme is African Americans and the Vote. The power of a vote can change the onset of elections, and with this year being a presidential election year, the theme could not be more suitable.

This year’s theme not only speaks for the need for a continuous fight towards black voting rights, but it also speaks for the need to push more Black leaders to run for local and national elections so that more seats at the table can be created. This same push is what helped Shirley Chisholm become the first black woman to be elected to Congress with her never-before-heard campaign slogan “unbought and unbossed.” At a time of racial upheaval, this slogan was bold and courageous and it’s what landed her the House of Representative position of New York’s 12th congressional district. Shirley Chisholm was bold, she was fearless, and she persisted until the very end when she passed away after suffering from several strokes in 2005.

Mrs. Chisholm is remembered today for the hard work she did for the African American community through her legislative power. From her work as a community activist, to her sponsorship of bills that supported education and families. Mrs. Chisholm was not an average legislative artisan. She sponsored bills that would increase federal funding to extend daycare facility hours and a bill to grant a guarantee minimum annual income for families. She was fierce in defending the issues that most concerned her constituents and as a result, she left an impact on the people for generations to come. At a time when seats at the table for African Americans didn’t even exist, Shirley Chisholm, pioneered to create one for the people behind her; this Black History Month, we remember her for the tireless work that she did to help our community today.

Sources:

https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/C/CHISHOLM,-Shirley-Anita-(C000371)/
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month
https://www.biography.com/political-figure/shirley-chisholm
https://asalh.org/black-history-themes/ 

    Ewaoluwa Ogundana is a Senior at Trinity Washington University studying Political Science, with a minor in Communications. In her future career, Ewaoluwa plans to continue advocating for education and immigration policies in order to help resolve the problems surrounding those issues in her community.