Episode 93: audacious // Wednesday, July 8

Edissa: I actually don't know a lot about my family. I never knew any of my grandparents. My family was in the very earliest migration wave of Dominicans, for political reasons. So we were here in ‘71, which meant that we were about a decade ahead of the mass migration from the Dominican Republic to the United States, which was in the eighties. So we were an anomaly.

I grew up in the projects of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and there were Puerto Ricans and there were lots of Chinese, and lots of African-Americans, and that was it. And then there was us, and it was like, “what is wrong with these black kids who speak Spanish?” So we didn't fit in in any group. And that sort of being marginalized was always part of my consciousness. You know, we spoke differently, and we ate different things from the people around us, and it was kind of inexplicable, and then people didn't recognize these differences. I became very aware of skin color and all of these things very early on because of that. 

Laura: This week we’re spending time with the women who wrote Fierce: Essays by and about Dauntless Women. It’s a book of thirteen essays by thirteen women who are just as remarkable as the women in history they’re writing about. You’ll meet all thirteen of these women on Saturday, but my conversations with these women were so thoughtful and inspiring that I couldn’t bear to limit them to just one episode.

When I read Fierce this past month, I found myself alternately feeling inspired and challenged--which seems like a pretty good place to be during this time when so much is changing in our world. Talking to each of the authors, I’ve had the same experience. Each of my conversations with these women has expanded the world for me. They’ve given me a sense of both possibility and responsibility that reminds me of the role that each of us has to play during this time.

Today I’m speaking with someone who has spent her whole life challenging the status quo.

Edissa: My name is Edissa Nicolás-Huntsman. What do I want to say about myself? I see myself in society right now primarily as an agitator, an advocate, and an educator for social justice. And I'm finding this moment crucial to our direction as a society and in our world.

Laura: I’d add to Edissa’s alliterative list that she is audacious, which is to say that she speaks her mind boldly and thoughtfully about the things that are not as they should be. She’s able to articulate what needs to change with courage and conviction--but she also has a vision for how things could be different.

Edissa: Black people are not even seen as part of this community, even though we're hardest hit. Going out, hiking, walking, going to the store, I know I'm vulnerable to COVID because I have been sick most of my life. I go for hikes and if I see somebody on the trail who doesn't have a mask, which I live in a mostly white neighborhood now, what I see is, okay, you don't have to wear a mask because you have generations of privilege and you have generations of medical care and you have generations of resources. So if you get sick, it's not really a problem for you. But nevermind that you're spreading this. And I've seen this even in my own home with my extended white family, because I'm married to a white man. And so even in my daily experience I feel like I'm constantly under threat  because I'm very vulnerable. 

The ability to see us and include us and think collectively about us in those personal choices does not exist. So many people fail to recognize our collectivism. I mean, there is so much selfishness in our society.

Like people not wearing masks, because people couldn't put aside their personal gratification long enough to think about the larger community and society. Or somebody who feels like going to the movie theater is way more important than the general health of Americans. Or having a hamburger is more important than the workers who are sharing COVID amongst themselves in order to slaughter cows. 

That people don't see that we're interconnected, that we're part of an ecology, an ecology that has destroyed the planet, and destroyed habitats and animals, and communities, and continues to do so. And yet we still don't see that we are connected to our neighbors and our greater neighborhoods, and the country. And so we just take our needs and put them first. And I see this more and more, especially among white Americans, who feel entitled to take more than they need, more than their share, and take up space. 

If I could change a consciousness in our society, it would be, wake up to the awareness that we are the ecology of America, and everything that one of us does affects each of us. And especially some of us who are most vulnerable.

I know it’s been really, really hard for a lot of people being home for COVID-19. But for me, it's been really healthy and healing, because I have just an extreme reduction of personal incidences of racism, discrimination, microaggressions, violence, and trauma that I had been experiencing daily. Like, you know, just going to take classes at my community college or walking around the supermarket or being in my community. I'm a 49 year old Black Latina woman, and so I encounter racism and discrimination, and I have most of my life. 

One of the best things that has happened is that I get to stay in my home in the shelter and safety and the refuge of a loving, safe environment. And I'm grateful. And I wish more people had that opportunity to have that refuge.

Laura: Even though it’s hard for me to hear that white people like me have been responsible for hurting Edissa, I need this reminder that our actions affect each other. I’ve been thinking a lot about selfishness during this pandemic. Somewhere along the line, as a society we bought the lie that the good life was a life of excess. A life where we didn’t have to struggle. It all sounds very seductive. A life that is easy and fun.

But when we make life all about ourselves, we forget that our actions affect other people. Our excess comes at a cost--and usually it’s others who have to pay for it. 

The essay Edissa wrote for Fierce is about someone who understood that the good life--not a life of excess, but a life of justice and equality--was a life worth fighting for. Edissa’s essay is called “Audacious Warrior: Ernestine Elle Rose.” 

Ernestine Rose was a suffragist, abolitionist, and freethinker who lived in the 1800s and has been called the “first Jewish feminist.” When I asked Edissa why she wrote about Ernestine Rose, she said that she feels like Ernestine Rose is her spiritual ancestral mentor.

Edissa: I've always been the person who was uncomfortable with the status quo, especially as the status quo perpetuates oppression, racism, sexism, all of the “isms” of oppression. 

The way that Ernestine Rose moved in the world, she really showed me the path. She saw an opportunity to use her personal power, her personal agency, her voice, her life experience, her skills, everything always for the greater good. She never stopped agitating. She never stopped feeling and responding to the discomfort of oppression around her. I see myself in her. 

Dominicans overall don't own a slave history. So there's no acknowledgement of our blackness as a culture. And there's a lot of internalized racism as there is in much of the world, and I think we have that in common. Ernestine Rose  was in Galicia in Europe as a child, where Jews were constantly experiencing pogroms and othering and all kinds of oppressions.

All of those things that were very painful in the past, I realized that Ernestine all her life lived on the margins of everything--and mostly by choice--because she didn't want to give up her conviction to live justly, to not oppress others, and to advocate for justice for everyone. And I use her as a guide to where I want to go. And also to not worry about not being liked, not being appreciated, not being recognized or acknowledged. And I just embraced those elements of myself that have always been there. With my education, I understand that I have this incredible power to advocate for not just myself, but for change.

Laura: Edissa has been on the receiving end of racism all her life, and in her words, she’s an agitator. She’s calling out injustice audaciously. But what I appreciate about Edissa is that she doesn’t stop there. She’s working hard to make sure that things are different for future generations.

I don't have any advice for girls or young people, but what I do have is my commitment.

I feel that my job and my commitment as a conscious Black Latina woman with a very good education and lots of resources, is to protect their bodies, their minds, and especially their spirits from violence, oppression, ageism, sexism. Because that's what it takes to let them thrive. That's how I see my role. I see them as people and I see them as these beautiful beings without all the junk and gook stuck on them that life teaches them. There's a lot out there that they don't need to live and experience.

What does it take to protect the youth that I know, but also all the youth of our society? What does it take to prevent women from being raped, girls from being abducted and harmed? What does it take to stop brutality and all the things that we see in our society? It takes for each of us to stand up and make a commitment for the rest of our lives to protect young people--not just our own, which is what we see in society, just, I'm going to take care of mine and the rest of you, well, that's your problem. 

Anything that I can do to open doors, mentor, shield them from unnecessary pain--that is my commitment. And that is what I do in the world that motivates everything I do.

Laura: Edissa doesn’t just talk about this stuff. She’s out there doing it every day. I asked Edissa to tell us about some of the work she’s been doing lately, because it’s work that I think Ernestine Rose would have been really proud of.

Edissa: Right now I am working to try to organize a national vote by mail election. And I started this very early in March to make sure that we could vote, because COVID-19 is not going anywhere anytime soon. And we need to have everybody in this country be able to vote. And systemically, we have oppressed and suppressed voters of color in this nation since they've been able to vote. Many of us are not able to vote, even when we want to. If we can get  a stimulus check to every American citizen, then we can definitely get them a ballot in the mail. 

I'm also developing this curriculum for unlearning oppression, which I'm sharing out as fast as I can create it. 

Those are two things that are really important to me, and that I work on in order to really support the Black Lives Matter movement, and to agitate and advocate for the people in that struggle, but also for the larger society, because without the work of unlearning oppression and unlearning all the habits and also without giving people access to the ballot, people can’t experience their power and they can't change society. I want that to be given back to them. 

All of us, we, the people need to vote November 3rd. 

Laura: Edissa told me in our conversation that she’s been unemployed for several years, and that part of the reason she’s been unemployed is that she’s a 49-year-old Black Latina woman. Part of the reason she’s so committed to fighting racism, sexism, and ageism is that she’s experienced it herself. But that’s not to say she’s been sitting around doing nothing. Before this pandemic, she had plans to go back to school this summer to get her real estate license.

Edissa: And then everything happened with Black Lives Matter. And you know, these young men keep getting lynched. And so I'm paying myself because I have that ability to work on this political campaign, to agitate, and to advocate for these changes and to develop this curriculum. So I'm making a personal sacrifice--which is not that much sacrificed by the way, because I can live very modestly,

‘cause I'm a, you know, I'm a Latina immigrant from Dominican Republic. I can get by on a shoestring. I live very modestly. And I've also taken on two young writers on my blog so that I can mentor them, help them build their portfolios.

Laura: The blog that Edissa mentioned is just one more good thing she’s putting out into the world. It’s called Karma Compass, and it’s a project that has given Edissa a lot of joy. I’ll include a link to it in my shownotes for today.

Edissa: I've been working on having a collaborative space for artists and writers for a very long time. So Karma Compass has been  a channel for truths and for healing and wellness overall. So I explore all of what that could mean. And I talk about everything on this platform, and when I'm motivated to write that's my main channel. 

These things always seem to emerge over time, right? You plant the seed and then one day it's blossoming. So it's blossoming right now. I have a fairly good readership. I have a faithful community. So I don't feel like I'm talking to myself. But I've been working on this for a very long time. Living Artists Project has been going on for, like, four years, and I've had quite a nice participation of visual artists, writers, and poets.

And now I have a couple of young writers who are definitely going to be staff writers. I'm really excited to have them on board. And I'm hoping in the near future to raise more money so I can pay them better than what I'm paying, which is just a stipend, really, an appreciation to show them that I care and I believe in them.

Young people of all colors give me great hope. They are unburdened by entrenched ideological beliefs about society. They don't see the limitations of their own power and agency. They feel they can do anything--which is true! And they can do it. And so that makes me really happy. If we can give them the reins and give them the space, they will change most of the things that are wrong with our society. They probably need some guidance and some mentors, but they need to call the shots because, you know, they're not invested in the status quo yet. We need to give them as much power as we can. It gives me a lot of hope as I see the young people in my life, but also witness what's happening in society. I see that their voices are very powerful and that their motivations are pure. That brings me joy. 

Laura: When I hear Edissa talk about young people, I feel inspired by her hope. But I’m even more inspired to know that Edissa has personally taken on mentoring these young people herself. Because just as Ernestine Rose has shown Edissa the path for advocacy and activism, Edissa will show that path to these young women. I hope they realize how lucky they are to have her pave the way. I hope they learn from her how to be audacious.

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Meera Nair, you model the best way to be fierce; you have the wisdom to know when to be defiant and when to be gracious. It was such a delight to feature you in episode 92. I’m looking forward to reading that novel.

Patti Wessner, you once had a magnet that said the hardest part of parenting is the first forty years. What it didn’t say is that you probably wouldn’t just be parenting your own kids, but their friends. You were one of the very first to support Shelter in Place, and your encouragement has lifted me up so many times over the years. Thank you for listening no matter how long I talked, for guiding me with your wise counsel, and for making me feel at home no matter how long it’s been.