Time - USA (2020-04-06)

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CATHY CHU

Ally for allies

By the late 1990s,

gay-straight

alliances— school

clubs for LGBTQ

youth and their non-

LGBTQ supporters—

had become so

common in the Bay

Area that an orga-

nization formed to

connect and support

them. That nonprofit,

the GSA Network,

operates nationwide

but still has its heart

in California, home

to more than 1,100

clubs. Cathy Chu, 31,

is now its director

of youth organizing

in the state, helping

students unite when

they want to push for

change on a citywide

or even statewide

level. (In the Golden

State, clubs are

currently pushing

for LGBTQ-inclusive

sex education.) Chu

says showing young

people how to orga-

nize is partly about

helping them effect

the change they want

to see right now, but

it’s also teaching

them a lifelong skill.

“They can learn how

to fight for a better

community, to live

authentically and

with pride,” Chu says,

“but also start to see

their individual power

to shape their larger

condition.” —K.S.

TONI COLLIER

Sharing experiences

As gathering director at Preemptive Love, a

nonprofit that works to end violence and help

areas affected by war, Toni Collier, 28, designs

programs to help people hear each other. Since

beginning her job in 2019, Collier has shep-

herded 16 gatherings at which people from dif-

ferent backgrounds come together to talk about

their experiences—whether that means black

mothers in Atlanta opening up about their fears

while spending time with white police officers,

or a white heterosexual woman learning about

what life is like for a black homosexual man.

“We’re inviting people to bring their own identi-

ties, biases and anger to the table,” she says.

“It brings depth to the playing field because people

realize what others deal with.” —Mahita Gajanan

SAIDEEPIKA RAYALA

Spreading the news to those who need it

In 2018, a high school student named

Saideepika Rayala was learning about the

importance of local news when she realized

her parents weren’t really consuming much of

it. Her mom and dad had moved to Columbus,

Ohio, from India, where they had grown up

speaking Telugu, and although they would

still read news from back home, in their native

tongue, they didn’t engage much with papers

like the Columbus Dispatch.

Rayala, who noticed the same issue among

refugees while volunteering with a local

re settle ment agency, saw this lack of inter­

action as a problem with effects that rippled

out into the whole city, even the country.

It meant that her parents and many other

immigrants in the area weren’t learning about

important happenings like elections or get­

ting to know their neighbors at community

events. “There is a disconnect with immigrant

communities and the local mainstream news,”

the 18­year­old says, “these large gaps where

people are missing out on the opportunity to

be civically engaged.”

So Rayala decided to create a publication

that spoke more directly to them. The Colum­

bus Civic summarizes local and national news

stories in languages like Telugu, Tamil and

French and does so using journalistic styles

that immigrants who speak those languages

are used to. That’s important, Rayala says,

because there are cultural barriers as well as

linguistic ones. Her father, for example, is per­

fectly fluent in English; inability to understand

wasn’t the reason he wasn’t reading.

The Civic, delivered monthly via email, has

300 subscribers so far, and the high school

senior—who tapped her own networks to find

volunteer editors and translators —hopes to

expand to Somali and Nepali too. “It’s differ­

ent reading news in your native language,”

Rayala says. “I want to connect people to the

community they’re living in.” —K.S.

ERICA TURNER

AND HEIDI WHEELER

Talking it out

Cedarburg, Wis. (pop. 11,536), is nearly

95% white. Residents Erica Turner and Heidi

Wheeler bonded when Wheeler, 42, who is part

of that majority, asked Turner, who isn’t, if she

could profile her family for a local magazine.

Their talks about the difficulties of being a

black woman in their community sparked

something. Speaking out was nerve­racking,

Turner, 47, says, but freeing too. The article

led to the formation of a discussion group that

tackles race relations, formalized as Bridge

the Divide in 2018. Then came a podcast and

events. “You can’t talk about what’s going on

over there,” Turner says, “if you haven’t gotten

your own house together.” —K.S.

POWELL: THERESA DANNA—UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO; HUANG: DANNY FULGENCIO; RAMSEY: CLARE MCLEAN; FINK: MALCOLM J. WILSON; GREEN: COURTESY GREEN; MARSH: JIGAR MEHTA—THE GREATER GOOD SCIENCE CENTER; RAYALA: HR IMAGING; CHU: ANDREW PASCUAL; TURNER: STEPHANIE BARTZ—LOVE WISCONSIN; WHEELER: ANDREA ROSIN; COLLIER: GARRETT LOBAUGH

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