Episode 12: What's Your Path? Part 1

Four people take us on their emotional journey through the landscape of government. How do you manage the personal toll that comes with trying to make change?

Part 1 guests: Jamie McGeathy and Blanca Martinez 

7:50: Introduction to Jamie McGeathy
8:10: What did you do to answer your own questions about state government?
11:45: What did you do with your frustration about lack of access to information? 
14:07: Now how do you feel about it all?
15:35: Introduction to Blanca Martinez
14:46: Was there a particular moment in which you realized you wanted to work in public policy?
18:50: How did you first get involved?
21:30: Who did you learn from in terms of how to affect change?
24:25: What were the lessons you learned about how to navigate the state capitol and structures of power? 
28:14: Did you feel like you were able to be effective? 
30:58: What sent you in a different direction from working at the legislature?
38:21: How do you show up for public policy today? 
41:20 Do you have anything else to share about the idea of how we find our place and stick to it? 

Transcript

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CHORUS

Welcome to the People’s House. . .

The State of Minnesota,

My North Star, My Dear

There’s so much happening behind the scenes that you don’t know.

Take time to get to know, don’t judge before you learn.

Leah Cooper

Welcome to Our House, a podcast that pulls back the curtain on Minnesota State government. I’m Leah Cooper.

Alan Berks

And I’m Alan Berks. We’re the co-artistic directors of a theater company called Wonderlust Productions. In the process of putting together an original show about life at the state capitol, we learned that Minnesota government is very much like theater.

Leah Cooper

But what happens on stage in theater is entertainment. What happens behind the scenes at the state Capitol has a direct effect on people’s real lives.

CHORUS 

Welcome to the People’s House

Try to see another point of view

Look up, look out, look around

What would you see in another person’s shoes? 

CHORUS

Is this the People’s House?

We need to face the harm that’s been done

CHORUS 

There’s inspiration in these halls

CHORUS 

But it’s got to include everyone

Welcome to the People’s House

The people’s house is open

Now what is the role for me?

There’s inspiration in the halls

Set the power free!

Alan Berks

In our first 11 eleven episodes, we tried to present a full picture of the many competing interests that make change at the Capitol so hard. But as we come to the end of the season, I get scared that we sound naive about how power and politics can, and does, swallow up good intentions and even the best people.

Leah Cooper

We found people from wildly different backgrounds who got involved in government for very different reasons, but who each went on an intense emotional journey within this sometimes dehumanizing machine.

Alan Berks
And that’s something we did our best to capture in the play with the character of Oskar - a non-partisan staffer and the son of immigrants.  In the end he steps out of the shadows in a legislative hearing to tell his story.

OSCAR

I live in fear for my parent’s safety. Phew. I spend all my time with words, but I've never said those words out loud. I spent so much time trying to fit in here that I forgot why I really wanted to be here. I believe in helping my parents and my community. There are many more people like me who live in fear for their parents’ safety. Why do my parents work so much and we still have nothing? Why was my father never home? He’s working all the time, and we still lived 6 in a one bedroom apartment. They did it for the opportunity to make their children’s lives better. And now I feel the weight of that community on me--even though they haven’t asked. I dream of speaking up for them because they can’t. 

LEGISLATOR

We are not responsible for federal immigration policy. We can’t pass laws that—

OSCAR

But you do pass laws that make life even more difficult for them than it needs to be, about identification cards, taxes, driver’s licenses. You pass laws as though, because they aren’t citizens, you don’t recognize them as people.

LEGISLATOR

Regardless of how I might feel, we can’t do whatever we want. We are responsible to our constituents.

ANGELA

That reasoning always seems to be used to resist change. 

LEGISLATOR

I don’t like what you’re implying.

ANGELA

Why don’t certain people ever seem to have representation? Why is it that we never seem to count equally?

LEGISLATOR (frustrated)

The doors are open! What more do you want? Would you like us to ignore the law? History? Young Lady, I am in the party that generally supports your causes, but you should respect my experience when I tell you that we can’t just magically make things the pretty way you want them to be?!

Alan Berks

People get frustrated, people get angry, people stop listening to each other or thinking that anyone will ever listen to them. It can feel like the government is where feelings go to die. 

Leah Cooper

In this 12th and final two-part episode of our first season, we talk to people about those feelings and how they channel them–

Alan Berks

Or don’t channel them and give up on the system. For this episode, we talked to people about their personal journey. Not the arcane buttons and levers that government throws in their path.

Leah Cooper

Their stories illuminate this little secret behind all the policies and procedures that doesn’t get talked about much–that we tried to capture in our play–there is a culture at the Capitol that informs all these unspoken rules about how things work and that culture is exactly as imperfect and frustrating as people are.

REPRESENTATIVE

I am reminded that on my first day you told me that “Policies come and go, people even come and go, but don’t forget that you are always part of a culture. . .”

Look. This place. It’s just people who have weaknesses and flaws. And laws and rules are a reflection of those people. Because people are the way we are, little people, that’s the reason we have this building and procedures. It’s all designed to awaken our aspirations to be greater than the sum of what we are as individuals.

SHEILA

How can the sum be greater if not all the individual parts are added into the equation equally?

(A quiet general murmur of agreement. “She’s good.” “I like how she phrased that.”)

REPRESENTATIVE

Well what would you like us to do?

SHEILA

Be more uncomfortable.

LEGISLATOR

I’m extremely uncomfortable right now!

SHEILA

Madam Chair. 

I hear friends complain when a march stops traffic around the Capitol. Because they’re inconvenienced. But I think we all need to redirect traffic for a little bit even if it slows us down.

There was a time when there was no wheelchair access here. Cass Gilbert didn’t design any restrooms for female legislators. But the restoration didn’t restore that part of our history. No, we said we need to make an effort so that people who are different are able to come in too. Now we take the wisdom of those accommodations for granted even though they inconvenienced us at first.

My hope is that the next generation of any type of person—Minnesotans of African descent, Asian, Native, poor—will have the same access to the system as any other person. What we’re asking now is only the type of facilitation that will not even be remembered because the changes will have been accepted.

Alan Berks
Sheila’s character presented a vision that many people, I think most people, would like to see realized. So how do we get there in a way that brings everyone along rather than tearing each other apart? 

Leah Cooper

Let’s begin this final episode’s journey with Jaime McGeathy, who created the Watch Your Reps Twitter account because, after Donald Trump was elected, she decided she needed to know how government actually works. She explains how opaque the process can be for anyone who wants to get involved.

Alan Berks

So can you take me back to: you were taking intentional break?

Jaime McGeathy

Yes. 

Alan Berks

If you were describing the story in the present tense? What did you do? You were like, I'm just curious. I'll go online. And then you went down an online rabbit hole? Where was where was that? Where did that take you? What did you do in order to answer your own questions? 

Jaime McGeathy  

Well, probably initially, I looked up the Minnesota State Government to find their website. That was my first, and the first place I would generally go for anything is: “okay, there's probably a website somewhere.” Let me see what's happening. And I started digging through the variations of the website and what's out there, and trying to get a handle around just what information was available. For my own particular, you know, State Senator and legislator and who they were, kind of signing up the newsletters, using them to better understand what I could find about people. And then branching out to more people. So I subscribed to everybody's newsletter. Republican, Democrat, didn't matter. Every single senator and representative, got all their newsletters into an inbox that I set up specifically for this to avoid flooding my own. You know, I started digging through and trying to understand what was coming up for votes, trying to see what was being introduced in bills. My first year, I probably spent too much energy on bill introductions. Because I didn't understand that the vast majority never go anywhere. And it's mostly for show. A bill introduction is literally the least thing your representative can do, is introduce bill about something. They put it in the hopper. I've introduced a bill. Great look, we're all happy now. It means nothing. I went down that rabbit hole way too long of paying attention to bill introductions. They're just not that important.

Alan Berks 

So you started for a whole year doing what I think most of us would do, which is to look at what they - the legislation they say they're going to pass. So that's technically what you did?

Jamie McGeathy

Yeah.

Alan Berks

What were you thinking and feeling while you were doing that?

Jaime McGeathy 

I just I couldn't believe... it was frustrating that there was no good single source of what the heck was happening at the state capitol until after it already happened. So if you look in the news... MinnPost does some amazing reporting, they tend to get a little bit ahead of the story. But most of the news that covers the Capitol, it's this vote happened. This just passed, we had this hearing. And by the time you're hearing about any of this stuff, your opportunity to influence it, it's gone. It's already passed. And I started looking around and I could not find any consolidated source of information about what was about to happen soon enough so that anybody could call the rep, could go to a hearing, you know. You would just have to magically, basically you'd have to stalk the website to find a hearing schedule to see what's going to be on it. So you could try to do something about it, or arrange some phone calls. It's it's extremely frustrating. So the House is better than the Senate, the Senate is actually even more obscure and in the dark than that. They don't even post what they're voting on in the Senate until like 10 minutes before they're about to vote on it, like they're impossible to keep track of. And I think that's on purpose. It's amazing. It's the same IT department that does the infrastructure for everyone, because the house is so much better. Like I don't understand why they don't just take the house stuff and set up the Senate the same way. It's so much, it's way easier to navigate the house.

Alan Berks

Unless it's intentional.

Jamie McGeathy

Unless it's intentional, like they have their own thing going on. And they just don't want it for whatever reason. But deep frustration over an inability to find out what was happening soon enough to do anything about it. That was really what I was feeling.

Alan Berks 

So then what did you do with that frustration?

Jaime McGeathy 

I started putting information out there. So... I wrote up a Twitter account, called it Watch Your Reps Minnesota. I came up with, you know, a little cheapy logo that I made in probably not even something as complicated ass Photoshop. I probably use PowerPoint. You know, it's the state of Minnesota, I made it blue. And I put like a woman's eye on it. You know, that was that was it. Watch Your Reps Minnesota. And I started putting some information out there. Um, you know I had a newsletter that people could sign up to get through email and get email alerts. And, you know, I would kind of spend the week seeing what was going on, you know, kind of at the end of the week, or if something more important came up sooner, sent out kind of a consolidation of, you know, like, here's what I'm seeing. Here's what's happening. Here's the upcoming schedule of these hearings. You know, here's where you can find out more about this type of thing. Lots of people signed up to the newsletter. So I was spending a lot of time really digging deeply into the legislation, and trying to understand these bills. Lots of things happen in the bills in ways that no human would understand what they're actually doing. Particularly the part of the bill where they're just basically say, erase lines, blah, blah, blah from some other bill. Like that one line in a bill can change a lot drastically. So I spent lots and lots of time digging through legislation, and putting out the alerts. And then from there, I started doing some workshops with some groups. So some people asked me to come talk and explain how local government worked to their teams, to these different activist groups. So I did a little bit of that as well.

So I was doing all of that. You know, teaching myself some of this legalese that they put in there. You know, when they mark up a bill of like, things are crossed out, new things are added, things are underlined, like what does all of that mean, to the change of the bill? I mean, like, literally, you see a bill introduced, if you pull the thing up, if you've never looked at a bill before, it's going to be very confusing to try to figure out what's actually happening there. You might pull up a bill that's 100 pages, and there's one paragraph that's underlined, and that's the only thing that actually changed in the bill is that little piece that's underlined. But if you don't know that, you think the whole thing is new. Because you don't know how to look for that. You're like someone introduced a bill, it's 500 pages, I go through, oh, my God, it's doing all of this stuff, when all of that stuff was already law, they're just changing this little tiny piece of it. That's underlined. So it's just little things like that.

Alan Berks

So you figure all this stuff out. People are signed up for your newsletter. They're, they're checking your Twitter account, they're asking you to teach other people how to figure all this stuff out. Now, how do you feel?

Jaime McGeathy 

Um, probably, I don't know, it's still still kind of frustrating, but a little bit more empowered. Anxiety levels definitely much higher when you track things that closely though. That's why after six years of it, I've kind of stepped away from doing it. I don't suggest anyone actually track local government that closely for that long. There's a lot of things that happen that will just piss you off, even though they come to nothing. In the end, you spend a lot of your time just angry about things.

The fact that... it's interesting the first time you watch a hearing, particularly a hearing with a newer batch of legislators. Just listening, or even just listening to the recording to understand that they don't know any more about this than you do. They really don't. It is both scary and enlightening and very empowering. At the same time. Because if they don't know any more about this than you do… why can't you get involved? Yeah, no. So yes, I'm cynical and I'm burned out. And I'm also hopeful and government is ridiculous and really 

fascinating all at the same time.

Alan Berks

Jamie’s journey began because of the 2016 election. She had always voted, but she felt as though she had to do more. And by more, she meant everything all at once. 

Leach Cooper

Blanca Martinez, most recently the Director of Public Policy at the Citizen’s League and currently a Bush Foundation Fellow, is someone whose journey into public policy began in childhood. I asked her if there was a particular moment when she realized this is what she wanted to do. 

Blanca Martinez 

You know, I don't think any child ever thinks about "I want to be in public policy." That's just not something that happens. But I think naturally from when I was a very young person growing up in Mexico, I had a very, a very active community in Mexico. My grandparents, even though they could not read or write, they would always make it the most important thing to vote in every single election. I remember going to the booths with them. And as a child, and having them asked me to read out who the candidates were, and to look through the ballot and make sure that their Xs were in the correct space. So from a very young child, I understood that democracy sometimes was one of the only hopes for people in communities, especially people that are marginalized, and that don't have all of the opportunities. So from then on, I began to just notice the way that public policy existed in everything. And at that age and at that time, I didn't know what public policy was, I just knew what poverty was, what the lack of access to education was, with the lack of transportation, what the lack of access to clean water was. I knew what those things were, because I lived them. And then, being separated from my dad for many years due to immigration policy. And growing up without my dad, seeing him every three to four years, I knew that somebody at some point had made a choice, and that it had impacted me. So when I got the opportunity to be involved in high school, there were a lot of things happening. The war in Iraq was happening. Immigration, DACA, was happening. We were having a lot of conversations, then even about Black Lives Matter during my high school years. And I knew that this was a thread. I began to see that from a very young age, there had always been a thread. And that thread was that somebody was making choices. Somebody was making decisions. And these were resulting in policies that impacted me, impacted my community, and impacted everything that I knew to be my life. So from that time on, I said, I want to do something, I want to be at the forefront. I want to make sure that I understand how those decisions are made, and who is making those decisions. So that's how, really my aspiration and my vocation for understanding public policy came about.

Leah Cooper 

That is so clear. Such a clear line, you see from observation to activation. So where did you start? I mean, how did you first get involved?

Blanca Martinez 

Well, actually, my first brush with the actual big word, the big PP, public policy, was right after college, I moved to California as one does. I could not find a job here. We, it was right after the big 2008 crash, and I could not find a job in Minnesota. There was a job opening in in California and I moved there, I worked for a day treatment program for young people. And one of the things that I noticed was how many of the things that we couldn't do as staff in the interest of supporting the youth. This was literally the last stop for some of these children before they either got instituted into the correctional system, or they got instituted into a medical facility. So we were their last hope and our whole policy was we're not saying no to any child. But we had to say no a lot because there were policies in place. And I actually talked to my manager, I was an assistant in one of the rooms and I said is there any way that I can get involved in in the public policy advocacy side of our organization? And he said, "Well, I know that we have a lobbyist. I know that we work with someone but I don't think we have that." So, my supervisor who was one of the most amazing bosses I ever had, he actually let me create a public policy internship. And I would split my time on Thursdays and Fridays, to go work with our lobbyists and learn about the public policy issues that were directly impacting the youth that we were working with. So that was my first introduction of walking into the Sacramento State House. And seeing all of the beauty and horrors that happens in there. And as a young person, I was in complete awe that this is that this decisions that were being made at the Sacramento State House were directly impacting our youth, that some of these policies were the reasons why we had to say no to so many youth, that a lot of children got removed from their homes earlier on. So I began to see that very direct link of public policy and the impact in people's lives, especially in these youth.

Leah Cooper 

Wow. So who did you learn from in terms of how to affect change?

Blanca Martinez 

I think honestly, for me, my first teacher was my mom. My mom has been an amazing advocate. I recall when I was a young child in Mexico, my grandma used to bring bring me lunch, as it's a traditional thing that you do during recess, you go meet your parents, your grandparents, and they bring you lunch, they come into the school. And I used to have tons of friends who were so excited when my parents, my mom, or my grandma would come, because they would always bring extra food. So we would share the food with them. And I began to learn that a lot of my friends would not have breakfast. So they would wait until lunchtime to see what my grandma, or my mom brought. And I told my mom, Mom, there's a lot of my friends that don't get to eat breakfast. They either, their parents leave very early in the morning, or they just don't have the money. We were in one of the most impoverished places in our region that had been devastated by pretty much NAFTA. Another story. But it's, it's a very rural community. And my mom said, how many of them don't get to have breakfast? And I said, I don't know, let me ask my classroom. So I began to ask kids who didn't get breakfast, and my mom began to fundraise money. And she started a breakfast. I think it was every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So we used to literally go and beg for money in the wealthier areas of our town, and fundraise money. And at that time, my mom had three jobs. And she would get up at, and wake me up at four in the morning. So we could prepare breakfast, bring them to another person's house, set up breakfast, and everybody would eat. So at one point between my mom and some neighbors and I, we were feeding around 70 kids in our neighborhood. And that's just one of the things that my mom did, among many other things. Setting up some care for seniors that did not have any more care. So from a very young age, I saw that if if there was a problem, you couldn't always rely on governmental entities, that it was up to community to fix it, and to demand that change. So she was my first teacher when it comes to advocacy. And when it comes to really thinking more broadly as to how to affect change in communities.

Leah Cooper 

Wow. That's like the best teacher story I've ever heard for advocacy. And for, yeah, communities of care, as a tool. So I'm curious once once you were walking into a state capitol on a regular basis, how was the experience of walking through those structures of power? Was it what you expected? What, what were the lessons you learned about how to navigate those systems once you were there?

Blanca Martinez 

Yeah. Well, my first official position in this space was as a legislative assistant for our state senator Torres Ray, and she's

Leah Cooper

Here in Minnesota.

Blanca Martinez

Here in Minnesota. And she is the first Latina to be elected in the state senate in its history. So for me, when I got that position, I had all of these dreams, and hopes of what it would be, and all of the things that I was going to be able to do. I really just imagined almost like a Disneyland scenario where you're walking and the birds are chirping, and a bird lands on your shoulder, and you just walk in and everything. And well, that shattered very fast. I think working under the mentorship of Senator Torres Ray, I saw and I learned about resiliency. And her being a fierce advocate in the minority or in the majority. Being a fierce advocate, I learned so much about what you can do when it's a no all the time. And what it really means to represent community. When you become a state senator, a legislator, or a legislative aide, and you are a person of color, in these spaces, you're not only there to represent or to support, that district, the lines in within that district, you are there to represent everyone that looks like you. So any mistake that you make, I was one of the first people of color, one of the first Latinas to be in that position. So I knew the weight that was in my shoulders, to be perfect, to do everything perfectly. Because I was going to be the reference point for anyone that came after me. So that in itself was very traumatic. Imagine having to walk into the space of power, and knowing that every word that you said was gonna be carried in perpetuity, not because you're important, but because you are representing those that look like you. So for me, being in that space was incredibly transformative. I learned how to advocate from the inside. I learned - and then I also became that door through which many could come. I was advocating to something as simple as for us to translate the signs around the Capitol. People needed to know what the entrance was, they're like, well, we cannot have interpreter, that's a lot of money. And I said, I'll do it. I'll translate all of the signs. So I was the go to person for language access for Spanish language access. On top of my job, which was answering during the legislative session, over 200 calls, over 500 emails, making sure that our when we were in the majority our committee was everything was in place. So there was a lot of learning how to how to do more with what you have, and to really advocate and shift those systems and power from the inside.

Leah Cooper

Wow. Did you feel like you were able to be effective?

Blanca Martinez 

Yes and no. I think in many ways, I was able to transform, for example, the way that internships were done at the state capitol. For the interns that we got at the Capitol, we used to get just a pile of interns. And they said these are the ones that we recommend that your office takes a look takes a look at. And I will look through them. And I would never see any diversity just via name. So I asked, can you give me the whole pile? And of course, in the rejected pile, you would see students that were not given a chance because they had a misspelled word, because they had the wrong person in their application. So I said, from now on, I want to see all the applications. And we were able to increase diversity, we were able to improve access. I was able to promote a lot of DEI work internally, and asked for legislators to think more deeply about what not only diversity means, but what equity how is it that we move forward with legislations? So, I think internally I was able to set some structures in place that are still there today. When it comes to also legislation I supported Senator Torres-Ray through a lot of amazing legislation. We were there when we passed the Freedom to Marry. We were there when, there were so many other legislative triumphs. And that took everyone from the legislative aide, to the committee administrator, to the community pushing, to the legislators that passed it, and to the Governor that approved it. Right? So I feel that there were a lot of triumphs. But there are still a lot of doors that are closed. And the systems of power are still in place. And, I think they continue to shift a little bit more and more. But I do see that there, there are still a lot of decisions that are made without community without centering those most impacted. And in terms of public policy, for me, a lot of our communities, when you ask when I asked my mom, what is public policy? She's like, I don't know, I can barely tell you what you do for a living. But in her core, she knows what it is. But that's me, it's a very exact example of power. If people cannot understand what public policy is, it means that we're not doing our job.

Leah Cooper

I'm curious then, so if you found a lot of success, I think it sounds, I mean, it sounds like not only personal success, but but collective success at the legislature. Why didn't you stay in the legislature? Did it, did you have the thought to ever run for office or stay working in that sphere? Or what? What sent you in a new direction?

Blanca Martinez 

I burned out. Yeah, I burned out. It's just not a sustainable space, especially for BIPOC folks. There are a lot of micro aggressions that happen. My boss tried to do everything that she could to protect me, to support me in these conversations. But there are still, in essence, these spaces were never made for us. They were never made for us in mind. They were never made for us to succeed. So it came a time where I had to choose between continuing to, quote unquote, climb up the ladder or choose my mental health. And I was so burned out, I had to leave. I not only left the Capitol, I left the state, I left the country. I had to take some time for myself to heal. I think what happens in a lot of the spaces of public policy is that we continue to see the high needs in our community. And that effect in the process of public policy can be so slow. So in my case, I continue to see the poverty in my parent's home. I continue to see the lack of care for elders, especially BIPOC elders. I continue to witness incarceration of youth in my family. I continue to see my nieces and nephews fall and fall further behind in school systems that were failing them. I saw all of these inequities breathing and living every single day. And me having this almost philosophical conversation of what care is, and that does something to the soul. I think there is something that happens where you can only sustain that for so long. And I think especially in in my generation, as a millennial, that we are having these conversations about self care, and about intergenerational trauma, and about about thriving, not just surviving. And I think there was a point where I knew that I was becoming bitter. And I was no longer effective. I was no longer inspiring change, I was becoming part of the system, part of the bureaucracy. And that's when I knew I had to step out in and find some time to find some peace, to rejuvenate, and to come back in another shape or form. Not physically, but you in terms of my position, right. I didn't turn into a caterpillar or anything.

Leah Cooper

You left the country.

Blanca Martinez

Yes I did.

Leah Cooper

Where did you go?

Blanca Martinez

So I actually was able to do some very boring manual marketing work that I could do remotely. And I just took that opportunity in being younger, and my parents being at that time in good health, to do some traveling. So I just traveled, I lived in Mexico for a little while. But even then, I, I could not escape my need to try to find ways to make a difference, to become part of public policy processes and make those changes wherever I was going. So I continued to stay, to stay connected, especially through my writing. I am a writer. So for me, that's the way that I needed to heal, I needed to write about my journey, about my family's journey. I needed to write as to how public policy showed up in the body, and how we exist and how it shapes our communities and our experiences. So that was the way that I was able to simply take up, take a step back and, and heal from that experience.

Leah Cooper

So how did you find your way back into public policy? Because here you are, again, working in public policy, how did you find your role?

Blanca Martinez

Yes, Yes. So I actually when I came back to the States, I was doing some consulting with some nonprofits. One of them was Maria's Table, who does amazing work in just bringing, bringing people to the table and having these discussions, these issues, discussions around public policy. So I started consulting and then working with them full time. And then it just trickled after that. I saw a position I had always wanted to work at the city level, because I thought city government is the closest to the people, is one of the most direct ways of representative democracy. It happens at the local level, that's when change can really happen. So I've worked for the city of Richfield, as, in working in in in their legislative process. And I learned a lot through there, too. I did see that change can happen more easily at the city level. But then I also ran into what is the bureaucracy and the systems and power. So after that position, I came to my current position at Citizens League because I wanted to have more of these discussions as to how do we open public policy to communities? How do we engage in conversations across political ideologies, across different lived experiences. And one thing that I was just sharing this morning is that I really fell in love with the model that the Citizens League has had over the last 70 years. That is, is how to create spaces where people can come in and discuss and have tough conversations. I feel that's one of the things that we have been missing. Like we don't know how to we know how to fight, we are really good at Twitter fighting, but we don't know how to sit in the uncomfort. And some of us, especially, for example, indigenous and black communities, they have to sit in uncomfort every single day. So I think all of us, I always say, all of us have a certain level of privilege. All of us can sit with our uncomfortableness, if that's a word, and, and have conversations, and find ways that we can use public policy, not in a way that it can shape us, but how can we shape public policy to impact change?

Leah Cooper 

So in this role, how do you see... I mean, how, what, what's your superpower? How do you see yourself showing up into it? And how do you see it coming all the way back around to changing policy over time?

Blanca Martinez  

One of the things that was very clear for me if I know, my, I had my why. I had my why. I had my reason of why I showed up every single day at the state capitol and started the fight all over again. And I think sometimes people are not very clear on their why. For me, it was very personal. As I mentioned, it was my community, it was my parents. It was the grandparents that I had to leave behind because of immigration. It was everything that I faced every single day when I went home. So I think finding the why in that, that why is what carries you through those very frustrating, those cries. I mean, if those bathrooms in the capital could speak, they would speak of all the people they hear cry all the time. So I think getting that why and knowing that very clearly, for me, I had that. But I think that's an advice that I would give to a person entering. And I think really understanding that we are all responsible for the changes that we want to see. And we can all do something every day. That is something critical that I that I that I always thought that it was only my responsibility, because it was my community was my parents. But something that I learned later on was that it was everyone's responsibility, from the council, to the folks that were standing, protesting whatever it, it was all of our responsibility to those that are inactive at home. Not even knowing what the legislature is, it's all our responsibility. And we have the responsibility to create that access for those that don't already know. I think my other one is just finding that balance. I did not have balance. I did not know what that meant. I recall some late, it means that the capitol where my boss would tell me, Blanca, you need to go home. It's 11:30. This is not going to end. You should be at a club dancing on a Friday night, like go home. And I wouldn't, because obviously things were happening, and I wanted to witness it. But I obviously did not have balance. And I think finding that balance and having that support group is so critical. And those are things that I just didn't invest on. And I didn't have at that time in my life. And I wish I would have spent the time investing in those boundaries, investing in that balance and investing in those people that were going to support me throughout that time.

Leah Cooper  

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you were hoping to share that do you think is relevant to this idea of how do we find our place and stick with it?

Blanca Martinez  

Yeah, I mean, I think that when it comes to advocacy, we have all seen it in one shape or form in our lives. We have all been advocates, either for ourselves, for our children, for our parents, for our families. Just asking for that cheese that got forgotten in a burger at a restaurant that's advocating. So I just want to go back to that point of our responsibility as a community. That what impacts someone, as Dr. King said, what impacts someone impacts everyone. And I think we are in a space and time where, especially the TikTok of the world, it really does connect us and separate us. So really finding ways that that we can seek to have that responsibility for our communities. And understanding that if we are lucky enough to fall and be born and raised in the good side of public policy, there's another side to that coin. There are others that were born, raised, and are growing up on the other side of public policy. And it is our responsibility to flip that coin and see and see it as a holistic in a holistic view.

Leah Cooper 
We heard this not just from Blanca Martinez, but from a lot of people who’ve made a career of trying to make change - learning to see the big picture, to see other people’s points of view. 

Alan Berks

And also, just as importantly, seeing how and where you fit best if you want to make Minnesota better. In part two, we’ll talk to Michael Quadrozzi who helped us a lot when we first decided to make the play. He had a background with theater, but he was working at that time as a state Senator’s legislative aide. And he describes his journey from a typical middle class white guy working within the status quo to someone trying to make an impact outside of politics as we understand it.

Michael Quadrozzi

I think people both have good intentions, and are very naive, and are gatekeepers and are exclusionary, possibly, with the legacy of white supremacy. And all it's like, it's all true, like everything's true. And I think that's what makes it really hard.

Leah Cooper
We also talk with Cheniqua Johnson who has worked at every level of government, behind the scenes, but now is a St. Paul City Council member for Ward 7.

Cheniqua Johnson
I don't think I'll ever not work within the system to change it, or to make it better, or to continue the stuff that works really well. Because I recognize that not often are people who look like me, or have my experience in them. And I don't necessarily feel like it's my responsibility, I just think it's the work I was sent to do. 

Leah Cooper

That is in Part 2 of episode 12 of Our House. I’m Leah Cooper.

Alan Berks
And I’m Alan Berks. 

Leah Cooper
“Our House '' is a podcast of Wonderlust Productions. Our production assistant is Frances Matejcek, our editor is Marianne Combs, and our sound designer and audio engineer is Peter Morrow with help from Rachel Briese. Music was composed by Becky Dale. Lyrics by myself and Becky Dale. For additional details, as well as credits on the making and performing of the play, visit our website at wlproductions-dot-o-r-g.  If you enjoyed this podcast and want to support more work like this, click “donate” while you’re there. Or give us a nice review wherever you read podcast reviews. 

Alan Berks
The professional actors who recorded the play are Laurel Armstrong, Latanya Boone, Ernest Briggs, Antonio Duke, Kevin Fanshaw, Pedro Juan Fonseca, Bradley Greenwald, Megan Kim, Siddeeqah Shabazz, Adam Whisner, and Andrea Wollenberg. Musicians were Elise Butler Pinkham and Dee Langley and the Music  Director was Jill Dawe.

Leah Cooper
Big thanks to our partners and supporters who have made this podcast possible, including the Minnesota Humanities Center, Eastside Freedom Library, In Progress Studios, MinnPost, The Theater of Public Policy, and the Elmer L. and Eleanor J. Andersen Foundation. See the thank-you page on our website for a full list of the donors and foundations who make all of our work possible. 

Alan Berks
Thanks for listening!