FINDING STRENGTH TAKING ACTION
Want to get involved in social activism? Here’s how
Elena Wirth has had a poster in her room since the day she was born that reads, “The power of a girl is to change the world.” Dolma Rabgay saw a video of a boy in India who self-immolated and died to protest for Tibet’s freedom.
Veronica Toledo witnessed the effects of climate change unfold right before her eyes.
Though inspired to become politically and socially involved for different reasons, these young activists share common ground when it comes to recognizing injustice. However, recognition is one thing. Action is another.
And today’s youth, weaned on the internet, are able to keep up with social and political issues that impact them and others in ways that may not have been entirely possible for their parents and grandparents, encouraging them to engage in movements that they believe in.
Just ask Wirth, a junior at George Washington University who has interned in Congressman Ben Ray Luján’s office, worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign in Virginia, was a communications intern for EMILY’s List and most recently interned for the chief of staff at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She says if teens don’t see opportunities in their schools for such activism, they should create them.
For example, in high school, Wirth was inspired to create the first Girl Up Club in New Mexico, an organization that helps girls living in places where it is challenging to be a girl. While at college, she became aware of how many women’s issues intersected and realized that it is impossible to focus on gender discrimination without also looking at racial and socioeconomic discrimination.
For many teens, however, engaging in activism is easier said than done. “I’ve noticed that there [is] a large amount of teens who truly do want to learn how to become activists … and make a positive impact in the world, but most times they don’t know where or how to get started,” said Chanice Lee, a member of LEAD Nation, Black Youth Network, Broward Youth Coalition and a teen adviser for Girl Up. That is why she wrote and published Young Revolutionary: A Teen’s Guide to Activism
based on her experiences as well as the real-life
stories of numerous teen activists.
How can teens get more involved? Allegra Love, an attorney and the director of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, a nonprofit legal services organization that provides free legal representation to New Mexico’s immigrant community, said they should first figure out what is meaningful to them and then “start showing up at meetings, marches or fundraisers.” And they should commit themselves to truly learning about the issue, she said. “You might have to make sacrifices. You might have to skip something fun. You might find yourself in an uncomfortable place.”
And it can be uncomfortable at times. What transpires in the world today is often troubling, and Veronica Toledo, an activist for Native American rights and the environment, recognizes a culture of avoidance in some teens. “They don’t want to understand why these statistics are increasing and why these events are happening: White supremacy, racism, police brutality, Native American rights being taken away, oil pollution, fracking,” she said. “… They’re vulnerable about what’s happening.”
On the other hand, some teens use local platforms to expand their activism to a global scale, as is the case with Dolma Rabgay, an activist for Tibetan culture and co-founder (along with
Generation Next reporter Ramona Park) of the Amnesty International chapter at Santa Fe High School. The club raises awareness about the current situation in Tibet — in which Tibetans are not allowed to practice or observe their language or religion or praise the Dalai Lama. Her club has organized fundraisers and food drives and holds
monthly meetings where members write letters to governments of oppressive countries. However, the risk for Rabgay’s activism is particularly real. “Speak in favor of Tibet or the Dalai Lama; you risk never going to Tibet again, or in some cases, being detained in China,” she said.
Maxine Gore, a member of Rabgay’s club and advocate for young immigrants’ rights, said that the challenge of activism often lies in the way her efforts to raise awareness have been received by the community. At times, she asks herself, “Are our voices really being heard, or are we just simply gathering money?” Gore knows full well that money has power, but “the power of our voices and … the support that we came together” is what ultimately creates change, she said.
Toledo said that the hardest part about being an activist is the unexpected threat of danger: “how you can be out there protesting … [when] there could be somebody out there filled with … hatred that can attack at any moment.”
So what can activists do to get people to listen, learn and ultimately join? Gore believes protests are the most effective tools. “You don’t really get a concept of it until you see that huge cluster of thousands of people standing there … fighting for what they believe in,” she said.
Wirth knows what that’s like. Having protested at the Women’s March on Washington, she said, “The power of women [had] never been more evident.”
Being present at such events brings home the reality of the cause. Because by using the internet to support a political or social cause, teens are often criticized for engaging in “slacktivism” because their involvement requires little time or involvement. Some “slacktivist” tendencies include signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social media platform, perhaps without doing much more than that. However, according to Gore, social media “has allowed me to see that because I’ve grown up in a very liberal bubble, I’ve never really been able to see the other perspective, especially more of a conservative idea.” She said social media also helps introduce a topic and keep it alive.
Conversely, Toledo believes her generation is too distracted by little things, especially technology, and that they find entertainment more important than “harsh reality.”
Love agrees and strongly advises teens “to put [the] damn phone down.” Though she recognizes that phones can be useful for activism, she encourage teens to understand that phones are “not where activism happens” because ultimately, social media isn’t a place to “make deep connections or learn from people’s wisdom.”
But activists don’t necessarily gravitate toward one tool over another. For young people, it’s often the stories — not the statistics — that can transform recognition into action. Gore felt moved to join Amnesty because of the impact of hearing her classmates’ stories — such as how Rabgay’s Tibetan parents escaped from Tibet when China took over. “It’s real things that are happening to them, and that stood out to me,” Gore said.
Ultimately, stories become histories, and as Toledo puts it: “We’re in history now. We’re in history tomorrow. Might as well make the best of it.”
Sydney Pope is a senior at Santa Fe Prep. Contact her at sydpope@me.com.