Champions of Change Blog

Inspiring Hope: One Story Makes All the Difference

Posted by Elvira Diaz on March 29, 2012 at 12:20 PM EDT

I am a single mother from Reno, Nevada. I began volunteering with the alliance in 2009. In late 2009, I began organizing “house parties,” or gatherings, at local venues. The purpose of these gatherings was to bring together community members to discuss social justice issues. Over time, it was clear that the majority of the participants at my house parties were single moms. Many of these women began sharing the challenges that they and their children encountered in our health care system, and the conversation often turned to the Affordable Care Act and the relief that it would bring to them and their loved ones.

News of the house parties traveled fast, and it wasn’t long before I was surrounded by a core group of single moms who were eager to advocate for their families. To date, my team and I have organized several of these events, which often feature a guest speaker. Ana Ayala spoke in the first birthday party of ACA. Jazmin Ayala, daughter of Ana Ayala, had pneumonia and died on February 1, 2011; she was 12 years old. She did not have health insurance and died between hospitals. Her mom was not informed of the fact that she can get insurance with the health reform. That incident gives me more courage to reach out the community and educate about the benefits of ACA. In September, I organized an event with 12 women Latina leaders to bike downtown to promote health literacy and to brainstorm ideas for how we could engage the Latino community in health awareness campaigns, and to learn how to advocate for others.

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Teaching As An Act of Social Justice

Posted by Nancy Cubano on March 29, 2012 at 12:18 PM EDT

I feel incredibly privileged to be part of an award that acknowledges those who put service and social justice at the forefront of their work. To be recognized for something I to love to do is a source of great pride, and to be called a “champion of change” is an honor so deep that I’m not sure I’ve comprehended it yet.

All of my time is dedicated to practicing and reflecting on the craft of teaching. Yes, I do spend countless hours going to staff meetings, completing paperwork, and performing all of the other elements of the daily grind that comprise the life of a modern day public school teacher; but I’m energized by the fact that every day for 6 hours, I get to be in front of 30 eager students. And I get to teach.

I have found joy in my profession because I work in a special place called KIPP DuBois Collegiate Academy. KIPP, The Knowledge Is Power Program, is a network of free, open-enrollment public charter schools that prepares low-income and minority students for success in college and the competitive world beyond. KIPP builds a partnership among parents, students, and teachers that puts learning first. By providing a team of outstanding teachers and leaders, an extended day and year, and a strong culture of achievement, KIPP is helping all students climb the mountain to and through college.

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Fruitful Under the Sun

Posted by Rose Garcia on March 29, 2012 at 12:15 PM EDT

Doctors, teachers, lawyers, priests, like many other professionals, set about on course of academic preparation for their lifetime careers. For me as a wife and mother, I worked to help put my husband through college, with second consideration for my academic course of study in accounting. It was through my fortuitous meeting with the then President of the Board of Directors of Tierra del Sol Housing Corporation who encouraged me to come to work at Tierra del Sol that I started on my profession as Executive Director of a then local nonprofit organization, which provided housing opportunities on an otherwise disenfranchised and yet critically important sector to our local agricultural community, the farmworkers and the working poor.

There was no real academic course of study to prepare me for the many challenges and problems that I would encounter during the past 31 years. It was in the trenches that I learned the lessons of community work and with it gained the tenacity and passion for my work. Decades later, in reflecting my experiences, I chuckle when I think about coming from an office setting to trudging through the desert sands of construction sites in my Italian shoes. I was a female working in a male dominated construction field and I too had the additional challenge of proving myself in that environment. It’s been a good race and it is an honor to be recognized as a “Champion of Change” by the White House. I am truly honored and humbled by this award. It has been my privilege to have found my passion and to serve the people of New Mexico. I have also been blessed to have the support of so many dedicated leaders from our local communities who recognize the economic and social needs of people in rural areas of our states along the international border corridor between the United States and Mexico. My success is beholding to the people who have come to belief that collectively, we can effect change and can bring significant improvements to the lives of our clients.

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Collective Minds, Hearts and Hands Working for Change

Posted by Melinda Wiggins on March 29, 2012 at 12:13 PM EDT

I am honored to be named a "Champion of Change," particularly during the week that lifts up individuals who honor Cesar Chavez’s core values of service, knowledge, innovation, acceptance of all people, and respect for life and the environment. I first learned of Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement the year that Chavez died. During that spring of 1993, I was studying theology at Duke Divinity School and looking for a summer internship. I found that my previous internships working primarily with homeless women in MS, MO, DE, and NC proved critical to my understanding of the root causes of poverty, my ability to build relationships directly with homeless individuals, and my interest in working for social and economic justice.

I learned about the work and ideals of Cesar Chavez that summer during an internship with Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), but I also learned a lot more. I learned about my own white, working class community in the Mississippi Delta, about my dad’s experiences sharecropping in the Delta, as well as about how my grandparents had been able to purchase the land I grew up on through a New Deal program that allowed sharecroppers to become farm owners.

One of the roles that Student Action with Farmworkers plays is supporting young people to explore their own family and community’s history, as well as to learn alternative views and stories of history—primarily told by those that are marginalized in our communities. For SAF this means sharing with young people the history of agriculture in the US, how this history connects to larger issues of class, race, and globalization, and the stories of those most oppressed in the agricultural system—farmworkers.

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Solely Fulfilled by a Life of Service

Posted by Bernarda Wong on March 29, 2012 at 12:11 PM EDT

“Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well” a quote by Mother Teresa which became my late mother’s mantra in life. I was the youngest of seven children and grew up poor but never realized it. I am, what you would refer to as a product of a Catholic School upbringing, I learned early on life the meaning of generosity and compassion for others. My mother was always available and willing to help others in need and would take me and my siblings to visit the sick every week and share our food with others. These experiences in my early years set the stage for my mission driven approach to serving others with dignity and respect. At age 18, I left Hong Kong alone for Sioux City, Iowa, where I earned a four year scholarship to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Briar Cliff College. I went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis.

Through my own experience as an Asian living in a western world, I came to truly understand what poor new immigrants face when confronted by a completely different culture and language. This realization gave me the courage to gather a few friends and begin the difficult task of building the Chinese American Service League (CASL) with a desk and a chair.

Today, after 33 years, CASL has grown from a one-person shop in 1979 to become the largest, most comprehensive social service agency in the Midwest dedicated to serving the needs of Chinese Americans. At CASL, we welcome all who walk through our doors, providing child services, elder services, employment training services, family counseling, and housing and financial education to over 17,000 clients of all ages and backgrounds each year.

I’d like to say we have the best staff working at CASL. Why? Because I see how they devote themselves to serve the newly arrived Chinese immigrants in our great city of Chicago. A majority of our staff are themselves immigrants from Asia, which enhances their ability to empathize with their clients’ experiences of what it means to find an identity in a land they now call “home.” It warms my heart everyday as I walk through the doors of CASL and encountering a frail senior coming to our Adult Day service, or a tiny tot being chaperoned to our Day Care -- I make it my personal mission to stop in my tracks for every one of these precious people. My soul shall not be impoverished by missing out on the richness of what servitude can bring.

A nurturing hub within the heart of Chinatown, the Chinese American Service League (CASL) connects families and individuals of all ages with the vital support they need to flourish physically, economically, mentally and socially, enabling them to thrive and contribute to the greater Chicago community.

Being selected to receive the “Champion of Change” award at the White House is a stark reminder of the words my mother had lived by and shown me through her exemplary lifestyle: “don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.” As an awardee today, I am truly honored and humbled.

Bernarda Wong is a founder and the President of the Chinese American Service League (CASL).

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Everlasting Struggle: The Sentiments of a Legend

Posted by Rogelio Lona on March 29, 2012 at 12:09 PM EDT

“Rogelio, the struggle will never end, we must always be prepared,” these are the words that our farm worker leader Cesar Chavez used during organizing meetings. Now, I always keep those words in my mind and my heart. They help me to continue with my job as a union representative. They help me to administer, enforce and guard our union contract. They help me to organize and fight for those issues affecting my co-workers and community.

It is an honor to have been selected as a “Champion of Change.” This recognition is not just for me, but also for those who work every day from sunrise to sundown to provide food for all the families in America. I never dreamed of receiving recognition from the White House because my ideals and values are to serve others without expecting anything back. If I didn’t have these principles, I wouldn’t have lasted a single year in the farm worker movement. I have been involved in the farm worker movement without expecting anything back for most of my life.

My history with the farm worker movement and the United Farm Workers (UFW) started in 1972. My motivation came from living the injustices and abuses that we, as farm workers, were experiencing. We were treated as slaves, we did not have any representation in society, we were discriminated against and there were neither benefits nor labor protections. Farm workers needed a change, and I am proud to say that I became a part of that change. In 1981, with the help, guidance and support of the UFW, I started an organizing campaign in my workplace so my co-workers and I could get a union contract. I received training from the UFW on how to talk to, motivate and organize my co-workers. Little by little, I started to inspire more and more of my co-workers and we became leaders in our workplace and community.

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