 Good afternoon Highline Familia. My name is Doris Martinez. She heard her pronouns and I serve as Director for the Center for Cultural Inclusive Excellence. Also co-chair of MLK Week 2021. Welcome to our event this evening. Before we begin, I wanted to share some tips to enhance today's programs. So first and foremost, if you have any questions for our presenter and their guests at any time, please choose click on the chat feature and to converse and have conversation. Also click on the Q&A button that you will find located at the bottom of your screen. We will host a Q&A session with our speakers at 5.30pm. We would also appreciate it if you could check in using our check-in form. The URL is being posted in the chat by clicking and checking in. You help us keep track of how many students we are serving with our MLK programs. And of course, it gives us an opportunity to get to know you a little bit more. So thank you so much for your support and do that for us. We are in a webinar so we cannot see or hear our attendees. If you are having by any chance any technology issues, please utilize the chat feature located at the bottom of your screen to reach the session host and we'd be more than happy to assist you. So now, we will go ahead and continue on with the land acknowledgement. We would like now to collectively take a moment to acknowledge all Indigenous and First Peoples of the land and space in which we live and breathe. We are a community at Highline College. We recognize that we are occupied Duwamish, Coast Salish, Muckleshoot, and Puyallup lands. And we want to take to time, of course, and thank all relations and tribes today as we prepare to hold space as a community. We recognize that all of us are joining in this conversation from different areas. So we also want to invite you to reflect and thank all Indigenous and First Peoples of the land in spaces in which you are coming from. Thank you. And I'll have the honor of introducing our host for today's program, my sis, Jerry Ventura. Jerry, take it away. Good afternoon, Highline. I'm Jerry Ventura and I'm, and as a proud Tukwila resident. It is my pleasure to introduce today's speaker. Cynthia Delastrinos Johnson was raised in Seattle, the daughter of immigrant parents from the Philippines. She is an attorney and currently works as the manager of the Supreme Court commissions with the administrative office of the courts. Her work focuses on statewide projects and policies which address racial equity, gender equity, and language access in the courts. In November of 2018, Cynthia became the first woman of color and the first person of Asian descent elected to the Tukwila City Council. Additionally, she serves as co-president of the Tukwila Children's Foundation and has been a longtime board member for the Filipino lawyers of Washington. So please welcome Cynthia Delastrinos Johnson. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here with you all today and to share my presentation with you and then for us to be able to have a discussion at the end about some of the things that you hear. So I'll just go ahead and get started because we've got a lot to cover today. One second as I share my screen. The presentation today is called the first but not the last, a call for new leaders. And what we're going to cover today, first is what did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s three evils of racism, poverty, and war look like today in our community. Second, what can you do to carry on Dr. King's legacy? And lastly, how you can be a part of the first but not the last. So first we're going to go over what do the three evils of racism, poverty, and war look like today. On May 10, 1967, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to a group of leaders, warning them about these three evils. I encourage you all to look up the three evils online. You can actually do a Google search and find the actual presentation or the speech that he gave, because a lot of what he spoke about 53 years ago is still happening today. And it's crazy how much those words that he spoke that time still resonate with a lot of what we're seeing today. And so I'm going to talk about these things through what I see and through my perspective and I invite you to also think about these things as we go through this presentation through your perspective. The first one is racism. I don't think we have to go too far or talk too long, because I think all of us just from 2020 this past year have seen the many places and areas in which racism exists within our society. It's in our education system. It's in our court system. It's in our healthcare system. It's an art. It's in media. It's literally everywhere we go within America. There is there are pieces of racism that exists within every system. And it's really going to take a conscious effort on behalf of all of us to eradicate racism in all our systems. I wanted to begin because, you know, I think that this year has really shown and and unveiled all the places that racism exists and so I thought today I would share something a little more personal and start to talk about racism, as it looks like within my own story about how racism came into my life first came into my life and how that experience put me on the path where I am now on City Council as an attorney advocating for racial justice. So it starts here in the Philippines. My parents are immigrants from the Philippines. They immigrated here to the US back in the 1980s, and they left everything they knew their family. They sacrificed their education that they had there for the hope that they would find a better life and more opportunity here in the US. So what racism looked like early on for me as the daughter of immigrant parents was shame, and it's really sad to say but it was shame it was shame for my own culture, and where I came from and and what did that look like. So growing up, I was one of I like Jerry would talked about in my intro, I grew up here in Seattle, I grew up in West Seattle and if in my elementary school I remember a time when I was the only Filipino in my class, and other students would make fun of me because of the food that I brought the food, the rice and the adobo that my dad would pack for lunch. Kids would make fun of me because of how it smelled. I felt shame for the color of my skin, because my own mom would say things like, don't go out in the sun or you'll get too dark. These kinds of things brought made me think about my culture with shame. And so that's how it started looking out, just in my life growing up. I hid this shame through excelling within education, and of course, trying to look cool, and this is me trying to look fly as a little kid. But that's really how I hit it. So in my awakening to racism in America really started here. Some, the school may look familiar to many of you. This is Garfield High School, the place where I went to school, and it was in my junior year of high school. I had a class called Minorities in America that I really started to understand a history of racism within America, and I started to make sense of that shame that I felt, and I really was able to take that shame and turn it into passion. In that class, I learned about people like Thurgood Marshall, an attorney during the time of the civil rights movement, who was the seminal attorney for the NAACP, and argued the case Brown versus Board of Education, which desegregated our schools and made it so that I could sit in a classroom with classmates of different races. But still in that classroom, I asked myself, why, why, even though there were these changes made during the civil rights movement, why did I still feel shame around my culture? Why are there no black kids in my AP classes? Why are we still dealing with issues of racism today? I asked myself, if this is still happening today, what can I do to change that? And I was inspired by Thurgood Marshall, our first African American, our first person of color on the Supreme Court, and I wanted to become a lawyer like him, a lawyer fighting for civil rights, fighting for justice. This is me on graduation day. After I graduated from Garfield, I went to Seattle Central Community College. I transferred to UW after that. And I got into Seattle University School of Law through a special access program, which looked at students who don't have the typical background of a law student, because if you could imagine, even the institution of law, law schools are filled with power and privilege and are not places where you see a lot of people of color. But this program that I got in through allowed a majority of people of color who go to Seattle U through that access program, recognizing the potential that they had in being agents for change within the law. So my story doesn't end there. After law school, I didn't just go straight into work and everything was great. It was actually in law school that I experienced one of the, I think the hardest lessons I've learned about racism. So as I said, it hasn't been a straight path for me and this is a story that I don't think I've ever told publicly, but I really felt compelled to tell it to you today, because I truly believe that in order for all of us to move forward as a nation, we all must be brave and courageous enough to tell our truths. My story of racism involves addressing anti-blackness in my own Asian culture. What you see here is a picture of my husband, James, we actually met in law school and he was one year ahead of me. My mom hated him for no other reason than for the color of his skin. How, one might ask, you can look in our culture, in our society, how the media portrays African American men, how our policies criminalize them. And no matter what work I did fighting racism outside my home, standing up against it, there was nothing I could do within my own home to have my mom accept James for who he was. And one of the saddest things that I had to experience after apologizing to James of how my family was treating him was his response. He said, it's okay, I'm used to it. And that hurt someone who has nothing, who has done nothing to deserve this is just used to it, because that is what racism looks like within our country. In my third year of law school as I was about to graduate, I became pregnant. And I had to confront this anti blackness by coming to the conclusion that if my mom was going to treat James that way, like he was any less than the human being and not worthy of her respect. Then I couldn't have her around my son, because he would be black too. And that sort of prejudice and hate would no longer have a place in our lives. I don't know what clicked inside her head, but something changed after I stood up to her and after Isaac was born. And I'm happy to be able to report to you all today that we got through it. The best part about it is that we're still growing and learning as a family, but we're doing it together. And we're able to have that dialogue at such a seminal time like now, when the black lives matter movement is out and everybody is now confronting and talking about racism. And that's what I believe that we have to do in order to really get at making change is by addressing racism, not only outside and in our communities but also at home, and really digging down deep. And so I ask you today, think about and reflect, where does racism show up in your lives in your families in your schools in your places of work. And what ways can you tackle it in the circumstances that are in front of you. We have to be willing to work within our own families in order to bring out the deep rooted prejudices that racism that brings out racism and how it exists within our society. So this is a quote from Dr King in his speech about the three evils. And I want to move to the second evil. And that's poverty. The number of people who experienced poverty will grow substantially as a result of this pandemic, and those already experiencing it before the pandemic will be even more impacted. We know that poverty disproportionately impacts black, indigenous and people of color communities, women, people who are LGBTQ people who are transgender people with disabilities, and as those identities intersect, the likelihood of experiencing poverty goes up. If we truly care about ending racism, and if we truly care about equity, we have to care about addressing poverty at the same time. Some of the things I've learned on City Council this past year are the effects of COVID. The unemployment rate that we're experiencing right now is at an all time high. Many people have lost their jobs due to COVID. Many are facing back rent and don't know how they're going to be able to pay once the rental moratorium or the eviction moratorium is lifted. Some businesses have closed forever, leaving us with less opportunities for employment. Schools are closed. And so parents who would otherwise be working have to stay home in order to care for their children. In 2020, the Governor's Poverty Reduction Workgroup released its report with the eight following strategies, and I encourage you all to look up this report. It's a lot more detailed, but I wanted to provide you guys with the strategies that they came up with. And I want to point out, number one, the number one strategy is undoing structural racism or systemic racism. And number two is balancing power, making sure that people from communities most impacted by poverty are actually involved in the policymaking process. As I said, you can find this report online and all the resources that go with it, but I encourage you all to look at it and to find a way within these strategies to tackle poverty in the ways that you can. And then the last evil is war or militarism. When Dr. King talked about the evils of war, he was talking about the Vietnam War. He asked, why are we killing innocent people in Vietnam when they are killing us at home. And at the time that he was giving this speech, he was being criticized for speaking out against the war. But the way he saw it was that these three evils of racism, poverty and war were all intertwined. So what do the, what does this look like? What does this last evil look like in our communities today? I believe this is what war and violence looks like in our communities today. I believe this is what Dr. King would have pointed out as his third evil. You can find it in the ways that our government excessively funds the criminal justice system. You can find it in the ways that unarmed black people can be killed and no one is held accountable while the whole world watches. You can find it in our prison system, in our mass incarceration system. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world with over 2 million people behind bars at any given time. This is what violence looks like. This is what war looks like in our own communities. We know that there is disproportionality in every level of the criminal justice system. And that 80 to 90% of the people going through our criminal justice system are people whose underlying issues are often poverty, mental health and addiction. Incarceration exacerbates poverty. This is the intersection. We've created systems and policies that make it illegal to discriminate against people with criminal convictions, denying them opportunities for housing, employment, loans, licenses, and so much more. Our country has created a war against black and brown people through the criminal justice system, and we must work towards dismantling it if we truly want racial equity. I know those things are very, very deep, and I wish I could have more time with you to just go through each one of those, but I encourage you to keep learning about those three evils and what they look like in our communities today. Because our next question that I posed all of you are what I hope that you take from this is what are some things that you can do to carry on Dr. King's legacy? How can you join the fight for equity and justice? The first thing is to continue to educate. Never stop learning and seeking out answers. Never stop having conversations with others about racism and the ways that it shows up within our communities. I do not hold myself out to be an expert in any of this, and I'm constantly learning, and there are always ways, more conversations that we can have in order to bring light to these issues and make real change. My next question is to be an advocate. And when I say advocate, I'm not talking about being an attorney or, you know, being the one on stage, speaking, being the one giving this presentation, but when I say advocate, I mean anyone and everyone can be an advocate. You don't have to be an attorney. You don't have to be the most outspoken person. You can write. You can speak. You can use whatever you have to communicate with others what you believe is right and wrong. And I encourage you to do it. Lastly, get involved. Get involved in your community. And I'm excited to have a group of young people as part of a panel who can talk about the different ways to get involved. This movement is a leaderful movement, not a leaderless movement. We believe that we are living in the new civil rights movement, and it's called Black Lives Matter. There are things that we could all do to join this movement. We could all be Dr. Martin Luther King's because we could all speak out, we could all advocate, we could all educate, and we could all find a way to get involved. If we look back on this time in our history, we're going to be asking ourselves, where were we at this time and what were we doing. I know and I believe that this time we are going to make big changes because all of us are going to find ways to get involved. So how can you be the first but not the last and what does that even mean. In November of 2019, I was elected to the Tukwila City Council. I didn't know at the time that I decided to run that I would become the first woman of color ever to serve in an elected office in the city of Tukwila. For those of you who are familiar with Tukwila, you know how diverse it is. The majority of people of color live within Tukwila. So I question, you know how how is it possible that I am the first. And at that moment that I realized it. I said, I may be the first but I will make sure that I am not the last. So here we are seeing first happen all around our country. We see our new madam vice president, Kamala Harris being the first Asian woman the first African American woman to become the first woman to become vice president of our country. And as these first happen, I know that all of these electives have the same feeling that I do is that what can we do to ensure that we are not the last, because that's what it's really going to take to truly create change in our country. And I want you to think about how you are a part of this movement, because the first doesn't have to mean the first and elected office. It could also mean so much more. It could be the first in your family to vote the first to ever be involved in politics. There's so many more opportunities. And at this time, I want to introduce you guys to some really special people to me. These young people that you see in the picture are here to talk with you all today about the ways in which they got involved, how they may, what the first but not the last means in there to them. And how what I want to share about these young people that you all are going to hear from today is how important they were in helping me get elected to city council. Together we knocked thousands of doors in Tukwila to help ensure that I would be the first, but I wouldn't be the last. And so I want to bring them into this, this webinar here and I'm sure they'll come on screen soon, but I'm going to do a little introduction of them. And I am going to do this. There they are. So I want to introduce you first to Kang Nguyen. Kang is a second year student at the University of Washington. He's currently majoring in political science and international studies. He's a graduate of Highline College, where he did his where he did running start. And he also was a graduate of Renton High School. He currently serves as the secretary of the Vietnamese American community of Seattle, and snow mish and King counties. And he is an active member at the Vietnamese martyr parish. Kang is a second year student at the University of Washington also majoring in political science and computer science. He graduated from Renton High School. He interned with council member Larry Gossett. He did an internship at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies in the wash in Washington DC, and he's currently serving as an elected PCO for the 11th legislative district, and he's on the board for the associated students of the University of Washington. And my last panelist is Jarmine Santos. She is in her second year at Highline College and is your current student body president. I met her when she was doing a mayoral internship for the city of Takwila. And the three of them are just amazing and I invited them to speak with you all today, because I think hearing from them about the ways in which they got involved. I could could really just, I hope that it helps inspire you to see yourself doing a lot of these things that the young folks are doing. So, my first question for the panel, and I'll invite Kang to speak to this first is, what made you want to get involved in your community. I think you're still sharing your screen. Oh, shoot. Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah, good. I also want to thank you Cynthia for sharing that story. I wasn't planning on shedding a tear today but it really it really hit home because I also experienced that same problem. So after the question, what made me want to get involved in the community. I've been involved with my Vietnamese American community at a very young age. I grew up with the Vietnamese mothers parish. However, what made me want to take a more prominent role within that space, but in the greater, but also in the greater Vietnamese American community is the realization that there's a lack of youth leadership in these spaces. So I decided to join the board and also take on a coordinator position at the church to become some sort of facilitator and a bridge that connects the younger and older generation so that we can have tough conversations about the intergenerational and a cultural differences that really form the core of the many issues that afflict our communities today. Do you want to answer. Yeah, sure. Well first off like thanks for showing those campaign photos it's so surreal looking at like photos of people just hanging out without masks. Like it almost seems like it looks wrong, you know, and it's so it's so weird. But yeah, what made me be involved with my community. Well, first for me, I guess we can like first kind of define what community is right. So for me a community is really you know the people that around you people that are around you and for anyone to be involved with their community they have to really like feel like they belong in their community feel like they love their community and that's exactly what kind of made me involved. I love my community I love the people that I've met through school. I love the people that I've met through sports, you know, a lot of them, you know they all mean a lot to me. And that's really what made you want to be involved when you know I saw members of my community my friends colleagues peers. When like a lot of them going through struggles with whether it's in terms of like housing and securities, or just income paying the bills, all these things like these are all issues that a lot of people in my community that are like going through. And it's, when someone in your community is hurting you can't help but want to step in and help. And that's really what's on what's really makes me want to like be involved with my community. And also I want to mention that, you know, community being involved in a community is not just something that like you have to do is not something that's like, Oh man I have to go volunteer now. You know, being part of your community is something that that is fun that's something that you should enjoy. One thing you can think of it's like when like you go to college or when your students go to college. You know, a lot of them talk about the college experience and what is the college experience. Well college experience is being out and walking around with fellow students and being part of the college community. And then you're like going through the college experience you want to be involved as you can as as involved as you can. And in the same way being part of the community, wherever you are, it's something that's like you should probably want to do. And it's not something that you have to but it's definitely something that you can enjoy. Jeremy. I have to say that it was also really nice seeing those campaign photos I feel like it was from such a long time ago but campaigning. It's fun you guys so you should definitely get involved if you if you can. And also thank you for sharing your story Cynthia. It's crazy because I feel like we you know we've known each other for a long time you've been my mentor for a while now but you still inspire me so much, and it's always great to have somebody to look up to and share similar like background stories as me because I grew up in a predominantly white school, I like Cynthia was usually the only Filipino in my class, sometimes even the only Asian in my class. So, once I stepped out of that kind of box of white privileged students. And then I began to learn more about racism, poverty, just the lack of representation all around and how important community is and how important is to find people that I can relate to. That was just a really big thing for me. And once I found my community, I feel like you never want to get out of it you just want to continue to grow your community and just making sure that you help other people also get into your community and your communities. I think that's what really inspired me to get involved, because, like Anson said community, it's the people that surrounds you is the people that you love so yeah learning about my community. And once you get involved, I feel like you can't stop because community is really important to me. So, yeah, that's, that's why I wanted to be involved in my community. Thank you. And I totally agree with you about once you get involved you can't stop. And it's a good thing, like sometimes you get too busy but it's it's just such a good feeling to be a part of a community. Um, so my next question for you guys was, what was the defining moment when you decided to get into politics. And how did you do it because a lot of a lot of people don't have those interactions with politics, especially not at it's a young age but as somebody who is, you know, in politics and just be, you know, having you walk those streets with me and do the doorbelling like I could not have, I don't believe that I could have won my campaign without you guys. You know this is coming from somebody who is in politics and I want and I hope that this can encourage more of the young people more of those of you who are part who are watching this and wanting to get involved like I'm telling you guys I need you we need you. But let me ask you guys, you know how did you get involved. And I'll start with answer. Yeah, for me. There wasn't like a defining moment where like, I just woke up one day and was like, I'm gonna go campaigning or I'm gonna write to my legislators. I feel like just a mix of all my experiences growing up and a mix of education like learning new things on learning some things. It was just a mix of all of that. For example, like back in elementary school went to a elementary school like just like across the street I live like right next to it. Like fifth grade and everyone was just asking a what middle school are you going to next year, and there were three choices in our district there's Nelson, there's McKnight, and there's dimmit. And back in the day we've I don't know if they still call these schools, these names but they used to have nicknames, McKnight used to be called make white, and dimmit used to be called dimwit. And basically that's that came about because a lot of students at the McKnight predominantly white students, and at dimmit it's 9095% students of color, super low income in unincorporated King County, Skyway. And I was like, why, how did these like names come to be right. Like why are there, why are all the white students at McKnight, why are all the black students all the, all the students of color are at dimmit why, why is that. And I never really learned why until like a lot later on, and that's where you know my education comes in. That's where, like I started learning about historical red lining. And all these, all these bad policies that led to the realities that many BIPOC community members live in today and that's why McKnight happened to be a lot of white students and dimmit happened to be a lot of black students and fun fact. The reality of black people live within Skyway in Washington state has the highest concentration of black people. And they're also like really underfunded they don't have a city governments and they're often overlooked. And these are all the realities of bad policy. And once I learned that, like, again, this goes back to wanting to be involved in my community, like these are the, these are the schools I went through these are the friends I've met, and I just could you can't sit by when community members are hurting under some like this systemic oppression through like past policies current policies. And that's really what made me want to get into politics and learn more about it and be more engaged in it. What about you, Jeremy. For me, I think it was in my sophomore year of high school. So two years ago, I was in speech and debate, and one of the debate topics brought up me discovering the military industrial complex, which is an informal relationship with the military and the companies that make different weapons. And that is really what it really fuels war because the people who make weapons need wars in order to like continue supplying people with these weapons. So that really put together all of MLK's three evils for me because the military needs someone to target so that brings up racism. So we target specific groups of people because we need people to fight against in order to make sure that capitalism is still running people are still getting are getting the money that they want. And it connects to poverty because a lot of people who are being targeted don't have the resources to really push back on any of this so there's that and then obviously war because it fuels war without war there wouldn't be a need for all of these companies to be making weapons so that really blew my mind because I was like, how is that happening right now and to me it felt like nobody was doing anything for it but this was you know, I wasn't as involved in politics, but I feel like that just really started a flame in me I was, I was just, it just kept thinking about all of the innocent people that have died in wars in the Middle East like Yemen or what happened in Iraq. And I was just enraged, because these are innocent people who are being targeted because they're poor because of what they believe in because of their, the color of their skin. And it's all just so that a handful of people could get a lot of money. So, that's kind of when I decided that I was going to get into politics because I believe that that's where a lot of power is. Obviously, there's power and money but because I want to like be away from capitalism. I thought that politics was a really good way to start like grassroots organizations and educate the people so that they, they can start standing up to so that they get educated and realize that they, they can do stuff so that's why I wanted that's that was like my defining moment of why I wanted to get into politics. What about you, King. Yeah, my defining moment is a story that I love to tell. It's all started when I attended my first city council meeting in Takuola, spring of 2019. I was there because my political science teacher at the time, Dr. Mary and I'd assigned me to see what politics was like out in the real world outside the classroom. I'm not only supposed to be there to observe the meeting, but I decided to give a public comment about the importance of state and local elections and why it's so important for you to get involved. After I sat down, a young woman by the name of Cynthia Delastrine I was approached me. She said, Hey, I was inspired by what you had to say I'm running for Takuola City Council would you join me. My defining moment, because that was the first time someone ever told me that my words, my words about politics inspired them. That someone cared for what I had to say and that someone was listening. I developed an interest for politics, government public service around my software junior year, but I never pursued that interest, any further than just taking, taking classes to satisfy my interest. When I looked at the political landscape. I realized that it was dominated by one specific demographic. I didn't ask myself Kang, you know is this politics a field that you can thrive and succeed in. Let alone get your foot in the door. That day with Cynthia at the city council meeting taught me that. Yes, I can enter these spaces. I can thrive and it can succeed. Because these spaces these political spaces were made for people like us. And it's our time to reclaim these spaces to share our lived experiences to tell our stories. And to define our own moment and to transform that narrative that narrative that politics is only reserved for one, reserved for one demographic, when in reality it's made for people like us. And how did I do that. Well I did it because I had one, an amazing professor who believed in my political capabilities when I couldn't. I don't know if she's in the audience. But if you're listening if you ever see this. Thank you so much. And number two, an incredible mentor that that taught me that yes we can do it and we must do it. I can't even say I'm just I'm speechless. You all are just so amazing. And for those of you, I encourage mentorship for any of you if there's politicians that inspire you anywhere within our communities I encourage you reach out, or if you want to talk to me reach out because we need to get all of you and all of these spaces are made for you. And we want you there, and you deserve to be there, and we need to be there. So this might. I think we have time for two more questions. And so the, the, this next question is, what does the first but not the last mean to you. And I'll start with charming. I think that this is a very powerful statement because it means to break barriers to making sure that you know you're the first, or you can be the first person to vote the first person to run. Like Cynthia, the first woman POC in the tequila council. But it also means to sustain all of the leadership and making sure that the barriers stay down. And that's why I think that it has two parts to it. So the first being ensuring that, you know, we get our foot in the door but also making sure that the door stays open for other people to follow so making sure that, you know, Vice President Kamala Harris isn't the only woman to get into to ever be the Vice President or possibly the President, you know, it's good to break these barriers but it's also really important to sustain them and create sustainable leadership within communities or so. For me, it's like I was the first person in my family to really get involved in politics. And I don't want to be the last so I have a little sister and I take like our group knows I like take her around everywhere so that she can also get involved in politics. In my family and also educating other people in my family so that they are informed. And yeah, I think that's what that really means to me. Awesome. King, what about you. Yeah, I think Jermaine I totally agree with Jermaine and she made two excellent points about sustainable leadership and also breaking down barriers. To me, first but not the last means individuals who were able to overcome systemic and structural barriers to become the first in the respective spaces like Cynthia, like Kamala Harris like President Obama. But all while acknowledging that they are the first to make history in these spaces. And this ties in sustainable leadership and work towards actively actively paving a path for future generations at BIPOC leaders to stand up to take on that torch and to continue that path of change. And, you know, similarly to being involved is not just limited to politics and Cynthia touched on this first not the last can mean, you know, the first to go to college, the first to graduate from college, the first to land a job job position. It's so much more than just politics. And that's important to understand, because tying in breaking down barriers, we need to understand the historical conditions and the structural barriers that were in place that prevented BIPOC community individuals from emerging in these spaces in the first place. Leaders, the leaders who were the first need to understand that recognize it, and to eliminate those barriers, so that they ensure future BIPOC leaders have opportunities to succeed in spaces that were not historically designed for them. What do you think answer. I'd like to second everything Jermaine and Kang said I agree with them 100%. So I don't have too much to add, but I will add that it's, it's equivalent to just saying that like, ensuring that underrepresented folks are still represented for years to come in all levels of society, whether that be in college, whether that be an elected office, voting in all levels of careers, we need to make sure that BIPOC communities continue to be represented in all of these fields. And when we say black lives matter, we don't just mean, you know, we, there's a lot of, there's a lot of meaning behind that. And when we say black lives matter, we mean that we need to put black folks in executive all positions in big companies because they are heavily underrepresented. We need to make sure that other represented folks are continue and become even more represented than they are now because right now they're incredibly underrepresented. And first but not the last is all about making sure everyone gets the representation that they deserve and need in a, you know, ideal society. So I want this will be your guys's last question and we'll end on this one and it's sort of a two part question. The first part is what kind of change do you hope to create in society because all you know you guys are are the leaders of tomorrow and I think it's important to be able to speak to what you hope to be and see in the future even no matter how you know far into the future that looks like for you but what is that change that you want to bring. And then lastly just to know of what you hope that those watching today will take away from today's presentation. And I'll start with Anson. Oh yeah that's that's a really really good question. Well, what one thing that I really want to change. Jermaine mentioned this earlier it's a military industrial complex. I love you probably already know this but bring up Martin Luther King here. He was against the Vietnam War, and this was largely because the US was spending so much money on the military overseas for non like just nonsensical violence. And they weren't spending money on addressing poverty at home. And like so so many citizens in America and all people in America are, you know struggling living paycheck to paycheck and we're spending so much like billions and billions of dollars on military when so many people are struggling, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. And that's definitely something that I want to change. I'm spending so much money on military like it's we spend so much, even if we cut our budget by like 90%. I'm, I'm pretty sure we're spending more than any other country in the world. And that's just like insanity to me. That's definitely one thing that I want to change on another thing definitely our criminal justice system. We need to be more creative and imaginative when we talk about it, because our criminal justice system it has like if we look at the historical ramifications, the war on drugs on just everything the way the policing system was created in the first place to bring back runaway slaves, we need to rethink how we enforce public safety in a way that addresses 21st century problems and issues. And that's that's a really big thing to tackle it's not going to take like one president it's not going to take like even one generation it's going to take multiple generations of change. That's definitely something that's sustained that has to be sustained definitely something I really want to see in my lifetime. And part of this is also the issue with like we need to implement more social safety nets whether that's universal basic income. And just putting money in people's pockets. And I'd argue that this is easily something we can do. America is incredibly rich. The nation's like top billionaires made like trillions of dollars over the since the pandemic began. This is something we can definitely afford and like a lot of these big corporations they don't pay a lot of taxes. The wealth inequality like this, this goes, there's just so many things like I'm just rambling at this point just, and like it just goes to show there's like that many things that that needs to be changed and like I said, it's not going to take like one generation you can take multiple generations. And ultimately, this is what I want like everyone to, if everyone like just kind of dozed off for the entire panel I just want you to take this with you. You have the power to influence change government, just like Martin Luther King, you don't have to be be someone who is affected by government. You can be the person that affects government. Just want to reiterate, you have the power to create the change you want to see. You just have to go do it, and you, there's going to be people that have your back. Jermaine. I mean, yeah, all of the things that I want to change the list goes on and on. Because there really needs to be a lot of change. America, the US is definitely not perfect. I would also change the military I think we spend just an insane amount on it and that could definitely that money could go towards. Like giving universal health care and just so many other things but I'd also want to change like environmental problems that are rising that the people right some people right now in government aren't addressing because it doesn't seem like it's their problem but it's definitely something that's going to affect the younger generation later on, and even right now. And I definitely want to change how people view immigrants and by pox because there are a lot of negative connotations with being an immigrant or from an immigrant family, or being a person of color. I just really want to change the way people view of my community and other people's community, because I believe that everybody should be viewed and viewed as equals and I think that everybody should be judged not by the color of our skin, or what we identify with, but with what's inside of all our characters, which I kind of I just thought of it but if any of you guys want to watch any of the previous MLK events, there was some really good ones by Dr. Dier and today by epiphany and Jesse Johnson I would definitely suggest you guys watch that because it changed my it changed my views on immigrants and by pox, you know, which shows that I'm definitely still somebody who is learning about all of these different things. And something else is like Cynthia I want to pave the ways for other poc women to feel like they are able to make change and stand up for what they believe in. And the thing that I want people to take away from this just like Anson is that students, staff, faculty you could all make change everybody has it within themselves and you know it doesn't have to be standing or not standing but being in front of a camera. You know, you could be a panel or running for office, even though those are really good things if you haven't in you to do that, definitely do it, but you could also make change in different ways through what your skills are which could be through art or through writing, or through healthcare or doctor or being able to connect deeply maybe one on one with people, you could use those skills to create change and as the student body president of Highline, I know for a fact that students can definitely make change. You just have to take this, you just have to take one step and then once you do it, you'll find out that it's actually not. Well, it can't be hard it's definitely hard making change but once you get the ball moving you know it'll it'll just keep on going and for staff. Sorry if I'm going like a little bit too much here but for staff and teachers any professors if you guys are in here, I've heard directly from students that they are that a lot of POCs are really struggling during this time because of COVID and because it's been a year since COVID. A lot of teachers are kind of just completely going over the fact that a pandemic is still going on so from from students I've heard of I want the staff to know that students still need support, and they still need your guys is understanding because a lot of people are struggling with their mental health, or with having COVID a lot of students here at Highline are parents so they have to, while they're going to school also have to take care of their kids making sure they're going to school. So, students, you guys can make a change, you can personally come to me I'm, I'm, I try, I'm not scary really not a scary person so you don't have to be intimidated, and for staff and faculty just be really gracious to the students right now because they they need it. So yeah that's all I have to say. I love it. I see Auntie Jerry. Are you going to tell us to take a break. Okay, I was still want to hear from King but I want everyone to get a break to. Well let's hear from King but anti wants you to take a break. I'm trying to keep it short. I know we're running a long time. I agree with everything that answered in charming said, but I'll try to attempt attempt to take all the issues that they mentioned and boil it down to one. One change that I want to create and I think that's educating our youth on the importance of civic engagement and public service. An example of that would be last summer during the Black Lives Matter movement that not only unearth the systemic racism within a discriminatory and oppressive law enforcement system, but also demonstrated the power and the potential of youth, youth to enact change when they collect when they mobilize under one collective purpose of promoting human rights and ensuring that our nation in the world is a more fair just place for everyone regardless of skin color. And we saw that wave of energized youth that invigorated youth follow us to the ballot box with the record number of youth turning out to vote in the 2020 presidential election. And I want that energy that wave that that passion for change that passion passion for civic engagement to continue, because we can see the change that that can bring. And I truly believe that if we educate youth on why it's so important to engage civically to become politically aware, politically involved, then we can, you know, eliminate the military industrial complex. Advocate for universal basic healthcare stimulus checks, you know establish safety nets and reform and rethink like Anson said community policing and public safety and what that looks like. Oh, wait, wait, I forgot we have a second question. The second quickly to students. I want you guys to know that, you know, you're never too young you're never too old to get involved. The great doctor Martin Luther King said the time is always right to do the right thing. You know the time is now to register for that class you're interested in to attend that school club, you know attend office hours please because you know the connections that you make for your professors with the doors out open before you. And never be afraid to put yourself out there, engage in different opportunities because you never know what doors will open, never doubt yourself, and also know that you are more than enough to live out your passions to accomplish your dreams. And quickly to professors just know that you are fostering leaders in the classroom right now, and how much of a profound impact you leave on your students lives. Thank you. All right, I'm turning it over back to you. Wow, how do you know that they call me out to Jerry and wow I am totally blown away right now by students advocating for office hours and civic engagement so but we need to move people it's been like a while. Let's take a what, because there's a bunch of really amazing questions. So, let's see. Math is so hard. We're taking a seven minute break and we're going to come back at. What does that mean. We're coming back at five at 545. Ignore whatever time I time, however long I said, it's been a long day. We're coming back at 545 get up and stretch, and there's some amazing questions and I am so inspired thank you Cynthia. Okay, answer in a Jarmaine and we'll come back with questions 545. I am so inspired I can't even turn my camera on. Okay, so I just, wow, I just, I'm still thinking about some stuff I heard. Truly you are all more than enough and Cynthia Kang answer in Jarmaine can rule the world as far as I'm concerned and now we have some amazing questions. So welcome back. We're going to have some Q&A the question Q&A boxes in the bottom if you want to type some questions if you're inspired like I am. So feel free to add more as we go along. But let's start with, and we won't like have everybody answer every question but let's start with this question whoever wants to jump in. Can you highlight some places for people to get started on getting more involved, or tell us more about participating in campaigns or other things going on locally. What are ways future BIPOC leaders can access the resources necessary to represent themselves and each other and their community. So, I'll speak to getting involved in campaigns so this, this year will be a really great year and opportunity to get involved in local campaigns. It's going to be a lot of like city council mayor mayoral positions that are going to be up, you know people running campaigns locally in your communities. And I feel like those are the most accessible to get involved in and so what I would say is, you know, keep your eyes out now is the time around February and March are the times that people announced that they're running. How do you find out who's running if you, I don't know if this is a little complicated for one I think on on Facebook you could always, you know, search around Facebook sometimes people pop up. But another way you can do it is by going to the King County elections. Wait, is it the. This is a confusing piece but I'll put it in the chat. If you go to the public disclosure commission, I'm going to put this in the chat because a lot of people don't know this, but you could actually see the names of the people who have filed to run within your, your jurisdiction and you just put in your, your zip code, and it'll pull up all the that have filed to run this year. And what I would encourage you to do is if there's like look up those people online and they always on their website, have this little thing that's like contact me. And send them an email to say hey like you look where you, I like what you're campaigning on like I want to get involved. Let me know. And if I got that email, I, I would conduct you right away and and find ways for you to get involved. So other other ways are there, there's a number of different civic or organizations within our community that that advocate for different things so you know if you're interested in, in immigrant rights, there's the one one America is a great organization doing work in our South King County community around those issues. If there's the Asian, a pace Asian Pacific Americans for civic engagement that do work around, you know, campaigning and just civic engagement in general. And I'm going to invite the others, my other panelists to come in and provide some thoughts about other ways that you can get involved in campaigns or campaigning processes. And I want to add the importance of networking. It's, it's something that I picked up in the campaign trail. And you know, if you're a student in a highline right now, an excellent way to become involved is talk to your professors, see what opportunities they have for you. And, you know, if you want to become more engaged civically attend a city council meeting. That's what I did and you never know the connections you'll make there and the people you'll meet. I met Cynthia there. And then that really opened that got me into the door of politics. But attending city council meetings just opening up yourselves to different opportunities, exploring your opportunities because you never know where you'll be, and who you'll meet. Cynthia spoke about some excellent, excellent organizations that pays ACR, ACRS, APEX, the internship that that Anson intern for. And there are a lot more that I can't think of the top of my head right now. What these most challenging steps of becoming involved is just getting your foot in the door in the first place. And that was my struggle as well, not knowing where to go who to go to who to talk to. But what helped me is just getting involved, going out there seeing seeing what different opportunities lie before you, and you know, being brave. And giving a public comment maybe at your city council. I'll give her a shout out just for, and sorry, but going to participating in like panels like this or presentations, and then reaching out to presenters afterwards. You know, we're not in person. But if there's someone on here that you want to like follow up and have a conversation with don't be afraid to reach out and just say, send an email say hey, I really liked what you're saying I would really love to set up an informational platform. A lot of the networking that I that I've done is that way is from hearing other people speak about issues I care about and then following up with them. I'll take the second what gang and Cynthia said getting involved with campaigns. Always good. They're used to find on the PDC website. Going to council meetings like King said that that's that kind of you kind of like hit two birds with one stone there, because one, you're literally involved in politics like going to council meeting you're in the room where it happens right. And also, if a council member doesn't really represent what you believe in, then, hey, find someone who is running against them and volunteer for them, right, and make sure that they're held accountable. And like council meetings really helps you like learn about who really represents you what policies they're passing. And if like you want to, if you think they're a good leader then that's great volunteer for the next campaign. If you don't think they're a good leader, then volunteer for their opponent. And another issue, another way you can get involved without like going into like politics directly where you're like in a council meeting and whatnot. It does require like Kang said some connections, networking. Just, just get connected with people who are, you know, or or start being more active yourself in your community start meeting some people who are like hosting events in your community. And probably more than likely they're they know other people who who's involved. There's probably like a Facebook group out there that focuses on community building and education. And I know for renton we there's a Facebook page is called indivisible renton Washington has like 800 members and their objective. It's all on Facebook it says advanced progressive values by supporting compassion and anti racist policies resist repair improve damage. Democratic. Okay, this is kind of long so I won't read it all. There's definitely face probably community based Facebook pages out there you can get involved with with a lot of people are involved. And one more way to get involved is which legislative district you reside in. And more than likely they have like monthly meetings. And oftentimes, your elected representative of your legislative district will show up there and give everyone like a report. And that's a perfect time to speak with them, as well as meet other community members who are also as interested in politics and making change as you are, and I'm pretty sure all all legislative districts in Washington have one. And especially since we're in the Peterson area. We definitely have a lot of things going on with them. Great. Thank you all so much for answering that question. There, there were a lot of questions and I know that we are going to be running out of time soon, but all of you have shared have shared this evening with us just powerful stories of your journey. And so one question that we have is what is your dream position in politics slash government, and we would love all of you to answer including Cynthia. My, I honestly like people always ask me like where do I want to go or what's next for you. I'm like, I have three more years here like I'm trying. I'm good where I'm at. I guess my dream would honestly my dream is to just support more people getting into these positions I don't have the desire to need to be the one in the front. But I do have a desire to support more people of color and more representation in all elected offices, not just it as like mayor city council president. But also, you know, people don't think about judges and that those are people that I work with a lot on a day to day basis but judges are also elected. And those are the leaders within our criminal justice system very much because those are the things they see day to day and so I don't know I'm here and I'm just and I just want more of us in here in these spaces and that's my dream. I can go next. I don't have a dream position because philosophy of mine is I'll know when the time is right for me to run for office. It's not something that I strive for because I don't want to become a career politician that's something that I want to avoid. However, one goal of mine right now, and I don't think I've shared this with with the team yet. But is to one day become director of Kappa, the Commission down in Olympia and Kappa stands for the Commission on Asian American Pacific Affairs. And I, a passion of mine is advocating for API issues, advocating for policies to uplift them that share their stories and policies that reflect the uniqueness of our, of our people, the culture and the lived experiences. And it would be great to, you know, just start off by working there. And then one day reaching, reaching the position the title of director. And that's my goal for now. I still need to worry about school and get that out the way for this. For me, if you would, if you were to like ask me a year ago, I'd be like, I want to be the president. But now I'm like, I have a similar, I developed a similar philosophy to King where it's like, you know what, I don't really want to do that right like it's I forgot where I heard this, but I think it was center Joe Nguyen representing the 34th, I think he said, um, he's currently a center so he said, I want to make it so that I don't have to run for reelection again. And that really spoke to me because it's, it's the idea that you don't have to be in an elected position to make change right. And just like King said, like, when that time comes, you know it. It just, it just so happens, and you decide to run for a particular office. So right now, I don't really have a dream position, nor am I currently like really planning to run for any position. I mean, I'm 19, I'm still like trying to like graduate college first just like King. But yeah, I don't really have a dream position anymore just because I think when the time comes and like, I feel that I'm ready then I'll run for a position but until then. I don't have a dream position either. For me. Maybe it's because I'm the youngest one here, but I do want to run for like governor and maybe one day precedent because I, I know that there are other ways to get involved in the community but I just really like being with people and I, I just, I really like politics, like, I like being in politics, you know, I don't like American politics at all but that's why I'm running, you know is to change it because I just really want to be able to represent people who might have the ability to represent their communities. So, yeah, I don't really like mine being a politician and I know that if I ground myself in my community, I won't go like crazy or anything like that. So, yeah. Wow, you all. Ah, this concludes today's presentation, President Jarmaine now and maybe President Jarmaine in the future. Cynthia, thank you so much. Cynthia Delastrinos for your wisdom and your powerful message. I am so inspired. In the chat, you'll find a link to our survey, your feedback is critical in enhancing our programs. We would really appreciate it if you would fill that out.