By Jess Clarke
“Writing has given us the gift of healing, of being seen and taking risks, at a time when our voices must be amplified,” so says contributing editor Karina Muñiz-Pagán about the process of creating the book Mujeres Mágicas: Domestic Workers Right to Write. This issue of Race, Poverty & the Environment is dedicated to amplifying voices from across California’s dispossessed communities.
In addition to the stories and interview from the powerful women of Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), we are graced by multiple contributions from Kelly Curry, a fiercely independent food justice organizer from Oakland. We publish an excerpt from her memoir, Until the Streets of the Hood Flood with Green about her work bringing nutritious food to children in Oakland as well as a poem and vignette dedicated to our migrant compañeras. (Both of these books were co-published by Reimagine! in collaboration with Freedom Voices Press and are available to premium donors as acknowledgment gifts.)
In another excerpt from a forthcoming book, long-time RP&E contributor Marcy Rein collaborates with Mickey Ellinger and Vicki Legion to tell the story of the successful 2012-2017 campaign to keep CCSF open, accredited and community-centered. Free City! The Fight for San Francisco’s City College and Education for All is due out from PM Press in Fall 2020.
“I want to create a story that can create a brighter reality that’s not oppressive; that’s against oppression,” says Sage Cain in our latest installment of I Am San Francisco, the wide-ranging collection oral histories produced by Jarrel Phillips. It too is being shaped into book form.
On a slightly different track, we close out this edition with excerpts from two interviews I conducted in collaboration with the California Environmental Justice Alliance on Central and Inland Valley residents choking in the pollution generated by Amazon’s ever-expanding warehouse operations. You can hear the full interviews on Radio Reimagine! our continuing podcast series,
These long-form slow-media productions are a part of the in-depth reporting and immersive journalism practiced at Reimagine! You can receive printed copies of our contributing editors’ books when you become a premium level donor at www.reimeginerpe.org/donate. Please join us.
Onward!