We speak with individuals from Homies Empowerment, Youth Food Project, and the Alameda County Community Food Bank about the pandemic and poverty.
Guests:
Dr. Cesar A. Cruz- From marching 76-straight miles, to hunger striking for 26 days, Cesar has dedicated his life to fighting for justice. He was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mxico and migrated to the U.S. at a young age with a single mother and grandmother. He grew up in South Central L.A. and moved to the Bay Area to study. Cesar graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in History. He has been an educator for 23 years, in positions of leadership for the last 17 years, most recently serving as the Dean of Secondary Schools Program at Harvard University. He co-founded the independent school, Making Changes, out of his home, and has sought to create autonomous education spaces. For the last four years, he has overseen the Homies Empowerment Program serving gang impacted/involved youth in Oakland, CA. He is the author of two books, Revenge of the Illegal Alien, and Bang for Freedom.
Dr. Newin Orante, is the Vice President of Student Services at Diablo Valley College. Previously, he was dean of student services at Laney College.
JP Hailer is the Director of Youth Food Project, a culinary and entrepreneurship training for formerly incarcerated young people in Oakland. JP was raised in southern Arizona by a single mother that was forced to leave a physically abusive marriage.She and her brother are the first people in their families to graduate from college. Her brother is now a professor after being incarcerated as a young person. [email protected]
Dr. G, T. Reyes is a visitor on Huchiun Oholone ancestral land, aka East Oakland, Dr. G.T. Reyes (Taga-Ilog & Kapampangan) is a community-engaged scholar-artist-organizer-PRAXISioner. His work is grounded in the empowerment of young folks, teachers, school leaders, and cultural workers to radically imagine and build capacity to transform their own realities while both excavating and honoring their ancestral ways of being and becoming. As an Assistant Professor in the Educational Leadership for Social Justice Ed.D. program and Preliminary Administrative Credential Services program at California State University, East Bay, he is an active part of cultivating programs that have liberatory potential and power. His approaches to educational leadership development, research, and professional learning are rooted in critical, socio-cultural, & ethnic studies discourses that forefront culturally sustaining and radical healing pedagogies while also decentering whiteness and coloniality.
Pastor Mustafa Muhyee of B.A.S.I.C. Ministries. Pastor Mustafa is one of the leaders of B.A.S.I.C. Ministry, a seven-year-old church plant in Oakland.
