 Tonight, it's a great night to be in town, right? We're back in person this year for the film festival. It's going to be a good night. I'm excited. Well, I just wanted to let you know who I am in case you didn't know, which you probably didn't. We have someone to fix that. So I'm Crystal Haynes. I'm an Arlington resident. I live just around the corner off of River Street. I'm a journalist and TV anchor on Boston 25 News. And I've been there for about 11 years this summer. And it is certainly my absolute pleasure to be with you all this evening. You know, on behalf of the festival organizers, I do want to welcome you all again to the 12th annual opening night of the Arlington International Film Festival. We want to welcome our filmmakers, our special guests, and of course you, our audience members. So, you know, as accustomed, the festival year began with the annual poster competition in partnership with the Mass College of Art and Designs Illustration Department. And this year's winning design was created by Ariana Stone. Then the film submissions were reviewed 12 years ago. Did you all know that there was less than 50? And this year, can you guess what the number was of submissions in 2023 for this year? It was 1,000 and 24 submissions from all around the world. Can you believe that? Incredible. Just incredible. And you know, it takes a lot of qualified people with expertise in design and marketing to choose a poster that represents AIFF and qualified people with expertise in film to review all of those submissions again over 1,000 this year. And of course, curate a program that meets the criteria of the festival's mission, which is to foster appreciation for different cultures by exploring the lives of people around the globe through independent film. So our sincere thanks and recognition go out to the poster judges and the film jury members, of course, and that brings those folks all together. They absolutely bring this festival to fruition. You know, the partnerships and relationship building continue as AIFF puts Arlington on the map. I don't have enough gear, so I started walking and then got close on a little bit. As recent as 2021, partnerships were forged with two European film festivals, unified filmmakers based in Munich, Germany, and International Independent Film Festival, Elk, in El Kantian. Alberto, how you pronounce that? Etche? There you go, right there. Can you tell I'm from here? I'm from here, so. AIFF takes great pride in its collaborations and its commitment to building as well as maintaining vibrant partnerships with local businesses and organizations. This year, we have several new sponsors that have joined us along with numerous sponsors that continue with their support. And of course, we thank them. Big thank you to them. Our sincere thanks go out to each and every one of you, of course, for investing in this festival and keeping the art of indie film alive and, most importantly, accessible. I'd like to offer a special recognition to this year's opening night sponsor, Network for Social Justice. Please welcome to the stage Executive Director, Leora Norwich. Two seconds. Try it again. There we go. Hi, everyone. And thank you to the Arlington International Film Festival for inviting me here this evening. My name is Leora Norwich, and I am the Executive Director of the Network for Social Justice. Previously, the Winchester Multicultural Network, and it's absolutely our pleasure to be part of the festival this year. We are a small nonprofit with a 30-year history based in a town very far away, or approximately two miles away. We're in Winchester, and I saw a number of folks who have come out to some of our programs in the last couple months and years. It was great to be here tonight. Our mission is to foster a movement for equity and inclusion by advancing structural changes in our town and in helping our neighbors farther afield. To build this movement, and tonight, we're going to be talking about some movements. And in a way, we see ourselves very much like the other human rights, anti-racism organizations and commissions all over Massachusetts. We work through community education, like programs around anti-racism, allyship, community facilitation, and we build community engagement initiatives. We celebrate diversity, we commemorate historic moments, and we use those as pauses to think about change still needed. And we look to drive advocacy, including targeted campaigns in support of Indigenous peoples in housing to name a few. It is such a pleasure to be with you all tonight and to be able to partner with the film festival to engage in a conversation around this topic with tonight's panel. The festival is such a resource, as I know all of you know, in both the Arlington community and beyond it. And the partnership shows me the mere amount of ways in which we can join together to collaborate for social change. So thank you again, and I'm really excited for tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. And of course, now it is my esteemed privilege to welcome our fearless leaders up to the stage, Alberta Guzman, founder and organizer in April rank, the executive director of the Arlington International Film Festival. Thank you, Crystal. And thank you to Network for Social Justice for sponsoring this evening. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here with us. And first, I want to say thank you to the, to the Capitol Theater, Jay and the crew for hosting one more year of the Arlington International Film Festival. And welcome to all of you for supporting the festival. I hope that you enjoy this great line-up of films from this year. It's so great. It's so great to see faces and not be on Zoom. It's so wonderful. And Alberta was right. I think that the programming this year is amazing and it's something for everyone. And as Crystal said, AIFF has built a strong network of relationships with both businesses and organizations here in abroad. And we have been fortunate to have exemplary volunteers by our side, Linda Yee. We're here. I want Linda to join us on stage, please. We're here this evening and wanting to honor one of our volunteers that have been with us since 2011. She's assisted us in marketing, event development and grant writing for special projects. And in 2012, we opened the festival with Vivian Ducat's documentary film, All Me, The Life and Times of Winford-Rembert. Chronically, a young black man caught up in the civil rights movement in the South. His time in prison and his amazing technique of tooling these stories on leather. So Linda was inspired by Winford and his history. And on behalf of AIFF, she spent the next two years heading up a team that brought Mr. Rembert to the Arlington High School for a highly successful integrated art history and English residency in 2014. A residency that inspired not only the students but left a lasting impact on the community. And I will say Mr. Rembert passed away a year and a half ago. So I think Linda was very aware that we had a short timeframe to have a piece of living history with our students and our community. So she acted on it. Linda is an educator who works with students that have learning disabilities and she is passionate about educating her students about diversity. In her words, ultimately helping to prepare them to navigate and integrate successfully into a global society. I think sometimes we forget that that has to be taught. It's not always just something that is automatically assumed that we know. Alberto and I honor Linda Yee for her dedication to the Arlington International Film Festival. Its mission of promoting appreciation for different cultures and more broadly her contributions to the greater Boston community. Thank you Linda for your vision, your enthusiasm and the time that you have invested in AIFF. We thank you. This year we open with a program that honors the strength of women. We began with an award winning short from India, The Scapegoat by Tagathada Ghosh. Acknowledging that there are some difficult and graphic scenes in this short, our jury felt that the message of this film was important and should be included in our programming. It not only delivers a meaningful message about the strength of women but how religion continues to be used to artificially divide us. Then we will move right into our best documentary feature for Festival Year 2022. How long must we wait by filmmaker Jacqueline O'Loughlin, who is with us tonight? We hope you enjoy the films and we invite you to please stay seated after the screening for a panel discussion that will follow. Enjoy. So Jacqueline, I want to say congratulations. Right, congratulations. Was this your first film? Our first feature like film, but I have done shorter pieces. Louder. Okay. Okay, what's an honor? The Borscht Dog's Mark and the Just. Okay. And you know, the outfit is stunning. It's very, very, very appropriate for right now. Okay. And so, you know, what inspired you to choose women's suffrage as a topic for your first feature length film? Yeah. So hopefully you can hear me now. I, so I've done a lot of shorter films. This was my first feature length film and one of the shorter films I did was about something about encaustic painting. And I, so I'm from the Washington DC area and we really like these short film competitions. I don't know why it's just a thing in that area. So I did a two-day film competition. So I had two days to make a documentary film. So I did it on encaustic painting and one of the women featured is obviously an encaustic painter, but she's done this whole series of suffragists, whole series on suffragists. So I won the competition. And so the, my friend that I made the film with, we were like, what else can we do? We're obviously good at this. And so the woman who is this amazing painter who does the suffrage paintings, that's actually his wife. And she has a studio space in a place called the Workhouse Art Center which is outside Washington DC. That place was where the prison was. The prison, the former prison is now a community center. Artists can rent studio spaces. So she had a studio space there. And so just like pacing everything together, we were like, obviously we have to do it about these women who are sent to jail there. So that's really what inspired it. And I have to ask, as a personal, you know, acolyte of Ida B. Wells, it seemed like the black woman suffrage movement was kind of a little bit absent from the film. Was that like on purpose? And I remember specifically, one of the historians you spoke to was like, yeah, that was a pretty bad situation. So then this, yeah. And so I'm thoughtful about if that was a cut for time or the way that historians in this space sort of think about that conflict between women of color and the suffragettes like Alice Paul and them. Yeah, that's a very, that's a complicated question. That's a very nuanced answer I would give. But I really struggle with what to put in there in terms of the black suffrage movement. And all of the women I interviewed, they mostly talked about the racism aspect that happened in the prison. Like when the white suffragists had to sleep in the same room as the black prisoners. And I felt that was very important to keep it because racism was part of the movement. So to me, that was important. But when we interviewed people, I will say we didn't ask them a lot of questions about that. And partly because I was learning about the movement as I'm interviewing these historians and knowing what I know now I would have asked more questions. But they didn't touch on the fact that, you know, Howard University students wanted to join the march in 1913. Ida B. Wells asked to join and they wanted her to march in the back. At first they stalled and didn't give them an answer. Alice Paul dragged her feet and she was very political. She didn't want to lose any votes in the south. And obviously people in the south are very racist. And Ida B. Wells was like, I don't care what you say. I'm just joining where I should be. And, you know, in the end it wound up being okay in terms of black suffragettes joining the march. But racism is a huge part, if not huge stain on Alice Paul's reputation, unfortunately. That sort of dug tells into our question for Patty in talking about the formation of the League of Women Voters. And I know that in our sort of pre-conversation to this panel, we spoke a lot about that tension in the creation of subsequent groups out of Alice Paul's National Women's Party. Yeah, I think what Jacqueline is saying is right. I think there was a calculated, you know, strategy that was based in racism. And they wanted, you know, Carrie Chapman Cat and Alice Paul and others. They wanted to appeal to the southern legislators. And so they had to downplay and relegate to the back the black women that were involved in the suffrage movement. So they were certainly, certainly racism played a big part in that. And, you know, as I think that the way you talked about it is a stain on not only the movement, but as we talked about in our pre-conversation, the League of Women Voters is the organization that grew out of the suffrage movement. So the League was founded, the National League was founded in February of 1920 and then the State League of Massachusetts was founded in May. So several months before the ratification. And, you know, to this day, I think we are, the organization is, you know, has suffered from the racism that was embedded at the beginning of the movement. You know, to the point where, you know, the, even today, so the League of Massachusetts has grown up mainly in wealthier white suburbs. We have 46 local chapters all around the state, but not completely, but by and large, it's wealthier white women who got involved, you know, even from the beginning. So, you know, we currently have a policy of diversity equity inclusion where we are trying to be more active in gateway cities and other places where populations of color live and work so that we can, you know, sort of broaden our membership recruitment efforts and build our leadership pipeline to reflect what Massachusetts is today to reflect the diversity of this commonwealth. And Celia, you know, you organized the Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition. How, I know, what were your reflections in seeing the documentary and where you sit in terms of organizing women? Sure. So first of all, I want to congratulate you. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, yeah, I think we can take a page out of the book of those women's back there. I mean, I was absolutely moved by the fact that they didn't have texts, they didn't have, you know, Instagram, they didn't have all the social media we have now and we're able to organize. So I definitely think that's something we can reflect in and really utilize in our sort of toolbox. But for me and one of the things that our organization, one of our core values is about truth-telling. And sometimes that's not easy, right? But in order for us to move forward, we really need to understand our history and the reality is not all of our history are taught in school. So we end up growing up really learning about our history. And so for me, you know, I'm always going to be advocating for women of color because our inequities are so great, which is why we formed as an organization because I'm one of these people that say don't just be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution, right? And so for me, I just felt there was a missed opportunity to really talk about the Black suffragists and their contribution and that, and then ultimately when they were really able to vote because the reality is because of the fact that, and you mentioned the South with the way that there was a lot of discrimination. I mean, the people were getting beat up to vote, all of those things, you know, that didn't happen right away for Black and Indigenous women to be able to vote. So I think there might be a part two there, right? Yeah, and it's so... So that blows it for me because every time, and this is not a Debbie Downer, but every time we can relearn and we can tell real history, the better off we are so that we can do better. So that's really my approach. Absolutely, and it's not just Paul's generation that missed this opportunity, like the generations before, the suffrage movement that preceded Paul, you know, Harriet Tubman is on record talking about suffrage. People who were on the Underground Railroad with Sojourner Truth, Phyllis Wheatley, all these people on record talking about suffrage and Phyllis Wheatley when you talk about that in Massachusetts roots as well there, that's thinking about missed opportunity for someone like that. Right, and Josephine St. Pierre was been here in Massachusetts that was huge. Yeah, exactly. So absolutely, and I mean, I think that that's a great part too, right? So... I think too, it's important that, you know, we were talking, they've been sort of relegated to go footnote, but the important thing that I learned was that they were doing their own organizing. I mean, Black women were organizing among their peers, you know, all along. So it's very interesting to read about what they were doing. So even though you have to kind of dig around to find... Right, and as we talk about the tenacity of women, they didn't give up. They were a big part of the Voter Right Act. So that's, you know, that's, you know, the power there too as well as women. Absolutely. My mind works perfect. Okay. So, Shayla, talk to us a little bit about being the director of health policy and government relations for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts because women's rights are right there, right? At the end of the film, we talked about the overturning of Roe v. Wade and as we look toward young folks like yourself, the carrying on the movement in all its other facets and things like that. What were your some of your takeaways through your lens in the documentary? Yeah, thank you so much for your hearing. Thank you so much for... Great. Awesome. Thank you so much for that question. Yeah, so a little bit about my work, and I thought the film was wonderful. Thanks. Yeah, it was great. Everything that I was seeing. But a little bit about my work, I like to tell people that I read, write, and explain reproductive law and Massachusetts, and it's very fun. And I have... I stand in a position of a lot of privilege because I do this work in Massachusetts. We have amazing reproductive justice champions at our legislator, at our local level, all across like stakeholders, all across the Commonwealth. So, you know, my job is relative to the rest of the country. I feel very privileged and honored to do this work. When I was watching the film, I was very inspired. And, you know, I kept thinking back... I'm so happy we're having this conversation. I kept thinking back to the origins of Planned Parenthood, right? Planned Parenthood's origins are very racist, unfortunately, you know? And when thinking about Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, there's a lot of, I guess, battle, right? Because we want to be abortious justice champions. We want to be for women's right, including the right to bodily autonomy, but then faced with this, like, dual truth. And so, you know, I love what you said about facing the truth head-on and really coming to terms with that and so understanding, like, myself as a woman of color, growing up low income, is this place for me? I remember I had that very difficult conversation with myself. And I was like, but I love this work, you know? And I love how far we've come, and so I did my own digging. And I did my own truth finding on the origins of reproductive justice and understanding that I was led by Black women, Indigenous women, women of color, trans women, the fight for bodily autonomy. And that's what got me on board. And so I remember joining Planned Parenthood and that being up front about this history and being like, this is where we were and this is where we're going. I related it completely back to the movie. Understanding that this is where we come from, facing that truth head-on so we can achieve equality. That's really the takeaway that I got from watching the movie and reflecting back to the work. So it was a very, it was a very impactful experience for me. Yeah. And Jacqueline, I think about, because I saw the major motion film with, who's it called? Yeah, Hillary Swaggy. Hillary Swaggy and them. And I thought this did a better job of serving, explaining the history. I have major problems with that movie, but okay. Yeah. Yeah. You could tell that some of the storylines were absolutely forced. They just like have a romantic interest in the film and I'm like, that's just, that's not what happened. There's rumors Alice Paul was a lesbian. I don't know if that's true, but like she's in the movie, yeah. Anyway. Now that you did your own fact fine then. But I think about, like I think about when you produce and direct and create and crowdfund and all these things to make a documentary have this incredible outcome. What do you hope that audiences take away from it, especially women? I think you mentioned your own journey about learning this history that's certainly not told to the degree that, you know, I think I maybe had one history unit where they mentioned suffrage and announced it. Yeah. Right. Well, that's one point I wanted to make is like we grow up not learning this. I mean, at least I didn't. I think if you're a women's history major in college you learn it, but other than that, you probably don't. So I felt compelled to tell a very comprehensive story. Like I easily, it wouldn't have been easy, but I could have made it a shorter piece, right? I could have just done it on 1917 and the Night of Terror. But I felt it was very important to tell the events leading up to what happened and then also that we're not equal yet. So that's very important for me. A big takeaway is obviously we're not equal. We have a lot of work left to do. Please vote. Don't take it for granted. We need to get it into history books. I feel like it's a very small percentage of women's history that is actually in books. I think it's 5%. I know there is an association in California that's working on that, trying to get more women's history into books. And another thing is these women, they mobilize through word of mouth. I mean, you saw the film, protest, parades, newspapers, and we can do so much more. And also, we shouldn't give up. I know right now it's a very discouraging time with Ruby Waving overturned. In fact, I had to edit the film over the summer to add that in. And Alice Paul would be turning over in her grave right now with that, and also the Equal Rights Amendment has never been passed. Many people don't know what the Equal Rights Amendment is, including women themselves. Women are not mentioned in the Constitution. I know that the League is inspiring young women to join the organization, encouraging them to vote and things like that. So talk to me about doing that work now for over 100 years with women all past the removal from Alice Paul in her heyday. I'm sorry, so talk about young people? Inspiring young women to, you know, because it seemed like that was the shot in the arm that the movement, the women's suffrage movement needed at the turn of the century, like they needed an Alice Paul to come in there, a rebel rouser that was willing to like set things on fire to get the cause. So in terms of ushering young people, young women into, you're into the cause of the League of Boat Voters. I mean, do you find that that injection of energy needs to be part of the framework of keeping the movement alive? Absolutely. I think like with any organization, you know, I think a lot of nonprofits struggle with this, but it's always building the leadership pipeline. You know, people, the next generation to carry on what the previous generation has done. So, you know, one of the things that the League was part of a big coalition that got a law passed in Massachusetts in 2018 requiring student-led civics projects in grades 8 through 12. And so as part of that, we are now involved in working with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to do a statewide showcase on those student-led civics projects because all the data shows that when you get young people and, you know, get people involved, young, at a young age, civically, that those kind of habits and that kind of wanting to be involved and engaged in your community carries them through the rest of their life. So we are working now with, as I said, a coalition of organizations to work on showcasing those student-led civics projects with the first showcase will be next spring. And also there are, I mentioned we have 46 local chapters around the state of Massachusetts and a handful of those, we're working on getting more, but a handful of those have very active high school clubs. So again, getting the students involved when they're in high school, they're pre-registering to vote when they're 16 and 17, and so we're trying, we're working on getting more of our local leaks to adopt a high school and get a high school club going. So those are some of the ways that we're, you know, appealing to the next generation to really make sure that the baton can be passed and the work can continue. Sheila, talk to me about what the women of color coalition is doing to also both utilize and energize young women to the cause. So we're looking at, that's an area that we still need to build out for our organization, but what we're looking at is intergenerational leadership. We have a girls academy that will open to launch next year, which deals with, part of it will be around the civic. It's really, I'd like to say that she was telling about our history in this country because we think that's important, and the civic engagement is a part of that because our members start at high school girls of color, so that's some of the things that we're going to be working on to help inspire the next thing to build up pipeline for leadership. Sheila, I'm picking on you because you're the youngest one here on the panel, but like, you know, what energized you to join this work? You talked a little bit about your background and things like that, but talk to me about being in this work, remaining energized, right, and then also sending the elevator down yourself. That's actually probably my favorite question to answer. So I got involved in this work because I'm from Lawrence, Massachusetts, and so Lawrence is a, we call ourselves the immigrant city, and I'm so proud to be from there, and I carry my city everywhere I go. And I remember growing up and no one would talk to me about my body, no one would talk to me about what limits and what opportunities I have with my body. The only person who ever taught me anything about my body and talking about boundaries or bodily autonomy was my mom. And she's a champion and she's a fighter, she's a bulldog, Dominican mothers, but she was the one to tell me, you know, this is your body, this is everything that you can, everything that happens to your body is your choice, right? That was the first time I heard that. And unfortunately, there were so many young girls in my city that just did not have that conversation. And growing up, it was so hard. There was a lot of sex stigma, there was a lot of shame, shame around abortion. So growing up, you know, that was always, that was always on my back. I went to law school and I had a wonderful professor, Professor Levi, and she was the one to really push me to look into reproductive justice more critically. I wrote a paper for her and it was wonderful. And so, you know, I started, that's kind of my involvement in the reproductive justice movement. In terms of what keeps me energized, I actually, so I actually was speaking at Smith College and, you know, there was a lot of young college students there, all women, and they asked me a similar question, you know, or how to stay energized. And the thing that keeps me going is understanding that within my work and my own personal activism, everything that I do honors the people that came before me. And I lift up their names and everything that I do because I personally will never let their work go to vain. These reproductive justice champions that I learned from through the history books, my own research, because, you know, it's not Tom, unfortunately, they're the ones that keep me going because all these tactics and all this lobbying and activism, it's not new. Everything that we're doing is not new, you know. All these things are things that we're learning from our ancestors, the activists that came before us to do this type of work. So when I remember that, I get energized because I realize that I'm honoring them by this work and keeping their legacy moving forward. And that's what I like to tell people. I have lots of conversations with young folks about this movement and, you know, unfortunately, after the Dobs decision, you know, there was a lot of fear. But at the same time, there was so much energy and fire for this movement coming from people that you would never expect. That really is one of the things that keeps me going and that's what I pointed to other people. I'll be like, look around. Look at all the people who are interested in these things today. I mean, look at everybody in the audience who's interested in learning about the suffrage movement. That's really what I pointed to other people and that's what keeps me going. Talking to folks about organizing, does it feel like that needs to happen so that at least somebody can get to the goal? And I think about this, the suffrage movement and how a lot of other things like we had to put the civil rights conversation on the table, you know, black men, that conversation about their ability to be able to vote had to be put on the table while we talked about suffrage. And so is it that that's by design, by the folks who are trying to suppress those folks or is it just what happens in the nation's attention span? I'm thoughtful. It's your opinion. I'm thoughtful about this because you all sort of work in that space. Yeah, first quickly. I see that you want to say something as well. I know like when the Civil War happened, which is crazy, like the suffrage movement started before there was even a light bulb. The light bulb was created. So, you know, at first many of the suffragists, when they started the women's movement, they didn't settle on voting right away. Many of them were abolitionists and wanted to end slavery. So when the Civil War was happening, many of the suffragists were apprehensive about putting it on hold because they were very afraid that they would lose momentum. And some of them went and even spoke to Abraham Lincoln and they said, look, we don't want to lose, like I said, the momentum that they have. And he's like, I'll make you a deal. If you stop for a few years, I will advocate for you to get the right to vote. And so they put it on hold. And then when the Civil War ended, he was assassinated like a few days later. And so they lost momentum. And so then in 1917, they thought back to that and they said, we're not stopping. We're not stopping again. But that being said, yeah, I don't know. Like, obviously Wilson was very just focused on the war. And the politicians didn't want to hear anything about suffrage. So I think it's very hard to get anything done in Washington. In Washington, obviously, we all know that. So possibly they can only focus on one thing. You don't know? Yeah, that's great. That's a great help in history, absolutely. Crystal has a report. I was hoping you would be able to answer that question. It turns into a movie cycle, you know? Yeah. Well, I would say the excuse is the attention span. And often, the excuse is the education level of your audience. We are taught in J school, in journalism school, in journalism school that the average audience has a sixth grade education. And so that's the denominator that you're working toward. And so if someone has a sixth grade education, ask them to talk about reproductive rights and, you know, police violence at the same time, what implicit bias is, you know, I remember introducing the term next into my newsroom, and it was a hardship. And so it was a lot. And, yeah, it was a lot. And so I think, when I think about, it seems like it's like one cause at a time, even though people are working in, you know, their spaces to where that cause continues, we just don't necessarily hear or know about it. And so that's why I asked that question about if there is a feeling sense, recognition, understanding of that happening within the organizing space outside of how the media covers it. And so that's why I was thoughtful about that, when, you know, it was like people like, okay, this is cute, y'all want to get the vote, but we're in the war, so it doesn't matter, put that away, go home with your kids, like, you know, buy war bonds, you know. For me, yeah, I just wanted to say that I think if anything the history has taught us is that we can't be silent. That we need to organize along, all along the way. And I mean, this is what happened with the decision with the role, you know, these folks organize, that's another history lesson there, in terms of the organization that was happening behind the scenes all along. So I think that this country is huge. We have so many tools and resources at our disposals. I think it is absolutely, unfortunately, the more privileged to really speak and say what the agenda is, if we allow that to continue to happen, and we can't. I think there's just, there's no, at least for me, there's just no more patience in terms of, you know, there's a lot of things that we can do, and that it's just, it's put in the pressure on as we saw, right? So it's going in front, standing in front of the White House all the time, but, you know, really being strategic about the fact that you still need to organize along the way, and have several different sort of strategies and approaches, and also build your coalition. I mean, this is also part of it. You know, we all can do this work alone, and that's where we have partners. Yeah, thank you. So I think in terms of all the different issues coming together and picking one, Dr. Kimberly Kentra gives us the term intersectionality and the only way that we're able to get the work done and the way that works for all people is to be intersectional with these causes. You brought up, you know, the Ferguson protest. The Black Lives Matter movement was a movement, is a movement, that advocated for ending of police violence for black people. That's bodily autonomy. It's having the bodily autonomy to be safe in your communities, right? So when we think, so we use Sister Song's definition of reproductive justice, which is the right to bodily autonomy to have or to not have children and to raise those children in safe communities, that encompasses so much, and you have to intersect rates. You have to intersect immigration, legal status, economics. I remember I saw an interview of somebody saying, you know, let's put down the abortion thing and let's focus on the economy. I think every person in here who has the ability to get pregnant has always thought that getting pregnant is an economic idea. And how many people, women, have thought, I don't know if I'm going to have kids yet, I have to go my career first, I'm going to go to school. Those are economic issues, right? So it's core of abortion encompasses all these things. So it's not a, well, this has to go first and then maybe this can come second. They're all encompassed on each other. Abortion is a racial issue, economic issue, immigrant issue. And all these things come together in terms of bodily autonomy and the decision and the right to make your own choices. That's what it's all about, right? So I think it's really hard to disagree on that. As we go into the midterms and we think about, and I'm also think thoughtful about, as you were speaking, that there's always an excuse not to bring up the ERA, right? Like there's always an excuse not to bring it up. Like it's an economy, it's whatever conflicts, it's the Iraq war, it's the reception, it's the war on drugs, like that was a bit, you know, and so I think about that as well and thinking about it being every issue being an intersectional issue. And frankly the media reporting it that way, right? I think that people are smarter than we give them credit for. Because I also think about when we ramp up to election cycles we want everyone to be experts in tax law when we vote and we send out these booklets but imagine if we did that for every issue over time, quarterly. Sorry, I digress. But this is why these conversations are so important and why good filmmaking is so important because it creates these spaces for conversations. I want to give folks time to ask questions and I want to ask the audience but I want to ask a question maybe too. Where do we go from here? You all are working actively toward specific goals, the midterm election is coming up. Do you see election cycles as that ramp up? Like Alice Paul was like do or die, we have to get this passed before the 2020 election. Is that the way you all work in your spaces as organizers? Like every presidential or every midterm is do or die? Or is it like, you know? Yeah. So the League of Women Voters is a non-partisan organization so we want everyone who's eligible to be in the electorate, right? So we want as many people who are eligible to vote to actually vote. So I think we don't necessarily think about it in terms of obviously issues. There are a lot of things at stake on each election including one that's coming up. But I think the more that our mission is to empower voters and defend democracy. So we work hard to inform voters as to what is at stake, what is on your ballot, so that people know are motivated to vote. So I think voter education is really part of our core mission. We do that through hosting candidate forums and Cilly and I teamed up this past cycle to do that and more and more the strategy of candidates is to decline our invitation to get on the stage with their opponent and talk about the issues. So that's a problem. But we're sort of trying to work around that. But I think voter education is really important and again representation is important that your vote matters or that your voice counts. I mean we're saying your voice is your vote and don't leave that power at home, take it with you, go to the ballot box and use your power. So that's what I would say about that. Because I think of the contentiousness and the reason why I asked that question the contentiousness of the last four years a lot of people have just opted out of voting. And I think of watching this film how hard we fought for that but people going this is a mess and I'm staying away from it and having that be more powerful to keep them away from the ballot box. So it's awful about that challenge when you're getting voted. Right and part of our jobs as Patty is talking about is that we are actively thinking about different ways and how we can make things interesting so that we can get people back. And part of that strategy is to find that we've seen as we have done this work together that there are increases and people getting out there. And so that is encouraging. And then we're even looking at we are looking at this all year round. This is not just a cycle thing it's like all year round this work is important to continue to build upon the grounds that we're making. And so part of that strategy in terms of what we're doing as well is not only need an up to the vote but also how do we help our residents to understand their power even after they vote in regards to elected officials because we have the right to hold them accountable. So we're even thinking about how do we put some program in together to demystify you know the fact that now you voted now how do you go and then engage with your public official so that your concerns in your local communities or statewide are being addressed and to be able to help with promoting and inspiring and empowering because I firmly believe once you know more right you do more and so that's a constant you know strategy that we're always thinking about how do we continue to look at this differently and learn from what we've done to be able to do better as well improve from a continuous improvement lens. And I hear you about intersectionality race and gender for us are always about you know what we see every what we have to deal with every day so I just wanted to comment on that. I appreciate that. In terms of voting you know exactly my fellow panelists are saying it's an ongoing process right definitely during election time we're at the hottest points you know trying to get out the vote encourage you know are those running for office you know get people of their stances on abortion you know make sure we're electing the right people who have the strongest stances on our rights but then an off season or off election season that's when the education starts that's when we're talking about you know why does abortion matter why is it on the ballot you know how is it on the ballot because you know we live in a democratic republic we are voting people to vote for our rights so abortion is always going to be on the ballot of the people we vote for but then we have very special times where abortion quite literally is on the ballot my favorite story since the Dobs decision came out was Kansas Kansas had an amendment right to be voted on that in the amendment it said abortion is not going to be a state constitutionally protected item right and this the folks of Kansas the residents of Kansas were able to vote on this amendment to say Kansas there's no abortion right constitutionally protected abortion right in the state of Kansas and with 59% of the vote coming back they voted down that amendment and so that Kansas has an abortion right based on that state constitution abortion is a winning issue abortion is a winning issue you know and so and so that's where the work happens where we get excited about abortion I get excited about abortion I love talking about abortion so that's where the work happens all throughout the year whether we're election season or not get people fired up and once there's a special candidate that we're particularly fired up about that is the most champion of abortion rights that we want to get out there or like I honor Pressley or one of the biggest champions of abortion that we're so lucky to have or when abortion is quite literally on the ballot you know that's how we get people excited I mean I go back to truth telling really I mean because and I know you know sometimes it's a 30 seconds bite right that people sort of run with but it is a challenge I'm not I mean it's a wonderful question we are living we are living in a world right now where people are literally running with not the facts and so we're constantly having to really think about this and also be brief because of social media and everything else but we go back right back to the facts about the history about voting what's happening and really those rights are being deteriorated I mean and so it's we're really not safe here I mean people really need to know that especially with the voting rights acts which was one of the sweeping legislation that eliminated discrimination in voting as now there's been a rule in the section of it that has states now decreasing access to vote so and again that's right there we can show you what's happening and why this is important and even now there's still a pending case I think that you were just going to speak briefly about so for us it's going back it's having those conversations there are also relationships you have to think about relationships and different people in the community that are trusted leaders so we're going at this in all different angles to be able to let people really know what the truth is and what truly what is it that we are fighting for in terms of our democracy yeah and I mean for the League of Women voters I mean we've always been a nonpartisan organization meaning we don't endorse candidates we don't endorse parties but we do take positions on issues based on a really lengthy study and member consensus so I think nowadays as silly was saying everything is deemed political or partisan so because you are because we have a stand for example on just an example we help pass the law in Massachusetts in June to allow undocumented immigrants to have a driver's license and that was summarily put to a citizen's initiative petition and got enough so now it's on the ballot to repeal the law that is not I mean that's an issue that we have had a position on for many many years and you know it's not it's not a partisan issue so I think there's just to your point there's a lot of education that needs to be done about what is you know what is partisan and what is nonpartisanship so we're constantly trying to explain what that we're not endorsing candidates we're not endorsing parties just because these days the Republican Party is anti-immigration across the board I think that people equate that with the League taking a partisan position and as Silly was saying I just want to say that I mean for the first time in 50 years when Supreme Court is taking away right so with the Dove's decision the gutting of parts of the Voting Rights Act and I'm just going to mention I'm not going to go into this case but there's a case before the Supreme Court more v. Harper and the Supreme Court will be deciding whether or not the North Carolina Supreme Court had the power to strike down a lot of an egregious gerrymandering map that the state legislature in North Carolina drew and basically there were the legislators in North Carolina are relying on this debunked theory the independent state legislature theory that basically says that the state legislature and no other state entity not the state courts not the governor should be the final arbiter of of interpreting the U.S. Constitution's election clause so basically it this is this would allow state legislatures to uncheck no checks and balances would allow them to have to do do gerrymandering not just on partisan lines but racial lines and anything else so this is I I'm not going to I'm not I can't do this justice so if you want more information go on to the Vernon Center the justice website more v. Harper is the name of the case but this is a very I don't want to end on a bad note but this is a very scary this is a very scary proposition the case will be argued on December 7th and the opinion will be out sometime in the spring so the other side is organizing and doing and like this movie importance of this movie in this moment about the sacrifices you know that these women certainly did and also other people of color who have sacrificed in this country so that we can vote and so hopefully that this is inspiring us to get out and vote on November 8th and that we continue to really learn because as we know we haven't really learned all of the true history in our country and so when things come up I would say my call to action would be please find out the truth before you make that final decision and vote I think in terms of trying to weed out the misinformation I've seen a lot of that especially in abortion and it's been very difficult but I find there's two camps of people right there's a people who genuinely want to know they're like what is an abortion what does it look like I've been hearing a lot of scary things unfortunately with the rise of crisis pregnancy centers there's lots of minster information out there and there's people who genuinely want to know that's where we pull them to the side and say hey listen this is great information for you I see that you really care I think you actually do want to know this information there's great resources abortion finders amazing websites to get all of this great information on abortion care and reproductive justice in general and there's awesome organizations in Massachusetts not just Planned Parenthood but the abortion funds Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund the Rebrew opening out amazing organizations right then there's the other camp of people who are a little bit more cynical right they have their own personal beliefs on abortion and you know that's when you do the work that's when the work happens where you find out what is the thing that they actually care for a lot of times it's they really believe in personal responsibility they say hey listen I work hard and I try my best to make this life for myself why aren't you responsible like I am that's when you do the work and say isn't the most responsible thing to do is to have the abortion that will give you the life that you're able to do so that's when the work happens and so I think my call to action is definitely learn find out what's going on in the country we live in a state where we have amazing abortion champions amazing reproductive justice champions we don't live in a state alone we live in a country advocating for a total abortion ban and I'm not kidding so that's when we actually have to organize amongst ourselves and say hey listen I understand that we come from this position of privilege or maybe we're in a place where people really care about these rights but we don't live in the silo New Hampshire as well does not have abortion protections on the table and so you know that those are our neighbors so definitely find out the best information and get out there and vote for these champions that are going to continue funding reproductive justice funding abortion funds caring about the issues that our residents care about because you know to end on a half you know people look at Massachusetts as a champion of reproductive justice the reproductive justice expansion bill that we just passed in July we're the only state to do something like that and it's incredible and so I see other states looking at us around a little a little bit of tea other Planned Parenthood affiliates have been like Massachusetts what have you guys been doing and I'm talking about New York in California these other progressive states that's the work that we did that's the work that everybody on this panel did so it's that type of work that we are able to combat this misinformation or the people that are on the sides being not understanding that this work matters and we can continue doing even better great well they're about to kick us out so I want to thank you all Jacqueline do you have another film that you're working on now we're going to do one I'm doing one of some little off-topic it's not focused on women I'm doing one on something called digital nomads it's people who work or know and travel around the world maybe I will have a women focus in there I'm not quite sure but I myself am also a part-time digital nomad so I get to work remote and I've traveled to Europe for a few months Canary Islands so I've been able to interview people I've interviewed about three people but it's a big trend happening now because of COVID a lot of people have remote jobs and they're like why am I going to stay home I can travel the world so it's a whole new trend with this film as well as your future endeavors and ladies thank you all for joining us this evening please listen to what they're saying you know let's just continue to educate our communities our friends and family not to argue but to really inform people with the truth let's hope that the truth wins and go to the polls to vote thank you all and join us for the festival classes for the after party right across the street thank you again