 Young Activists Become the Way
and the Change in their Communities
By Robert Waddell, May 26, 2009
President Barak Obama’s first non-legislative mandate was to call all Americans to become active in their communities, volunteer, organize locally and seriously consider public service.
In the New York City Latino community there are a group of young people who work locally, think globally and involve themselves with serious political and social issues that go far beyond Brittany Spears and the latest gadgets they could install on their cell phones and ipods. These young activists are committed, in their 20s and 30s, college educated who take the world’s problems seriously and to heart.
“In college I met Rev. Luis Barrios,” said activist Natalie Tejada, “I learned about Puerto Rico and how it’s been colonized for so many years.”
Tejada, who grew up in the Dominican Republic and New York City, graduated from John Jay College and, works at the Mott Haven Prevention Program as a social worker. She began her community involvement in college protesting the Iraq war. She volunteered in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and with Pastors for Peace, Tejada traveled to Cuba challenging the U.S. blockade against the island nation. She works to free all political prisoners and she is a member of Iglesia San Romero de las Americas, which preaches liberation theology.
“It’s not about one country,” she said, “but solidarity with people’s struggles all over the world.”
Tejada continues to organize rallies and demonstrations. The experience toughened her because she protested against police brutality at John Jay College that is committed to training future police officers. When she was shouted at or cursed at, Tejada took this opportunity to speak with the person in opposition to her. She called it a time to teach. And Tejada believes that the problem with police brutality is not the police but certain ideas within the department.
 “I come from a Third World Country to the projects in Astoria, Queens,” said Tejada, who still lives in the projects in the Bronx, “I saw a lot of discrimination. I saw my people, I mean everyone in general, struggling to make it happen, to make a living that I realized that I needed to take responsibility.”
Hunts Point in the Bronx is known as Asthma Alley because of the high concentration of garbage, filtration plants and highway traffic that goes through this economically impoverished area. Omar Freilla has worked tirelessly to clean up Hunts Point and fight environmental racism. He created the Green Worker Cooperative where construction supplies, normally dumped, would be recycled and resold at a low cost. This would create green jobs for the city as well as recycle building, plumbing and office supplies that normally would be discarded and go into land fills polluting local soil and water. Green Worker Cooperative takes quality, useable garbage and resells supplies at a low cost. GWC is owned and operated by its workers, like Freilla, who own the collective.
Then of course, there’s Pastor Claudia de la Cruz of Iglesia San Romero de las Americas, one of the few churches that believes in direct political action and practices liberation theology. The church works toward freeing political prisoners and fighting against poverty and for human rights.
Rebel Diaz Arts Collective is a community based action group that educates South Bronx residents about gentrification and police brutality as well as providing educational and cultural resources to Bronx residents. Most everyone involved is young and willing to work for what they call a better world.
Isolina de La Cruz, who also graduated recently from John Jay College, has worked tirelessly to free political prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal. Cruz also does community work with Rebel Diaz Arts Collective.
 A common platitude is that ‘the children are our future.’ This June Kaila Paulino graduates from high school and already she has volunteered to help rebuild New Orleans and she has worked on freeing political prisoners. Soon she’ll move to Brazil for a year before entering college. If one takes Paulino, and people like her, as an example of the future, then the future is brighter than most pessimists might imagine.
The list goes on and on. In a commencement speech at the University of Portland, Paul Hawken founder of Wiser Earth and author of “Blessed Unrest,” told the graduating class of 2009, “You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.”
Tejada and other young people like her are part of that movement.
“The only way that I can make a difference,” said Tejada, “is if I start from me. I cannot ask anyone to start the revolution, go to school, talk to kids; sometimes we think revolution is this big thing. No. Revolution is our home, our self. When I realized that, I decided to make it happen.”
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
