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I confess to being guilty of what I have observed in most others who, like me, were born, raised, and continue to live in the United States. I take my citizenship for granted. I vote in all major elections, pay my taxes without much complaint, respect and am thankful for government and law enforcement officials, show up for jury duty (although I have never been selected for a jury), and abide by the law. But, I, like most, do little else relating to my citizenship. I don’t go to and speak at town meetings, see little benefit from protests, or believe any effort to write my elected officials (especially those I didn’t vote for) will have any impact. For most of my life, I have believed I have very little power to confront those in power or to create change.
I have been wrong!
Most leading scholars of democracy and advocates for democracy all agree that individual citizens, who take their citizenship seriously and organize, have the power to hold government officials on all levels accountable, to have them address our concerns and issues that are important to us, and to create change. There are different ways of organizing and different tools for helping with organizing, but the act of organizing and using that organizing is a vital means of creating change and to making our democracy work and thrive.
In this episode, I speak with Alan Luis Ramirez about his involvement with and efforts in such an organizing effort. La Milpa is an umbrella organization under which is PODER Emma. Emma is a community is West Asheville, North Carolina. Alan Luis shares with us an understanding of the fullness of this organizing effort. It creates local change and empowerment, economic and employment options and opportunities, and cultural and citizenship dynamics. It is exciting and inspiring and should be imitated, like all such efforts, so that these efforts and the change they create can increase.
Alan Luis is a resident owner of Sourwood Mobile Home Co-op, a member of PODER Emma’s Cooperative Development Team and the Director of Mutual Aid (Casa de Ayuda Mutual).
The intro and outro music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project.