Care is a Lifeforce with Ai-jen Poo

Ai-jen Poo, the Executive Director the Domestic Workers Alliance joins Prentis this week to share

her vision for how care is the foundation to democracy and how we get free.They explore how caregivers are futurists, imagining how human life could be different if care were at the center. 

• Follow Ai-Jen on Instagram
• Check our her book The Age of Dignity

Transcript

Ai-jen Poo
00:00 - 00:04
There's more space than ever to imagine the future differently.

Prentis Hemphill
00:04 - 00:26
Hey everybody, welcome back to Becoming the People. I'm Prentis Hemphill. I'm really happy to be with you all again for another week. Today we have a guest episode and I'm excited and grateful to share this episode with you all.

Prentis Hemphill
00:26 - 00:49
I think it's a really important one. And it aligns with a lot of what I've been thinking about lately and the questions I've been holding, which I've been thinking a lot about care. I've been thinking a lot about what care is, what care does, the meaning of care. And because of that, I was like, who can I talk to that?

Prentis Hemphill
00:49 - 01:22
understands this idea has really put her life behind visibilizing care, caring for caregivers, valuing the work of care. So I reached out to Ai-jen Poo and we are lucky to have her on the podcast today. And I think, you know, one of the things that I've been holding around care is like, you know, it's just, we think about it almost as something that's inconsequential. Yes, it must happen, but we don't value it.

Prentis Hemphill
01:22 - 01:33
We don't look at it. And we certainly don't understand it, I think, for the infrastructure that it is. Like everything requires care. And that's one of the things Ai-jen says in her work.

Prentis Hemphill
01:33 - 02:05
She talks about care as the work that makes all other work possible. And I think that's so true. There's invisibility, but there's a necessity to the work of care. Because none of us arrive to this podcast today without having received some care, without someone having cared for us in childhood, or when we were sick, or earlier today made us a meal, that there's care surrounding our lives at all times.

Prentis Hemphill
02:05 - 02:28
And we don't necessarily value it. We don't value it and we certainly don't understand it as skillful work that we learn how to do for each other. I don't think we even value it when we offer it to somebody else. It's this invisible mesh, this network, this infrastructure that's underneath everything.

Prentis Hemphill
02:28 - 02:48
So I wanted to talk to Ai-jen, because I had these big questions about care. And Ai-jen, for those unfamiliar with her work, she's the current ED of the Domestic Workers Alliance. That's how I know her work. She's also the director of Caring Across Generations, which is doing coalition work for caregivers and those who receive care.

Prentis Hemphill
02:48 - 03:23
She wrote a book called The Age of Dignity, Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America, and she's a literal genius. She won the MacArthur Genius Award in 2014 on this work around care. So who else are we going to talk to about Ai-jen Poo when we're talking about care? And what I love about the way that she talks about this and talks about care work, is that she talks about it not as just something we give or it would be nice if we gave, it'd be nice if we did it, but she understands it as really

Prentis Hemphill
03:23 - 03:42
the foundation of democracy and the practice of democracy. It's actually what makes freedom possible. We don't get free because we get disentangled from each other and are isolated and alone. We get free through this practice of caring for each other and lifting each other up through that practice.

Prentis Hemphill
03:44 - 04:13
I think this is so critical for our time and so critical for this moment. And iGen is a brilliant revealer of this network, how we put care at the center of everything we do in our lives, in our society, in our world. And I think we all know the cost of what happens when we don't. the kind of world we build that doesn't value care, that only values profit.

Prentis Hemphill
04:14 - 04:46
We see where that takes us. And I think this episode is so timely because for me, I'm grappling with this question of what would we build? What would we build and what effort do we put in when we recover the pieces of this world or this moment, this era, wherever we end up, what do we build? And what I feel sure of, especially after this conversation, is the next iteration of human life must center care for there to be a different outcome, for us to get to a different place.

Prentis Hemphill
04:47 - 05:10
So I hope for any of you that are grappling with a similar question, this episode is useful to you. I found it deeply, deeply useful and resonant, and I'm happy to share it with you all. If you Feel something while you're listening to this. If a story emerges, a question emerges, whatever it is, you can also join us over on the Patreon to continue this conversation.

Prentis Hemphill
05:10 - 05:24
We are over there processing, discussing what happens each week. So I hope to see you there, and I really hope you enjoy this episode with Ai-jen Poo. Thank you. Hi, Jan, it is really great to be with you today.

Prentis Hemphill
05:24 - 05:30
I've wanted to talk to you for so long, and I'm really grateful you said yes to joining me in conversation here. Thank you.

Ai-jen Poo
05:31 - 05:38
I'm so happy to talk to you. Your voice alone is already making me feel better about the world. So here we go.

Prentis Hemphill
05:38 - 05:41
A voice for radio.

Ai-jen Poo
05:41 - 05:42
Yes.

Prentis Hemphill
05:43 - 06:11
So much about what I know about your work and what you've done for so long is really organizing and also culture change work around care and care economies, care as a value, care as a kind of almost organizing principle for the world. I want to know first, before we get into that, is there an early story you have about, you know, kind of realizing the centrality of care in our world?

Ai-jen Poo
06:12 - 07:15
Hmm, I wouldn't say there's one story, but kind of a set of stories and experiences that built on each other from my personal life to the work that I was doing with domestic workers in New York, where I just found that the most profound guides in my life in terms of what matters most and values have been caregivers, starting from my grandmother, who played a huge role in raising me from the time I was six months old. She was a caregiver in her profession, she was a nurse, but she also was a caregiver for this extended family village in her world, in her community, and she was a person who always felt like there was going to be a way forward no matter what. And whether or not she really believed that, she embodied that.

Ai-jen Poo
07:15 - 08:03
And so anytime I would have a complaint about things or I would have just being negative, she would always say, well, stop complaining and fix it, do something. And she just had to believe, I think, from the standpoint of somebody who spent most of her time every day, every waking hour, figuring out how to care for the people that she loves in her family and in her community, that I think she was kind of convinced that would always be a way forward when you're grounded in love for your family, your people, your community. And I've kind of carried that and I see it in action with the care workers and the domestic workers and the family caregivers that I've met along the way.

Ai-jen Poo
08:03 - 08:25
It's always been so rooted in this profound clarity that love brings as an organizing principle for their lives, and the optimism that's not naive, but is determined, that emerges from that place of love.

Prentis Hemphill
08:26 - 08:57
I think what I'm chewing on right now is when you talk about that almost eternal optimism, it feels so core to me because it's like care is that always reaching for each other, taking care of the people around us that need that support. There is something in care that is infused with that. I don't know if it's optimism, but it's at least like we're going to figure this out together. I think about how connective care is.

Prentis Hemphill
08:57 - 09:21
I'm like, care is what connects us in so many ways. And yet it feels like this really invisible fabric underneath everything that it's almost hard for us to acknowledge. Why do you think that is? Like, why is it hard for us even to name the labor of care, name the effort of care, name the skillfulness even of caring for each other.

Prentis Hemphill
09:21 - 09:24
Why is that so difficult or do you think it is?

Ai-jen Poo
09:26 - 10:13
Well, it is so natural in terms of it being such a fundamental part of the human experience. There really is no being No human being that exists without care, from the time we're born to the time we leave this earth, we are reliant upon care and also providing it in many different ways. And because it is so foundational, I think it becomes very easy, kind of like the ground we stand on, to not see it and to take it for granted. And as our existence has evolved over time, we have created so many systems and structures with a logic that just takes it for granted.

Ai-jen Poo
10:14 - 11:10
And a story about independence, about individual identity about so many things that really does take it for granted when it is like the invisible infrastructure that is powering, it's that life force that is making everything else possible. And so it's like a tricky thing because you don't want to make everything about care because then it becomes nothing. But then at a certain point, you do have to say, like, if we're to return to the fundamentals, because it feels like we're losing everything. that may not be a bad thing, because it might put into relief, like it might put into focus the things that are most fundamental, like care, that we actually need to invest in to get to another place, to get to a better place with each other and in

Ai-jen Poo
11:10 - 11:11
society.

Prentis Hemphill
11:12 - 11:50
you know, when you talk about the logic of the world that we're in, I almost think that it's that kind of individualism, it's almost anti-care. I remember years ago, I was thinking about patriarchy and I was like, or individualism and the story that I think gets told around that kind of like the individual rising above doing everything on their own. But it has to be a story of omission. It has to be a story where you don't say, my partner made all the meals or took care of the kids or my, you know, parents drove me to this, you know, after school program, it has to be a story of a mission to tell a story of

Prentis Hemphill
11:50 - 12:13
the individual. And it seems like we're kind of steeped in a culture that wants to tell those stories that are almost care as a negative or almost even like a, it's like a denigration. In a way, it's almost worse than invisible, is how it seems to me. It's like put in a position that's lower than not seen.

Prentis Hemphill
12:13 - 12:17
It's almost just rejected deeply.

Ai-jen Poo
12:18 - 13:15
Well, this is a place where I've learned so much from my disabled colleagues, where this idea of independence for disabled people is so, so important because so much of the agency and humanity of disabled people has been really called into question by our systems. So what disabled people have done is they've said, it's care and assistance that makes my independence possible. And so they've put it in a different context where they basically are saying, no, care is not a nice to have, it's not optional, it's so fundamental that without the assistance that I get every day, I can't get out of bed, can't go to school, I can't live a whole life in the community, connected to my family, basic things that we all take for granted.

Ai-jen Poo
13:16 - 13:45
And they helped me see that independence and care are actually connected, fundamentally connected, and that care is this enabler of our individual agency. and that we should see it as one part of a whole, right? That we live in this way that is interconnected and interdependent, and we are independent beings who make choices, and that's really important, right? That's right.

Prentis Hemphill
13:46 - 14:11
Yeah. I was doing some research for the embodiment work that I do, and, you know, we've been playing with this emotional maturity frame, and so I've been researching all of these models around how we mature as human beings. And a lot of the really classic models are very individual expression, individual realization. Some are more or less linear than others.

Prentis Hemphill
14:12 - 14:38
And I was examining these models and thinking about them. I was like, there's really no models. There's some that are sort of emerging. that see the ability to care as a developmental skill, or like a sign of growth or maturity, that it's actually also important to care, not just for other people, but for our own expansion, for our own deepening as people.

Prentis Hemphill
14:38 - 14:52
you know, when you talk about independence being so closely related to care, I'm like, yeah, there's no way that we mature sort of individually without reaping the benefits of care or learning to care as part of our growth.

Ai-jen Poo
14:53 - 15:11
That's right. And if we keep it in a frame of everything is the individual without that bigger picture, we end up in a situation where we feel like care is a burden. where we feel alone and isolated. And sometimes it does feel like a burden.

Ai-jen Poo
15:11 - 15:44
Like there's so many people out there who are doing the very best they can to take care of the people they love and still struggling around the basics to pay the bills, and they're doing everything right by the book, right? And it's because we haven't actually accounted for this bigger picture, which is that that care that makes everything else possible is not an individual commitment. It has to be a shared commitment as a society. We have to really support it.

Ai-jen Poo
15:44 - 16:22
Otherwise, I mean, it is not your personal failure. If you are trying to pay the bills, take care of your family, and you can't afford more than $10,000 a year for child care or $100,000 a year for elder care, That's not your fault, but you live every day as if it is because you've been told a story that it's your personal responsibility and it's your individual, it's your fault that it's not working when it really isn't. It's that we collectively haven't made the appropriate commitment to care.

Prentis Hemphill
16:22 - 16:48
You know, this is a big point, you know, I have a four year old now and I don't just have we have a four year old is a four year old. It's a part of my family. And there's a four year old soon to be four year old. And, you know, I'm at that kind of juncture of my life where I have a small child and I have aging parents and I'm feeling that like a pressure on both sides.

Prentis Hemphill
16:48 - 17:08
And I think about like, there's some things I didn't understand until I got to that point. I didn't know actually what it meant to be a parent, especially in this society. For me, it's been one of the most isolating experiences of my life and one of the most taxing when it's when it comes to care. And I know that I'm not alone.

Prentis Hemphill
17:08 - 17:18
You talked about the promocole. Like it's, it's unbelievable to me what childcare costs. It's absolutely unbelievable. And I don't know how, I don't know how we do it.

Prentis Hemphill
17:18 - 17:48
I don't know how other people do it. And I'm wondering, as you like look around in this moment and we see the big, beautiful bill getting passed, it undercuts so much of the infrastructure, I think, of healthcare, of care in general, both like, what are the concerns when you look out for people that are in my position or other positions of caring for other people? And what is possible when we center care?

Prentis Hemphill
17:48 - 17:56
So kind of the both, take us through the worst of it, what do you see? And then what becomes possible?

Ai-jen Poo
17:56 - 18:34
Well, as another person in the sandwich, which we call a panini because the pressure like is the sandwich is a little bit too gentle a metaphor for it. It really is like the squeeze. And, you know, I think it is so unnatural, that when we get to this moment where we're having children, and our parents are in a different stage of life where they need more assistance and they need a different set of supports, that that becomes a vice for working age people like us.

Ai-jen Poo
18:34 - 19:06
That is unnatural. You want to talk about unnatural, that is really unnatural. And it's because we have this kind of like, we have not been full-throated in this commitment to care. And in our country, we have been building, trying to solve this problem or address this challenge that we all face in patchwork piecemeal ways.

Ai-jen Poo
19:07 - 19:39
And so Other countries have universal child care. The UK has a year of paid leave for new parents. We have zero days of paid leave at the federal level, which means that one in four moms goes to work within two weeks of giving birth in our country. Can you imagine two weeks after giving birth having to show up at work and your body is just not healed.

Ai-jen Poo
19:40 - 20:14
So what we put people through in this country is profoundly unnatural. And it's because we have been kind of in this ambivalence around our commitment to supporting people on these basic needs. And as time has gone on, where we now have baby boomers aging into retirement, like 10,000 people a day turning 65, and living longer than ever, right? So the fastest growing segment of our population is 85 and older.

Ai-jen Poo
20:15 - 21:06
the number of people over the age of 85 is going to double by the year 2040. And we're just not set up, and it's all falling on individuals and individual families to try to navigate and figure it out. And what we do have is the strength and resilience of parents, of family caregivers, and of care workers, but everyone is overstretched and undervalued in our system. If we actually invested and said, just like we said 60 years ago, we're going to have Medicare and Medicaid, and we're going to offer health care to these segments of our population, If we said we're going to invest in a new Social Security Act or a new framework

Ai-jen Poo
21:06 - 21:54
that helps people afford child care, helps people afford aging and disability care when they need it, and helps people take time off from work when they need to care for themselves or their loved ones, it's actually so simple. And yet we have just not done it and at great peril because most working age adults have to work outside of the home in order to make ends meet. So our economy has developed and our demographic pressure has increased, but we have not adapted any of our policies or our culture to better support care. And if we did, it would unlock so much human potential and possibility.

Ai-jen Poo
21:55 - 22:30
Imagine everybody knowing that their parents could have access to care in the home and community and live full lives for as long as they can. that every person with dementia would be able to have consistent services and care so that they can maintain their dignity, even as they lose their memory, that every parent of a young child could go and pursue dreams for themselves and their kids, knowing that their kids were in good hands during the day. Like so simple and so big.

Prentis Hemphill
22:32 - 22:41
So big, so big. What are three steps we can take? Like what are three bills that you would pass in this moment? What would those be?

Ai-jen Poo
22:42 - 23:15
I would make child care aging and disability care affordable and accessible to everyone. And especially in the home and community where most of us want to stay, we have strong roots with our families and communities. And to know that for so many people, especially in rural communities, their only option is a nursing home. and a lot of nursing homes are gonna close because of cuts to Medicaid, and then there will be no option.

Ai-jen Poo
23:16 - 23:40
Like just to know that we could actually change that. And importantly, it is possible to raise wages and make caregiving jobs good jobs. that you can actually support yourself and your family and do work that you feel passionate about. I mean, every care worker out there, nobody does it for the money.

Ai-jen Poo
23:40 - 24:07
The median income of a home care worker apprentice right now is $22,000 per year in America. But we could raise those wages and make them jobs that you can sustain and take pride in and support your family on. And one generation could do better than the next, just like we did for manufacturing jobs in the 30s. Like these could be the good jobs of the next era.

Ai-jen Poo
24:08 - 24:26
And it's actually policy choices that we could make to raise those wages. make those jobs good jobs. And frankly, we should make staying at home to take care of your loved one also a viable economic option. And it's just not for too many people.

Ai-jen Poo
24:26 - 24:34
So I guess what I'm saying is I would pass a whole bunch of policies that make the choice to care real in today's economy.

Prentis Hemphill
24:36 - 24:52
in today's economy. Let's talk about today. I want to make a hard pivot into a little bit of the culture of the moment and your thoughts. And this is just some of the stuff I'm thinking about related to care.

Prentis Hemphill
24:53 - 25:09
I look at one worldview that's being offered that's saying, hey, we do see care work, and there are certain people that should do that. women, primarily. And they should do that only in the home. You're talking about choice, but I think folks are saying, oh, I see care work.

Prentis Hemphill
25:09 - 25:29
It should be done by women and it should be done only, you know, in this kind of configuration, this specific kind of nuclear family. And in a way, I recognize that it's going, OK, well, there is an acknowledgment of care as necessary. We have to care for children. We have to care for aging parents.

Prentis Hemphill
25:29 - 25:43
But it eliminates the choice. It eliminates choice and it eliminates the role of our government in creating options for people.

Ai-jen Poo
25:43 - 26:33
Well, you just have to look around at what's happening in our community to know that that acknowledgement of care isn't real until you change other dynamics in the economy. Like the reality is that in America today, 60% of working people earn less than $60,000 per year. So we're talking about people who are going to work every day, and work is not paying the bills for people. Now, in that context, if you, you cannot, in so many instances, you can't have a household where any adult is not working to help pay the bills.

Ai-jen Poo
26:34 - 27:07
And then you can't actually pay out of pocket for child care or elder care because you don't earn enough to do that. And so you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. So it's not a real option for people to stay home. If every woman in America said, I want to stay home to take care of the kids and take care of my parents, it's still, it wouldn't work because no one could afford their rent, their food, their transportation.

Ai-jen Poo
27:07 - 27:28
It's just the math isn't mathing. And so what I want is like a real solution. I love every recognition of care, but I want one that is grounded in an economic reality that creates real choices and opportunity for people. And we are going the opposite direction.

Ai-jen Poo
27:28 - 27:49
I mean, like there's so many low wage jobs in our country. And a lot of those jobs we saw in the pandemic are essential jobs, right? in the service industries, in the care sector. And those jobs are jobs that have low wages, no benefits, no job security, no access to a safety net.

Ai-jen Poo
27:49 - 28:15
The jobs that do have more job security and access to benefits are jobs that are knowledge worker jobs. They're white collar jobs. And a lot of those jobs are under threat from AI. And so we're trending in the opposite direction from where we need to go for there to be a real choice for people to stay home with their kids.

Ai-jen Poo
28:16 - 28:39
So I think you can't solve one challenge without the other. And the reality is, I mean, no one should tell us how we live our lives. This idea that care is enabling of agency of choice of freedom is a very American idea. Like real freedom in this country relies on care.

Ai-jen Poo
28:40 - 28:44
And that's the piece that we've never actually like designed for.

Prentis Hemphill
28:47 - 29:29
Okay, I am 100% with you in everything you're saying. I align with you, I feel juiced about it, and then I look outside or I look into my phone and I see that we are, in my opinion, when you talk about we're going in the wrong direction, it's like the culture of cruelty that I see in this moment makes what you're saying seem more and more impossible in a way. And almost, you know, in a strange way, I think about the undermining of care is almost contributing to cruelty.

Prentis Hemphill
29:29 - 29:46
It has this like weird, you know, it's like the more cruel we are, the more cruel we feel towards other people almost. And I feel this quickening around it. And it's something I have not wrapped my mind around. I really just want to think with you around it.

Prentis Hemphill
29:47 - 30:20
It's like, what is the interruption to the tone? And I don't expect you to have an answer to this, but how do we address it on that fundamental level? And I've seen you, you know, over the years, you're someone that has really brought this work forward in a real widespread way. Like people are talk about care and way because of the Work that you and the other organizers that you've worked with over the years have done and I'm looking at this moment and I'm going I don't even know how we can talk about care without that feeling Charged

Prentis Hemphill
30:20 - 30:35
or Counter to a culture that seems I must say hell-bent on Undermining the even impulse towards caring for each other. Do you see that kind of thing? Yeah Yeah

Ai-jen Poo
30:36 - 31:11
I don't really know where this metaphor comes from, but this idea that you get the flywheel going in a certain direction, and I do think you're right. It's like fear and cruelty drive the flywheel in this direction where it feels like we're on a kind of path of no return. And I do think that care and empathy and agency are how we get the flywheel going in the other direction. And it doesn't happen in a vacuum, it has to happen together.

Ai-jen Poo
31:11 - 31:48
And I have a lot of hope because when I go into rooms today in 2025, If you ask people, which I do at the beginning of meetings or whenever I'm talking to people or I'm gathered in community, we just start the meeting by asking people to turn to the person sitting next to them and share a story about someone who's cared for them and what that relationship means to them in their lives or someone that they've cared for. And everyone has a story. Everyone has a story.

Ai-jen Poo
31:49 - 32:17
And when you start there, the starting point for the energy, the energy in the room changes. The way people see each other is totally different. And all of a sudden you've touched into something that is so connective that it's like a live wire. And that lifeline is, I think, the lifeline of democracy right now.

Ai-jen Poo
32:18 - 32:32
Finding that point of connection and the way that we all are trying to care and show up is, I think, a big part of the solution.

Prentis Hemphill
32:34 - 32:45
I felt a little chill. I have very embodied reactions when it hits. I'm like, hey, I think you're onto something. I think you're onto something.

Prentis Hemphill
32:46 - 33:20
I was talking to a group of organizers not too long ago, a couple of months ago, and we had this conversation. And this is when I really thought of you because we were like, what is the intervention? And in the conversations we were talking about, care was the word that just kept showing up, because even when we look at the way that men are being organized in this moment really intentionally, that part of the hook is saying your role and how you care is being undermined by this faction or group of people.

Prentis Hemphill
33:20 - 33:44
Now, I think, you know, they're kind of taking care and like we talked about earlier, it's like we don't have actually the underpinning to support the kind of care. And maybe the kind of care that has been offered needs some remixing, needs to actually breathe a little bit, get some new information in. But part of what's so compelling is that people are going, oh, I have a role. Oh, I know what I'm supposed to do.

Prentis Hemphill
33:44 - 34:08
I know the way I'm supposed to care. And these people don't like the way that I care or the way that I show care. And I'm like, Yeah, there's a warping that's happening, but a lot of it feels centered around how people care for each other, how we show care. what our role is and to what you're talking about, this kind of care that is deeply connective has a different kind of power to it.

Prentis Hemphill
34:08 - 34:24
It's less reactionary in a way, but also deeply humanizing and creative and connective and all these things. I think that it gives me that chill to be like, how do we do what you're talking about around these big questions that people are facing around care and who they are?

Ai-jen Poo
34:24 - 35:16
That's why I hang out with caregivers, because it's like, a lot of times when people become caregivers, it's a little different with parents, but when you become a caregiver, oftentimes it's in a moment of crisis. where you feel a total loss of control, and you still figure out how to show up for the person you love. You find a way forward, just like my grandma. And that ability, amidst a total feeling of loss, of control, of your loved one, of whatever it is, you figure out how to show up and help that person feel cared for, feel a sense of humanity and dignity, even amidst a sense of loss or illness or disability.

Ai-jen Poo
35:17 - 36:00
And I think we as a country, in different ways, are all grappling with the feeling of loss of agency and control. And if we can tap into our inner caregiver, collectively, you know, and just remember, we have agency and we don't have to choose hate or cruelty, we can actually choose to show up for each other as human beings. That is within us. And if we could tap into that and actually feel what that feels like to actually reclaim our agency, woo, I think we could turn, could get the flywheel going in the right direction.

Prentis Hemphill
36:00 - 36:37
I love how you're talking about agency. Like it really gets me excited to think about this kind of connective agency and not, you know, just kind of the singular by myself agency, but like the Caring for someone so that they feel their own agency having agency in our care. I don't know. There's something very Exciting to me about that and I think it's a it's really astute to think about this moment of like people Kind of relinquishing their agency because of that Overwhelm and what can we learn from caregivers who experience that uncertainty that overwhelmed the the?

Prentis Hemphill
36:38 - 36:50
Dramatic shift in their life and conditions and the conditions of the lives of people they love. How do you find? Nurture agency even in that moment feels yeah, like a really important really important learning.

Ai-jen Poo
36:52 - 37:43
I think that's right, and I don't want to I idealize the experience of caregiving because it is so challenging and so fraught and every day is different. But if we think about the fact that today in our country, there's 62 million family caregivers who are spending 20 hours a week, you know, caring for a loved one who is disabled or chronically ill or aging and showing up over and over again, I find that to be very energizing. At a moment when we all feel so depleted, there are miracles happening in our country against all odds that is about supporting humanity.

Ai-jen Poo
37:43 - 37:48
And we should count that. That counts. You know, it counts.

Prentis Hemphill
37:49 - 38:13
That's right. Right. we can choose to see what's here, we can choose to learn the lessons of what's already happening, instead of only being reactive to what we're told, it's like we can choose to see this world. So I want to talk a little bit with you about, I listened to a speech of yours where you quoted Vincent Harding, and you said that I'm a citizen of a nation that has yet to come into being.

Prentis Hemphill
38:13 - 38:46
And I think about this American experiment in democracy and pluralism. I also think about the resistance to some of those experiments and how that's always followed. You know, the question that I've been in for a while is like, do you see this as a worthwhile experiment to keep pushing or cultivating rather democracy here for us? Does it still feel worthwhile for you?

Prentis Hemphill
38:47 - 39:10
I think this moment can just be so despairing. So I just want to name what I think a lot of people are feeling. It's like a kind of despair, a giving up, a like, you know, this project hasn't ever been for me. Do you still find value in this sometimes really horrible class project that we we've been assigned together?

Ai-jen Poo
39:10 - 39:54
Absolutely, I do unequivocally. I believe that what my friend Heather McGee says, that this country is the most ambitious experiment in democracy in the history of the world. And she describes how there were indigenous people in these lands, and then people brought here against their will. in the transatlantic slave trade, and then generations of migrants from every corner of this world, every culture, every religion, every nationality, and in waves.

Ai-jen Poo
39:55 - 40:11
And then they tell us that we're one country. And that project is really ambitious. That is a very ambitious project. And her reminder of that is helpful to me.

Ai-jen Poo
40:12 - 41:18
And I think in this moment when there's so much despair, what I keep this image that I keep thinking of is an image that Monifa Bendeli from Moms Rising kind of put in my head. She said, what if it were about a phoenix rising in this moment? that what if the destruction and the dismantling created more space for the truth and the love and the care and the democratic commitment to this project to emerge anew for this next era. And I just keep, holding this idea that everything that feels like it might be crumbling, it could just be the opening for the kind of renewal that we need in this country, where people don't have to work incredibly hard and still be food insecure, where people don't have

Ai-jen Poo
41:18 - 42:20
to worry about this impossible choice between caring for their loved one and going to work. Where, where, more than that, we are supported in our commitment to care and to realizing our you know, our contributions, our creativity and our ability to make this community in this country a better place, like that could be what's on the other side of this. And so to be able to help each other imagine what comes next and have that be the North Star that we are holding as we navigate these dark waters is I think is it's an incredible opportunity really. There's more space than ever to imagine the future differently and I think if we hold that it gives us renewed hope in this project.

Ai-jen Poo
42:21 - 42:53
And I think I learn a lot from domestic workers. I mean, the domestic workers who are undocumented, working in isolated conditions, afraid to get on public transportation, afraid for their kids on their way to school, And they still show up, not just to work and not just to care, but to be a part of an organization that's helping other domestic workers, that's making these jobs better jobs. That is a commitment in this project.

Ai-jen Poo
42:55 - 43:15
That is a futurist. They are futurists. And they are believing even though they can't quite totally draw a picture for us yet, they're reaching for what's next. And I think they deserve what's next and we got to reach for it together so we can get there.

Prentis Hemphill
43:18 - 43:41
That really hit me. I can be one of those people that feel like giving up on this or thinking that everything inside of it is rotten. And I think we're all entitled to feel that at any point in time. When you said unequivocally, I was like, dang, Ai-jen, Ai-jen's gonna say unequivocally.

Prentis Hemphill
43:41 - 44:18
And part of what I hear and what you're saying too, especially about domestic workers that show up to their work, to their lives, to organize, is we don't escape the question of governance. We don't escape this question of how we're going to build together, how we're going to govern. We don't escape it in any future. How do we invest in the future that is trying to emerge through domestic worker organizing, through this care work?

Prentis Hemphill
44:18 - 44:50
that's sort of what's getting me energized and what you're saying is like, oh, I don't escape, I can't escape this question. I cannot escape this question of governance or what we put our attention on now, what we build now. And that means joining with, you know, my grandmother who was a teacher then was my caregiver growing up, even though she was disabled and also, you know, work the polls. You know, all the time, like she was a part of a project that I feel.

Prentis Hemphill
44:50 - 45:03
That's the project I'm aligned with what she was doing and the way she was working and and experimenting inside of all this, that's what I feel aligned with. Yeah. Hmm.

Ai-jen Poo
45:04 - 45:16
The fight right now is what is the project? Is it gonna be your grandmother's project? Or is it gonna be somebody else's project? And I'm for your grandma's project.

Ai-jen Poo
45:18 - 45:45
And that's what I'm fighting for. This vision that our ancestors believed in so wholeheartedly, even though they had no material basis to believe that things could be different or better. they still showed up to make it better. And that is the project that has to endure.

Ai-jen Poo
45:45 - 46:37
And the only way it endures is if we feed it, is if we build it, is if we continue to nurture it. And so I say unequivocally to that, and I'm also not gonna lie and say that I don't wake up some days like, oh my God, you know, I mean, you're talking to somebody who's like, been doing this work for more than two decades. And I'm like, I do sometimes wonder, you know, what has become of the just untold amounts of organizing of energy of commitment of dedication on the part of so many people to progress. But we can't, you know, my grandma would say, like, there's always a way forward.

Ai-jen Poo
46:37 - 46:56
And, and this is the test of our generation is we were we were given this project, we were handed the baton at a particular time. And they're counting on us to, to fight for the project.

Prentis Hemphill
47:00 - 47:09
What a charge, Ai-jen. It's like, when people say, you know, we're born for this time or we chose this time, I didn't choose this time, I'm gonna be honest with you.

Ai-jen Poo
47:09 - 47:15
I don't think I did that. Okay, I mean... But I'm here.

Prentis Hemphill
47:15 - 47:30
I just said that yesterday. But I'm here. But I'm here. I'm here and, you know, with so much honor for all of our grandmothers, for care workers, for the care that we all engage in every day.

Prentis Hemphill
47:31 - 47:54
I'm here with that and I want to honor that. And I'm grateful to you for all the work you've done for kind of holding this this particular part of the light, you know, in this time. And I think it's work that is obviously going to become increasingly clear why it's so important. I'll just put it like that.

Prentis Hemphill
47:54 - 48:02
So thank you, Ai-jen. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for your work and commitment and your clarity. I think it's exactly what we need.

Ai-jen Poo
48:04 - 48:24
Well, thank you for everything you're doing to bring the light and keep it glowing inside of us and in the world, because those two sources of light are interdependent, just like care.

Prentis Hemphill
48:24 - 49:32
That's right. Beautiful. Thank you so much. 
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