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You Asked me to “Be Vulnerable”: A Reflection on My CoreAlign Fellowship
yucca bianca westrup, Generative Fellowship alum
(This story originally appeared on the CoreAlign blog, Feb. 17, 2015)
(This story originally appeared on the CoreAlign blog, Feb. 17, 2015)
*blessings to those who have continuously been supporting me, you know who you are.*
When I arrived at the CoreAlign Fellowship retreat 1 year ago, I didn’t know what to expect and had little idea of what was expected of me. It would take months for this process to unfold, and I am still learning from the experience.
My initial reaction about the retreat was concern with the representation of the fellowship. It seemed highly professionalized and most of my cohort was older, from the East and West coasts, with stable movement jobs, with few queer and trans people of color. Where did I fit into this picture as a struggling, young, gender non-conforming Chicanx from a red state? I kept asking myself this question throughout my time with CoreAlign, and was curious to see what I could learn from the fellowship and my peers.
The first thing we learned at CoreAlign was envisioning our Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This is a Design Thinking term, that when applied to social justice work, basically meant finding the simplest way to execute a project with significant impact. I knew I wanted to focus on bridging the gaps between environmental/climate and reproductive justice because of their lack of visibility within both movements in various (different) ways. I was getting ready to dig deep into conversations with friends and family and really craft something new and stimulating. I was ready to get vulnerable and was confident that I had all of the tools to move forward.
Bring it.
Soon after the retreat (like, arriving at the airport to go back home soon), I snapped back to reality. For months, I could barely focus on my MVP or the fellowship. Don’t get me wrong, I initially was thrilled to share this six-month period with other generative thinkers and found the design thinking language of CoreAlign to be challenging, thought provoking, and useful. I knew I was not engaged because I wasn’t day dreaming about my project; thinking about the fellowship started to feel more like a burden than something that I was excited about. I started to feel frustrated with my inability to actually be generative.
Then I had my ‘ah-ha’ moment: I was stressed out beyond what I could handle. I was dealing with housing and food insecurity earlier on in the year, was financially unstable, lacked transportation, felt like my own volunteer organizational commitments was asking too much of me (but who else would do the work, right?), and was struggling with my self-worth. By early spring, everything seemed to be piling up. How was I supposed to positively imagine what kind of world I wanted to live in and create a project based off of these ideas, while being so overwhelmed?
After months and months I realized that my MVP was not a project to be implemented. My MVP was finding the Minimum Viable Place inside myself and out in the world where I did not feel like I was drowning. My experience with CoreAlign allowed me to lean into discomfort with myself, and through this tumultuous process, reminded me of how resilient I actually was amongst all of this hardship. It meant figuring out how to swim slowly against the current, to see myself rise above and move forward in different ways. It meant having detailed conversations with others to learn that sometimes the timing isn’t right for certain commitments, and that’s okay. I am still searching for that MVP, and understand that it will be a process.
But, why did it get to this point? Where were my mentors and elders in the movement? As a young organizer, I’ve heard the “it gets better” and “we’ve all been there” narrative way too often. It always left me feeling unheard, as if I was complaining for being tired of struggling, when all I wanted was support. If our youth are busting their asses by doing crucial organizing work and still not able to pay rent or help out their families, then there is an obvious disconnect. Where are the opportunities for youth in resource-sparse areas that recognize our inherent value, resiliency, and potential for growth? Where is the financial and emotional support for queer and trans youth of color? I believe it’s critical to imagine what these systems could look like, so that we do not repeat these turbulent cycles over and over again in our communities.
Thankfully, I am now in a place where I am able to meet my basic needs, but feeling out of touch with the reproductive justice communities of which I am a part. Some days feeling forgotten, other days just feeling FOMO. I have felt like a failure for not following through with my project and taking steps back from being chin-deep in organizing commitments. Truth is, I am able to take some time and sit with myself. All of these projects and ideas will still be there, and focusing on surviving does not make me unreliable or uninvolved with the movement. It makes me more equipped to fight harder and in more practical ways. The way that Failure/Success is situated in this society does not leave room for all of the ways in which we operate within and outside this binary; it does not hold space for all of the ways we choose –or not- to live our lives. To always think of unfinished projects as dusty failures would hinder us from ever believing that we are able to do anything meaningful. And to think of failures as end-points rather than simply as points in a longer process can stop us at our potentially most creative and generative moments.
In the end, this process has dramatically shifted my ability to feel generative. I am able to witness other creative processes with a clearer mind, little by little fueling my interest in this work in new ways. Maybe in a couple of months I’ll have an RJ homecoming and visualize where my place will be. Maybe I’ll take even more steps back. In the meantime, I would like to invite you to think with me on how we can build a culture of honoring the ways in which we are/are not involved, while shifting the current narrative of what ‘involvement’ looks like. How can we leave room for each other for the future and hold each other now?
I’m arms wide open.
yucca is a queerdo fronterist@ from the Rio Grande Valley, who now resides in Houston. They are co-founder of Cicada Collective and are dedicated to elevating the voices and work from the South/resource sparse areas.
When I arrived at the CoreAlign Fellowship retreat 1 year ago, I didn’t know what to expect and had little idea of what was expected of me. It would take months for this process to unfold, and I am still learning from the experience.
My initial reaction about the retreat was concern with the representation of the fellowship. It seemed highly professionalized and most of my cohort was older, from the East and West coasts, with stable movement jobs, with few queer and trans people of color. Where did I fit into this picture as a struggling, young, gender non-conforming Chicanx from a red state? I kept asking myself this question throughout my time with CoreAlign, and was curious to see what I could learn from the fellowship and my peers.
The first thing we learned at CoreAlign was envisioning our Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This is a Design Thinking term, that when applied to social justice work, basically meant finding the simplest way to execute a project with significant impact. I knew I wanted to focus on bridging the gaps between environmental/climate and reproductive justice because of their lack of visibility within both movements in various (different) ways. I was getting ready to dig deep into conversations with friends and family and really craft something new and stimulating. I was ready to get vulnerable and was confident that I had all of the tools to move forward.
Bring it.
Soon after the retreat (like, arriving at the airport to go back home soon), I snapped back to reality. For months, I could barely focus on my MVP or the fellowship. Don’t get me wrong, I initially was thrilled to share this six-month period with other generative thinkers and found the design thinking language of CoreAlign to be challenging, thought provoking, and useful. I knew I was not engaged because I wasn’t day dreaming about my project; thinking about the fellowship started to feel more like a burden than something that I was excited about. I started to feel frustrated with my inability to actually be generative.
Then I had my ‘ah-ha’ moment: I was stressed out beyond what I could handle. I was dealing with housing and food insecurity earlier on in the year, was financially unstable, lacked transportation, felt like my own volunteer organizational commitments was asking too much of me (but who else would do the work, right?), and was struggling with my self-worth. By early spring, everything seemed to be piling up. How was I supposed to positively imagine what kind of world I wanted to live in and create a project based off of these ideas, while being so overwhelmed?
After months and months I realized that my MVP was not a project to be implemented. My MVP was finding the Minimum Viable Place inside myself and out in the world where I did not feel like I was drowning. My experience with CoreAlign allowed me to lean into discomfort with myself, and through this tumultuous process, reminded me of how resilient I actually was amongst all of this hardship. It meant figuring out how to swim slowly against the current, to see myself rise above and move forward in different ways. It meant having detailed conversations with others to learn that sometimes the timing isn’t right for certain commitments, and that’s okay. I am still searching for that MVP, and understand that it will be a process.
But, why did it get to this point? Where were my mentors and elders in the movement? As a young organizer, I’ve heard the “it gets better” and “we’ve all been there” narrative way too often. It always left me feeling unheard, as if I was complaining for being tired of struggling, when all I wanted was support. If our youth are busting their asses by doing crucial organizing work and still not able to pay rent or help out their families, then there is an obvious disconnect. Where are the opportunities for youth in resource-sparse areas that recognize our inherent value, resiliency, and potential for growth? Where is the financial and emotional support for queer and trans youth of color? I believe it’s critical to imagine what these systems could look like, so that we do not repeat these turbulent cycles over and over again in our communities.
Thankfully, I am now in a place where I am able to meet my basic needs, but feeling out of touch with the reproductive justice communities of which I am a part. Some days feeling forgotten, other days just feeling FOMO. I have felt like a failure for not following through with my project and taking steps back from being chin-deep in organizing commitments. Truth is, I am able to take some time and sit with myself. All of these projects and ideas will still be there, and focusing on surviving does not make me unreliable or uninvolved with the movement. It makes me more equipped to fight harder and in more practical ways. The way that Failure/Success is situated in this society does not leave room for all of the ways in which we operate within and outside this binary; it does not hold space for all of the ways we choose –or not- to live our lives. To always think of unfinished projects as dusty failures would hinder us from ever believing that we are able to do anything meaningful. And to think of failures as end-points rather than simply as points in a longer process can stop us at our potentially most creative and generative moments.
In the end, this process has dramatically shifted my ability to feel generative. I am able to witness other creative processes with a clearer mind, little by little fueling my interest in this work in new ways. Maybe in a couple of months I’ll have an RJ homecoming and visualize where my place will be. Maybe I’ll take even more steps back. In the meantime, I would like to invite you to think with me on how we can build a culture of honoring the ways in which we are/are not involved, while shifting the current narrative of what ‘involvement’ looks like. How can we leave room for each other for the future and hold each other now?
I’m arms wide open.
yucca is a queerdo fronterist@ from the Rio Grande Valley, who now resides in Houston. They are co-founder of Cicada Collective and are dedicated to elevating the voices and work from the South/resource sparse areas.
