North Carolina Dream Team
By Christine Joy Ferrer
Click to Listen to the Podcast

Viridiana Martinez, 25—undocumented, unafraid and unashamed. Martinez is co-founder of the North Carolina Dream Team and a young community organizer and activist for immigrant rights. She only discovered her illegal status after graduating from high school. Born in Mexico and raised in a little town in North Carolina called Sanford, she has lived in the United States since the age of seven, when her parents immigrated. The NC DREAM Team is an organization composed of undocumented immigrant youth and allies, dedicated to the creation of a sustainable, community-led immigrant rights movement in North Carolina and to helping undocumented youth recognize their individual and collective power to activate their communities. 

Christine Joy Ferrer: What was it like growing up as a young, undocumented Latina in the South and how has your identity influenced your work?
Viridiana Martinez: If you look at the undocumented youth movements, most of the founders and cofounders are women. A lot of us are getting older; we’ve had to grow up so much more quickly than some of our more advantaged peers. I’m not in California. I’m not in Miami. I’m not in New York or Texas. I’m in North Carolina. Reality in the South is a lot different than any of these places. There is no Chicano movement. Many of us are the first generation of Mexican and Latin American immigrants. The history of this region is the struggle existing. We’re the pioneers in terms of immigration work, immigrant rights, and activism. The challenges we face can be seen in either of two ways. One, this is so challenging, I’m not going to do it and I don’t want to get involved, or two, this is challenging, this is risky, and this is crazy but I need to do it. We need this open mind; this uninhibited creativity to seek different opportunities in spite of obstacles. Let’s find opportunity in these tragedies to organize and to expose our reality.
I have the privilege of being a fair-skinned Latina, and I’m fluent in English, so I don’t get profiled as much or as often as other people do. It’s different being a fair-skinned Latina fluent in English in the South compared to a farm worker who’s not fluent in English and not fair-skinned. Being aware of my own privilege I think is very important in doing this work.

I got pulled over a month or so ago for speeding. My license expired last year. The cop came to my window and gave me the ticket and said, “You know why I pulled you over—for speeding. And I’m also giving you a ticket for driving with an expired license. You know it’s been expired since last July, right? Why haven’t you gotten it renewed?”

And I said, “Because I can’t, I’m undocumented.” 

I’m at a point where I’m like, why the hell do I need to hide this reality? This is what I’m living. But this consciousness isn’t the same situation for all immigrants. Many are still living with this internalized pressure.

Deportations are happening every single day through programs like 287G and Secure Communities. Supposedly, it’s to find criminals but our people are getting racially profiled. In the South, you have these like hick cops that are pulling over our folks everyday. They position themselves strategically near mobile homes and trailer parks or in neighborhoods that are predominately immigrant. They do so to target our people. I get three to five calls at least every two weeks, or emails saying: “My son is getting deported. My daughter got pulled over. What do we do?”

Ferrer: What did the release of Uriel Aldesto, an undocumented youth, mean for the immigrant community, activists, and others who have been mobilizing against deportations, institutionalized discrimination and the exploitation of their communities?
Martinez: This was a major victory in the fight against deportations. It proves that a community standing behind a person can move mountains. But it also exposed the structural racism and discrimination within our communities. It was also a reflection of our reality. Aldesto has a criminal background. Most of our youth are not valedictorians. They are not the cream of the crop necessarily in terms of what Anglo schools want to define as the cream of the crop. They don’t have the perfect, squeaky-clean profiles. We grow up facing some real life challenges and some of us are lucky to have both of our parents healthy, working and loving each other. We must continue to organize the community, get youth to understand the importance of coming out as undocumented, and educate people. Sometimes a family doesn’t realize the seriousness of the situation until one of their own is put in deportation proceedings or picked up for driving without a license or for something that simple.

Ferrer: What is necessary to achieve a just reform that is acceptable to and guided by the voices of those directly affected by our broken immigration system?
Martinez: Whatever legislation is necessary to serve our undocumented immigrant community, we first need those directly affected to speak for themselves.

Our youth who are graduating from high school feel absolutely hopeless. This is very real, the pain, the anger, the confusion, and lack of hope, because you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are cases where some have committed suicide. One of our biggest focuses right now is on the mental health of undocumented immigrants. We’re hearing more and more stories of undocumented youth and adults living with mental health issues. Whether it’s depression, anxiety, attempted suicide, or that we’re hurting ourselves. Sometimes the help you need, to just hear that you’re not alone, or to vent with somebody, requires the understanding from those who are in the same boat.

We need to take the leadership as undocumented youth and organize. We need to create spaces, whether it’s at youth empowerment summits, rallies or town hall meetings, where youth can get together. We must take the time to develop relationships, by creating a safe space where more undocumented youth can open up about their lives, about the abuse, the trauma, that they have lived to get on the path to liberation—a space where they are not afraid or ashamed. Where they are understood more than anything.

And having allies that are conscientious, who admit, “I am never going to know what it’s like to be in your position because I have papers, but want to help.” These are the people that we need beside us, behind us, so that we can be in the forefront and feel supported. And if we fall, somebody’s going to catch us as we fight for this. All this, in consequence, leads to lobbying efforts, rallies, and protests, where youth are no longer afraid to hold a blow horn and speak out. 

That’s why these organizations that are undocumented youth-led and for undocumented youth are so important. We’re not jut talking about legislation anymore. We’re talking about our own daily lives. And we need to be our own power. We need to be our own voice. We need to be our biggest advocates.

Christine Joy Ferrer is the web and publishing assistant for Urban Habitat and the creator of eyesopenedblog.com, dedicated to all artists of color committed to social justice. For more information on the North Carolina Dream Team, visit: ncdreamteam.org.

New Political Spaces | Vol. 19, No. 1 – 2012 | Credits

Young Organizer Advocates for Transit POWER
By Christine Joy Ferrer
Click to Listen to the Radio RP&E Podcast

Originally from Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco, Yeashan Banks, 22, is an organizer for the Bayview Hunters Point Organizing Project at People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER). For the last year or so, she’s also been advocating for free public transportation for youth. In 2010, Banks graduated from the Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program with the Center for Third World Organizing and has volunteered for Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the Black Organizing Project and served as a Youth Researcher for the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities Initiative. She has also worked with Oakland’s Youth Uprising.

Christine Joy Ferrer: What motivates you to do the work that you do?
Yeashan Banks: POWER’s environmental justice project in [my neighborhood] is what first attracted me to the organization. The Bayview-Hunters Point toxic shipyard has been making folks in the neighborhood—specifically folks in my own family—sick for years. My grandfather worked at the shipyard and has asbestos-related lung problems.

Ferrer: What are some of the issues that young people face through lack of access to public transportation?
Banks: If you have a single parent, or even just a working class family in San Francisco, then you know it can be really hard for your parent(s) to give multiple children a $21 pass or $2 for every ride they take.
A woman I organized with told me that one time her children came back from the bus stop because the bus driver refused to let them on without fares. She lives on a fixed income in public housing and can’t afford to pay. I remember when I was younger and didn’t have the [35-cent fare], I could ask the driver for a courtesy ride. It wasn’t as big a deal.
Now youth are getting criminal charges for not having proof of payment. I’ve seen kids at the Third Street station jump off the platform to get away from MUNI police. They are running straight into traffic. Or you see them hide from police, or not give their real name and address. They shouldn’t feel scared to ride the bus to school. If the city is cutting down the number of school buses, especially in low-income neighborhoods of color, like Bayview-Hunters Point, and your parents can’t afford to get you back and forth from school, it shouldn’t cheat you out of an education. Already, all over the city, they’ve closed down different schools [because of] low attendance.

Community Coalition Wins Key Votes On Transit for Low-Income Youth
On April 17, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors voted unanimously to make public transit free for the city’s low-income youth. If the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) votes at its June meeting to supply the remaining funding, the Free MUNI Youth Program will begin in August, 2012.
“The vote was a victory for community organizing and a victory for all the youth who stepped up and made this possible,” says San Francisco Youth Commission President Leah LaCroix.
A broad cross-section of community groups has been organizing since 2010 to make San Francisco’s municipal rail and bus system free for all the city’s youth. The coalition includes People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), the Jamestown Community Center, the Youth Commission, Urban Habitat, and the San Francisco Organizing Project.
Rising transit fares and the San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) decision to slash school bus service lent urgency to the campaign. The cost of a youth bus pass more than doubled between 2009 and 2012, even as SFUSD planned to cut its fleet from 43 buses to 25 by 2013.
“It’s unfair for people to get kicked off the MUNI because they don’t have money,” Sebastian Alfaro, a middle school student, told the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A member of the Community Leadership Club of the Mission Beacon After School Program, Alfaro was one of dozens of young people who have stepped up during the campaign—filling hearings at City Hall, sending video testimony when they could not appear in person, rallying, marching, and building support with social media. Their families have organized alongside them.
“As a single mother, the cost of transportation is a huge burden on my family,” says Estela Rosales, a member of POWER and a leader in the campaign. “The youth passes are a critical issue for low-income families like mine. This is about fairness and equal access.”

Ferrer: How is the lack of transit justice impacting young people in low-income and communities of color in Bayview-Hunters Point and other parts of San Francisco?
Banks: Right around the time we started this campaign [for free fast passes], a black male was shot in the back for not having his proof of payment. Kenneth Harding was riding the T-Train, which runs up from Sunnydale through Bayview to downtown. When he saw the officer, he ran. Shots were fired from both sides and he died. During routine fare checks, police are stricter and more belligerent in certain neighborhoods like Bayview and Mission, versus the Sunset. Transit racism happens in this city. More and more bus lines are getting cut in places like Potrero Hill, where public housing is located. When you talk to youth in low-income communities about organizing, they think, “But I need to work on getting a job right now.” Or maybe, their single mom is facing eviction from their home. They’d rather be investing their time into what they need at that moment. It’s a really long process to get a youth to understand the connection between what they’re going through and the system of oppression.

Ferrer: How does POWER organize youth and help them understand the connections between social, racial and economic equality?
Banks: We do a program at Balboa High School where we show youth that we’re organizing for free youth passes, but we also are educating them in movement history. After we win, these youth will feel empowered. [Then], they’ll want to further change things. It’s not just about free passes, it’s about connecting to different global struggles. You wonder, “Why am I fighting for youth free passes? I’m not a youth.” But it’s about getting people to start analyzing the system and thinking about why things are the way they are and what to do to change them.

Christine Joy Ferrer is the web and publishing assistant for RP&E and founder of eyesopenedblog.com.

Youth, Diversity and Ethnic Studies
Excerpt from an Interview with Theresa Tran

Theresa Q. Tran is a youth program specialist at the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. She received her M.A. in Social Work at the University of Michigan where she studied community organizing with youth and families. Tran also serves on the board of Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote—Michigan, working to increase civic engagement of APIAs.

Youth are much smarter than adults tend to give them credit for, which is ironic since we were all youth once and know what being marginalized feels like. Youth know right away when something is unfair—they recognize it immediately but don’t always know what to do when they witness this unfairness. Or else, they’ve been socialized by adults to be complicit with the way things are.

At the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity & Inclusion's Youth Program in Detroit, our issues change each year with each new group of youth that join our program. One of our program principles is that youth should organize on the issues that they’re passionate about; that they are directly affected by.  In our program, our youth decide on the issues they want to focus on as they are living those experiences. Last year, the group focused on disability justice, structural racism, strengthening alliance with LGBT communities, and immigration. This year’s group is focusing on Islamaphobia, educational justice, sexual assault against teen girls, and organizing youth to be better connected across the city.

It’s necessary to provide youth with a structure and training for skills to help them be successful in proposing/implementing solutions to these challenges. Their access to opportunity and resources is so intertwined into intuitions of social, racial and class inequalities. Some youth are over-intellectualizing, which detaches them from what’s happening to everyday people. How could they ever connect with one another, especially young people in low-income neighborhoods where that intellectual language and mindset is not in their everyday vernacular. If we can help them understand our complex systems by meeting them where they’re at, they can create equitable solutions.

"If we don’t offer ethnic studies, we only maintain the dominant narrative of whiteness in this country." —Theresa Tran

It’s also important to help them understand the history of where they live. With Detroit’s history of racist FHA policies, the intentional segregation of racial/ethnic communities by one of the automotive companies, racial rebellions, and a myriad of other things, history informs us of where and why we are in the neighborhoods we are today. We use intergenerational oral histories to help young people learn about what our region was like “back in the day” and hear that history from the perspective of people who look like them.

Youth should learn the history of their communities from their own community members. Ethnic Studies is the reason why I’m an organizer today. When I finally learned about the oppression faced by API communities in the U.S., I had an “A-ha, this shit is fucked up” moment. It was truly an awakening for me that opened my eyes to the ways in which my K-12 public school education had brainwashed me into believing—that the U.S. was this amazing country founded on the principles of freedom, liberty and justice. And yet, we have a horrific history of devaluing and dehumanizing people of color, women, non-Christians, queer communities, and the disabled. I learned about amazing API women who were standing up and speaking out for justice, I learned about exclusionary policies, Japanese Internment, and Vincent Chin, whose murder happened right here in Detroit.

If we don’t offer ethnic studies, we only maintain the dominant narrative of whiteness (and other privilege) in this country. We have to challenge that narrative as often as we can to dismantle oppressive behaviors and mindsets. When a safe space is created, as in a diversity workshop or an ethnic studies class setting, we can begin to probe, challenge and devise new ways of connecting to one another.

Women of Color in the Movement
Excerpt from an interview with Favianna Rodriguez

Favianna Rodriguez (favianna.com) is a celebrated printmaker and digital artist based in Oakland, California. Her composites, created using high-contrast colors and vivid figures reflect literal and imaginative migration, global community, and interdependence.  

As a young Latina I felt invisible. I am the daughter of immigrants and grew up in communities of color most of my life. I felt that my immigrant family, our communities were invisible. Yet, we all carried the brunt of what was happening to the economy in the country and even throughout the world. We were experiencing the effects of injustices in our own community. The injustices I saw as a child, the racism that I experienced via the media or the school curriculum, the xenophobia directed at my parents... angered me in a way that I didn’t have words for. Art became a way for me to talk about those experiences, reframe them, and do something positive. Making art was a way to have a voice and an empowering way to fight back, instead of acting out on my internalized oppression.

In my work, I approach issues that most affect me as a woman of color and that I see affecting the women around me, whether it’s my mother, family or friends. This includes issues around immigrant rights, economic justice, climate change, sexism, patriarchy, and globalization. I think about systems that work to oppress us and take away our agency to be the full humans we want to be. The same forces that are destroying the planet and organizing against workers and supporting the big banks as they rip off people all over the country are passing anti-immigrant laws and leading this conservative assault on women’s reproductive rights. I engage in campaigns that look at the intersections between these different struggles.

"I engage in campaigns that look at the intersections between different struggles." —Favianna Rodriguez

I’ve seen more women than ever before question and challenge the frameworks that we have accepted for so long. Women of color in particular are really challenging traditional feminism and thinking about how race is a key part of how we need to analyze being a woman. In the immigrant rights sector, I see women workers organizing for collectives that hold better resources and look at building infrastructures because many unions are not creating that space for immigrant labor—immigrant women in particular. I see women organizers usually outnumber men organizers and more young immigrant queer women are speaking out about their experiences. In the environmental sector, young women are drawing parallels between how we inflict abuse on mother Earth and on women’s bodies. Women are finally embracing their complexities and claiming their power.

South Asian Freedom Fighters and Refugees
Excerpt from an Interview with Nadia Hussain

Smita Nadia Hussain (chaaweb.org) is a poet, blogger and photographer who serves in leadership capacities for local young Democrat and API organizations, including Community Health for Asian Americans (CHAA), the English Center and the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF). She recently traveled with Habitat for Humanity to build homes in Vietnam.   

My parents are from Bangladesh, a country birthed from genocide. People were victimized; tongues were cut off. They wanted independence and were literally fighting for their voice. They demanded the right to speak their language and fought for democracy. When the civil war happened in 1971, a lot of the guerilla fighters were women. Many were executed. Half a million women were raped in nine months. Yet, they still stood up.

When people think of Muslim women they think of an arranged marriage or a head covering. But, my grandmother’s sisters were doctors and lawyers in their country. They marched and protested for their rights. My great grandmother and her sisters used to march at their university saying they wanted a free country and that women should be free to go out and work.

There’s a lot of intersection between issues confronting Muslim women, South Asian immigrants and refugees, and Islamaphobia in the United States. Their stories are those behind headlines of war, immigration and political strife.

I’m a part of the East Bay Refugee Forum—a coalition of organizations that work on issues facing API and refugee communities in the Bay Area. Directly and indirectly, these organizations provide necessary services and resources—such as, bus rider information, community events, legal and health clinics, and where to get vaccinations. I do some work also for the English Center, which serves immigrants, international students and professionals who need to improve their communication skills to achieve their goals, find better jobs, attend college, and improve their professional options.

Although there are services out there, with the budget cuts to social services across the country, so many benefits are lost to the point where fear of starvation and homelessness is very real. Within the refugee communities in Oakland, there is a high unemployment rate, much higher than the rest of the country and the rest of California. There’s one group called the Karan—a minority group from Burma that came here because of war in their country. They have an 80 percent unemployment rate; higher than any other constituency in Oakland. The economic situation of refugees in Oakland is very troubling. On top of the language issues, many don’t have a formal education and no English skills. They are stuck.

Sustainability and the Environment
Excerpt from an Interview with Raquel Nuñez

Raquel Nunez (lvejo.org) is a youth organizer for Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

My passion for environmental justice is ever growing. By the age of 19, I was working to organize around various social justice issues. Over the last eight years, I have created several bodies of artwork with a central focus on social change and youth rights. My goal as an adult ally of the youth at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) is to continue to grow and sustain an environmental justice youth leadership program. We organize youth by creating a curriculum that we share with high schools and have an open-door policy for anyone who would like to become involved and learn more.

LVEJO is currently focused on creating a sustainable sense of awareness with the volunteers and organization members. There is also a focus on creating more parks and garden spaces in the community, and a clear air campaign that is working on the site remediation of a retired coal-fired power plant. LVEJO partnered with the Chicago Clean Power coalition for the clean air campaign. This partnership was the catalyst for closing the two coal-fired power plants in the Chicago area.

Our current day institutions are crumbling but this has happened throughout history. The key is empowering people and opening spaces where they can learn the skills they need to thrive. Education, communication and new ideas go hand-in-hand. If we could change the way that we deal with one another and speak with one another, a natural evolution will happen through community dialogue. Self-knowledge is a critical component and revolution is the natural result of any community gaining self-knowledge on an individual basis.

With the current crisis intensifying the number of people experiencing poverty and food insecurity, community gardens and open space help people weather economic storms, inspire self-reliance and enhance health through increased access to whole foods, good nutrition and physical exercise. They also provide a common space for intergenerational interaction and knowledge sharing.

It is important to increase funding for social services, open spaces and community gardens that build local food self-sufficiency and support fair access to fresh food. I believe, in order to improve community resiliency, we must strengthen local food and gardening knowledge through education in traditional foods, permaculture and sustainable agriculture techniques. It’s about providing our communities, youth and elders with business and leadership development training through gardening and food-based entrepreneurial opportunities. 

Reproductive Health
Excerpt from an Interview with Shanelle Matthews

Shanelle Matthews (sugarforyoursoul.com) does online media communications for Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, advocating for women of color and families on the margins who have strategically been left out of the socio-political debate on reproductive health and rights.

The way women of color activate themselves in their communities is different from the way white women do it. All women of color are struggling in this country for access to resources, public assistance, equality. Black women are harmed by a lack of solidarity because we are often stigmatized as insatiable and hypersexual. The commodification of our bodies is something that is left out of the conversation.

The environmental impacts on black women’s bodies are ever present. From slavery to hurricane Katrina, we are the first to be displaced, denied resources and access to healthcare, denied opportunities to save our families. When you deny a woman an option to take care of herself, her reproductive rights, you are ensuring that she is going to withdraw from the workforce, thus increasing the capital for white men.

"All women of color are struggling in this country for access to resources, public assistance, for equality."  - Shanelle Matthews

The foundational fabric of this country lies in racism and socioeconomic status. It is almost safe to say that most black women are at the bottom of the socio-economic totem pole. To start working towards equality for all women, we must insert a racial and class analysis and build solidarity across color and gender lines. If we don’t acknowledge privilege in this country, we won’t be able to navigate through this conversation.

We have organizations working for the broader benefit of women that are leaving out low-income women and women of color. We must teach others about what we need, letting them know that it is our race that intersects with our class to deprive us of the things that they can easily access. We must educate those who are shifting policy for women that they need to include the intersection of race and class.

At Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ), our primary initiative is the 10-year-old Strong Families for changing the way people think, feel and act in support of families. We recognize that only 25 percent of families in America look like the hetero-normative, married-with-biological-children type that policy would have us believe. Seventy-five percent of us are queer, low-income, immigrant, refugee, families of color, and families with disabilities.

We are engineering a campaign, along with several other organizations, to shift policy so that it reflects the needs of families on the margins. We utilize the reproductive justice framework that says people should be able to empower themselves and their communities to make those socio-political decisions that are best for them and their families.

Misogyny and Women Revolutionaries
Excerpt from an interview with Rocky Rivera

Rocky Rivera (rockyrivera.com) is a hip hop journalist by day and MC by night who found international acclaim by winning a Contributing Editor position on MTV's docu-series, "I'm From Rolling Stone" (2007).

As a pinay, female emcee and artist in the hip hop industry, I deal with misogyny so much. Every time I infiltrate this male circle, I must not fall into the “Here, let me show some skin and get your attention!” because that’s so easy to do. As a woman of color in the industry, you’re marginalized, hyper-sexualized, not allowed to “play” with the boys, and not treated as a peer. The young women who aren’t coming into it with a conscious mind, they’re just hoping to gain acceptance from the mostly male hip hop audience and most times, you’re treated as a novelty.

Hip hop was once underground, something that young blacks and Latinos in the Bronx created. They did what they had to do to make music. They were oppressed and rebelling. It was an empowering movement. Now 30 plus years later, it has become a commodity. But it all starts from the communities that have nothing... as a voice for the people. Once capitalism gets a hold of it, it ruins it. Capitalism took hold of the formula and squeezed all the creativity and originality out to package and market it—to white people. There is no depth to mainstream hip hop. Women are objectified, disrespected, and men are mere caricatures of themselves and stereotypes.

My rhyme is basically my world where every woman is respected and allowed to be a woman. She's not limited, she has a voice, she's strong, she's vulnerable, she's multidimensional. Rocky Rivera represents the woman that’s not compromising her values just to be in the entertainment industry.

My song “Heart,” speaks of Angela Davis, Gabriela Silang, and Dolores Huerta. Not a lot of people know who they are and they should be known alongside the Cesar Chavezes, Malcolm Xs and Martin Luther Kings because they were fighting not only for Third World liberation and people of color but also for women. There was a double oppression that they had to overcome in order to be the organizers they were. 

There aren’t a lot of women artists out there that speak of our history and our progress as a people. I knew that given the opportunity, I would definitely be speaking on behalf of all women, especially women of color. At the end of the day, if our male activists are injured or murdered, it’s our women revolutionaries who are still left fighting.

Transportation Justice
Excerpt from an Interview with Ya-Ting Liu

Ya-Ting Liu (transalt.org) is a federal advocate for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and also the campaign manager for Rider Rebellion at Transportation Alternatives.

My family moved here from Taiwan when I was seven years old. We couldn’t afford a car. The bus was our only way to get around and we used it for everything. Public transit is a vital service that connects people to opportunity and allows for social and economic mobility. It’s just as important as education, health care and jobs. Rural, suburban communities also depend on transit and when bus service is cut, folks are literally stranded without any other way to get to work. 

New York City boasts the largest and only 24-hour public transit system in the country. Its buses and subways carry 7.5 million daily riders who make up about one third of all mass transit users in the United States. Fares cover about 60 percent of bus and subway operating costs, so service continues to deteriorate due to lack of adequate investment from the state and the city. 

"Public transit is a vital service that connects people to opportunity that allows for social and economic mobility." - Ya-Ting Liu

Since 2007, New York transit riders have been fed a steady diet of fare hikes and service cuts due largely to the lack of leadership and political will of elected officials at the state level who control and determine how public transit is run and funded. The Rider Rebellion campaign was created in 2010 to organize transit riders to hold elected officials accountable for the quality of our transit service. We’re mobilizing outer borough communities disproportionately impacted by fare hikes and service cuts by partnering with community-based organizations and local elected officials. We’re also hitting the streets and surveying bus and subway riders directly about the quality of their commute and the improvements they’d like to see.

Nationally, we’re grappling with the legacy of auto-centric transportation planning and policies from the 1950s, when gas was 20 cents a gallon. Now we find ourselves in a very different world where we’re paying a very high price for oil dependency, which is also taking a toll on our climate. Transportation accounts for one-third of our country’s carbon footprint. Auto-centric planning has also led to neighborhoods without safe places to walk, bike and play.

If laws and policies were made purely on merit and based on measurable goals instead of politics, we would have a very different way of prioritizing government resources. If transportation investment decisions were made based on reducing congestion, fossil fuel dependency, job creation, and equitable access, transit projects would be a top priority every time.