Naming is personal. Naming is sacred. A name imbues a thing with attributes of its namesake. This, the namesake of a woman. Fearless. Relentless in purpose. Still growing. Resilient. Healing. I seek to imbue my practice with these attributes, and many more. In this naming, I seek to honor my mother, and the line of women that should precede and succeed her. May that intention be fulfilled. May forgiveness follow where it does not.
My academic journey was long, having worked until the final two years to support myself. Always seeking growth, I pursued professional development that offered on-the-job training, rather than requiring credentials. Entering the legal field as a legal assistant in a collections law firm, I found an entryway to a Paralegal role in tech. In a startup environment, and with a plethora of motivation, I quickly gained experience in negotiation, deployments, curriculum development, and debugging in a SaaS company as I relocated to the Pacific Northwest. A lifelong interest in tech was sated, my ongoing desire for challenge, met. Yet, a degree beckoned.
Returning to school with focus, I pursued political science with a computer science minor. My mind was awakened. Backed by a major change in geographic, political, and social landscape, my learning accelerated. I was surprised at what I saw. Ideas were encumbered by economic and social standing, race, gender, and other filters that sought to disprove through standing rather than argument. Politics were more important than insight. And the exercise of power more important than understanding. I wanted out. Withdrawing the minor with about half of it completed, I focused on exiting the academic system as soon as possible. As I looked forward, I also wanted to do something about it. I found nonprofit work. I found El Centro de la Raza. I found community.
The nonprofit industrial complex was a new term to me as I moved into my own efforts to support communities I call my own. Digging into their emergency food programs (a food bank and a meal program), I pursued unfair differences in power and standing. This included building community among the participants of each, respective program through treatment in dignity. It included redirecting our target audience to fit our actual participant population (largely Chinese) rather than the organization’s general focus (Latino). It also included identifying data discrepancies that led to an overhaul of the data collection process and system, boosting our ability to derive meaning from the data and to tell meaningful stories. My goal was to see what two hands and some motivation might accomplish in the midst of community. I was heartened by the results. And I was motivated for a further step. As part of the program, I participated in the City-wide coalition supporting emergency food providers: the Seattle Food Committee. As I moved to my next step, I helmed it.
Managing the work of the Seattle Food Committee was a change in focus. The group was less diverse, and the work was more political. Because I worked with the group prior to joining in, I knew the dynamics. Large, well-resourced organizations had an outsized voice, and, thus decisionmaking, while less-resourced organizations who were barely able to attend had little. I wanted to use my position to ensure that everyone’s voice could be heard. I enacted such change in the way I facilitated, allowing space for voice, and the way that I approached negotiation, ensuring equal access to information and process. I pro-actively recruited smaller organizations to take part in Executive Committee, and worked to ensure that new members of either Executive or General had the information they needed to engage meaningfully. Then, when the pandemic hit, I ensured the strength of the emergency food network via meaningful engagement with existing relationships in the State Emergency Response network. I also stabilized the logistics of emergency food delivery to existing recipients. Given that stability, I moved on.
Movement is a signal of life. My life has been defined by movement. From Southern California to Northern California, and back again. Communities full of people who looked like me, and those that did not. Never belonging anywhere in particular. Adaptive. Language and learning among the only constants. As a young person, excellence equated to conformance. As I set out on my own, that tie loosened.
Over the time of my practice, I have sought the stability and growth of under-resourced organizations that are close to the grass roots.
This is my practice. These are my roots.
My approach is mined from my experience. Adaptability is fundamental, and I recognize that relationships ignite kinesis. A knack for social osmosis allows me to quickly evaluate relationships, networks, and communication styles. This lubricates the establishment of goals, expectations, and definitions of success.
A lifelong relationship with language informs my comfort with conceptual space. Development of that space in a given engagement is typically based upon an initial document review. Whether reviewing existing documents or drafting my own based upon conversation, the goal is to get up to speed, get on the same page, and begin initial diagnostic and strategizing.
Knowing what I don’t know is imperative. I evaluate apparent gaps between documentation and statements and on-the-ground realities. Interview processes round out my understanding (concurrently filling a need for thoroughness), and reach toward a complete understanding of existing systems, processes, needs, and desires. Then, starts the architecture.
After initial proposal, processes of refinement allow for co-creation of solutions. Throughout, I strive to put people first, and allow community to lead.