NOTE TO USERS

Page(s) not included in the original manuscript are

unavailable from the author or university. The
manuscript was microfilmed as received

340 - 363

This reproduction is the best copy available.

UMI
 Prophetic naming as informal adult education:
Decolonizing the imagination with Boston's New Majority

Susan Ann Klimczak

Mica Pollock and Wendy Luttrell

Grace Lee Boggs

A Thesis Presented to the

Faculty of the Graduate School of Education of Harvard University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education

2009
 UMI Number: 3393907

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI
Dissertation Publishing

UMI 3393907
Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
 1

for

t n e people of 5 o s t o n 5 s New Majority

 n
Acknowledgements
This work of this dissertation was supported by many not mentioned and I am forever grateful.

My heartfelt thanks go first to the people of the New Majority who inspired me and this
research. Special appreciation to Lydia Lowe, Shelia Martin, Mel King, David Ortiz, Chuck
Turner, Gloribell Moto, Gloria Fox, L'Merchie Frazier and Joyce King for patiently
answering my questions, extending support, trust and kindness.

Most worthy of the highest praise and gratitude are Mica Pollock and Wendy LuttrelL my
wise and (blessedly) patient advisors. Thinking with you was a beautiful gift. You pushed my
work. You gave good direction with your feedback. You taught me by your example what it
can mean to be both a woman and a scholar. I will never be able to repay you for your
generosity of intellectual spirit. I will never forget how you communicated your respect for
me and insistentiy expressed your belief that I was a scholar, especially when I could not
believe it myself.

I wrote to ask Grace Lee Boggs and asked her to sit on my committee because her biography
had changed the way I looked at my life and research. It was a special day in my life when
she agreed. Grace Lee Boggs, you are a bright light in the Detroit and the world and to me.
You inspired me to grow my soul and my dissertation. Thank you for reading this long tome
once at age 93 and yet again at age 94 and for holding me accountable. Your comments and
academic advices gave me the courage and determination to both step up and dive deeper.

I would have given up on this research long ago without the encouragement, steady guidance
and intellectual companionship of Mel King who read and gave me thoughtful comments on
my drafts and planted ideas when I was stuck. He also cooked me fish and gave me bags of
vegetables to keep me going while I was writing. He never let me forget that my research
and ideas were worthy and important, even on the days when I felt most discouraged.

I would like to thank Angela Yarde from the Roxbury District 7 for looking me in the eye
and challenging me to give back to the community, instead of just observing and recording
field notes. However in the work I do to serve, I feel that I still receive far more than I give.

My "critical friends" HGSE doctoral cohort group have been my intellectual and spiritual
family since 2000. You have helped me grow as a scholar and extended your love to me in
ways as numerous as the stars in the sky. And hurrah I am the last of us to graduate. Thank
you Jae-Eun Joo, Charlene Desir, Deidra Suwannee Dees, Polly Attwood and Jimmy Seale-
Collazo.

Linda Stoker responded to chapter drafts with such memorable intellectual vigor that we
always talked for hours longer than was necessary. She saw me through in ways above and
beyond. Thank you and apologies again for making you read about Derrida, Foucault and
Habermas all on the same page.

Eva Kerr line edited endless drafts of this dissertation and only charged me an ice cream
soda.

Thanks to George Long (1951-2001) who told me to go, to Elizabeth Crump who is the best
kind of friend and, to my father Joseph John Klimczak who I love.
 Ill

Struggle
It's a struggle
Developing Solidarity.
It's a Struggle
5eing positive.
It's a Struggle
Making Common Unity.
I f s a Struggle
Shaping Reality.
It's a Struggle
LIVING.
It's a Struggle
because it's slow
But if we Struggle
A t developing Solidarity,
Being Positive,
Shaping Reality,
Malcing Common Unity,
We will all Grow.

Because to struggle
Is t o work, f o r Change,
and Cha nge is the focus of Education,
and Education is the 5asis o f Knowledge,
and Knowledge is the Basis for Growth,
and Growth is the Basis f o r
Being Positive and Being Positive
is the Basis f o r Building Solidarity.
Building Solidarity is a wau t o shape
Reality and Shaping Reality is Living
And Living is Loving,
So Struggle.

Me! King
 IV

Table of Contents

page
Chapter 1 "We've got the numbers! We are the New Majority!: 1
An ethnography of informal education in social movements

Chapter 2 The audacity of researching organizing and organizing research 17

Chapter 3 An intellectual genealogy that maps a path forward 31

Chapter 4 The New Majority begins "back in the day" 63

Chapter 5 Talk as struggle to gain a new informed humanity 95

Chapter 6 Prophetic naming as informal education distinctive 136

to the New Majority

Chapter 7 Purpose and vision for a new and informed humanity 151

Chapter 8 Associative life and patterns of participation 196

Chapter 9 Taking prophetic naming to the streets 255

Chapter 10 Learning "to be (or not to be) a 501 (c)(3) 303

Chapter 11 Prophetic naming: Informal education 340

that decolonizes the imagination

Appendix A Ethnography sources that guided work 364

Sources 369

Vita 384
 V

Prophetic naming as informal adult education:

Decolonizing the imagination with Boston's New Majority

Susan Ann Klimczak

Dissertation advisors: Mica Pollock and Wendy Luttrell

This is an educational ethnography of collective informal learning and education in social

movements based on five years of participant observation among Boston's New Majority
from 2003-2009.

The New Majority is a "movement of movements" and an organization of People of Color

in Boston that seek to address an egregious obstacle to democracy: though People of Color
are now a majority of the population in Boston, that majority fails to be reflected in many
social and political institutions, and in much of the cultural and economic life of the city.
People such as those in the New Majority, who organize together to make change in their
communities, are also visionary adult education innovators demonstrating that "community
is more important to learning than any other method or technique."

This ethnography provides a detailed description of prophetic naming, a form of collective

informal education found in the New Majority. The main intellectual activity at the heart of
prophetic naming — and at the heart of all social movements — is the process of collective
identity. In prophetic naming, the process of collective identity can be understood as
situated learning in a community of practice. Situated learning in the New Majority
community of practice is described through three characteristics: associative life, purpose
and values that guide and delimit learning, and the fostering of collective learning through
conversation, action and learning strategies.

An analytic model for identifying and analyzing radical conversation in social movements is
proposed and applied in this study: five interrelated learning tasks that decolonize the
imagination.
 1

1
"We've got the numbers! We are the new majority!":
An ethnography of informal education in social movements
T h e education of the individual, in addition to promoting his [or her] own innate
abilities, would attempt to develop in his [or her] a sense of responsibility for his [or
her] fellow [men and women] in place of the glorification of power and success in
our present society.
Humanist and scientist Albert Einstein, 19491

[Education is] something which relates [people] definitely to their community... It

has for one of its purposes the improvement of methods of social action.
Adult education theorist EduardLindeman, 19512

[Education] needs to. . . provide [people] with ongoing opportunities to exercise

their resourcefulness, to solve the real problems of their community.
Philosopher and community organiser Grace Lee Boggs, 20023

Real education is measured n o t by h o w much math you know b u t by h o w m u c h

impact your education helps you to have on the place where you live.
Social andpolitical innovator Mel King, keynote speech at the 2003 New Majority conference

These are deeply troubled and troubling times that at the same time offer great opportunity

for us turn our collective energies towards uncovering new sources of ideas and ways of

learning that make another world possible, a world that works for everyone. Visionaries like

Albert Einstein, Eduard Lindeman, Grace Lee Boggs and Mel King give clues to the kind of

education and learning that can lead to making such a new world possible. Their vision

inspired my intellectual curiosity to turn towards finding and carrying out an ethnographic

research study a group of people who engage in the kinds of education that offer people

meaningful opportunities to develop ever more caring relationships, to struggle to improve

1
Albert Einstein, "Why socialism?" Monthly V^view 1, no. 1 (May 1949),
http: / / www.monthlyreview. org/59 8einstein.php.
Eduard Lindeman, "Building a social philosophy of adult education," in Learning Democracy: Eduard
Undeman on adult education and social change, ed. Stephen Brookfield (Wolfeboro, NH: Groom Helm,
1987), 129-130.
Grace Lee Boggs, "A paradigm shift in our concept of education," (transcript of talk given at An
Educational Summit on the Urban Crisis, State Theatre, Detroit, Michigan 20 August 2002),
http: / /www.boggscenter.org/p aradigm- shift, shtml.
 2
their communities and even to catalyze change in our collective imagination about what is

possible for the world.

My research curiosity has particularly been drawn toward urban communities in the United

States where the most troubling effects of our imperfect democracy are disproportionately

felt and experienced through inequities in housing, education, job opportunities, political

participation and environmental health. Yusef " Bunchy" Shakur, w h o spent the past few

weeks giving out school supplies to children in his Detroit neighborhood, expresses the

heart of my education research concerns in plain-spoken language. H e says that we need to

focus on those approaches where people struggle to learn how to better "put the neighbor

back into the h o o d , " where we see all people as o#r neighbors, all children as our children and

all neighborhoods as our neighborhoods. 4

Where can research energies b e directed to identify and uncover those forms of education

with the potential to locate these kinds of ideas and ways of learning that can change our

cities and world in positive ways? My community organizing experiences suggest that one

place to look is within social movements. T h e concept of social m o v e m e n t is notoriously

difficult to define 5 and the many definitions generated since 1960 seem incompatible o n their

surface. However, Mario Diani conducted a survey of these definitions and argues that three

common threads exist: networks of relations across a plurality of actors, collective identity,

Grace Lee Boggs, "A new school year begins," Michigan Citizen, September 13-19, 2009.
There are a number of reasons for this ambiguity in definition. The vast breadth of social
movement scholarship which stretches across many disciplines. Scholars have not always been aware
of the work of scholarship in other disciplines. The result is that a wide range of social phenomena
has been designated as social movements. Another complicating factor is that scholars have
generated definitions particularly tied to incompatible approaches to social movement research.
 3
and conflictual issues. Focusing on these common components, Mario Diani ptoposes that

social movements can be defined as,

A specific social dynamic which. . . consists in a process whereby several different

actors, be they individuals, informal groups, and/or organizations [sic] come to
elaborate through either joint action and/or communication, a shared definition of
themselves as being part of the same side in a social conflict. By doing so, they
provide meaning to otherwise unconnected protest events or symbolic antagonistic
practices and make explicit the emergence of specific conflicts and issues. 6

Moreover, adult educators agree on one thing for certain: community organizers in social

movements learn together while they talk and act. Community organizers most often

address the thorniest problems of our times, not in research journals or scholarly books, but

out on street comers and in community meetings. Sociologists have documented h o w

people thinking and acting together in social movements have historically catalyzed social

change by introducing ideas, social innovations and new ways of organizing public thinking.7

For example, Charles Webster contends that the very idea of science itself grew out of people

thinking together in seventeenth century British religious movements. 8

Many core ideas about adult education have also emerged from social movements. John

Holford points out that, during its principle growth time, adult education, "at least on

philosophical, epistemological and theoretical levels, was shaped by social movements, [and]

political activism."9

Mario Diani, "Chapter 9: The concept of social movement," in Readings in contemporary political
sociology, ed Kate Nash (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell 2000), 155-176.
Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social movements: A cognitive approach (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991): 3, 55-59; Alberto Melucci, Challenging codes: Collective action
in an information age (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 1996): 4-8, 77-80.
Eyerman and Jamison, 54; They specifically reference the work of sociologist of science Charles
Webster and his 1975 work The great instauration: Science, medicine and reform 1626-1660 (London:
Duckworth).
John Holford, "Why social movements matter: Adult education theory, cognitive praxis, and the
creation of knowledge," Adult education quarterly 45, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 110.
 4

A survey of adult education literature 10 reveals that researchers are beginning to identify

social movements as important sites t o study h o w people engage in critically reflective and

social learning, 11 and h o w people shape and generate knowledge. T h e results of these

largely preliminary studies have been promising enough for some leading research voices to

predict that new concepts in adult education will emerge from future research into learning

and social movements. 1 3 Research o n social movements also has the potential to further the

understanding of h o w people shape and generate knowledge. 14 Adult education theorist

J o h n Hoist even goes to far as to suggest the possibility that social movements are places

where "we can likely find a parallel 'field of adult education,' with its own pedagogical

Susan Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination: Some thoughts on education and social
movements" (Qualifying Paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2006); Appendix A has a list
of the education and social movements literature reviewed in my Qualifying Paper is in Appendix B.
Michael R. Welton, "Social revolutionary learning: The new social movements as learning sites,"
Adult education quarterly 43, no. 3 (Spring 1993): 152; Jack Mezirow, "Transformation theory and
social action: A response to Collard and Law," Adult education quarterly 39 no.3 (Spring 1989): 172;
Matthew Finger, "New social movements and their implications for adult education," Adult education
quarterly 40, no. 1 (Fall 1989): 15, 21; Peter Mayo, "Synthesizing Gramsci and Freire: Possibilities for
a theory of radical adult education," International journal of lifelong education 13, no. 2 (1994): 39;
Stephanie Rutherford, "An alternative consciousness: Knowledge construction in the anti-
globalization movement," Proceedings of the ACEEA/ CASAE 21st Annual conference on adult education
and the contested terrain of public policy (Toronto, Canada: May 30-31 and June 1, 2002),
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/CASAE/cnf2002/2002_papers/mtherford20002w.pdf; Griff Foley,
"Radical adult education and learning," International journal of lifelong education 20, no. 1-2 (January-
April 2001): 77; Deborah Kilgore, "Understanding learning in social movements: A theory of
collective learning," International journal of lifelong education 18, no. 3 (May/June 1999): 199.
Rutherford, "An alternative consciousness"; Holford, "Why social movements matter," 101; Linda
Christensen-Ruffrnan, "Introduction," in The globalfeminist enlightenment: Women and social knowledge, ed.
Linda Christensen-Ruffman (Madrid, Spain: International Sociological Association), 11,15.
Finger, "New social movements" 16, 18, 21; Holford, "Why social movements matter," 105;
Mezirow, "Transformation theory and social action," 170,172, 174; Welton, "Social revolutionary
learning," 152.; Foley, "Radical adult education and learning," 77.; Paul Ilsley, "The undeniable link:
Adult and continuing education and social change," New directionsfor adult and continuing education 54
(1992): 26,31-33.
14
Rutherford, "An alternative consciousness"; Holford, !CWhy social movements matter," 101; Linda
Christensen-Ruffman, "Introduction," in The global feminist enlightenment, 11,15.
 5
15
tradition yet to b e discovered by those of us called adult educators." However the

challenge persists in identifying the m o s t promising social movements for a study of adult

education from a m o n g the m a n y social phenomena that have been identified as social

movements.

Grace Lee Boggs suggests that ideas and approaches that can give birth to a new society can

be found in social movements that are "transforming a struggle for rights into a struggle that

advances the humanity of everyone in the society." 16 T h e roots of many contemporary

social movements, as well as adult education, 17 carry the legacy of some of the world's m o s t

ambitious human rights-based social movements and the iconic events associated with them

such as when people developed the ideas in the Magna Carta and the Declaration of the

Rights of Man, or w h e n people wrote the United State Declaration of Independence. 1 8 At

the heart of these social movements is seeking change rooted in democratic impulses,

spiritual convictions, and enlightenment ideals that moves us toward affirming and

addressing the humanity — and equal rights — of all people.

Some of the most interesting and innovative of these social movements in the late 20 th and

early 21 s t centuries offer systems approaches that increase connections across groups

John D. Hoist, Social movements, civil society and radical adult education (Westport, CT: Bergin and
Garvey, 2002), 5.
Grace Lee Boggs, "The beloved community of Martin Luther King," Yes! Magazine No.29 (Spring
2004), http://www.yesniagazine.org/issues/a-conspiracy-of-hope/the-beloved-conimunity-of-
martin-luther-king.
17
Budd Hall, "Chapter 19: Social movement learning: Theorizing a Canadian tradition," in Contexts
of adult education: Canadian perspectives, eds. Tara Fenwick, Tom Nesbit and Bruce Spencer (Toronto,
Canada: Thompson Educational Publishing, 2006).
John Lofland, "Charting degrees of movement culture: Tasks of the cultural cartographer," in
Social movements and culture, eds. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans (Minneapolis, MN: University
of Minnesota Press), 1995, 203.
working on separate issues, joining movements with other movements, forging coalitions of

coalitions. 19 As N a o m i Klein points out, what these "movements of m o v e m e n t s " share is a

"radical reclaiming of the c o m m o n s , " which have .been privatized and in which control is

exerted by a limited few through the application of anti-democratic impulses. 20 I n cities

across the United States, there is evidence of community organizing centered on reclaiming

urban commons because so "many of the most important decisions affecting p o o r and

middle-class residents get made without [city] residents having any say in the matter." 2 1 "The

city belongs to all of us!" is a rallying cry and unifying message coined by Rev. J o e Jackson,

the director of a faith-based organization in Milwaukee, which captures the spirit of these

new urban campaigns.

O n e such social m o v e m e n t in Boston is the N e w Majority, which I was privileged to observe

from its embryonic stage through its first five years of growth. That people in the N e w

Majority with their innovative set of social change learning strategies would emerge from

Boston's landscape of struggle and difference is at the same time surprising and not so

surprising. Boston is a city that has been "historically a place that sends out new thoughts" 2 3

Some examples of movements that encourage solidarity across other movements are the anti-
globalization movement and the 1999 World Trade Organization Protests in Seatde, the Zapatista
movement that began in Chiapas, Mexico and the anti-war movements associated with the
beginnings of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Each of them has drawn participation from multiple streams
of issue-based groups, such as labor, environmental, ethnic- and culturally—based, women's and anti-
poverty coalitions and movements.
Naomi Klein, "Reclaiming the commons," in A movement of movements: Is another world really possible"?,
ed. Tom Mertes (London, UK: Verso, 2004), 219-229.
Philip Cryan, "The city belongs to all of us: New organizing on economic issues is fueled by the
idea of an urban commons," OntheCommons.org library, February 27, 2009,
http://www.onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2399; On the Commons (formerly Tomales Bay
Institute) is a a network of citizens, scholars and organizations that champion the cause of the
commons.
22
Philip Cryan, "The city belongs to all of us."
Chuck Turner Interview in Susan Klimczak, Fieldnotes
 7
with a concentration of 74 institutions of public and private higher education, a veritable

'Tetri dish of educational experimentation." 24 Boston is still a highly segregated city, yet it

has a historically deep multicultural pocket in t h c S o u t h E n d . Boston has a long and

troubling reputation of "being remarkably tolerant of intolerance" 25 and a "discomfort z o n e "

for People of Color. 26 Yet, Boston also has a spirited people's history of organizing around

an increasingly inclusive emancipative vision.

T h e N e w Majority is a social m o v e m e n t and organization of People of Color in Boston that

seeks to address an egregious obstacle to democracy that in and of itself is worthy of serious

study. Though People of Color are n o w a majority of the population in Boston, that majority

fails to be reflected in many social and political institutions, and in m u c h of the cultural and

economic life of the city.27

T w o qualities made the N e w Majority a promising choice for the study of adult education in

social movements. First, the N e w Majority is an example of this emerging trend in

organizing efforts that involves building coalitions of movements, an innovative "movement

of many movements." 2 8 T h e N e w Majority not only joins together established Boston social

movements based on ethnicity and culture as they organize across the Asian, Black, Latino

and Native American communities; they are also organize across Boston's issue-based

4
The Boston Foundation, "Education" in A time like no other: Charting the course of the next revolution, A
summary of the Boston Indicators TLeport 2004-2006,
http://www.tbf.org/IndicatorsProject/Education/Default.aspx.
25
Doug Most, "Divided we stand," Boston Magazine, November 2002,
http://www.bostonmaga2ine.corn/articles/divided_we_stand/.
26
Don Aucoin, "The Discomfort Zone," Boston Globe, 22 June 2005; the first in an Boston Globe
occasional series on the experiences of blacks and Latinos in Greater Boston.
2 7 i-r-n

The Boston Foundation, "Boston's Civic Community," The Boston Indicators Project,
http://www.tbf.org/indicatorsProject.
28
Naomi Klein, ""Reclaiming the commons."
 8
movements such as those for fair housing, increased civic participation, and justice in jobs.

Although people in the N e w Majority are building on a history of coalitional organizing in

Boston, 29 they are self-consciously learning to do something new — b e c o m e the "new

majority" in Boston — and that learning itself is worth documenting and analyzing. Further,

the N e w Majority are a group of people engaged in struggle w h o practice what Grace Lee

Boggs calls, "two-sided transformation." 30 They are attempting to change from within —

trying "to be the change they seek in the world" — while they take action to change the

world around them. A n d what could be more encouraging to an education researcher than

studying a group of people who engage in reflective practice about their own learning as they

struggle to find out what it means to be "the new majority" and the kind of vision and action

necessary to make Boston work for everyone!

Since 2003, the N e w Majority has sought to help individual ethnic and racial communities in

Boston to "move from isolation to the N e w Majority." 31 Their stated purpose "is to create a

common agenda for Boston's communities of color and . . . establish ongoing mechanisms

for cross-racial/ethnic collaboration on a broad spectrum of issues." 32 T h e N e w Majority

Initiative began in 2003 as a group of 27 community organizers and civic leaders w h o

recognized that:

The Census 2000 revealed that the city of Boston is at a turning point with people of
color n o w comprising a majority of the population in the city. W h a t the data cannot
tell us is h o w communities of color can work together at this historic m o m e n t to

29
A short and partial history of Boston coalitional organizing is offered in Chapter 4.
Grace Lee Boggs, "Introduction to the New Edition," in Revolution and evolution in the twentieth
century, James and Grace Lee Boggs (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974, 2008), xiv.
Susan Klimczak, Harvard Graduate School of Education S710b Course Field notes, keynote
speech by Mel King.
From "The New Majority Agenda" (part of the materials assembled for the 18 October 2003 New
Majority conference) on the website www.iaas.umb.edu/newmajority/agenda.shtml.
 9
recreate our social and political institutions, cultural and economic life in order to
reflect this diversity.33

This New Majority Initiative Steering Committee came together as a response to the new

2000 Census data and organized the 18 October 2003 New Majority Conference. This

conference brought together some 300 People of Color "with a demonstrated commitment

to change" at the University of Massachusetts at Boston as "a first step toward forging a

common agenda for Communities of Color in Boston." 34 The outcome of this conference

was the formation of the New Majority as an ongoing coalition of individuals and

organisations from Boston's Asian, Black and Latino communities inspired by the potential

for People of Color to become a real social economic and political force. This involved

learning primarily through the process of developing a collective identity that characterizes

the informal education at the center of this research.

From 2003 — 2008, people in the New Majority put their learning into action as they came

out in support of a number of local political Candidates of Color in Boston. This action led

to the successful election of two New Majority participants to the Boston City Council.

Felix Arroyo became the first elected Latino city councilor in 2003 and Sam Yoon became

the first Asian American city councilor in 2005. They joined longtime African American city

councilors Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey on "Team Unity," an informal alliance of

Boston's City Councilors of Color. With Sam Yoon's 2005 election to the council, Team

Unity represented four out of the thirteen members of the Boston City Council for a few

New Majority Initiative Steering Committee, "What we hope to accomplish today," from The New
Majority Uniting Boston's Communities of Color: 18 October 2003 New Majority Conference
Brochure, University of Massachusetts at Boston.
New Majority Steering Committee, "The New Majority: A Proposal for Base-Building and
Action," Concept paper submitted 15 December 2008 to the Jobin-Leeds Partnership for
Democracy and Education.
 10
years. Andrea CabraL whose family has roots in Cape Verde, was also offered support by

the N e w Majority and became the first woman to be elected as Suffolk County Sheriff in

2004. 35

This ethnography explores the possibility that people like those in the N e w Majority, who

organize together to make change in their communities, are also visionary adult education

innovators demonstrating that "community is more important to learning than any other

method or technique." 36 T h e main question at the heart of this research is:

What and how do community organizers learn together?

by participating in the N e w Majority?

Exploring this broad research question was brought into sharper focus by the three other

focus questions that guided this ethnographic study. Since organizers in the N e w Majority

learn both through and #£<w/relationships with each other, with institutions and even with

ideas, the first focus question was:

F o c u s 1:
What kinds of relationships d o c o m m u n i t y organizers in the N e w Majority create
and maintain?

Since many prominent social movement theorists consider the process of collective identity

to be the main intellectual activity of people in social movements 3 7 like the N e w Majority,

the second focus question was:

F o c u s 2:
H o w do c o m m u n i t y organizers m a k e m e a n i n g of "the N e w Majority" over time?

This is Boston, with its reputation as one of the most political cities in the country. So it is not
surprising that people in the New Majority have faced struggles in the midst of their learning. A
number of political tragedies had impact on Boston Communities of Color during the years between
2007 and 2009.
Ralph Peterson, Life in a crowdedplace: Making a learning community (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
1992), 2.
Alberto Melucci, Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age (Cambridge, United Kingdom:
Cambridge University Press, 1996); Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social movements.
 11

Finally, the third focus question addresses the connection between action and learning in

social movements. Social scientists describe social movements in terms of collective

action.38 Moreover, education theorist Griff Foley found action to be so central to informal

learning in social movements that he gave his book the tide, Learning in social action.

Organizers in the New Majority prepare for "action," take that action, evaluate the action,

and apply what is learned to future actions, so the third question used to focus this

ethnographic research was:

Focus 3:
How do community organizers go about taking action together in the N e w Majority?

Participant observations of New Majority gatherings and actions that focused on agenda

building and organization building proved to provide the thickest and most interesting

insights for exploring these research questions. People in die New Majority engaged in

agenda building right from the beginning. For example, the purpose of the founding 2003

New Majority Conference was to gather community organizers and leaders from the Asian,

Black, Latino and Native American communities together for discussions toward a common

agenda of action items across seven different issues:

Civic and Political Participation

Civil Rights and Immigration Policies
Education
Economic Development and Workers' Rights
Health and Human Services
Housing, Land Ties and Community Development
Youth

In 2004, participants in the New Majority organized a series of grassroots community Street

Talks in People of Color neighborhoods throughout Boston to build membership, educate

Melucci, Challenging codes.

Griff Foley, learning in social action: A. contribution to understanding informal education (London: Zed
Books, 1999).
 12
voters and, most importantly, to identify important issues for a common citywide agenda. A

series of agenda discussions among New Majority members and participants in 2004-2005

shaped the ideas gathered from the Street Talks into the 2005 New Majority Policy Platform.

The New Majority has used this eight-point policy platform as the basis for a New Majority

City of Boston candidate survey and a series of successful candidate forums focused on

"highlighting priorities in Communities of Color for successive local elections from 2005-

2007."40

My participant observations also focused on the learning that took place in processes of

organization building. From 2006 until 2009, people in the New Majority immersed

themselves in organization building in a quest for legitimacy, permanency and funding. The

New Majority has been an all-volunteer, membership-based organization of individuals that

also has maintained successful partnerships with a number of local community

organizations. Two New Majority retreats in March 2006 and December 2007 were held in

support of building vision, values and organizational development. People in the New

Majority worked vAthpro bono lawyers to develop by-laws and articles of organization, which

were successfully filed with the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in

early 2009. A series of conversations about whether or not to pursue nonprofit 501 (c)(3)

between 2006-2008 provided rich insights as the people in the New Majority explored both

the strengths and perils of building on organization structures used in the past and imagining

new kinds of organization structures that address the conditions of the present.

New Majority Steering Committee, "The New Majority: A Proposal for Base-Building and
Action," Concept paper submitted 15 December 2008 to the Jobin-Leeds Partnership for
Democracy and Education.
 13
However, what makes the work of the people in the New Majority most compelling for

education research is that another much more radical learning project is going on that cannot

be revealed through a mere outline of their agenda-making and community building

activities. This is the story that can be uncovered only through those persistent and ongoing

interactions over time, through what anthropologist John Jackson calls die "deep hanging

out" of ethnographic work.41 What becomes clear in the conversations and actions involved

in agenda building and organization building is that people in the New Majority are engaged

wholeheartedly in a form of collective learning that encourages both democracy and

humanity. If Grace Lee Boggs is right when she says of the present moment in history,

"these are times to grow our souls," people in the New Majority are doing that work. They

are forging this path, slowly, steadily, and even stumbling at times; they are learning how to

grow a collective soul for the city of Boston. I believe along with James Baldwin, that the

world is held together, and the city of Boston is held together by the love and compassion

and clarity of thought of a few individuals like those in the New Majority who struggle to

learn how to find a good direction for moving through a city and world in such distress.

Almost all the participants in the New Majority are community organizers tirelessly working

on particular issues in particular communities or organizations as well. They are individuals

who are deeply affected by the physical and emotional suffering of people and the

inequalities that people face. Something about the particular form of their empathy

motivates them not only to strive to make the small concrete changes that alleviate suffering;

they also join together with die New Majority to learn together and, as part of that learning,

do the hard work of imagining a new and informed humanity. They believe they can find a

John Jackson, "Some thoughts about ethnography," Brainstorm Blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education
(May 17, 2008), http://chronicle.com/blogPost/some-thoughts-about-ethnography/5943.
 14
way to remake Boston into a city where not only is everyone is welcome; they also believe it

possible for Boston to become a city that belongs to all the people, not just those who have

power in the present political machine. They go beyond making a long list of "all the

bads;"42 they are thinking together in order to get at the radical roots of what prevents

Boston from working for all people. They are fiercely protective of their own

neighborhoods, cultures and groups; yet they see that this is a time to build bridges between

neighborhoods, and build bridges across cultures and languages. They are learning together

to add another layer of identity that is based on their conviction of a shared humanity; but

this New Majority identity is one that allows their other layers of identity to stay intact and

vital, rather than be subsumed.

The New Majority began with the act of throwing off a demeaning name, "minority," and an

act of renaming themselves "the New Majority." People in the New Majority are trying

together to learn how to live the new name they have given themselves. They are struggling,

stumbling, falling short of their vision all the time, yet still they go on — which takes grit, a

certain kind of moral courage to keep coming back to learn together that is remarkable and

compelling. The people in the New Majority are engaged in collective learning that is

courageous, prophetic and rare.

Early preliminary research analysis for this ethnographic study uncovered a formidable

obstacle: the absence of "guiding or emerging theory"43 that can be applied to understanding

42
The advice to go beyond "all the bads" was given by a facilitator of the education breakout session
at the October 2003 New Majority conference.
Boyd E. Rossing, "Patterns of informal learning: Lessons from community work," International
journal of'lifelong education 10, no. 1 (1991): 45. 47.
 15
44
the informal and incidental learning that goes on in social movements. This lack of

guiding and emerging theory has had an impact on the direction that research into education

and social movements has taken thus far. Much of this education research has focused on

"structured and intentional learning" in social movements; social movement learning has

been imagined as classroom-like formations with "teachers" and "students" who mimic the

way that learning takes place in schools and universities.45 But, what about the less

structured and intentional learning that might be happening during discussions in

community meetings or in collective action? Where can guiding and emerging theories be

found to help understand these more informal forms of learning and education in social

movements?

One answer uncovered in the preliminary research for this study was to use insights from

social movement theorists to inform the work of critical adult education theorists. Social

movement theory is a vast field of study that crosses multiple disciplines, but those theorists

who brought a cultural and cognitive focus to their social movement research provided

invaluable insights. These insights provided the basis for identifying and mapping the

learning in strategic social movement conversations onto a model of five learning tasks that

people use to decolonize their imaginations, to imagine a new world that is possible.

The result of this research is an ethnography that provides a detailed description of one

particular form of informal education, prophetic naming, that describes the approach to

learning in the New Majority. The main intellectual activity at the heart of this informal

Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination."

Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination."
 16
education of prophetic naming — and at the heart of all social movements — is the process

of collective identity. In prophetic naming, the process of collective identity can be

understood as situated learning in a community of practice. Situated learning in a

community of practice can be described through three education characteristics: the

education environment or associative life, the purpose and values that guide and delimit the

process, and the fostering of collective learning through conversation, action and learning

strategies. I hope that the reader of this ethnography will be inspired by the example of

people in the New Majority to decolonize where and how they imagine informal adult

education takes place. But more importantly I hope that readers are inspired to organize

other radical forms of informal adult education that "put the neighbor back in the hood,"

"solve the real problems in our communities" and ensure that the cities where we live

"belong to all of us."

 17

2
The audacity in researching organizing
and organizing research

This research is a five-year-long educational ethnographic study of the cultural process of

situated learning and collective identity 46 within a community of practice where participants

are largely community organizers with the N e w Majority. 47 Researchers who study the

cultural processes involved with situated learning and collective identity in communities of

practice often choose ethnography as a method 4 8 because ethnography is well-suited for the

study of the ongoing learning activity of a group in a range of everyday contexts. 49 Social

scientists who practice ethnography have also found the method particularly suited for

understanding marginalized communities and their relationships to power, 50 a central

concern in the N e w Majority agenda.

A literature review in support of the design of this ethnography that included adult education,
social movement, and anthropology of knowledge theory suggested that situated learning and
collective identity were useful concepts for understanding informal education in social movements.
Preliminary field observations in support of the design of this ethnography supported this rinding;
Susan Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination: Some thoughts on education and social
movements" (Qualifying Paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2006).
Situated learning involves a cultural process where learners interpret, reflect and form meaning
through social participation in the activities of a community of practice; Jean Lave and Etienne
Wenger, Situated learning: Legitimate peripheralparticipation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
Douglas E. Foley, Learning capitalist culture: Deep in the heart of the tejas (Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); S. Brice Heath, Ways With Words. Language, life and work in communities and
classrooms (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press: 1983); Rosemary C. Henze,
Informal Teaching and Learning. A study of everyday cognition in a Greek community, (Hillsdale, New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992); Philip H. Henning, "Ways of learning: An ethnographic study
of the work and situated learning of a group of refrigeration service technicians," journal of
Contemporary EthnographyTl', no. 1 (1998): 85-136; Keith Basso, Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and
language among the Western Apache (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1996); Lave
and Wenger, Situated learning.
Adam Kuper and Jessica Kuper, "ethnography," in The social science encyclopedia, eds. Adam Kuper
and Jessica Kuper (New York: Routledge, 1996): 263; Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology: Theoretical
practice in culture and society (Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2001): 6.
Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology: Theoretical practice in culture and society (Maiden, MA: Blackwell,
2001).
 18
People who participate in the New Majority also serve in a wide variety of professional roles

in the Boston community. For instance, occupations of the New Majority steering

committee members for the October 2003 New Majority founding conference included:51

community organizer government agency staff university researcher

political organizer health care provider minister/pastor
Boston City Councilor media worker youth
urban planner educator accountant
nonprofit staff law clerk consultant

Also, the steering committee for the founding 2003 New Majority Conference reflects how

the New Majority purposefully seeks out the participation of people with diverse cultural and

neighborhood roots by recruiting activists from the African American and Pan-African,

North, Central and South Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Native American

communities.

In this ethnographic study, the research site was truly the entire city of Boston. I attended

meetings and events in most neighborhoods of Boston, including Roxbury, South End,

Dorchester, Mission Hill, Roxbury, Grove Hall, Upham's Corner, East Boston, Columbia

Point, Beacon Hill, and Government Center. The research site included environments such

as residential homes, health centers, university and college classrooms and halls, community

organization meeting rooms, street corners, government offices, schools, community

recreation centers, community technology centers, and churches.

This ethnographic study was designed to organize my intellectual curiosity and fieldwork

through a primary research question,

"What and how do organizers learn together by participating in the New Majority?"

51
Susan Klimczak, HGSE S710b Participant Observation Field notes.
 19
Then, three other questions were used to further focus the fieldwork:

1. What kinds of relationships do organizers in the N e w Majority create and

maintain? Organizers in the New Majority learn both through and about relationships
with each other, with institutions and even with ideas.

2. How do organizers and other people in Boston make meaning of "the N e w

Majority" over time? As Alberto Melucci points out, the main intellectual activity
of people in social movements like the New Majority is the process of collective
identity.52

3. How do N e w Majority organizers go about taking action together? Social

scientists describe social movements in terms of collective action53 and education
theorist Griff Foley found action to be so central to informal learning in social
movements that he gave his book the title, learning in social action.54 Organizers in the
New Majority prepare for "action," take that action, evaluate the action, and apply
what is learned to future actions.

To explore my intellectual curiosity about these questions, I gathered information and

evidence using three common ethnographic strategies: participant observation, informal and

planned interviews, and collecting documents and artifacts.55

As a participant observer in the New Majority, I attended meetings, forums, conferences and

other activities associated with the New Majority including general business meetings,

committee meetings, social gatherings such as picnics or cultural events, and community

social and political forums. I paid special attention to the situated discourse of community

organizers, as it is in communication and conversation that situated learning takes pkce in

group processes that involve activities such as agenda building, forming ideas, reflecting on

experience and developing brochures and other written communications. I listened closely

Melucci, Challenging codes.

53 Melucci, Challenging codes.
Foley, Learning in social action.
Herzfeld, Anthropology.
A useful informal definition of discourse is "naturally occurring" language use in text, talk,
conversation and other communicative events (Wikipedia, "Discourse analysis,"
www.en.wikipedia.org.wilci/discourse_analysis); A more extended definition of discourse can be
found in J.P. Gee's An introduction to discourse analysis (London: Routledge, 1999).
 20
for how activists struggle to talk and strategize about defining relationships, making meaning

of "die New Majority," and engaging in actions. As part of my participation, I provided

peripheral assistance, finding ways to make a range of contributions, but steering clear of any

participation that involved leadership or decision-making in the New Majority. Among the

ways I participated with the New Majority were:

recording brainstorms on easel pads,

taking meeting minutes and transcribing them,
transcribing speeches,
archiving documents and locating old documents that were needed,
purchasing, cooking and serving food, as well as distributing leftovers in community,
hanging banners and signs,
making phones calls to find meeting places and needed resources,
helping to set up food and chairs for meetings,
taking out the garbage and rearranging furniture at the end of meetings,
collaborating on producing, photocopying and folding programs,
emailing meeting announcements to community organizations,
recruiting suggested community organizations to sponsor political forums,
producing candidate name cards for political forums, and,
recruiting youth to serve as ushers at political forums.

I recorded what I observed and learned in a dozen small notebooks and in annotated field

notes.

To ask clarifying or in-depth questions, I engaged in informal and formal interviews with

organizers in the New Majority. For instance I asked impromptu questions during meals,

engaged in informal extended conversations with small groups of people, and conducted

audio taped formal interviews. The informal conversations that take place within the natural

flow of "metacommunicative speech events" common to organizers in the New Majority

(i.e. conversation at the meals that take place after meetings or while preparing for or while

cleaning up after an event) were particularly important to this ethnography, further

convincing me that these are the very contexts in which speech is most likely to be "imbued
 21
convincing m e that these are the very contexts in which speech is most likely to be "imbued

with force and meaning." 5 7 1 recorded impromptu questions and what was said in informal

extended conversations in annotated field notes. Important excerpts or full-session audio

taped formal interviews were transcribed and annotated with my observations, reactions and

follow-up research related to the interviews.

I also systematically collected documents and other artifacts that were passed out or

generated in meetings, published, and sent out in electronic and postal communications

related to the N e w Majority and incorporated them chronologically into my field notes.

These artifacts provided new information and added knowledge that I would otherwise be

unable to glean from interviews or ongoing activities or discourses. Examples of documents

and artifacts related to the N e w Majority I collected and annotated included:

flyers buttons
handouts programs from activities and forums
meeting agendas and minutes budget reports
drafts of by-laws membership information
emails newspaper articles about and by N e w Majority
reports from Street Talks brochures
website planning documents photographs
transcriptions of whiteboard and poster board notes taken in meetings.

How the ethnographic story about the new majority emerged

T o understand and communicate what and how organizers learn together by participating in

the N e w Majority, my ethnographic story emerged from following established anthropology

practices 58 for thinking critically about the information and evidence. 59 1 used the well-

57
Charles Briggs, Learning how to ask: A sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social science
research, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Appendix A of this dissertation has a list of the ethnography and research theory I reviewed and
applied as references for following established anthropology practices.
 22
60
established fieldwork approach of "funneling" (progressively narrowing down the

fieldwork lens), building upon what qualitative researchers commonly refer to as the

"grounded theory" that came out of my qualifying .paper and prior fieldwork.611 read and

reread field notes and interviews, adding layered annotations, engaged in journaling for

understanding, developed concept maps to identify salient themes and express emerging

findings, designed in-depth interviews based on emerging findings, periodically sought

feedback on emerging findings from critical scholar friends, academic mentors and even the

N e w Majority participants themselves. From these acts of analysis and interpretation, a

grounded theory and the ethnographic story of the N e w Majority came into an intellectual

light.

The audacity in the ethnography

Though I know it's unfair

I reveal myself one mask at a time. . .
I'll say I love. . .
which will lead, of course
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid
poison every next moment,
I will try to disappoint you
Better than anyone ever has.
Stephen Dunn, Mon Semblable62

Ethnography inevitably involves acts of audacity, acts of aggressive boldness and effrontery

that can sometimes be redeemed by those individual with gifts of intellectual brilliance. For

Michael Agar, The professional stranger. An informal introduction to ethnography (New York: Academic
Press, 1980).
Joseph Maxwell, Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 1996).
Stephen Dunn, New and Selected"Poems1974-1994 (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1994):
229.
 23

other researchers, myself included, hope for redeeming our audacity is often rooted in a self-

conscious and dogged application of appreciation and deep love for humanity during the

research process that all too often is comically insufficient and imperfect. In that spirit, I

will try to redeem my own acts of audacity by taking a page from poet Stephen Dunn, by

uncovering enough of my masks to allow the reader to decide where this ethnographer and

ethnography falls along the continuum of convictions that audacity can inspire between

foolishness and distrust at one end, and confidence and competence at the other. I believe

that an ethnographer should reveal enough of her masks so that the reader can form an

opinion about both the strength and the limitations of her study and be able to understand

"what the ethnography is good for."

This is an ethnographic story about a group of People of Color committed to organizing

among People of Color, committed to creating spaces for People of Color to be experts

about their own lives without interference from the "new minority." One example of this

commitment came from a response to mainstream news reporters at the 2003 New Majority

Conference. These reporters repeatedly asked the question, "Why didn't you reach out to the

'old majority' in organizing this conference?" New Majority Steering Committee member

Paul Wantanabe answered this question pointedly with another question, "Why can't the

New Majority be experts about our own lives?" Yet these same People of Color in the New

Majority also possessed the generosity of spirit to patiendy tolerate the contradictory

presence of a White ethnographer perched in the corner furiously writing what they said and

did in tiny notebooks.

 24
63
All researchers have to "negotiate a complex set of insider-outsider identifications," but

being a both a White woman and a researcher learning from and with a community of

People of Color is an important credibility concern to address in order to establish

confidence in the validity of this study.64 A n array of serious criticisms have been made on

behalf of communities who have experienced oppression, against "outsider" research into

their experience, "that outsiders cannot properly understand their experience and are

exploitative and disrespectful, and having outsiders articulate views is intrinsically

'disempowering' [sic]."65

However, a strong argument can be made that, with careful attention paid to establishing

competence, mutual understanding and purposeful effort, outsider research can "contribute

to the betterment of the research, the community engaged in the research and the wider

community."615 Emerging research practice suggests that establishing credibility as an outside

researcher contributes to the quality as well as the validity of the information and data that is

used for analysis. In fact, nearly all the recommended practices for credible outsider

researchers strengthen the quality and credibility of any ethnographic research.

Morwenna Griffiths, Educational research for social justice: Getting off the fence (Buckingham, United
Kingdom, Open University Press, 1997).
David Bridges, "The ethics of outsider research," journal of'philosophy of education 35, no. 3 (August
2001): 371-376; also as chapter in The ethics of educational research, edited by Michael McNamee and
David Bridges (Boston, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002).
Bridges, "The ethics of outsider research."
Bridges, "The ethics of outsider research," 1.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (London, United
Kingdom: Zed Books, 1999); Basso, Wisdom sits in places; Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death without
weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992); Mary
Waters, Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1999).
 25
Among the commitments and qualities that make for a credible outsider researcher are

having intelligent self-awareness and awareness of issues important to the community of

practice; creating loops of communication with participants; creating a mutual understanding

of the terms of engagement between researcher as participant observer and participants; and,

especially in the case of studying a social movement, attempting to promote social justice

and actively seeking social change outside the research environment.

My particular White experience and ethical choices have increased my intelligent self-

awareness and awareness of issues relevant to the New Majority. I grew up with working

class bilingual parents and immigrant grandparents from Poland who supported their large

families as coal miners and steel workers, yet my parents insisted that I speak only English.

Graduate coursework in the cultural and immigrant experiences in education further

deepened and expanded my awareness. My Aunt Karen was a Sister of Saint Joseph who ran

Buffalo's Hope House for years, providing a home and livelihood to men released from

incarceration and support to families who lost loved ones to gun violence; three years ago

she was murdered by one of the men she served. These relationships and experiences have

provided me with some insider experience and intelligent self-awareness about some issues

of language difference, immigration and class. They has made me an insider among those

who have lost a loved one to the kind street violence present in some Communities of Color

in Boston.

I have also had a steady lifelong engagement in a wide variety of social movements and

community organizing that provides me with a solid experiential foundation for

Bridges, "The ethics of outsider research."

 26
understanding the organizing dimensions of New Majority. For instance, warming

speculums in a women's health clinic, organizing a "Take Back the Night March" on a

college campus, participating in a spiritual rap group with men incarcerated in prisons,

fasting on Thanksgiving at a "day of mourning" at Plymouth Rock, doing street theatre with

my graduate student teacher-activists in Harvard Square for "Buy Nothing Day," leading a

two-day Council of All Beings consciousness-raising ritual for environmental activists among

spring flocks of migrating birds on Utah's Green River, organizing a gay rights Listening

Project in a small town in Maine and getting arrested for civil disobedience on the day of the

invasion of the United States into Iraq are all things I have done as a community organizer

over the past 25 years.

Another way I have tried to increase my intelligent self-awareness and awareness of issues

relevant to the New Majority has been to take the advice of ethnic studies scholar George

Lipsitz. He suggests that White people make ethical choices about their lives and practice to

actively "disinvest and divest themselves of their investment in White supremacy."69 First

among such choices I have made was my commitment to being a participant observer

among the New Majority for over five years from October 2003 through August 2009. And

while I did not have access to or attend every single meeting and event over all those years

(especially in the early years), I did attend every conference, forum, annual meeting,

celebration and retreat. I did attend a large number of monthly steering committee

meetings, committee meetings and planning meetings. I read the list serve faithfully and for

the past two years have been on the steering committee email exchange list. That represents

a fairly formidable accumulation of hours, documents, and field notes that have supported

George Lipsitz, The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profitfrom identity politics
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998): viii.
 27
my confidence that solid grounded theory has emerged fairly characterizing the perspective

of the New Majority.

During preliminary research years, I visited many Boston community meetings that

addressed a wide variety of issues, in order to gain an understanding of the scope of city-

wide community organizing. In asking permission to take field notes at a District 7

Roundtable, City Council Aide Angela Yarde offered me challenge that I took to heart. She

said, "I hope you are not just going to come here to record what happens and take from the

community. How are you going to give back, to the community, too?" What Angela Yarde

was pointing out was that I had an opportunity to make a moral choice to promote social

justice and actively seek social change outside the research environment, another

characteristic of a credible "outsider" researcher.

A few months after the 2003 New Majority Conference, I had an opportunity to meet Mel

King, one of the founders of the New Majority and a keynote speaker at the New Majority

Conference who also served as one of the readers for my Qualifying Paper. Since Spring

2004,1 have worked along side Mel, assisting at the South End Technology Center @ Tent

City, located in a housing development built on the site of a 1968 "Tent City" encampment

of community organizers seeking affordable housing. Many community organizers,

including those from the New Majority, flow through the Tech Center every day because

Mel King is a trusted mentor and advisor, truly a trustee of Boston.

At the South End Technology Center @ Tent City, I have done nearly five years of work

that has built on the 15-20 years experience I brought as a formal and informal experiential
 28
and alternative education worker. I help coordinate the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn

Program that offers about 40 teenaged Youth of Color an opportunity for meaningful work

and community service as they teach emerging technologies and sciences to about 600

elementary and middle school youth in over 18 different community organizations in Boston

each year. Negotiating and renegotiating relationships with these youth under my care has

been an education. From those experiences, I bring very practical and painful growing

awareness of what it means to be White in a Community of Color. People in the New

Majority participate with my Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn Program work because each year

I ask them to recruit teenage youth teachers and community organizations for the program.

We have hired quite a number of youth and provided free summer and after school

technology and science programming to community organizations referred to us by New

Majority members.

During 2005, I moved into the YWCA building in Boston's South End, with an ethical eye

toward becoming an insider. Living in the neighborhood where I work and do research has

increased opportunities for me to become more of an insider and to better understand the

community where I work and do research.

My work and home in the community also increased my ability to create loops of

communication with New Majority participants. I often have opportunities through my

work at the South End Technology Center @ Tent City to speak informally with New

Majority members outside of New Majority organizing activities. This has allowed me to not

only develop fuller relationships and more credibility with New Majority participants, but
 29
also has provided me with opportunities to engage in "member checking," to have informal

conversations about the theories emerging from my fieldwork.

I have positioned myself in very particular ethical ways as a participant observer within the

New Majority. Having been involved in leading community organizing for much of my life,

under other circumstances, I might have been more in the thick of the sort of organizing

done by the New Majority. To be candid, I held back not so much because of any deep

personal loyalty to research objectivity, but because I really struggled to find ethical ways to

make contributions to the New Majority that did not interfere with my shared commitment

to the mission of growing People of Color leadership and increasing political, economic and

social power in People of Color Communities in Boston. I lived with the understanding of

the tenuousness of my presence in New Majority meetings. In my heart, I fully supported

the positive strategy of practiced exclusion of the "new minority" from some kinds of

participation and was fairly vigilant in reminding myself that at any moment conditions in

the New Majority might change in a way that would end my participant observation. That

said, I did find many ways to make the kinds of quiet and necessary everyday contributions

mentioned earlier, such as taking on tasks like helping to set up and clean up after gatherings,

taking and transcribing meeting notes, doing typing and layout for programs, and recruiting

youth to serve as ushers at political forums.

That is not to say that the research relationship with New Majority participants has been

without struggle because I am White. There have been many struggles and moments when

the possibility that it would become necessary for me to withdraw from this research was

very real and tangible because the interference of my presence was beginning to overshadow
 30
the possible benefits of my research to the N e w Majority's community of practice. There

have also been struggles because I made mistakes linked to the fact that I have n o t yet

"disinvested and divested" myself from the stubborn habits of whiteness I learned while

young. Indeed, some of these tense moments are recounted later in this ethnography.

Finally, I have m a d e conscious efforts to create a mutual understanding of the terms of

engagement between researcher and participant. I tried to maintain transparency and mutual

understanding by sending formal letters and periodic informal emails to inform members of

my research progress and extend invitations to read chapter drafts of this dissertation. O n

occasion, I was even able to share relevant parts of preliminary data finding when they

seemed relevant to issues facing the N e w Majority.70

H o w I "researched organizing and organized research" for this study has been the subject of

this chapter's discussion. T h e intent is to allow the reader enough information to make a

decision about die credibility of my ethnographic eye in general, as well as my credibility as

an outside researcher. I am n o t only a researcher scribbling in the corner, but also a

community member and a community worker doing my part to catalyze positive cultural

change. The next chapter goes on to describe the intellectual genealogy that informs the

analysis and interpretations offered in this ethnography.

For example, in 2008, when the New Majority steering committee members were at a critical point
in organization building, trying to decide whether "to be or not to be a 501(c)(3)," I distributed some
preliminary drafts of the charts in Chapter 10 of this dissertation. These charts pulled together
insights and quotes from the many discussions at New Majority gatherings over the years about the
positive and negative impact of creating nonprofit organizations within Communities of Color.
 31

3
An intellectual genealogy that maps a path
Theory is a dangerous word, one that should not be used lightly. Acting o n what
they believe are accurate theories of human nature or political development, people
have started wars, committed murder and sanctioned torture. As [historian Howard]
Zinn observes, " H o w we think. . . is a matter of life and death."
Stephen Brookfield, The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching71

Any intellectual genealogy 72 has impact beyond the research at hand because how we think

and who we think with shapes h o w we live and h o w much humanity we can express together

through our living. This chapter begins to introduce a lineage of scholars to think with while

trying to understand how people learn together as they work for change in their

communities. However, as scholar-organizers in Liberating theory insist, any theory worth

its salt should impact the scholar as well her research. Theories should help scholars identify

and overcome their own oppressive socializations. 73 In this spirit, the intellectual genealogy

presented in this chapter and reflected in later chapters also aspires to map some intellectual

paths that can serve those scholars who strive to change the way they think; who strive make

their own "evolutionary/revolutionary leap toward becoming more socially responsible and

m o r e self-critical human beings." 74

Stephen Brookfield, The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching (San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, 2005).
72
I was introduced to the term "intellectual genealogy" by professor and mentor Marcelo Suarez-
Orozco at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In the same way that a person can trace her
biological genealogy through her family, a scholar can trace her thinking and analysis through
advisors, professors, disciplines, schools of thought and "ancestor scholars" whose ideas have had
lasting impact. This concept was useful to me because my intellectual habit is to study all the work
of authors who interest me to the point where they become akin to "intellectual companions." I
often conduct thought experiments where I examine, what one or another of these "intellectual
companions" would advise me about solving the problem at hand. That said, of course this chapter
can be considered to be a literature review as well.
Michael Albert, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Robin Hahnel, Mel King, Linda Sargent and Holly
Sklar, Liberating theory (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1986), 5.
Grace Lee Boggs, "Introduction," in Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century, Grace Lee
Boggs and Jimmy Boggs (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008 edition).
 32
That said, any human intellectual genealogy is, to paraphrase Cornel West, indispensable yet

also predictably insufficient. This chapter traces only one branch of an intellectual genealogy

of intellectuals who are useful to think with when trying to understand how people learn

together as they seek to catalyze change in their communities.

I made three conscious choices about the intellectual companions, ideas and tools that carry

potential for liberatory thinking about the New Majority and informal education in social

movements. First, this genealogy reflects a critical social theory foundation. Both social

movements and critical social theory share a common goal: to critique and to change society

concurrently. Second, I explored disciplines beyond education to identify ideas and

approaches that have potential for expanding the dialogue about education and social

movements. Finally, I chose to give added weight to the contributions of women and

People of Color who theorize issues relevant to the New Majority because I believe they

offer an insider and often lived perspective that enriches analysis. Lifting their theories up

also seems to harmonize with the mission of the New Majority to create spaces for People

of Color to be experts about their own lives. It is my personal conviction that when the

theories of women and People of Color are not actively sought to inform any analysis, that

analysis risks underdetermination.

The chapter begins with a section on origins, locating a likely place to begin this intellectual

project by exploring learning in social movements within the discipline of education and

more specifically adult education, "activities intentionally designed for the purpose of
 33
bringing about learning among those whose age, social roles, or self-perception define them

as adults."75

The second section identifies and revisits education and a set of likely education

characteristics that are necessary to describe informal education in social movements:

environment and associational setting, commitment informed by values and vision, and an

intention to foster learning. Since collective learning rather than individual learning is lifted

up in this research, the third section explores situated learning in a community of practice

as the primary analytic approach for understanding the informal education that takes place

within social movements. A process of collective identity and its roots in education and

the social sciences is explored as the heart of that informal education. The chapter ends by

describing how the remaining chapters in this dissertation attempt to define the informal

education undertaken by people in the New Majority, synthesizing insights about informal

education, situated learning and social movement theory.

Origins: social movements and adult education

Where does an intellectual journey that seeks to better describe and study social movements

as locations where vital and important adult learning takes place begin? The obvious branch

of education theory to start with is adult education and particularly some areas of adult

education that are off the well-traveled trails. Back in 1928, Eduard Lindeman said

memorably "adult education is an agitating instrumentality for changing life." Springing

from this insight, a rich history of association exists between social movements and adult

75
Sharan Merriam and Ralph Brockett, The profession and practice of adult education (San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, 1997), 8.
 34
education. 76 In fact, during its principal growth time, J o h n Holford argues that adult

education, "at least o n philosophical, epistemological and theoretical levels, was shaped by

social movements, political activism and the counterculture." 77

Adult education theorists have contributed a number of important insights about social

movements. A survey of adult education literature 78 reveals that many researchers identify

social movements as important sites to study h o w people engage in critically

reflective and social learning. 79 Research on social movements also has the potential to

further our understanding of how people shape and generate knowledge. 80 In this

ethnographic study, I consider the even more expansive possibility, along side adult

education theorist J o h n Hoist, that social movements might just be places where "we can

likely find a parallel 'field of adult education,' with its own pedagogical tradition yet to be

discovered by those of us called adult educators."

Since the late 1960s, adult education has often been described as having several forms of

Holford, "Why social movements matter," 95.

77
Holford, "Why social movements matter," 110.
78
Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination"; Appendix B lists the literature on education and social
movements reviewed in die qualifying paper.
Welton, "Social revolutionary learning," 152; Mezirow, "Transformation theory and social action,"
172; Finger, "New social movements and their implications for adult education," 15, 21; Mayo,
"Synthesizing Gramsci and Freire" 139; Rutherford, "An alternative consciousness"; Foley, "Radical
adult education and learning," 77; Kilgore, "Understanding learning in social movements," 199.
80
Rutherford, "An alternative consciousness"; Holford, "Why social movements matter," 101;
Christensen-Ruffman, "Introduction," 11,15.
Hoist, Social movements, civil society and radical adult education, 5.
 35
education, including: formal, non-formal and informal. 82 Formal education is the

familiar m o d e of education that takes place in schools and universities and can be defined as

the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded education system running from

primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic
studies, a variety of specialized programs and institutions for full-time technical and
professional training." 83

A n example of h o w social movements are included in formal education is in research and

courses taught about social movements in colleges and universities.

There is no clear consensus on the definitions of the types of education beyond formal

education in current adult education literature. Some research in adult education simply

labels all education that falls outside formal education as informal education. However in

studying education in social movements, it is useful to think with a group of adult education

researchers who suggest that two categories of adult education exist outside of formal

education. In 1974, Philip Coombs, Roy Prosser and Manzoor A h m e d proposed the

importance of making the distinctions between nonformal and informal education as

summarized in Figure 3.1. 84 These two categories also outline two different approaches to

studying education in social movements.

Like formal education, nonformal education is still considered to be formally organized

and to involve systematic learning. However nonformal education is carried on outside

It is interesting to note that this three-part understanding of adult education was conceived by
group of international educators largely in response to what was understood as a "world educational
crisis." Its adoption as a convention in adult education was promoted by planners and economists
from the World Bank and UNESCO. An interesting discussion of the politics and history can be
found at http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-nonfor.htm.
Coombs et. al, New paths to learningfor rural children andyouth, 11.
Coombs and Ahmed, Attacking ruralpoverty.
 36

Figure 3.1. Three Types of Adult Education

Adult Education
"Activities intentionally designed for the purpose of bringing about learning
among those whose age, social roles, or self-perception define them as adults"
Sharan Merriam and Ralph Brockett, The profession and practice of adult tdumtion

I
Formal Education
". . . the hierarchically structured,
chronologically graded education
system running from primary school
through the university and including,
in addition to general academic
studies, a variety of specialized
programs and institutions for full-
time technical and professional
training"
Coombs, Prosser and Ahmed,
New paths to learningfor mral children andyouth
I
Nonformal Education
involves "any organised educational
activity outside the established
formal system - whether operating
separately or as an important
feature of some broader activity -
that is intended to serve identifiable
learning clienteles and learning
objectives"
Coombs, R03' and Ahmed,
New paths to learningfor rural children and youth

Informal Education
"the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes,
values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative
influences and resources in his or her environment - from family and
neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and
the mass media". . . and from participation in social movements
Coombs, Prosser and Ahmed,
New paths to learningfor rural children and youth
 37
formal institutional systems and is most often associated with community groups and other

organizations.85 According to Philip Coombs, Roy Prosser and Manzoor Ahmed, nonformal

education can be defined as,

. . . any organised [sic] educational activity outside the established formal system -
whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity -
that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives.86

Much of the territory commonly associated with adult education research, such as vocational

training and other types of skills training, falls under this definition of nonformal education.

For the most part, education research on social movements has also focused on nonformal

education efforts such as popular education, teach-ins and workshops organized around

community concerns. Examples of nonformal education in social movements that I

observed in my background research for this study include:

• Cultural Cafe film and discussion series on Assata Shakur to educate the community
about Africana womanism, held at the African American Master Artist Residency
Program building in Jamaica Plain,

• English language, citizenship and voter Education classes and activities organized in
Chinatown by the Chinese Progressive Association,

• Popular Education workshops held all over Boston on "War and the Economy," the
"Massachusetts Budget Crisis" and "Closing the Racial Divide" offered in the
community by trainers from United for a Fair Economy, and

• "Areyeto," a multidisciplinary arts program for youth and adults organized by

Inquilinos Boricua en Accion (IB A) at the Villa Victoria (formerly the Jorge
Hernandez) Cultural Center in the South End to promote and preserve the rich
artistic and cultural expression of Puerto Rico and other Latin American countries.

Boyd Rossing suggests that much of adult education research has focused "almost

exclusively on structured intentional learning" in nonformal education, perhaps because of

Mark Smith, "Informal education," Infed: The Informal Education Homepage (London:
infed.org, 1996, updated 2009), http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-nonfor.htm.
Coombs et. al., New Paths to Learmngfor Rural Children and Youth.
 38

the absence of "guiding or emerging theory" for informal education.

A survey of the literature undertaken as part of my Ed. D . qualifying paper 8 8 convinces m e

that Boyd Rossing's observations also apply to education theory and case studies involving

social movements. Because so many of the in-depth studies of social movements from the

anthropology of education or adult education focus o n such nonformal education (as

opposed to informal education), a number of calls have been made by education theorists

for research on informal education social movements, especially research that could yield

promising new analytical methods .89 T h e present research study on informal education

efforts undertaken by people in the N e w Majority is o n e attempt to answer that call.

How to describe the "education" in informal education

Informal education is most often described as,

. . . the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills
and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in
his or her environment - from family and neighbours [sic], from work and play, from
the market place, the library and the mass media. 9091

87
Rossing, "Patterns of informal learning," 45, 47.
Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination," Appendices A and B.
Finger, "New social movements and their implications for adult education," 15-16, 18, 21; Rossing,
"Patterns of informal learning: Insights from community work," 47-50; Mezirow, "Transformation
theory and social action" 170, 172, 174; Welton, "Social evolutionary learning: The new social
movements as learning sites," 152; Foley, "Radical adult education and learning," 77; Paul Ilsley,
"The undeniable link," 26, 31-33.; Holford, "Why social movements matter," 95, 105.
Coombs et. al., New Paths to Learning/or Rural Children and Youth,.
For those interested in a thought-provoking and fascinating collection of historical and
contemporary documents and essays on informal education, I highly recommend the informal
education homepage, www.infed.org. The informal education homepage is an open, independent and
non-profit site established in 1995 by a group of educators to explore the theory and practice of
informal education, social action and lifelong learning.
 39

In this research, social movements are under consideration as one social location where

informal education takes place. A number of adult education researchers 92 have expressed a

renewed interest in informal education, which they believe has been largely ignored or

undervalued as an "inferior form of learning whose main purpose is to act as the precursor

of formal learning." 93 Instead, these scholars, like Frank Coffield, see informal education as

"fundamental, necessary and valuable in its own right." 94

In surveying the literature, o n e issue in need of clarification for the present research effort is

that informal learning and informal education are often mistakenly conflated and applied

interchangeably. Informal learning and informal education are n o t the same thing. O n e way

to remedy this is to more clearly define informal education and the place of learning in

informal education.

J o h n Dewey famously defined education as, "the process of development and growth." 95

Dictionary definitions also distinguish education as "the gradual process of acquiring

knowledge." 96 So one working definition of education that can b e useful for examining

informal education in social movements is "the process of development, growth and

92
For instance: Tom Bentley, Learning beyond the classroom: Education for a changing world (London:
Routledge, 1998); Charles Leadbeater, Living on thin air. The new economy (London: Penguin, 2000);
Victoria Marsick and Marie Volpe, "The Nature of and Need for Informal Learning," in Informal
Learning on the Job, Advances in Developing Human Resources No. 3, eds. Victoria Marsick and Marie Volpe
(San Francisco: Berrett Koehler, 1999); Veronica McGiveney, Informal learning in the community
(Leicester, UK: NIACE, 1999).
Frank Coffield, The necessity of informal learning (Bristol, UK: The Policy Press, 2000), 8.
95 Coffield, The necessity of informal learning, 8.
John Dewey, On education, ed. Reginald Archambault, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1964), 4.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/education.
 40

acquiring knowledge." 97 T h e challenge then is to develop a m o r e nuanced definition of

education that can encompass informal education in social movements.

Informal education theorists Tony Jeffs and Mark K. Smith suggest that three characteristics

mark out any type of education as a process: a concern with the environment or setting, a

commitment informed by purpose and values, and the intention to foster learning. 98 In

exploring the kind of informal education efforts that are sustained over a long period of

time, Figure 3.2 summarizes h o w these characteristics can guide an understanding of

informal education in social movements.

C o n c e r n w i t h e n v i r o n m e n t or s e t t i n g . Informal education can take place in any

environment or setting. However, the environment or setting m o s t important for social

movements involves those social formations that invigorate community change efforts such

as organizations and voluntary association in groups. 99 There is a phrase in French that does

not translate well but can help people gestalt (or more fully and imaginatively experience)

where the informal education in social movements takes place, la vie associative. h,a vie

associative recognizes "the importance of association in the widest sense of the word and

97 • . . .
Of course this tragically underdetermines a whole history of education theory tracing the
importance and the development of ever more nuanced definitions of education. Robbie
McClintock has been doing some interesting work in this area, which he presented at the Lawrence
A. Cremin Seminar sponsored by the Department of International and Transcultural Studies on
October 16, 2007 at Teachers College, Columbia University. A wiki that documents the developing
text on his work can be found at http://www.studyplace.org/wiki/On_(Not)_Defining_Education.
98
Tony Jeffs and Mark K. Smith. What is education? Informal education homepage,
www.infed.org/foundations/f-educ.htm; also Tony Jeff and Mark K. Smith, Informal education.
Conversation, democrag and learning (Nottingham, UK: Educational Heretics Press, 2005).
99
These three educational modes are suggested in Coombs and Ahmed.
 41

Figure 3.2. Three characteristics that define informal education

informal education in social movements

described by 3 key characteristics

£
informal education characteristic informal education characteristic
1 2
c o m m i t m e n t to
environment
purpose & values
la vie associative is the setting
shaped by the purpose and
"association in the widest sense of the
values generated by the
word and the effect which this can
people who gather to create
have both on the life of the individual
change in their communities
and on the life of a village, town,
region or country."
Mark Smith

informal education characteristic

3
intention to foster learning
collective learning in community as focus:
situated learning in communities of practice

I
uncovering what is
T
uncovering how learning
being learned happens
through conversation and
through making what is
reflection
implicit more explicit
through exploring and enlarging
experience and action
 42

the effect which this association can have both on the life of the individual and on the life of

a village, town, region or country." 100

The link between informal education and the "associations" that are part of social

movements have been recognized for over a century. As early as 1860, English adult

educator J o h n Hole wrote about the "educative tendencies of such associations." 101 Another

early recognition is found in the famous British adult education treatise commonly known as

"The 1919 Report," 102 which discusses "the informal educations which come from sharing in

a c o m m o n life" and specifically lifts up the educative power of social movements and

voluntary associations. A more recent example comes from the 1990s, when Konrad Elsdon

and his colleagues undertook a large scale study of voluntary associations in Britain. H e

described them as "small democracies" and demonstrated empirically the educative

potential of such voluntary groups. 103 T o describe informal education in social movements

involves understanding the setting of their "association," exploring who is gathering, where

they are gathering, as well as their patterns of participation.

C o m m i t m e n t i n f o r m e d b y p u r p o s e a n d v a l u e s . Another characteristic that can be

used to describe informal education is commitment informed by purpose and values.

Choices about education processes involve purpose and values, be they implicit or explicit.

Mark Smith, "association, la vie associative and lifelong learning," Infed: The Informal Education
Homepage (London: infed.org, 2000, updated 2008), http://www.infed.org/association/b-
assoc.htm.
Referenced in Mark Smith, "Association, la vie associative and lifelong learning," the encyclopedia of
informal education (2002, revised in 2008), http://www.infed.org/association/b-assoc.htm.
British Ministry of Reconstruction, Adult Education Committee Final Report (Chaired by Arthur L.
Smith and commonly known as 'The 1919 Report') Cmnd 321 (London: HMSO, originally
published in 1919, reissued in 1956).
Konrad Elsdon, John Reynolds and Susan Stewart, Voluntary organisations: Citizenship, learning and
change (Leicester, UK: National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE), 1995).
 43

The purpose and values of formal schooling have been so well established that they often go

unquestioned as common sense. However, in informal education, exploring what people say

about the purpose and values in that process can allow researchers to better describe the

process. Generally, what runs through la vie associative, the "life in association" is a

"concern to build the sorts of communities and relationships in which people can be happy

and fulfilled."104 Because people in social movements are often seeking a transformation in

community values, observing what people seeking social change say about their vision for

community and relationship can be a starting point for understanding how they learn.

Furthermore, examining how well the learning in informal education reflects the purpose

and values of a social movement can be one approach to evaluating the effectiveness of the

process.

Intention to foster learning. In the familiar classrooms of formal education, there is

usually a detailed description of learning expectations that may include syllabi, lesson plans,

teaching methods, objectives and outcomes. These describe what (e.g. content in syllabi and

lesson plans, objectives, outcomes) is being learned and how it is being learned (e.g. lesson

plans, teaching methods). Most notably, descriptions of the intention to foster learning in

formal education largely focus on expectations of individual learners.

The intention to foster learning in informal education is often not as easily categorized or

explicit. Mark K. Smith claims that all informal education has two approaches to learning in

common. First, informal education works through and is driven by conversation. Second,

Mark K. Smith, "introducing informal education," informal education homepage (London, UK:
infed.org, 1997, last updated March 2009), http://www.infed.org/i-intro.htm.
 44

informal education involves exploring and enlarging experience}05 In social movements,

as people talk together and act together to address problems in their community, the

learning and knowledge generated through their conversation and actions is often implicit,

not deliberate and often is hard to express. One challenge for research in informal education

is to identify strategic conversations and experiences whose analysis can make learning and

knowledge gained in social movement more explicit. Furthermore, in my research on

informal education in social movements, the focus is on the intention to foster collective

processes of learning rather than individual processes of learning.

If these three characteristics — environment and associational setting, commitment

informed by purpose and values, and the intention to foster learning — are necessary

elements in describing informal education in social movements, then what analytic approach

can best incorporate them?

Situated learning: An analytical viewpoint for informal education

Two social scientists who work on educational problems offer a promising analytic approach

for examining informal education in social movements that is particularly suited to

ethnographic research. Jean Lave is a social anthropologist with a strong interest in re-

conceiving learning, learners, and everyday life in terms of social practice. Etienne Wenger

first approached education from his computer science training and his earliest work

concerned the application of artificial intelligence to education. In 1991, they published a

book laying out a path-breaking approach to understanding learning as a dimension of social

Smith, "introducing informal education."

 45

practice, "situated learning." 106 Situated learning represents n o t an educational form nor a

teaching technique, but rather an analytical viewpoint on learning and a way of

understanding learning. According to Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, the formal definition

of situated learning is:

. . . a framework of social practice theory, in which the production, transformation

and change in the identities of persons, knowledgeable skill in practice, and
communities of practice are realized in the lived-in world of engagement in everyday
activity.107

Breaking down the problem that these two social scientists are attempting to solve and

unpacking some of the terms in this definition will show h o w this analytic viewpoint is

useful for studying informal education in social movements.

Recentering the individual. The intellectual problem Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger

addressed together exactly mirrors one of the central problems in studying collective learning

in social movements: how to focus beyond the individual learner as the center of analysis to

more fully address learning's social character. They began by acknowledging that most

conventional explanations "view learning as a process by which a learner internalizes

knowledge"108[tf«?^y&<z.n.r mine]. Within education theory, certain constructivist views of

cognition emerged in the last half of the twentieth century that suggest cognition is not

confined to an individual but rather distributed across the teacher and student relationship or

across wider social groups engaged in learning. 109 O n e important example is in the work of

Lev Vygotsky, who proposed that learning occurs in socially mediated collaborative

Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning.

107
Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning, 47.
Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning, 47.
109
Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner are often named as early pioneers. More recent education
theorists include: Gavriel Salamon, Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the wild (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1995).
 46

processes. 110 However Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger found that these kinds of

constructivist theories were of limited use because in them, the focus was still centered on

individual learning and the social character of learning "represented only a "limited input for

the process of individualized internalization." 111 Seeking to develop theory that puts social

relationships at the center of learning, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger looked beyond

education theory.

T o place learning in the broader context of the social world, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger

chose to root their theory in the long Marxist tradition that exists in the social sciences.

They claim situated learning as a critical theory, one that sees learning through the historical

development of ongoing activity in a sociocultural community. 112 The notion of criticality

that Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger refer to falls m o r e into the education tradition of

criticality described by pragmatic constructivism, which examines "the way people construct

and deconstruct their own experiences" with an emphasis on the "importance of continuous

experimentation to bring about better social forms. 113 Situated learning was developed from

these roots as Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger distilled the contributions that past

ethnographic studies of apprenticeships could offer to a general theory of learning. 114

Here I refer to Lev Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development: Lev Vygotsky, Mind
in society: The development of higher psychologicalprocesses (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1978).
Ill
Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning, 47-48.
112
Lave and Wenger, Situated learning, 50-51.
Many educators might not be aware that criticality is a highly contested idea in education theory
with different meanings claimed by different groups of social scientists for different purposes. Even
within this dissertation, I will draw from different traditions of criticality. For an interesting
discussion of the four traditions of criticality as they apply to education, I suggest Stephen
Brookfield's The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching (San Francisco: Jossey Bass,
2005), 10-18.
Etienne Wenger, Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 11.
 47

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger concluded that, to understand learning through participation

in social practice, there is a need to first decenter 115 the meaning of "individual" to include

the "multiple relations through which people define themselves." 116 For studying the

informal education that takes place through people's participation in civil society, this is n o t

simply an abstract idea and actually reflects a practice of recentering what it means to be

human.

The imperative for people to think with definitions of themselves that include a diverse field

of relations has become a c o m m o n theme in contemporary public discussions of b o t h

citizenship and social change in the United States and beyond. For instance, from Barack

Obama's earliest days on the presidential campaign trail to his description of the qualities

necessary in a United States Supreme Court Justice, he often lifts up a pressing need for b o t h

citizens and public servants to cultivate empathy, the capacity to recognize or understand the

state of mind or emotions of others. Barack Obama highlighted this especially well in a

college commencement speech,

You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think
we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in
someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different

The word "decenter" is a technical term in post-structural theory most often attributed to the
fascinating but often opaque writings of philosopher Jacque Derrida. Jacque Derrida criticizes the
mental habits that cause people to think in oppositional binaries such as Good/Bad, Black/White or
even Individual/Community. He believes that when we think with these binaries we limit what we
can imagine and what we can think about. To decenter means to both break down our mental
resistance to abandoning the comfortable structure of binaries and to rebuild how we think from a
position that welcomes multiple understandings. This decentering allows a more "playful" and
expansive exploration of meaning. In the case of die binary opposites of "individual" and
"community," this means re-centering the meaning of "individual" to include and be indivisible from
"community." Colloquially, decenter has come to refer to the ability to be able to see from more
tiian one point of view.
Lave and Wenger, Situated learning, 53.
 48

from us — the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been kid-off, the family
w h o lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you
think like this — w h e n you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize
with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers - it
becomes harder not to act; harder not to help. 117

Here he claims that the recentering of the individual to include an awareness and concern for

other individual human beings is necessary for assuming the adult citizen responsibilities at

this point in the history of the United States.

Nelson Mandela, South African statesman and a leader in the struggle to replace the

apartheid regime of South Africa with a multi-racial democracy 118 offers an international call

for recentering individuality when he speaks about the need for people around the world to

cultivate what the Zulu 119 call "ubuntu." Ubuntu was a quality and philsophy present among

those who participated in the South African anti-apartheid movement that expands what is

meant by the awareness and empathy inside an individual beyond the interpersonal to

include being interconnected with a whole community. According to Nelson Mandela,

Ubuntu does not m e a n that people should not address themselves. T h e question is
how are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you . . . to b e
able to improve [that community]. . . 12°

So thinking with ubuntu, recentering what it means to be an individual suggests that one

can't exist as a human being in isolation. T o be a human be is to be indivisibly

interconnected with a whole community of other human beings.

117
Barack Obama, Commencement speech given on 16 June 2006 at Northwestern University.
118
The And-Apartheid or Boycott movement was active from the late 1950s until the 1990s.
119
The Zulu are the largest ethnic group in South Africa.
120
Nelson Mandela, "What is ubuntu?" 96 second YouTube video interview with Tim Modise (June
1, 2006) uploaded by spackofatz, http://video.google.com/videoplayPdocid—
3292332486849787667#.
 49

O n e last example that suggests yet another possible means for recentering the individual in

social movements is offered by Grace Lee Boggs. At 94, she has been a social m o v e m e n t

activist for over seventy years. She often speaks about the need for people in social

movements to recognize Martin Luther King's insight that "we are tied together in the single

garment of destiny, tied to an escapable network of mutuality" 121 and then p u t Martin Luther

King's Beloved Community 1 2 2 at the center of their living, thinking and organizing. T o be

human today, Grace Lee Boggs says,

. . . we need to expand our uniquely human powers, especially our capacity for agape,
which is the love that is ready to go to any length to restore community. . . we begin
with the needs of community and with loving relationships with one another and
with the earth, [emphasis mine] 123

Here Grace Lee Boggs echoes the understanding of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger when

they say that a recentering of the individual also includes the "living relations between

persons and their place," 124 be it their neighborhood, their city or even the whole planet

earth.

So any analysis of learning as a social practice in social movements should include thinking

with the idea that people can learn together by recentering their individuality to include not

only a deeply held empathy with other people, but also a sense of their interconnectedness

121
Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham JaiL" April 16, 1963, paragraph 4.
"Dr. King's Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of
the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated
because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of
discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and
brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-
resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph
over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict." From "The
beloved community of Martin Luther King, Jr.," on the King Center (Atlanta, Georgia) website,
http://www.thekingcenter.org/ProgServices/Default.aspx
123 .
Grace Lee Boggs, "Introduction to the new edition," xvi.
This is a point also mentioned by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger., Situated learning, 53.
 50

with a human community and the geographical place where they live. Grace Lee Boggs'

insights further suggest that agape, or our experience of love in the broadest sense, is the

force that moves people toward experiencing themselves and their learning through these

relationships.

Situated learning through a community of practice and its activities. Starting with

their notion of a decentered (or more precisely, a recentered) individual engaged in social

practice, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger theorize learning as the process of joining and

acting with a community. Put another way, learning is conceived of as social participation in

a community of practice that is defined by joint activity "understood and continually

negotiated by members,"125 who function as a social group and share a repertoire of ideas,

commitments and memories.126 So situated learning in a community of practice results

from two kinds of relations that evolve over time, relation to a social community and

relation to the social community's activities.

Relation to a social community. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger claim that situated

learning cannot be understood without defining and understanding the evolving community

of practice through people's patterns of participation in that community of practice. But

what do they mean by "community of practice" and "participation"? Although their original

1991 work on Situated learning only sketched an outline of what was meant by community

Michael K. Smith, "Communities of Practice," the encyclopedia of informal education,

www.infed.org.biblio/communities_of_practice.htm, last updated: 21 June 2006 (accessed 27
October 2006).
Etienne Wenger, "Communities of practice: Learning as a social system," Systems Thinker (June
1998).
 51

of practice, Etienne Wenger's later work on learning in organi2ations and businesses, 127

provides an accessible explanation of communities of practice, saying,

Being alive as human beings means that we are" constantly engaged in the pursuit of
enterprises of all kinds, from ensuring our physical survival to seeking the m o s t lofty
pleasures. As we define these enterprises and engage in their pursuit together, we
interact with each other and with the world and we tune our relations with each
other and with the world accordingly. In other words we learn.

Over time. . . collective learning results in practices that reflect b o t h the pursuit of
our enterprises and the attendant social relations. These practices are thus the
property of a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a
shared enterprise. It makes sense, therefore to call these kinds of communities,
communities of practice. 128

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger propose that joining and acting with a community of practice

involves what they called "legitmate peripheral participation." 129 Simply put, in legitimate

peripheral participation, people learn by being allowed to take part in the ongoing activity of

a community, beginning at the outskirts. As their skills and knowledge develop through

participation and activity over time, people increase the degree and complexity of their

participation and involvement in the ongoing activity of the community. Eventually people

move toward the center of the community and play m o r e influential roles in shaping the

participation and activity of people in the community. Therefore, describing the patterns of

participation in a community over time, from periphery to center, is essential to

understanding learning.

127
For example: Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott and William Snyder, Cultivating communities of
practice: A guide to managing knowledge (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2002). Some of this
later work focusing on business is of better use to people trying to apply the insights of situated
learning rather than those who seek theory for education research.
128
Wenger, Communities oj"practice, 45.
129
Lave and Wenger, Situated learning.
 52

Here, learning is the process of becoming a member of a community and participating in its

activities, with the continuous process of identify development at its center. Jean Lave and

Etienne Wenger conceive of this process of identity as the "long-term living relations

between persons and their place and their participation in a community of practice." Since

learning is so intimately tied to a process of collective identity in b o t h situated learning and

in contemporary social movement theory, the next section maps some of this territory.

Mapping the familiar and unfamiliar territory of collective identity

There is. . . in a voluntary body a definite point of view, a c o m m o n outlook, and a

c o m m o n purpose which give it a corporate spirit of its own. This corporate spirit is,
perhaps the most valuable basis for group study.
From the British '1919 Report' on adult education110

If key concepts or expressions can be identified that function to capture the

animating spirit of different epochs, then certainly one candidate concept for the
latter quarter of the 20 th century is the concept of collective identity.
Sociologist David Snow131

T h e British "1919 Report" on adult education 132 did n o t use the phrase "collective identity"

to describe what they identified as valuable about the adult education that occurs when

people gather to work toward some goal in a community. But what they describe as the

corporate spirit of such community learning that includes "a definite point of view, a

c o m m o n outlook and a common p u r p o s e " certainly could be construed to be part of the

British Ministry of Reconstruction, Adult Education Committee Final Report, 158.

David Snow, "Collective Identity and Expressive Forms" Center for the Study of Democracy.
Paper 01-07 (October 1, 2001). http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/01-07; referring to an entry in
Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by Neil Smelser and Paul Baltes (London:
Elsevier Science, 2001). I recommend David Snow's article as an excellent analytic overview of
scholarly work on collective identity.
For those who might not be fully familiar with the history of adult education, at the end of the
first World War, the British Ministry of Reconstruction Adult Education Committee published a
document referred to as the "1919 Report." The 1919 Report is considered to be both a historical
benchmark and a classic text of adult education.
 53

process of collective identity. While many education workers and researchers have become

convinced of the relevance and usefulness of the idea of identity for the analysis and practice

of education, those same educators and education researchers may not be as familiar with

the idea of collective identity or recognize the history of its importance both inside and

outside the discipline of education. This discussion is an attempt to locate and map some of

the familiar and unfamiliar territory of collective identity for education workers and

researchers.

The idea of identity, along with the idea of collective identity, has roots in some

understanding of interactions between social actors. Scholars use at least three overlapping

ideas about identity: personal, social and collective. Personal identity is the set of meanings

carried by an individual that are "self-designations and self-attributions regarded as

personally distinctive."133 Social identities refer to those identities assigned to others in an

attempt to situate a group of social actors in some social space and to assign that group of

social actors with positive, negative or neutral points of social orientation. For instance,

"teacher" is a social identity often assigned to education workers or "Black" might be a

category assigned by a researcher to a set of research participants. Personal and social

identity can be different yet overlapping and interacting. A researcher might assign the

category of "Black" to a participant, but the participant herself might self-identify as "Afro-

Latina" with the emphasis on "Latino/a" as the social identity of personal choice.

The idea of collective identity often overlaps and interacts with personal and social identity.

For educators, the work of John Ogbu offers perhaps the most familiar bridge toward

Snow, "Collective Identity and Expressive Forms," 2.

 54

understanding the way that collective identity is used in wider social science disciplines. J o h n

Ogbu thinks of collective identity as a group's cultural model, their understanding of the

social and physical "universe" they belong to and the way they act in this "universe." H e

believes that people use this cultural model of identity not only to guide their expectations

and actions in the "universe" (for instance in schools) but also to learn and organize their

knowledge. 134

Sociologist David Snow's excellent survey of how various social science scholars apply the

concept of collective identity shows that, while there is n o truly consensual definition,

invoking the idea of collective identity suggests:

. . . that its essence resides in a shared sense of "one-ness" or "we-ness" anchored in

real or imaginary shared attributes and experiences among those who comprise the
collectivity and in relation or contrast to one or more actual or imagined sets of
"others." E m b e d d e d within the shared sense of "we" is a corresponding sense of
"collective agency." This latter sense, which is the action component of collective
identity, not only suggests the possibility of collective action in pursuit of c o m m o n
interests, but even invites such action. 135

Echoing the recentered individuality of situated learning, collective identity lifts up the sense

of what is common among a group of people and their shared agency, an ability to act or

exert power based on what a group of people has in common. 1 6

John Ogbu, "Cultural model, identity and literacy," in Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative
human development, eds. J.W. Stigler, R. A. Schweder and G. Herdt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press 1996), 3.
13S
David Snow, "Collective identity and expressive forms," 2.
Admittedly, this is a rather simplistic definition that belies the far more complicated understanding
of human agency discussed in social science. For those who are interested in an excellent survey and
recommendations for research directions on agency, I recommend: Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann
Mische, "What is Agency?," American Journal of Sociology 103 (1998): 962-1023.
 55

As suggested in the quotation at the beginning of this section, collective identity is an idea

that has had an impact on broad social science discussions in the past thirty-five years,

especially in the sprawling study of social movements that spans discipline literatures in

sociology, political science, psychology, law, anthropology and many areas of cultural studies.

T h e so-called "new social movement" 1 3 7 theorists claim that efforts to "define, celebrate,

enact and deconstruct identity" 138 are m o r e important in recent movements than they have

been in the past. The c o m m o n theme that runs throughout this literature is an insistence that

collective identity is best described as & process rather than a property or product of a group

of people. 139 Sociologist David Snow suggests that there are five characteristics of collective

identity that distinguish it from personal and social identity:

1. Collective identities are emerging and evolving rather than rooted in established
social and personal identities;

2. T h e shared sense of perception of a "we" motivates people to act together in

cognitive, emotional and moral ways;

3. When collective identities emerge and people act together, that means that other
personal and social identities have subsided in relevance and salience for the time
being;

4. Collective identities are connected to personal and social identities and often
people embrace a collective identity as part of their personal identity and sense of
self; and,

5. Collective identities tend to b e more fluid, tentative and transient than social
identities or even personal identities. 140

New social movements are loosely defined as those that have emerged since the mid-1960s. They
depart from the classic Marxian paradigm of economics and labor as an organizing paradigm.
Instead, they focus more on changes in the civic aspects of identity, lifestyle and culture. Examples
would be movements organized around Black Power, Peace, Women, Ecology and Queers (e.g.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual. Transgender or LGBT issues).
Francesca Poletta and James Jasper, "Collective identity and social movements," Annual Review of
Sociology 27, (2001): 287.
Snow, "Collective identity and expressive forms," 2; Melucci, Challenging codes.
Snow, "Collective identity and expressive forms," 3.
 56

Researchers and theorists have often been drawn to collective identity as a response to gaps

in understanding about how social movements come about, why people are motivated to act,

how people make choices about how to act, and especially to get at the cultural effects of

social movements that go beyond institutional reform.141 Alberto Melucci, Chela Sandoval

and intellectual collaborators Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison are social movement

theorists who put collective identity at the center of their analyses. Their theoretical

responses have relevance for more fully describing die process of collective identity that is at

the heart of situated learning in social movements' communities of practice.

Sociologist Alberto Melucci, in his seminal work on social movements Challenging codes:

Collective action in the information age'42 uses the process of collective identity to get at

the problem of defining a social movement. He points out that although an understandable

and pragmatic description of any social movement is possible, there is actually a much more

complicated process going on underneath the surface. People are hardly ever completely

unified, and there is always struggle within any movement about definitions, purpose, action

and even how to describe the "opposition." Alberto Melucci suggests that collective identity

is a way to think about these processes that go on beneath the surfaces of social movements

at different places and times.143 He also suggests that the process of collective identity can

be described as a lens through which people in social movements read and act on reality.

People (or groups) come together, define what they have in common and work, evolving

what Alberto Melucci calls an action system, a set of dynamic relationships and conditions144

Poletta and Jasper, "Collective identity and social movements," 283-284.

Melucci, Challenging codes.
Melucci, Challenging codes, 1\-1?>.
Melucci, Challenging codes, 64, 70.
 57

that has much in common with the notion of community of practice described by Jean Lave

and Etienne Wenger in their descriptions of situated learning.

Cultural theorist Chela Sandoval adds an important characteristic of the process of collective

identity in her study of the methodology of the U.S. Third World Feminist movement.145 She

sees collective identity as having a set of improvisational strategies for resistance, any of

which can be deployed from situation to situation, depending on the actions, reactions and

structures of opposition faced by community organizers. In other words, describing

collective identity at any given time in the process requires recognition that collective identity

is flexible and constructed differently, depending on the context. The way that people in

social movements mobilize their collective identity at any given moment depends on the

strategy people decide would work best to dismantle or remove the various obstacles and

strategies used by social formations that exist "in opposition" at that moment. Chela

Sandoval says that a group of community organizers must have "the ability to commit to

structures of identity for one hour, day, week, month or year, yet also have enough flexibility

to switch"146 to another structure of collective identity when survival or "political change

toward equality" make it necessary and strategic. So in describing situated learning in social

movements, it is important to recognize that there can be multiple — and even contradictory

— meanings for "who we are" and "what we do" within a group's collective identity that are

mobilized strategically at different times.

Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
2000).
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 59-60.
 58

Chela Sandoval also lifts up the possibility that people in social movements might also

engage in processes of "coalitional" collective identity, to form alliances with other groups

who have different collective identities. 147 This characteristic calls to mind what N a o m i

Klein calls "a m o v e m e n t of movements," when people who have been active in different

social movements join together on particular issues that involve a "reclaiming of the

commons," a reclaiming of social and physical spaces that can be communally shared. 148 So

to describe patterns of participation in communities of practice formed by social

movements, thinking with Chela Sandoval suggests that paying attention to the ways that

different groups come together to learn as they evolve a purposeful collective identity is as

important looking at the processes of individuals coming together.

Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison offer a potent vision for imagining the informal

education of social movements in the book, Social movements: A. cognitive approach.

Their work suggests that social movements can be thought of as the social laboratories

where an informal education approach for the benefit of all society is shaped. They also

believe the main intellectual activity of social movements is centered on creating and

constantly rethinking collective identity, saying,

T h e collective articulation of movement identity can be likened to a process of social

learning in which movement organizations act as structuring forces, opening a space
in which creative interaction between individuals take place. 150

Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison describe ways to focus research o n the social learning

processes of collective identity in social movements. They suggest focusing on those

conversations and actions that can uncover evidence of cognitive praxis, the reflective

Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 59.

148
Klein, "Reclaiming the commons," 219-229.
Eyerman and Jamison, Social movements. "
Eyerman and Jamison, Social movements, 55.
 59

processes that people use to identify fundamental contradictions or tensions in a society and

create innovative solutions for them. A study of situated learning in social movements can

focus on how people interpret old ideas and develop new ones, how they generate new

problems for a society to solve, as well how new organizational forms and principles are

shaped.151

Thinking with these social science scholars adds depth to understanding the process of

collective identity, how it motivates people to act together and how it cognitively supports

communities of practice in social movements as they engage in learning. Based on these

insights, the next section proposes the detailed method for describing the informal education

in social movements used in this research. This method blends the three characteristics of

informal education discussed earlier with the analytical approach of viewing situated learning

as a community of practice engaged in the process of collective identity.

One method for describing informal education in social movements

Informal education in social movements can be conceptualized as a social learning

laboratory in which people come together to form a community of practice. The

community of practice in a social movement is constandy evolving, engaged in situated and

reflective learning that is driven by a process of collective identity. To describe this situated

learning process of collective identity involves defining three sets of relations.

First, the process of collective identity is defined as being situated within a particular

environment that includes the physical settings in which people gather, and a description of

151
Eyerman and Jamison, Social movements, 45-94, 165.
 60

the membership and the patterns of participation in the community of practice. Second, the

process of collective identity is defined through the evolving commitment to purpose and

values in a community of practice. Finally the process of collective identity can be defined

by describing the intention to foster learning by uncovering implicit learning in

conversations, through describing the activities and actions that people engage in and/or

through the signature learning strategies that people develop together in a community of

practice. This model is used to guide the presentation of research on informal education in

the New Majority that follows.

Figure 3.3 lays out the model visually and also shows how the chapters that follow describe

informal education in the New Majority. The original three characteristics of education,

now incorporated into model of situated learning and chapters and topics from New

Majority research are noted.

One important thing to note about this dissertation is that the research on informal

education in the New Majority is not presented in a linear progression by chapter from the

top to the bottom of the visual model for two reasons. First, situated learning in social

movements is situated historically in an evolutionary process, so the research data is

presented in a chronological manner to tell the story of the New Majority as it unfolded

from 2003-2009. Second, the presentation of research reflects the actual process of

grounded theory from which this model of informal education in social movements slowly

emerged, driven by a nonlinear progression of insights rising organically from the data.
 61

Figure 3.3. Informal education in the N e w Majority

prophetic n a m i n g
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

I
new majority situated learning: new majority
environment purpose &
people form the values
Chapters
4&8
new majority Chapter 7
community of
field of
history, patterns practice meanings that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
power of place
process of "what is the
collective identity new majority?"
iAvfovmcU> edwocvtCo-n/ unformed/ educa/tlcm/

I
collective l e a r n i n g is fostered in the n e w majority

through
conversation:
I
through learning strategies: through action:

Chapters Chapter 9
5&10 relying on the wisdom of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
implicit learning limiting access and building to the
participation, streets
by "decolonizing
& learning in a geography of
the imagination"
difference and struggle

iAvfxyrnvcd/ &diM>cvtOo-n/ oKcwcucterbytiG' 3

 62

The intellectual genealogy presented in this chapter recounted some of the scholars, research

and ideas that guide this research and this ethnography. During this study, I discovered that

people in social movements have something in common with scholars doing research;

people in social movements also rely on knowledge and insights from the past to guide their

learning and practice. During New Majority gatherings, participants would often contribute

stories and insights about what happened "back in the day" that were relevant to whatever

was being discussed. Sometimes the stories and insights were from community organizing

efforts that happened as far back as 50 years ago. The next chapter traces a part of the

genealogy of insights and actions from Boston's historical multiracial and multicultural

coalition building efforts that inform the New Majority's community of practice.
4
The new majority begins "back in the day"
We are the N e w Majority on paper, but n o t in practice.
Felix Arroyo, Jr., New Majority celebration, 17 December 2008

In a surprising twist of Boston politics in January of 2001, the Boston City Council elected

African American District 4 City Councilor Charles Yancey as their president. 152 This

happened at a m o m e n t when Boston's political temperature was rising in anticipation of the

March 2001 release of the 2000 Census and consequendy, the Boston City Council's process

of redrawing district voting lines in response to the new numbers. A March 2001 article in

the Boston Phoenix observed that the district line re-drawing was expected to be "especially

contentious this year since early estimates indicate that African Americans, Latinos, Asians

and other racial minorities [sic] now make up nearly half of the city's population, up from

4 1 % in 1990." 153 Political under-representation of People of Color in Boston was a hot-

button issue in 2001 because up until that time, there had only been two African Americans

elected to the city council at any one time. There had never been a Latino or Asian elected

to the council. Charles Yancey and Chuck Turner, the two African American city

councilors at the time, had recently suggested creating at least one additional "minority-

majority" district that would be likely to elect People of Color.

Conservative District 2 Southie City Councilor Jimmy Kelly could not muster a majority to retain
the eighth consecutive year of his presidency and in a surprise move, he threw all his votes behind
Dorchester's Charles Yancey. The move was particularly surprising given that Jimmy Kelly was
known for frequendy stoking "race-based enmity in his hometown" and made his name battling
busing and opposing the integration of South Boston's public housing. (Adam Reilly, "James M.
Kelly, R. I. P.," Boston Phoenix, 10 January 2007).
Dorie Clark, "Line Drawing," Boston Phoenix, 8-15 March 2001,
http://www.bostonphoenix.corn/boston/news_features/other_stories/docunients/00671478.htm
Upon becoming city council president, Charles Yancey quickly moved to make his mark on

this process of redrawing Boston's district lines by appointing die District 7's Chuck Turner,

to head the Redistricting Committee. The 2000 Census came out and the numbers showed

that People of Color were in fact the majority of residents in Boston. And it was under

these historic circumstances that a conversation took place in Chuck Turner's city council

office that would prove to be an important catalyst for the New Majority.

Chuck Turner and his aide Felix Arroyo, Jr. were looking at the numbers for Boston in die

US Census 2000 and having a conversation about how to develop the new Boston

redistricting plan with People of Color as the majority. Chuck Turner had been a Boston

community organizer and agitator since 1966 and was elected to the Boston City Council in

1999 using die humorous campaign slogan, "Bold, Bald and Bright!" Felix Arroyo, Jr., then a

young Latino graduate of Boston Public Schools just into his 20s at the time, grew up in a

Puerto Rican family actively involved in community organizing and public service.154 In the

course of talking together, Chuck Turner recalls that Felix Arroyo Jr. turned to him and

asked the question, "Well, we are die majority, but what does that mean if there are no

operational relationships between Blacks and Latinos and Cape Verdeans, etcetera?" Eight

years later at a New Majority celebration in 2008, Felix Arroyo, Jr. offered another version of

die question from his memory, ccWhy are we the New Majority on paper but not in

practice?"

In fact, a few years later in 2003, his father Felix Arroyo Sr. would become the first Latino
elected to serve on the Boston City Council. As I write this in the Spring of 2009, Felix Arroyo, Jr.
himself is a candidate for an at-large seat on the Boston City Council.
While this is the moment that people often point to when they speak about the beginning of

the New Majority, that moment was produced by a long history of People of Color

organizing in Boston. Just as scholars work with an intellectual genealogy that guides their

research and just as teachers shape their classrooms from education research and insights

they learned in their training, informal education among social movement organizers has

roots in the knowledge and insights of past community organizing efforts. People in social

movements learn and seek new ideas, and they do so in conversation with intellectual

ancestors and with insights from movements of the past. Historian James Green eloquently

refers to this as the "role of historical consciousness in movement processes and the

mysterious processes that create human solidarity." He emphasizes "how powerful the past

can be in concrete experiences of the present" and how "ongoing struggles for social justice

are seen as extensions of older stories still unfolding."155

What most community organizers produce is collective action. To design and carry out that

action, they draw on the advice and experience of people they learned organizing from, past

campaigns for change they have participated in, and the stories they have heard about what

ancestors and elders from their communities have done to catalyze change. Community

organizers draw implicitly or explicitly on the insights gained from the ideas and actions that

happened, as some people in the New Majority express it, "back in the day." Since the

process of collective identity has been identified as the main intellectual activity of social

movements, the next section traces some "social learning laboratories" in organizing projects

"back in the day." These provide a thicker understanding of not only how the New Majority

began but also some clues as to the progression of historical consciousness that led to die

James Green, Taking history to heart: The power of the past in building social movements (Amherst, MA:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).
specific process of collective identity that captured the imagination of the New Majority.

Figure 4.1 shows how this chapter contributes to building a model for informal education in

the New Majority.

"Back in the day" before the N e w Majority

Today is a beginning. Yet, in another sense, we are really just continuing the work of
previous generations of leaders who have struggled hard to establish a political,
economic and cultural presence in the city of Boston. We stand on the shoulders of
many. With this history and experience as a foundation, we can accomplish very
much indeed.
New Majority Initiative, 2003 New Majority Conference Program

There is no such thing. . . as an infallible narrative map. Arbitrarily one chooses that
moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
Michelle Richmond, No oneyou know156

City Council Aide Felix Arroyo Jr. was in his early 20s during that conversation in Chuck

Turner's office. When he questioned the missing "operational relationships" between

Boston's Asian, Black, and Latino communities, Felix Arroyo, Jr. had not lived through

many of the years when each of those communities were organizing and establishing the

kinds of nonprofit organizations, research institutes, voluntary groups and networks that

made it possible to gather people from Asian, Black and Latino communities as the New

Majority. And Felix Arroyo, Jr. had yet to be born or was a small child when people from

different ethnic and cultural communities were collaborating on changing Boston's political

and economic landscape.

Michelle Richmond, No one you know (New York: Bantam Dell, 2008).
 67
Figure 4.1. Informal education in the N e w Majority
| | The area shaded like this box shows how this chapter fits into this informal education model

prophetic naming
Chapter 6

informal educ ation in the new majority

+
new majority situated learning: new majority
environment purpose &
people form the values
Chapters
new majority- Chapter 7
4&8
community of ^
Ilistory, pattei-ns field of
practice meanings that
of participatiian
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
power of pla<:e
process of " w h a t is t h e
collective identity inew m a j o r i t y ? "

OnforwuxA/ ecbuoaJtVor^ Lnformiai/ ecUioevtucnv

character bytCo 1

t characterCttiC' 2

collective learning is fostered in the new majority

through t h r o u j >h learning strategies: through action:

conversation:
Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapters
5&10 relyiwg on the wise om of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
implicit learning limiting access and building to the
by "decolonizing • participation, streets
9 & learning in a geography of
the imagination'
difference and struggle

informal edu&atvo-to character Utio 3

 68
Organizing within individual ethnic, racial and cultural groups

Boston's Asian, Black and Latino communities have each developed their own set of

identities. T h e rich network of associations and organizations within each community were

built, at least in part, to nurture and carry o n those community identities. Some groups

organize around specific ethnic identities such as the Chinese Progressive Association,

VietAid (Vietnamese), Inquilinos Boricua en Accion (Puerto Rican), and the Freedom House

(African American). Others serve as umbrella groupings, for example the Asian American

Resource Workshop, La Alianza Hispana (Latino), ^Oiste? (Latino) and the Black Ministerial

Alliance. Some organize across communities on issues as they nurture solidarity for other

kinds of identities, such as A C O R N , which organizes low income residents, or the District 7

Roundtable, which engages residents of the greater Roxbury neighborhood on political

issues.

T o give a sense of how people in the N e w Majority think together about these social

networks, Figures 4.1 and 4.2 are transcriptions of two conceptual maps produced in a short

group exercise at the December 2007 N e w Majority Retreat. Teams from the N e w Majority

Steering Committee were given large poster sheets, colored markers and sticky notes. They

were asked to answer the question, " W h o else is in the landscape with the N e w Majority?" 157

O n e team produced the concept map shown in Figure 4.2. T h e map shows that while some

organizations operate city-wide, many are rooted in neighborhoods like Roxbury,

Dorchester, Chinatown and East Boston that have concentrations of a particular ethnic or

1 57
As recorder for the 2007 Retreat, I transcribed what was documented on easel poster sheets for
the New Majority. For these large diagrams, I used a grid transfer method to transcribe the visual
images and their proportions from the poster sheets onto 8 V2 x 11 inch paper that could be scanned.
The scanner helped me produce electronic copies for the New Majority archives. I used my own
handwriting to transcribe the words.
 69

Figure 4.2. New Majority landscape concept map # 1

nc

Eft"
w

& * $ # *

Ji

6BSp£»1yM<Je

frtfifiife W
e*f«» Ae
uuass
1 GtyWule
L
Another New Majority Steering Committee team produced the conceptual map of Figure 4.3

that shows social locations where people gather and organize, as well as the different types

of social change associations. It is interesting to note that on this map, loose and informal

associations at barbershops, on street comers and in churches are given equal importance

with unions, think tanks, community development corporations, neighborhood associations

and nonprofit organizations. The groups included in these concept maps were largely

organized by and for the separate neighborhoods and ethnic or cultural communities.

As pointed out in the last chapter, scholars like Andrew Jamison and Ron Eyerman158 claim

that the process of collective identity is the main intellectual activity of social movements.

From that observation, it follows that efforts to promote identities within the Asian, Black

or Latino community might lay part of the foundation for later coalitional processes of

collective identity like the New Majority. Urban and environmental policy and planning

scholar James Jennings suggests that at least part of the reason for the increase in coalition

building across Asian, Black and Latino communities in the past few decades has been

pragmatic and can be explained by the increase in diversity within individual Communities

of Color. He says,

Today, the Black community is composed of various ethnicities, as is the case with
the Latino and Asian communities. Ethnic diversity means that terms like, "the
Latino community," or "the Asian community" present erroneous monolithic
impressions about these groups. It also means that terms like "African American,"
as popular as it has become, may now be a demographic misnomer. There are many
people from Haiti, Nigeria, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba and Panama, who may not call
themselves African American, but will say they are Black. This kind of ethnic
diversity is changing the social agendas that have been traditionally associated with

Eyerman and Jamison, Social movements.

 71

Figure 4.3. New Majority landscape concept m a p # 2

 these groups. An issue like bilingual education, rot example, traditionally a "Latino"
issue in many places is rapidly becoming a "Black" issue as a result of growing ethnic
diversity within Black urban communities. 1 5 9

James Jennings believes that this mingling of c o m m o n issues across communities could be

one explanation for the stories about coalition-building across the Boston Asian, Black and

Latino communities that are told in the next section. What follows is only one possible

historical path among the many that lead through the landscape of Boston's multiracial,

multicultural organizing efforts. 160 Included o n this particular historical path are organizing

projects that were mentioned briefly in N e w Majority meetings, retreats and street talks, such

as the Rainbow Coalition and the L o n g Guang Huang campaign. Others, such as Say Brother,

the YWCA and the Third World Jobs Clearinghouse were suggested during formal and

informal interviews with longtime community organizers w h o were directly asked the

question, "What past community organizing efforts influenced the development of the N e w

Majority?" or "What past community organizing efforts among women influenced the

development of the N e w Majority?"

"We have a legacy to follow":

Organizing across ethnic, racial and cultural groups

We have a legacy to follow. . . .a history of coming together to make change."

Mel King, 2003 New Majority Conference Keynote Address

James Jennings, "Coalitions between Blacks, Latinos and Asians: A retrospective look for the
future of economic democracy in the U. S.," The Black Commentator 224, 5 April 2007,
http://www.blackcommentator.com/224/224_retxospecuve_economic_democracy_jennings_ed_bd
_pf.html.
A history of multicultural and multiracial organizing collaborations across Boston's Asian, Black
and Latino communities would be a lifetime intellectual project well beyond the scope of the present
research. This brief history is very partial and draws on conversations within the New Majority,
interviews conducted with Chuck Turner, Gloria Fox, Sarah Ann Shaw and Joyce King, and informal
conversations with community organizers across Boston.
While many associations "back in the day" were organized both by and for individual ethnic

o t cultural communities, there were also important projects that spanned the Asian, Black

and Latino communities.

Some organizations have historically had multiracial and multiethnic boards focused o n

eliminating racism by design. Long-time Boston community organizer Joyce King insists

that the impact and legacy of women's organizations like the Young W o m e n ' s Christian

Association (YWCA) should n o t be underestimated or forgotten. W o m e n in the YWCA

"were out there on issues of race and class across the country," particularly in the 1940s and

1950s, on up to the 1980s. In fact, Joyce King points out that their national mission was

"the elimination of racism wherever it exists and by any means necessary and mat's the

wording and where I learned it."161 The Boston chapter's board set aside a time during each

year for discussions on the issue of race within the board and chapter and even went so far

to hire outside facilitators for these discussions. T h e practices of multicultural and multiracial

groups like the YWCA created models for eliminating racism "by any means necessary" that

involved seeking change within a group as well as trying to effect change outside the group

in the community.

Chuck Turner believes that Boston's compact geography and history of neighborhood

segregation played a role in increasing collaborations across communities, especially those

among Latinos and Blacks in the 1960s and 1970s, saying,

"By any means necessary" is a phrase p o p u l a t e d by Malcolm X and is often colloquially applied
to justify violent means for oppression. However, that is not what Joyce King is suggesting here.
She is suggesting that the kinds of nonviolent antiracist discussions and activities engaged in by the
YWCA were taken seriously and considered just as strong a strategy for eliminating racism. I believe
she is also making die point that the use of this phrase by women within the YWCA community
predated Malcolm X's famous speech.
 historically, Latinos and Blacks have shared occupational and residential areas in
Boston, for example in the South E n d and Roxbury. And at least since the early
1960s, Blacks and Latinos have established joint organizations. . . . and have enjoyed
an integrated and inclusive political and artistic — particularly musical — scene. 1

Examples of two of these 1960s collaborations that Chuck Turner suggests are predecessors

of the N e w Majority are the organization Puerto Afro and the W G B H television program

Say brother. Puerto Afro was a cultural organization formed in the 1960s by a group of

African American and Puerto Rican men who were musicians. 163 They worked together to

put on cultural events that "helped create a sense of racial and cultural unity based on the

commonalities of [their] cultures." 164 T h e research of social work scientists Mark Stern and

Susan Seifert have found that such cross-cultural arts projects change the social environment

by "fostering a sense of collective efficacy - the willingness of people in a community to act

together in public matters of collective and individual interest." 165 Although building

collective identity may n o t be an explicit part of such collaborations, Anita Walker of the

Massachusetts Cultural Council recentiy spoke 166 about how multicultural and multiethnic

performance projects nurture the development of a group identity among performers by

creating a safe place to transcend ethnic differences. In other words, the success of

Jorge Capetillo-Ponce, "The thin and the thick: A study of two opposite trends of collective
identification among Boston's Latin and Black communities," the submitted version of an article,
"Black-Latino relations in Boston: Two Trends of Collective Identification." under edit and to be
published in a forthcoming issue o£ Latino Studies (sent to me with permission to use by the author,
who is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston).
Chuck Turner, Interview with Susan Klimczak, 6 June 2006, Fieldnotes.
Chuck Turner, "Political strategy: What are we going to do?" Part 2 of a 3 Part Series
"Organizing objectives and strategies," Black Commentator'281 (12 June 2008),
www.blackcomnientator.coni/281/281_what_are_we_going_to_do_part_2_turner_ed_bd.htnil
Mark Stern and Susan Seifert, "From creative economy to creative society," policy brief published
by the University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project (2008),
http: / /www. sp2.upenn.edu/SIAP/.
Remarks of Anita Walker from the Massachusetts Cultural Council at a seminar on "Race, Class
and Cultural Participation" held at die Boston Foundation on 26 June 2008, videotape of seminar is
available online at the WGBH Forum Network: http://forum.wgbh.org/lecture/race-class-and-
cultural-participation.
 75
collaborations like Puerto Afro plant hope and the possibility of building other forms of

collective identity across the Asian, Black and Latino communities.

In the late 1960s, the Black community organized a boycott of WGBH. WGBH had

recently pulled a show from New Bedford that had put some film on the air with language

the station considered offensive. The show was negotiated back on the air with a

community committee working jointly with the station to oversee production. In 1968,

Boston's public television station WGBH debuted this program Say Brother during the era

of Black Power and Black Pride. Originally, Say Brother grappled with issues of Black life

such as housing, employment and education, while also showcasing local and national

performers. However for five years, starting in 1976, the program developed a multicultural

format that also included the Latino, Asian and Native American communities. Along with

providing television programming, Say Brother also served as a tailing ground, employing

and guiding a generation of new Black, Latino, Asian and Native American media

professionals.

An important Boston alliance directed at employment issues among People of Color (mostly

men in the building trades) was the Third World Jobs Clearinghouse. In 1974, changes were

made to the Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding arrangements. As a

result, the city of Boston found itself to be a conduit for federal community development

funds and thus became a major force in the local construction industry. Kevin White, then

mayor of Boston, put a new affirmative action policy in place for city-funded and city-

adrninistered construction projects. Black representatives met with other People of Color

groups in Boston to create a new alliance that pushed for creating a city-sponsored referral
agency to place Boston workers from the Asian, Black, Latino and Native American

communities in construction jobs. Although the mayor faced resistance from unions, he

decided to support the new agency with funding. In late 1975, the Third World Jobs

Clearinghouse was established under the leadership of Chuck Turner.167 Almost immediately

after the clearinghouse was funded by the city, internal struggles began among the different

groups of People of Color represented. Many of the conflicts stemmed from past

employment antagonisms between Blacks and Latinos in Boston. Mel King tells the story

best in Chain of change: Strugglesfor Black community development:

The Hispanic community began to say, "What is going to protect our interest from
yours?" Because the way they looked at it, they had not been satisfied with the Black
community. . . They said that we don't feel comfortable with getting involved with
you unless there is some kind of protection.

This was not an easy thing for the Black organizations sitting around the table to deal
with. In some cases, they saw themselves as the more progressive organizations in
the community. So, they were not used to being challenged in terms of their own
sense of justice and cooperation and sharing. . . it was something that was not easily
accepted by the Black community because if you shut your eyes and listened to the
conversation going on, it sounded as if the responses of the Black people were very
similar to what white people had been saying to Black people. What eventually
happened was that Black organisations realised that it was more important to
unify with other ethnic organisations.

The Hispanic position was that they didn't believe in one person one vote. Looking
at the board, there were six or seven Black organizations that could qualify as board
members in terms of die criteria. . . but there were only two, perhaps three, Hispanic
organizations, one or two Asian organizations and one Native American
organization. . . . [The Hispanic community] wanted to have one vote per ethnic
group. . .

The Black organizations were split with one group of people saying that we can't
afford, even with this situation, to give away power; and another group saying to let
the power of the collective protect the interests of each group, rather than try to
protect our own interests within that by having a numerical majority. Narrowly, the
principal of one vote per ethnic group was accepted [emphasis mine].168

Gordon Clark, judges and the cities (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), 88-89.
Mel King, Chain of change: Strugglesfor Black community development (Boston: South End Press, 1981),
187-188.
Third World Jobs Clearinghouse did use a unity approach to governance that gave two votes

to each of the four constituencies, rejecting a majority rule approach that would have given

Black People considerably more power by increasing the number of their votes on the

board. Construction workers from the Black community had the experience of struggling

with their own tenuous and hard won power in choosing to share power for the good of all

Boston construction Workers of Color. This was a breakthrough in cooperation that Chuck

Turner believes both set historical precedents for Boston People of Color working together

and laid down a model for later collaboration in the New Majority. One precedent set was

the trust that was built by the representatives being willing to work through conflicts that

presented obstacles to this governing structure. The stakes were high in that the success of

the alliance meant jobs for construction Workers of Color. And these high stakes provided

a strong motivation to strive for unity in spite of the obstacles. The resulting outcome made

real the possibility that unifying People of Color could be in the positive self-interest of each

community, rather than a negative loss of power. This social innovation within the Third

World Jobs Clearinghouse is an example of what Iris Young refers to as an emerging model

of "differentiated group citizenship," where "instead of requiring homogeneity in service of

a unified purpose, diverse group interests can be allotted a voice within a given organization,

social institution or movement."169 The Clearinghouse set another precedent for future

coalitions of People of Color by rejecting the term "minority" and instead calling themselves

the "Third World" Jobs Clearinghouse.

Carol Hardy-Fanta referring to the work of Iris Young ("Polity and group differences: A critique
of the ideal of universal citizenship" In Feminist and Political Theory, edited by Cass Sunstein, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990, 117-141) in Latina politics, hatino politics: Gender, culture and political
participation in Boston (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993), 107.
The Third World Jobs Clearinghouse faced strong resistance. Chuck Turner explains, "The

unions wouldn't come to the Clearinghouse for jobs." So the workers formed a separate

organizing arm, called the Third World Workers Association to "organize and go back into

the streets." 170 They used the confrontational tactics of boycotts, picket lines and

community mobilizations. At this point, some of the Chinese organizations withdrew from

the activities of the Clearinghouse because these tactics proved "too radical for their

taste." 171 However, in the end, the Third World J o b s Clearinghouse w o n significant

concessions in construction and municipal hiring, some of which still impact workers in the

construction trades today. 172

Black and Latina w o m e n in the South E n d were also cooperating on issue-based organizing

during the late 60s and 70s.173 The women's shelter, Casa Myrna Vazquez, was founded

during that time and still remains an active organization today. In the mid-70s, grassroots

activists and street workers in the South E n d "found themselves listening with outrage and

frustration as neighborhood women confided [to them about] beatings at the hands of their

husbands and partners. Children talked about the abuse of their mothers." 1 7 4 As shelter

170
Chuck Turner, Interview with Susan Klirnczak, 13 June 2006, Fieldnotes.
Chuck Turner, Interview with Susan Klimczak, 13 June 2006, Fieldnotes.
172
Nina Mjaqukii, Organising Black America: Encyclopedia ofAfrican American associations (New York:
Routledge, 2001), 118.
Though seemingly counterintuitive, it may be that collaborations among Black and Latina
women's groups are sometimes easier to navigate than even collaborations among women's groups
within the Black community. The increase in diversity within the Black community is one reason.
As Angela Davis explains, "There is often as much heterogeneity within a Black community, or more
heterogeneity, than in cross-racial communities. An African American woman might find it much
easier to work together with a Chicana than with another Black woman, whose politics of race, class,
gender and sexuality would place her in an entirely different community." From Angela Davis and
Bettina Martinez, "Coalition building among People of Color," Inscriptions (1994),
http://www2.ucsc.edu/culturalstudies/PUBS/Inscriptions/vol_7/Davis.htnil.
History of Casa Myrna Vazquez, www.casamyrna.org/histoiy.html. The shelter was named after a
famous Puerto Rican actress who had "an unwavering belief in the restorative power of the arts and
culture."
programs across the country were started, very few (if any) were designed to serve women

for whom English was not a first language or for Women of Color. Casa Myrna Vazquez

was founded to address this gap and was organized to directly deal with cultural and

language differences.

Although founded by Latdnas, almost immediately "Black and Brown women"175 served

together as staff, volunteers and board members of Casa Myrna Vazquez. The women who

sought out the services of the shelter were also from both the Black and Latina

communities. To build a strong agency, Casa Myrna Vazquez board, staff members had to

not only wrestle with all of the cultural and language needs of women guests and the

conflicts that arose among the guests, but also had to work hard to resolve cultural and

language differences that often came up among themselves. Joyce King, who served as both

member and as the chair of the Board (as well as on the boards of many other Boston

organizations) cites this as an exemplar coalition building effort among Black and Brown

women. She says, "there are just so many things that we wresded with and I though it was

one of the best of all women's groups."176 Here a group of Latina and Black women were

brought together and motivated to build bridges and resolve conflicts in coalition by their

passion to address the needs of women who had experienced domestic violence. As the

women at Casa Myrna Vazquez shared ideas and engaged in activities, they developed their

own community of practice and process of collective identity as an agency. In this process

of "becoming and being Casa Myrna Vazquez together," Black and Latina women created

another model of collective identity building across race and ethnicity in the Boston

Communities of Color.

Joyce King, 18 October 2008 Interview, taped and transcribed from field notes.
Joyce King, 18 October 2008 Interview, taped and transcribed from field notes.
In general, W o m e n of Color in the 1960s and 1970s were involved in the "building of

coalitions unprecedented in Boston history." 177 N o t all of these collaborations aimed to

establish long-lasting organizations like Casa Myrna Vazquez. Other coalitions were often

short-term by design and addressed specific issues such as the sterilization of Puerto Rican

women or Boston school desegregation. 178 Coalitions among W o m e n of Color were n o t

"primary venues for the establishment of collective identities," b u t rather a "way of working

on issues while honoring already-established identities and political investments." 179 O n e

such coalition was created in 1979 in response to the murder of twelve Black w o m e n and

one White w o m a n in the then predominantly Black neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester

and the South End. 180 City agencies showed a surprising lack of concern about the murders

and the Boston Globe was unsurprisingly complicit 181 in this lack of public attention. These

events led to the establishment in 1979 of a successful multiracial and multiethnic, almost

entirely female "Coalition for Women's Safety" w h o gathered together to "publicize the

cases, the police inaction, the dangers to women and the sexism of those in power." 182183

177
Winifred Brienes, The trouble between us: An uneasy history oj White and Black women in the feminist
movement (London: Oxford University Press, 2006), 158-160.
178
Benita Roth, Separate roads to feminism: Black, Chicana and Whitefeminist movements in America's Second
Wave (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 221.
179 • • e-
Roth, Separate roads to feminism, 221-222. Here Benita Roth is quoting from an interview with
Margo Okasawa-Rey, member of an influential Boston Black feminist group in the 1970s called the
Combahee River Collective.
"Many of the women were strangled, with bare hands or a scarf or cord, and some were stabbed;
two were buried after they were killed, and two were dismembered. Several of the women had been
raped." From Duchess Harris, "All of who I am in the same place: The Combahee River
Collective." Womanist theory and research 3, no. 1 (1999),
http://www. uga.edu/~womanist/harris3. l.htm.
The Boston Globe was notorious for its poor treatment of Blacks, especially with the busing issues.
In contrast the Black community weekly newspaper The Bay State Banner provided detailed front-page
coverage during the whole year. See Duchess Harris, "All of who I am in the same place."
Brienes, The trouble between us, 158.
 81
This coalition also contributed to an important legacy for future multiracial and multiethnic

organizing in Boston. Mel King was among the participants in the Coalition and later went

o n to form the Rainbow Coalition in his 1983 campaign for Mayor of Boston. T h o u g h

sometimes unacknowledged, many women organizers believe that the work of the Coalition

for Women's Safety laid a basis for the coalition-building and "rainbow concept" developed

during the 1983 Mel King for Mayor campaign. 184 Up until this point, successful coalition-

building among People of Color had largely been "strategically situational, provisional and

issue-specific." 185 With the Rainbow Coalition, something different happened within the

context of a political campaign.

It is interesting to note that while White women participated in this coalition, they took an
explicitly supportive role and deferred to the leadership of Women of Color in a Second Wave time
where genuine conflict between White and Women of Color feminists was more the norm.
It is interesting to note that in a private communication with Mel King, he said that he could not
claim to be conscious of this connection between the Coalition for Women's Safety and the Rainbow
Coalition. Instead, his conscious memory points more toward a direct progression between the
Third World Jobs Clearinghouse and the Rainbow Coalition. This may be an indication of some of
the broadly drawn differences between men and women in what they lift up from history in the
telling of Boston community organizing stories. When researching this history, I became aware that
the organizations and movements that people most often mentioned were those that largely involved
men and the establishing of organizations. This led me ask the question, "What were women
doing?" and actively seek out the elders from Women of Color community organizing to get at the
stories of Women of Color and engage in what might be called "decolonizing how people imagined"
this community organizing history. There is some precedent for this difference in the Boston political
history memories of Women and Men of Color (and the need to actively seek out the memories of
each) documented in Carol Hardy-Fanta's Latina politics, Latino politics: Gender, culture andpolitical
participation in"Boston(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993: 101-102). She says, "Latina
women in Boston emphasize creating community in their representation of Latino political history,
whereas most Latino men focus on the more traditional elements of politics such as redistricting, the
creation of formal structures and electoral campaigns. . . For Latina women, creating community
means grassroots politics and the incorporation of large numbers of people in the political process.
Latino men, in contrast, create organizational structures that, however important in generating Latino
representation in government, depend on and generate considerably less participation in the
community." I would venture an intuition mat this observation is not confined to Latinas and
Latinos but applies more widely among Men and Women of Color and could account for some of
the differences in the ways that men and women can remember and find meaning in the history of
community organizing in Boston. To create a thicker understanding for the historical social
laboratories that developed ideas and actions leading to the New Majority, the need to present the
interpretations of both men and women was an important research strategy.
Roth, Separate roads to feminism, 221-222; quoting from an interview with a Boston feminist
organizer and Combahee River Collective member at that time, Margo Okazawa-Rey.
I have often heard the comment that people in the N e w Majority have a rainbow coalition'

mindset," 186 referring to the impact of a political and social innovation used in the 1983 Mel

King for Mayor campaign, the Rainbow Coalition. 187 This vibrant coalition was forged of

People of Color, White people, women's groups, gays and lesbians and groups from the

many protest movements that had surged through Boston for two decades. 188

Kevin White decided n o t to run for reelection as mayor of Boston in 1983. This set the

scene for the Rainbow Coalition to organize a successful primary campaign to have Mel

King as the first Person of Color to become one of two run-off candidates in Boston's

mayoral election. Twenty years later Ray Flynn, the other run-off mayoral candidate who

faced Mel King, published his memories of the race in a Dorchester Reporter article saying,

Twenty summers ago, Boston was a beehive of political activity. Practically every
other house was adorned with candidates' signs and o n just about every car was a
campaign bumper sticker. . . Bostonians were in the middle of the greatest political
campaign and election in the city's long and proud history. . . 1983 serves as the
textbook study o n urban American politics and elections. It was a campaign in
which 76 head to head public candidate forums were held in neighborhoods across
the city. . . A n d all nine serious candidates showed up for all of them. 189

After the primary, the campaign was further energized by the recent successful mayoral bid

of African American Harold Washington in Chicago, in which a multiracial and multiethnic

coalition mobilized communities and overcame the "old Daley patronage machine." 190 191

Capetillo-Ponce, "The thin and the thick."

After visiting Boston to support Mel King's 1983 mayoral campaign, Jesse Jackson began using
the term "rainbow coalition" in his own presidential campaign in 1984. A "National Rainbow
Coalition" was initiated during that same year.
Green, Taking history to heart, 215-216.
189
Raymond Flynn, "'83 mayoral race brought people out — and the city together," Dorchester Reporter
(21 August 2003), www.dotnews.com/comment%2008.21.03.html.
Green, Taking history to heart, 215.
Reading a collection of accounts from different constituencies w h o participated in the

Rainbow Coalition 192 reveals how, right from the start, Boston people recognized that this

was clearly a m o v e m e n t for community and people's empowerment as m u c h as it was a

political candidate's campaign. For instance, Mike Liu from the Asian American community

wrote, "we felt, win or lose, the mass movement had a lot to gain from the King

campaign." 193

Just as conversations about the 2000 Census were a catalyst for the N e w Majority,

conversations about another public document were the catalyst for the Rainbow Coalition.

In 1983 the document was, according to Mel King, "a jarring m a p " that looked across the

city with a neighborhood focus and vividly illustrated how many neighborhoods were

segregated by ethnic and racial groups. 194 H e says, "We called it a Rainbow because the m a p

showed it was not just geography but also had to do with organizing different ethnicities." 195

The use of the term "Rainbow" was chosen in direct contrast to the demeaning and

assimilationist "Melting P o t " image for citizenship. 196 As Carol Hardy-Fanta points out, the

Rainbow is a concept that "recognizes and draws strength from rather than suppresses

diversity." 197

191
In fact, Harold Washington's visit to Boston over the summer to endorse Mel King created even
more excitement and energy for the Rainbow Coalition campaign.
192
For instance, see Radical America 17 no. 6 and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 — February
1984), an entire issue devoted to "The Mel King campaign and coalitional politics in the eighties."
Mike Liu, "Grassroots politics and Boston's Asian community," Radical America 17 no. 6 and 18
no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 - February 1984): 82.
Personal communication with Mel King, 29 May 2009.
195
Personal communication with Mel King, 29 May 2009.
196
The image of the Melting Pot has been used to promote the idea that a homogenous community
is ideal and the goal is for everybody to learn how to conform to White norms.
197
Carol Hardy-Fanta, Latina politics, Latino politics: Gender, culture and politicalparticipation in Boston
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993), 107.
N o t only can the Rainbow Coalition be described as a short-term m o v e m e n t of movements,

it was also a movement that strengthened the racial and ethnic movements that made up the

coalition. After the primary campaign was won, the Rainbow Coalition switched from a

constituency-based organizing principle to a neighborhood-based approach that had

practical consequences. People from constituencies based o n gender and sexual orientation

experienced this as an obstacle to organizing, since their members were n o t necessarily

neighborhood-based. 1 9 8 However, the positive impact of this approach for Asian and Latino

constituencies that were neighborhood-based was dramatic n o t only for the campaign, but

for the political movements within those ethnic and racial communities. T h e Latino

community "witnessed the beautiful sight of dozens of new activists emerging to defend

their community, to work and to fight" 199 and this re-energized Latino community

organizing well beyond the end of the campaign.

T h e Asian community was able to use the campaign "to raise the issue of political power in

our community." 200 For the first time, people in the Chinatown community were able to

strike a blow to the political and economic control wielded by a small family-based clique

that monopolized access to City Hall. For years, this clique used a system of patronage and

dirty politics, resisting "any democratic process or mass input into any major decisions in the

For instance, lesbian community organizers in the Rainbow Coalition wrote that the shift from a
constituency orientation to a neighborhood focus "was a major shakeup to our voter identification
approach. Our 'neighborhood' is where we are out, in organizations, in the bars, at events and
among friends. It is often in our geographical neighborhoods that we are most closeted." From
Margaret Cerullo, Maria Erlien, Kate Raisz and Jessica Shubow, "Lavender is a color in the rainbow:
Lesbians and gays and Boston politics," Radical America 17 no 6 and 18 no 1 (double issue:
November 1983 - February 1984): 95.
Melania Bruno and Mauricio Gaston, "Latinos for Mel King: Some reflections," Radical America
17 no. 6 and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 - February 1984): 74.
Liu, "Grassroots politics and Boston's Asian community," 82.
 85
201
community, anything that would threaten their control over it." The outcome of

participation in the Rainbow Coalition can be found in the words of community organizer

Mike Liu,

The campaign also had changed the political situation for the Asian communities.
Previously considered "invisible," Asians definitely became a recognized political
force in the city. Asians had established themselves as a component part of any
future coalitional politics in the city, a step toward political power. . . We were able
to give expression to the desire of Chinese people for democracy and equality.202

Participation in the Rainbow Coalition seemed to take politics and the class struggle in

Chinatown and in the Asian community to a new level. In particular, people living with low

incomes experienced a new possibility of what believing in their own political power and

participating as active Asian organizers in their community could achieve.

Mel King's 1983 Mayoral campaign gave rise to a new political organization, the Black

Community Coordinating Committee (BCCC) that involved about seventy Black community

organizers from the Rainbow Coalition. These Black organizers gave credit to the positive

impact that the Rainbow Coalition had on the Black community by increasing the number of

registered Black voters, nurturing new Black leadership and developing a strong sense of

pride that "made the community come alive."203 However, some of these organizers also

struggled with what they felt was Mel King's hesitancy in taking an explicitly vocal pro-black

stance and expressed some sense of ambivalence about the impact of the Rainbow Coalition

on the Black community. Candy Carson, who was a member of BCCC, eerily echoes some

of the contemporary Black criticisms of the campaign of Barack Obama when she writes,

Liu, "Grassroots politics and Boston's Asian community," 82.

202
Liu, "Grassroots politics and Boston's Asian community," 86.
Candace Cason, 'The Mel King campaign and the Black community," Radical America 17 no. 6 and
18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 - February 1984): 41-45.
 The BCCC protested when the word "black was struck from campaign literature
aimed at the Black community. . . [and] took the stand that King could not afford to
take Black community support for granted. The campaign organization reflected the
values of the larger society in that it mistook die "pro-black" stance of the BCCC as
an "anti-white" stance. The campaign lived in fear of alienating "the white vote". . .
When faced with the option of giving credence to the perception that it was pro-
black and defending its need and right to be, or walking around the issue. . . [die
Rainbow Coalition] opted to walk around the issue.204

When these Black organizers reflected on their experience, the struggle to maintain a sense

of the importance of Black collective identity within a Rainbow Coalition that included

White people seemed particularly compelling from their point of view. The Black

community had already achieved some hard-won Black political power in the face of Kevin

White's pre-1983 White political "patronage machine second only to the Daley organization

in Chicago."205 In collaborative organizing, BCCC Black organizers brought to bear their

formidable and nuanced experience of the mental and political habits of both the progressive

and "regressive" White political community's resistance to democratic participation by

People of Color. From this unique position, they underscored the "general need for

independent organizations among minority [sic] nationalities, whose cultures are always

subject to subordination, intentional or unintentional, by the dominant culture."206

Interpreting from a different perspective, people in the BCCC summed up what they learned

from the Rainbow Coalition by emphasizing the importance of holding any "Rainbow"

accountable for maintaining the brightness and integrity of each "color." They stressed the

danger of succumbing to the many temptations to blur the colors in a diminishing way in the

face of White participation in the "Rainbow."

Cason, 'The Mel King campaign and the Black community, 43.
James Green, "The making of Mel King's Rainbow Coalition: Political changes in Boston 1963-
1983, Radical America 17 no. 6 and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 - February 1984): 21.
Cason, 'The Mel King campaign and the Black community," 45.
 T h e Rainbow Coalition reflected and popularized a belief that people needed to change the

way they thought about politics and themselves. 207 It was based on a conviction shared by

many that Boston's politics needed to — and could — go beyond being consumed with City

Hall's distribution of resources. Instead, politics could be about "connections between

public and private issues, connections between people," as Latino community organizer Julia

Santiago pointed out when explaining why she participated. 208 T h e Rainbow Coalition

planted the seeds for a new kind of collective identity organized around citizenship. Instead

of struggling over resources, people in the Rainbow Coalition wanted to redistribute the

decision making power. This social innovation was a direct challenge to what Mel King saw

as the dangers of representative democracy. Historian James Green explains,

H e wanted to redistribute the power over decision making because in a

representative democracy like ours, majority rule often disenfranchised whole
communities, as it had Boston's small Black population. Democracy could easily
produce gross forms of inequality. . . H e wanted to move beyond representative
democracy to participatory democracy. 209

As Latino Rainbow Coalition members Melania Bruno and Mauricio Gaston put it, "we

were not only seeking to change the players in the game, but to change the rules of the game

to make the city equitable, accessible, and just." 21 The Rainbow Coalition demonstrates a

historic precedent: that Boston political campaigns have the capacity to represent more than

an individual candidate's campaign. Political campaigns for Candidates of Color also have

the capacity to be vehicles for forging relationships within and among Communities of

Color. The Rainbow Coalition was n o t only active during the few months of the 1983

mayoral election, people from the Rainbow Coalition continued to meet and work o n

Green, Taking history to heart, 215.

208
Carol Hardy-Fanta, quoting Latina community organizer Julia Santiago in Latinapolitics, Ljztino
politics, 108.
209
"20!
James Green, Taking history to heart, 219.
210
Bruno and Gaston, "Latinos for Mel King" 74.
Boston political issues for years afterward, eventually merging with the Green Party in 2002.

Its impact and legacy have been long-lasting, allowing people to imagine the possibility of

new collective identities that reject the notion of "minorities," and that leave Asian, Black

and Latino identities vibrant and intact. It also allowed r o o m for people to imagine that

"movements of m o v e m e n t s " can actually internally strengthen the individual Asian, Black

and Latino — and other — movements that participate.

A year and a half after the historic 1983 Boston mayoral election, when the Asian

community was galvanized into action by a case of police brutality in Chinatown, members

of the Black community and the Rainbow Coalition stood in solidarity with their campaign.

O n May 1, 1985, Long Guang Huang, a 60-year-old recent immigrant from a rural farming

collective in China's Guangdong Province, was walking through Chinatown near the

Combat Zone. 211 It was the middle of the day and he had come to shop o n a rare day off

from his job at the Royal Hawaiian restaurant. O n die street, he was mistakenly confronted

by an undercover Boston vice squad detective, Francis Kelly w h o accused him of soliciting a

White prostitute. According to witnesses, 212 Francis Kelly then pushed Long Guang H u a n g

against the wall and repeatedly punched him in die face. Long Guang Huang was left with a

Some history of Chinatown is important to this story: "In the 1970s, the Boston City government
decided to designate Chinatown as an adult entertainment district. The adult entertainment district
was infamously known as the Combat Zone. Originally the Combat Zone was located in Boston's
Scollay Sqaure. The Mayor had an ambitious plan to update Boston. . . by building a modern City
Hall in Scollay Square. . . To avoid having the embarrassment of having adult businesses next to City
Hall, the city decided to move [the adult entertainment district] to Chinatown. Strip clubs, theaters,
bars and adult stores lined the streets next to Chinatown businesses. Along with the Combat Zone it
brought pimps, prostitutes, Johns, drugs, pollution and violence. Chinese women and girls walking
to school or to their jobs were harassed or seen as hookers." From Kye Leung and Duke Rhoden,
"Justice for Long Guang Huang," A^ine: Asian American Movement E^ine, (2000),
http://www.aamovement.net/community/long_guang_huang/justice_for_huang.htmL
Margot O'Toole, a researcher at Tufts University School of Medicine was one of the witnesses
and notified the Boston Globe.
 89
concussion serious enough to requite five days of hospitalization. T h e Boston police then

had the audacity to charge Long Guang Huang with both solicitation for a fee and assault

and battery of a police officer, even though witnesses claimed that the detective, Francis

Kelly was the assailant and aggressor.

T o the Chinese community, this was clearly a case of police brutality. Although incidents like

this had happened in Chinatown before, this was the first time the whole Chinese

community united in protest. 214 They swiftly moved into action, meeting with the mayor and

police commissioner, as well as establishing a fund to help Long Guang Huang. By the end

of May, the Black community — including the Boston Black Coalition, Clergy and Citizens

for Justice — and the Rainbow Coalition publicly came out in support of the demands of the

Asian Community. May Louie, an Asian American community activist and the chair of the

Rainbow Committee, was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying, "It's very valuable support

because the Black community has more experience in fighting police violence." 215 The

Asian community organized a march to City Hall to protest the incident on 18 June 1985,

chanting "Chinatown, Chinatown is our home, the city gave us the Combat Zone" 2 1 6 and

" D r o p the charges against Mr. Huang, put them on Kelly where they belong." 217 Participants

from the Black community marched alongside participants from the Asian Community and a

representative from the Rainbow Coalition spoke at the rally at City Hall.

21^
Gregory Witcher, " T m afraid,' says victim of Chinatown beating," Boston Globe, 23 December
1985 Metro Section: 13.
Carol Stocker, "Chronicling the lives of Chinese Americans," Boston Globe, 4 December 1988, Arts
and Film Section, Al,
Judith Evana, "Hub Blacks support Asians in beating case," Boston Globe, 9 June 1985, Metro: 53.
See previous comment for information about the history of the Combat Zone location.
217
Doris Sue Wong, "200 March to City Hall Plaza to protest alleged brutality against Chinese
immigrant," Boston Globe, 19 June 1985, Metro Section: 24.
For over a year, the Asian American community sustained participation in the campaign.

Long Guang Huang was acquitted of all charges in August 1985. The community was able

to force the Boston police to open up the internal police misconduct hearings for Francis

Kelly (the vice squad detective involved) to the public. This was the first time the city "ever

allowed an open hearing and it set a precedent for other cases of police brutality to be

opened up."218 Pressure from the Asian community forced the Boston police commissioner

to temporarily suspend the vice squad detective, Francis Kelly. A lawsuit filed on Long

Guang Huang's behalf yielded a settlement fhat covered his hospital bills. Shortly after Long

Guang Huang's death in 2005, Peter Liang spoke about the significance of this organizing

effort at a Boston Foundation seminar roundtable discussion about how to increase

collaborations that promote diversity in Boston. He said,

We mourn, we remember and we honor Rosa Parks, and I think that's a good thing
to be doing right now.

A litde less than a month ago, a Chinese immigrant who didn't speak much English,
but who occupies that same kind of significance in history for the Chinese
community in Boston — Mr. Long Guang Huang — passed away. There was no
mention of his death in local newspapers. Those of you who have been around for a
while will remember a police brutality case in Boston Chinatown in May 1985, and
the ensuing outrage over this elder restaurant worker being beaten by an undercover
police detective in Chinatown in mid-day. Mr. Huang was that person. This even
spurred a social movement for justice and equality fhat took the city by surprise, and
from that moment on, the political development of the Chinese community in
relation to the city qualitatively changed.

In both Mr. Huang's case, and in Rosa Parks' case, there was an individual who
decided "enough is enough," with a lot of support. An individual's choice connects
an individual story with a community's aspirations. No one remembers Long Guang
Huang, except a few of us. And why is that? Why was there no coverage of it? Why
is that case not taught in schools?219

James Jenning, "Changing urban policy paradigms: Impact of Black and Latino coalitions," in
Slacks, Latinos and Asians in urban America: Status andprospectsfor policy and action, ed. James Jenning, 5
(Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing, 1994).
Peter Liang quoted in Boston Foundation transcript of "Building the collaborative gene:
Achieving diversity" from the What's Next Seminar Series sponsored by the Boston Foundation, 25
October 2005, http://www.tbf.org/IndicatorsProject/News/detail.asp?id=3321.
 91

As Peter Liang points out, Long Guang Huang, and the community mobilization that he

inspired in the Asian Community and in other Communities of Color, may not yet be taught

in Boston public schools. However when people in the New Majority remind each other of

this and other organizing efforts from "back in the day" in committee meetings, annual

meetings and retreats, they keep the spirit of those efforts and people alive. In fact, these

community organizing efforts are not only being kept alive in people's memory; they are

also "being taught" as part of the informal education that takes place in the New Majority.

The new majority begins "back in the day" and in 2003

These are examples in our history that we can take as inspiration.

Mel King, 2003 New Majority Conference Keynote Address

Just as scholars develop a "literature review" that informs their research, community

organizers in social movements draw upon a history of intellectual engagement with

developing collective identity from "back in the day." People gathered in the Asian, Black

and Latino communities build up Asian, Black and Latino collective identities through meir

conversations and actions in associational settings that range from street corners and beauty

shops to nonprofit service organizations within the Asian, Black and Latino communities. A

"movement of movements" like the New Majority draws upon the intellectual foundation,

history and network of ideas and actions from each of its constituent communities.

Asian, Black and Latino communities have worked together in different joint community

projects. Some projects that involve cultural sharing, especially in the arts, such as Puerto
Afro and Say Brother have created bridges between the communities and established the

possibility for building communities of cultural practice together. Other collaborative

organizing efforts were forged through passionate commitment across ethnic and racial

communities on specific issues and have given birth to long-lasting agencies like Casa Myrna

Vazquez, a shelter for women who have experienced domestic violence. Some coalitions

like Women for Public Safety come together to do important work that is pragmatically

issue-based and provisional, yet they do not necessarily engage in collective-identity building.

Other coalitions made gains in building a "Third World" collective identity and a model for

structural egalitarian unity among the Asian, Black and Latino communities. These coalitions

were fueled by the strong motivation of increasing the number of construction jobs for

People of Color through the Third World Jobs Clearinghouse. The Rainbow Coalition

forged an alliance that has had lasting impact. Under the "Rainbow," for the first time

Boston Asian, Black, Latino and White communities, as well as other constituencies such as

the Lesbian and Gay community and the women's communities generated a "collective

identity of collective identities." Their organizing solidified the possibility that a unified

movement could actually strengthen the individual movements that constituted parts of the

whole. And the Long Guang Huang campaign modeled the "Rainbow effect" as the Black

community saw their connection to the issue of police brutality in the Asian community and

came out in strong solidarity and support.

Moving forward to 2001 and the catalyzing conversation for the New Majority: Felix

Arroyo Jr.'s observation that Communities of Color had no operational relationships among

them was only true up to a point. The kinds of historical organizing efforts in and among
Boston Communities of Color had already laid an important foundation for the emergence

of the New Majority.

As often happens in social change, that conversation between Felix Arroyo, Jr. and Chuck

Turner in the Boston City Council District 7 office did not go any further just then.

However, a year later when some time opened up, they revisited the idea together. In the

words of Chuck Turner, what happened next was, "We figured that if you were going to put

something. . . together, you need elements from all three communities. . . Asian community,

Latino community, Black community. You've got to really put those communities together

to try to synthesize some action. We thought the [three People of Color] Institutes at

University of Massachusetts Boston would be ideal [as the facilitators] and they were

interested."220 The project was called the "New Majority Initiative" and funding was secured

from the United Way of Massachusetts and the Foley Hoag Foundation to further develop

relationships among Boston Communities of Color.

When people talk about the New Majority, they often say that the New Majority began on

18 October 2003, at its organizing conference, held at the University of Massachusetts

Boston and sponsored jointly by the Institute for Asian American Studies, the Mauricio

Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy and the William

Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture. A New Majority Initiative steering

committee, "drawn from organizations and individuals from across the city" who

represented the Asian, Black and Latino communities, worked to shape and advance the

Chuck Turner, Interview with Susan Klimczak, 13 June 2006, Fieldnotes.

New Majority conference. The New Majority Conference brought together nearly 300

community organizers from various organizations and movements of People of Color across

Boston. As the conference program said,

Today is a beginning. The Census 2000 revealed that people of color now comprise
a majority of the population in the city of Boston. What the data cannot tell us is
how communities can work together in this historic moment to recreate our social
and political institutions, cultural and economic life in order to reflect this diversity.
The New Majority Initiative seeks to answer this challenge.222

This conference represented an intention to learn through conversations and experiences

and the initiation of a coordinated effort of informal education within the New Majority.

This informal education started with the rejection of the label "minority," following in the

footsteps of other renaming attempts like the "Third World" Jobs Clearinghouse and the

"Rainbow" Coalition.

The next chapter considers how a call for learning through particular kind of conversations

was set by the New Majority Conference Keynote Address of Mel King. One challenge in

studying learning through conversation in social movements is to identify conversations that

can reveal learning and to develop approaches for analyzing those conversations. Blending

insights from social movement theorist Chela Sandoval and adult education theorists

Stephen Brookfield and Paulo Friere, such an approach for such conversation analysis is

developed and applied to the New Majority Conference Keynote Address.

New Majority Initiative, New Majority: Uniting Communities of Color Conference Program, 18
October 2003, University of Massachusetts Boston.
222
New Majority Initiative, "What we hope to accomplish today," New Majority: Uniting
Communities of Color Conference Program, 18 October 2003, University of Massachusetts Boston.
 95
5
Talk as struggle to gain a new and informed humanity

We are defining ourselves as people committed to making the city work for
everyone. We are defining ourselves as people who are part of a process to make
change. We have to move from isolation to the New Majority, from isolation to
inclusion. Move diis city! Change the dynamics!

. . . The struggle is for a new informed humanity. It's not for equal access in a
dehumanized society.

Mel King, New Majority Conference Keynote Speech, 18 October 2003

Through the months of 2003, a New Majority Initiative Steering Committee met and

launched plans for the New Majority Conference. Invitations were sent out to community

organizers from the Asian, Black and Latino communities for the New Majority Conference

held on Saturday, the 18th of October in 2003 at the University of Massachusetts at Boston..

As participants walked into the tall concrete lobby outside the Herbert Lipke auditorium in

the Science Building, they found registration tables and greeters who provided nametags

with elastic bands and conference information in the form of a thick handsome two pocket

teal-colored folder with die New Majority logo. Inside one pocket of the folder were

brochures and newsletters from die tiiree campus institutes organizing the conference, the

Institute for Asian American Studies, the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community

Development and Public Policy and die William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of

Black Culture. Inside the second pocket was a copy of the New Majority Agenda statement

that had been circulated along with conference invitations, an evaluation sheet and a New

Majority Conference Program.

 96
O n the inside cover of the 2003 N e w Majority Conference Program was a letter from the

three institute directors to N e w Majority participants that said,

It has been nearly a year since Councilor Chuck Turner and then Councilor-elect
Felix Arroyo called upon our institutes to help address the implications of the rise of
Boston's new majority. T h e N e w Majority Initiative, of which this conference is a
key part, was a response to that challenge. An outstanding steering committee drawn
from organizations and individuals from across the city and our own dedicated staffs
have worked tirelessly to shape this conference.

T h e original N e w Majority Initiative Steering Committee included academics, nonprofit

administrators and organizers from the Asian, Black and Latino communities (See Figure

5.1). This Steering Committee also published a letter in the conference program that

restated the purpose of the N e w Majority and the conference,

Today is a beginning. T h e Census 2000 revealed that people of color n o w comprise

a majority of the population in the city of Boston. What the data cannot tell us is
h o w communities can work together in this historic m o m e n t to recreate our social
and political institutions, cultural and economic life in order to reflect this diversity.
T h e N e w Majority Initiative seeks to answer this challenge. 222

T h e General Plenary Opening was held in the Lipke Auditorium. A large banner that read

" N e w Majority: Uniting Boston's Communities of Color" hung on the stage, which sas set

up with a single wooden podium and an acoustic guitar propped u p on one end. Melissa Li,

a young Asian woman folk singer bounded on stage and picked up the guitar. Her energetic

song with the refrain "all we need is our voices" drew people into the auditorium. When

m o s t everyone was seated, Jose Masso, the host of the popular radio program [Con Salsa!223

stepped up to the podium, saying "This is a historic m o m e n t in the city of Boston!" H e told

a story about his 112 year-old grandmother who lives in southern Puerto Rico. T h e moral of

the story that he connects to the group of people gathered is, " N o matter what age we are,

New Majority Initiative Steering Committee, "What we hope to accomplish today," New Majority
Conference Program, 18 October 2003, University of Massachusetts Boston.
223
jCon Salsa! is a popular Saturday night radio show on WBUR 90.1FM hosted by Jose Masso for
the past 34 years. It is "part music show, part party, part community center; the program is a mecca
for Latinos and lovers of things Latin." http://www.consalsa.org/about/.
 97
Figure 5.1 2003 N e w Majority Initiative Steering Committee

Felix Arroyo, Jr., Director Lydia Lowe, Executive Director

Boston Community Services Chinese Progressive Association

Nicholas Carballeira, Director Jose Masso, Executive Director

Latin American Health Institute Puerto Rican Federal Affairs

Ava Chan, Community Organizer Giovanna Negretti, Executive Director

Allston-Brighton Community Development
Corporation
Jose Duran, Director
Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation
Yvonne Ferguson, Advisory Board
ACORN
0 Leah Randolph, Program Director
Gary Hicks, Community Organizer
Boston Mobilization
Syvalia Hyman, III, President and CEO
United South End Lower Roxbury
Development Corporation
iOiste?
Long Nguyen, Executive Director
Viet-AID
John Peters, Executive Director
MA Commission on Indian Affairs
Harvard St. Neighborhood Health Center
First Women's Circle & MBAC
(MA Black Alcoholism & Additional Council)
William Rodriguez, Executive Director
La Alknza Hispana

Tito Jackson Eliza Soltren

Dunk the Vote Alianza Hispana

Marcelo Juica, Executive Director Omar Soto, Youth Pastor

Latino After School Initiative Congregacion Leon de Juda

Mel King Geraldo Villacres, Executive Director

Green Rainbow Party Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Eun-Joung Lee, Executive Director Chi Chi Wu, Board President

Asian American Resource Workshop Asian Pacific American Agenda Coalition

Maria Elena Letona, Executive Director Sam Yoon

Centro Presente Asian Community Development
Corporation (ACDC)
Institute Representatives
Directors Staff
Andres Torres, Maurcio Gaston Institute Paloma Brin Shauna Lo
Hedy Castano Mary Jo Marion
Castellano Turner, Trotter Institute Michael Liu Muriel Ridley
Yvonne Gomes-Santos
Paul Wantanbe, Institute for Asian American Studies
Ex-Officio
Chuck Turner Charles Yancey Felix Arroyo, Sr.
Conference Coordinator
Julia Ojeda
 98
we can learn something new that is beneficial. . . and recognize that the present is the

greatest gift." Sam Y o o n from the N e w Majority Initiative Steering Committee followed with

a Who's in the House? exercise to make "everyone. . . stand up and be counted!" Then h e

went o n to lead a r o u n d of singing Happy Birthday for the keynote speaker Mel King, w h o

was celebrating his 74 . Sam Y o o n gave a little history as he introduced the keynote speaker,

emphasizing how so many people in Boston "coalesced behind" the Rainbow Party and Mel

King in the 1980s.

Mel King came up on stage. TalL with a quiet voice, his hands made elegant flat planes

moving through the air as he spoke. H e started by saying,

This conference is a gift for my birthday. This coming together is something I've
dreamed about, hoped for, wished for, strived for. T h e h o n o r of this opportunity to
speak here is meaningful.

H e then went on to tell a story about how he once had the honor of introducing Nelson

Mandela in Boston, adding, "this m o m e n t exceeds the feeling I had then." 224 After thanking

all who came together to plan the N e w Majority Conference, he began the heart of a speech

that has served as a call to conversation and action for the N e w Majority.225

. . . Self-definition is an important thing. Everyone needs to be able to do this. We

need to define ourselves. "It's different than allowing others to define us. When we
accepted the term minority, we were allowing other people to define us. N o n e of us
here are a minority on this planet!!!

Mel King was part of the original group that came up with the idea of the New Majority and was
an integral part of planning the conference. Organizing with others in Boston for (and across
Massachusetts and the globe) for more fifty years, he also served as a state legislator for ten years and
twice ran campaigns for mayor that changed the landscape of Boston politics. In 1997, Mel King
opened the South End Technology Center @ Tent City as his "retirement project" and since then
has served as its full-time volunteer director.
This speech excerpt comes from my field notes, not from a transcribed tape. Therefore the
excerpt may be partially paraphrased. Portions of the speech set off within quotations indicate my
confidence that Mel King's exact words and phrasing are represented.
 99
"The model for self-definition was Rosa Parks." Her act says, "I am somebody." If
she had gone to the back of the bus, her act would have said, "I am less than who I
know I am." "You can't allow other people to make you less than who you are."

Rosa's action has more to do with why we are in this room. "We've always been the
majority. H o w do we take that and move? We've got the numbers!" When we
organize around being the [New Majority], we need to get people to understand what
it means when you've got the numbers.

T h e defining process in organizing is culture. F r o m studying the past, we know the

"power of culture." We know the impact that understanding this has had on the
lives of those in the U.S.

We've learned things from each of the communities represented here at this
conference. There is a line from a song in Dreamgirls that I like, where the character
says, let them have our music so that they can feel as good as we do.

However today we need to "develop a culture of power." We have to come to a

place where we understand h o w power works. We have to understand the culture of
power so deeply that it becomes second nature to us, like food, music and dance.
The culture of power needs to become as second nature to us as other aspects of
culture.

This is an imperative. So much hangs on how we understand the culture of power

and behave out of that understanding.

However, by defining ourselves as we do — as the N e w Majority — we take o n this

awesome responsibility. We have to look at issues in Boston and the world and take
them on. . . universal health care for instance. . . who but us will take this on. We
must.

We are defining ourselves as people committed to making the city work for
everyone. We are defining each of ourselves as people w h o are part of a process to
make change.

We have to move from isolation to the N e w Majority. . . We have to m o v e from

isolation to inclusion. Move this city! Change the dynamics. . . The struggle is for a
new informed humanity. It's n o t for equal access in a dehumanized society.

T o make a new and transformed humanity is the task we are taking on. The N e w
Majority Agenda is the new instrument that can be used for strategic action. We've
come together in an agenda-building process. We need to increase the level of
coordination between organizations, leaders, and communities so that the
effectiveness of each is advanced for the benefit of all.

At the end of Mel King's talk, Jose Masso returned to the podium and led the people

gathered in an enthusiastic call and response,

 100
"We've got the numbers!?" said Jose, beckoning to the group to respond,
"We've got the numbers! answered die people.

"Culture of power!? said Jose, beckoning the group to respond,

"Culture of power!" answered the people.

Then, Jose Masso asked everyone gathered to bring the ideas and spirit of this speech into

the conversations that followed, during the breakout sessions on different issues. The ideas

in Mel King's talk did indeed have an impact on the New Majority conversations that

followed, not only during the conference, but throughout time of this study. For instance,

five years later, "We've got the numbers!" is still a slogan prominently displayed in New

Majority press releases, brochures and other communications and an idea that continues to

shape the conversations among people in the New Majority.

However, in this chapter, I argue that Mel King's talk contained far more than potent ideas

to inspire conversations among people in die New Majority. Embedded in the structure of

his speech is a model for conversations that promote social change learning. That such a

model can be uncovered from analyzing Mel King's talk is not surprising, for he brings over

50 years of organizing experience and has been witness to some of the best practices in

Boston social movements, as described in Chapter 4. This chapter demonstrates how Mel

King cycles through a set of five learning tasks during tins talk, conversational learning tasks

that are associated with both critical adult education and die "metiiodology of the

oppressed" practiced by organizers in the U. S. Third World feminist movement. Because of

this, I interpret Mel King's talk as an implicit call for community organizers to think and

learn together using this a set of conversational learning tasks that "decolonize the

imagination." These five tasks, when practiced togedier in conversation, have die capacity to
break down habits of thinking that dehumani2e and replace them with new ways of thinking

and acting that restore humanity.

Decolonizing the imagination: Developing an approach to identifying

and analyzing learning through conversations

In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is
meaningful, the system under which we n o w exist has to be radically changed. This
means we are going to have to think in radical terms. I use the term radical in its
original meaning — getting down to and understanding the root cause [s]. It means
facing a system that does n o t lend itself to your needs and devising means by which
you can change that system.
Ella Baker, 1969226

. . . Sooner or later, these contradictions [about reality] may lead formerly passive
[people] to turn against their domestication and the attempt to domesticate reality.
They may discover through existential experience that their present way of life is
irreconcilable with their vocation to become fully human. They may perceive
through their relations with reality that reality is really a process, undergoing constant
transformation. If m e n and w o m e n are searchers and their ontological vocation is
humanization, sooner or later they may perceive the contradiction [s]. . . and then
engage themselves in the struggle for their liberation.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1968.227

Using the intellectual genealogy developed in Chapter 3, the informal education project in

the N e w Majority community of practice can be describing through three characteristics:

creating an environment that supports and sustains the community of practice, defining w h o

the N e w Majority are based on purpose and values, and the fostering of learning through

conversation, action and learning strategies. From a research standpoint, this chapter

introduces an emerging approach and theory for studying the "learning through

conversation" that is part of informal education in social movements. First, one kind of

social change conversation (or conversation thread that continues to resurface over time) is

Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement: A radical democratic vision (Chapel Hill,
NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
227
Paulo Freire, "The banking concept of education," in The Paulo Freire reader, eds. Ana Maria Araujo
Freire and Donaldo Macedo (New York: Continuum, 1998), 70. Originally published in Paulo
Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1970).
 102
identified as being potent for adult education analysis. Then, synthesizing insights from

social movement theorist Chela Sandoval and adult education theorists Paulo Freire and

Stephen Brookfield, a promising approach for analyzing what is being learned through those

conversations is developed. Figure 5.2 shows how die findings from this chapter map onto

the three-characteristic definition for informal education presented in Chapter 3.

Identifying social movement conversations potent for analysis. When observing how

people in social movements such as the New Majority learn through conversation, certain

challenges and questions tug at an ethnographer's curiosity. One question that arises is,

"Can any distinctive conditions be identified within social movements that promote

learning through conversation?' Certainly the conditions that allow learning to take place in

schools are often discussed in education literature. For instance, one condition that allows

effective learning to take place in a classroom is that a teacher must believe in the capacity of

all students to learn. But what kinds of conditions for learning through conversation are

characteristic of social movements? Liberatory education theorist Paulo Freire's quotation at

the beginning of this section suggests one possible answer. He argues that people's belief in

their own capacity to shape reality is a condition for learning. People must "perceive that. . .

reality really is a process, undergoing constant transformation"; believe they have the

capacity to "engage themselves in the struggle for liberation"; and ultimately be prepared to

reject their "former passivity." Certainly there is evidence that that these conditions were

present among the people who gathered for conversation at the New Majority conference.

In their conference program letter to participants, the directors of the three University of

Massachusetts institutes invoked a belief in people's capacity to engage in a struggle to shape

Boston's public life. They mention both what Boston organizers have done in the past to
 Figure 5.2. Informal education in the New Majority
| i J I The areas shaded like these boxes shorn how this chapterfitsinto the informal education model

prophetic naming
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

+
new majority situated learning: new majority
environment purpose &
people form the values
new majority Chapter 7
community of
field of
history, patterns practice meanings that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
power of place
process of "what is the
collective identity new majority?"

char-&crteri4tU> 1

I
collective learning is fostered in the n e w majority

through
conversation:
I
through learning strategies: through action:

Chapters Chapter 8 Chapter 9

5&10
relying on the wisdom of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
implicit learning limiting access and building to the
by "decolonizing participation, streets
& learning in a geography of
the imagination"
difference and struggle

un^brmtii' ednonttoiv ofwweict'e'rCit'tC' 3

participate in shaping their communities and their intent to continue their participation into

the future:

. . . we are excited by your willingness to join together to share your experiences,

wisdom and aspirations to help create a better Boston. T h e people assembled here
are among the city's most valuable resources. They represent a post of dedicated
activists working o n behalf of people of color and a new cadre intent on carrying o n
the noble cause of seeking justice, dignity, and equality for all of Boston's citizens. 228

Mel King also spoke from this belief in people's capacity to participate in a transformation

of the conditions in Boston during his keynote address when he urged those gathered to

"Move this city! Change the dynamics!"

Many kinds of conversations go o n among people who seek to make positive change in their

community. A m o n g them, are there any kinds of conversation that might offer particularly

potent insights for describing the distinctive form of informal education that goes on in

social movements? Freedom Movement organizer Ella Baker offer some clues for

answering this question in the quotation included at the beginning of this section. Her

insight suggests that identifying conversations in social movements where people "think in

radical terms" shows potential. Ella Baker has a very particular definition of "radical," as

"getting down to and understanding the root cause [s]" for why people are not able to

participate meaningfully in the life of their community. Paulo Freire further refines the idea

of "root causes" when he says that people "perceive contradictions" that show "their

present way of life is irreconcilable with their vocation to become fully human." Therefore it

is likely that the analysis of conversations displaying both of these characteristics can

produce insights into a distinctive form of informal education that takes place in social

movements.

8
Paul Wantanabe, Andres Torres and Castellano Turner, Letter to Participants, New Majority
Conference Program, University of Massachusetts Boston, 18 October 2003.
 105

However, both Ella Baker and Paulo Freire also suggest other qualities that must also be

present in such radical conversations, beyond simply identifying the root causes and

contradictions. People must also "devising a means by which [they] can change that system"

and "engage themselves in a struggle for their liberation."

So, this indicates that one ethnographic approach for exploring the learning in social

movement conversations is to identify and analyze radical conversations. And these radical

conversations can now be defined as those conversations (or conversation threads that occur

over time) that not only identify contradictions and root causes for problems, but also

identify ways to think about those problems differently and act in ways that generate a

change.

Jose Masso made a call for New Majority Conference participants to "use the ideas from Mel

King's talk as context, as a guide for the conversations. " I interpret this as a call to

incorporate not only the individual ideas, but also the method Mel King models for

analyzing problems in radical conversations. His method contains all the elements of radical

talk described by Ella Baker and Paulo Freire. The contradiction inherent in allowing other

people to define People of Color in a dehumanizing way as "minorities" was identified as

one root cause for the problem of People of Color being systematically excluded from full

economic, political and social representation in Boston. Mel King went on to identify ways

to think differently by bringing People of Color together engage in self-definition as a "new

majority" committed to making Boston work for everyone. He then named the conference

gathering as a first act to generate a change because Boston People of Color were creating
 106
the first draft of a common agenda for Boston People of Color that would serve as a new

instrument to guide future strategic action.

Since Mel King's speech served as a model for radical "talk" or "conversation," an important

interpretive step involved closely examining his talk and comparing its structure to promising

theoretical models from research literature. The rest of this chapter first addresses a

theoretical basis for the model of five learning tasks involved in radical conversation and talk

that emerged. The resulting theoretical model is then applied to Mel King's 2003

Conference talk. However, as happens with most grounded theory, the model development

involved a complex discernment process cycling back and forth between education and

social movement theories on the one hand, and Mel King's discourse on the other.

Developing an approach for analyzing learning tasks in radical conversations.

Developing an approach for analyzing Mel King's talk with intellectual vigor revealed some

of the learning tasks involved in radical conversation and how such conversation can

"decolonize the imagination"229 during the informal education that takes place in social

movements.

Insights from the intellectual genealogy outlined in Chapter 3 suggested that learning

fostered through conversations in informal education is often implicit and there exists little

emerging adult education theory to guide an analysis of the explicit learning tasks involved in

those conversations. However it was possible to develop a model for analyzing the learning

tasks in these radical conversations by building an intellectual bridge between theorists who

Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
2000), 112.
 107
examine social m o v e m e n t s with a cultural lens and some prominent theorists of critical

adult education. T h e intellectual bridge that supports such a model links education theorist

Paulo Freire's notion of conscienti^afao and Stephen Brookfield's critical adult education

learning tasks with social movement theorist Chela Sandoval's model for the "technologies

of love" used by U.S. Third World Feminists.

Relevant insights about conversation learning tasks from theorists of critical adult

education. In Paulo Freire's influential book, The pedagogy of the oppressed, h e says that

the "conviction of the oppressed that they must fight for their liberation is. . .

consaenti^afdo"230 Conscienti^afao is a process of raising both the consciousness and the

conscience. It refers to acquiring the ability to read the world, "learning to perceive social,

political and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of

reality."231 It involves learning a process of humanization, which can be defined as the,

.. .way in which men and w o m e n can become aware of themselves, their way of
behaving and of thinking, when they develop all their capacities by thinking n o t just
of themselves but of the needs of everyone. 232

Linda Bimbi, in the preface to the Italian edition of the Pedagogy of the oppressed, cites

another important characteristic of conscienti^afao, that " a single isolated individual is n o t

conscientized alone, but as part of a community when it has solidarity in relation to a

common situation. 233 Parallel to the theory of situated learning, Paulo Freire also emphasizes

Freire and Macedo, The Paulo Freire reader, 64. Note that I prefer the original phrase in Portuguese
to the oft-used awkward English translation, "conscientization."
1
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1982), 19. This book was first
translated from the Portuguese in 1968.
Moacir GadottL, Reading Paulo Freire: His life and work. (Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1994), 164 (Chapter 2, Footnote 2).
Gadotti, Reading Paulo Freire, 16. An excerpt from Linda Bimbi's preface is translated and set
down in Moacir Gadotti's book.
 108
the collective learning that takes place in community and theories the necessity of both the

deconstruction of old ideas and the construction of new ideas in talk.

Stephen Brookfield's book, The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and

teaching, explores how adult learning can be reframed as a set of learning tasks by using

critical theory that address some thorny dilemmas identified by adult education

researchers.234 Critical theory's chief concern "might be expressed as the desire to

understand how the reproduction of blatandy unequal structures based on massive economic

disparity is accepted as the natural order of things by adults within successive generations."235

Stephen Brookfield provides an overview of the learning tasks that adults engage in as they

begin to challenge the ways things are, while also working toward making a

sociophilosophical vision of a democratic society real, learning to create and live:

a vision of a society in which people live collectively in ways that encourage the free
exercise of their creativity without foreclosing that of others. In such a society
people see their individual well-being as integrally bound up with that of the collective, [emphasis
mine]236

Figure 5.3 shows seven closely interrelated tasks that Stephen Brookfield sets out for the

purposes of his analysis. These learning tasks are used in radical conversation to read

inequities in power, read the dangers of hegemony (ways of thinking and acting that often go

unquestioned as "common sense") or to learn how to enact true democracy. These learning

tasks overlap with Paulo Freire's concept of deconstructing and constructing new ideas and

actions. For instance, unmasking power and contesting hegemony both require

deconstructing why things are the way they are; while learning liberation and democracy

Stephen Brookfield, The power of critical theory:Liberating adult learning and teaching (San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005.
Brookfield, The power of critical theory, 30.
Brookfield, The power of critical theory, 38-39.
 109

unmasking
power

challenging
ideology ?
learning tasks of
overcoming
alienation

critical theory
suggested by adult
education theorist
Stephen Brookfield learning
contesting .democracy
^x
hegemony

reclaiming learning
reason liberation

Figure 5.3.
Critical adult critical learning tasks suggested by Stephen Brookfield

From:
Stephen Brookfield, The power of critical theory: liberating adult learning and teaching (San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005.
 110
involve constructing a new vision of what reality could be in a truly democratic society. All

this can happen in the radical conversations that take place in social movements.

Relevant insights from social m o v e m e n t theory. Paulo Freire insights emphasize the

necessity of practicing conscienti^afao in radical conversation, learning to perceive

contradictions in society that "domesticate" experience, talk that uncovers h o w things are

n o t necessarily the way they seem to be; talk that focuses o n other ways to understand the

world, to uncover inequities and injustices and to make social change n o t only possible but

also necessary. Stephen Brookfield describes this kind of conversational journey through

"the learning tasks of critical theory." Social movement theorist Chela Sandoval also applies

a parallel framing to describe the exemplar learning she observed in the U. S. Third World

Feminist social movement and p u t at the center of her Methodology of the oppressed.237

The next sections provide a rather detailed explanation of key concepts from the

Methodology of the oppressed because the specialized theoretical complexity and arcane

terminology from other disciplines used by Chela Sandoval might otherwise render her

important concepts and ideas inaccessible or underdetermined. 238

D e c o l o n i z i n g the imagination. Chela Sandoval suggests that at the heart of social

movement learning is "decolonizing of the imagination." 239 Talk and conversations threads

Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
2000).
While I am encouraged and enthusiastic about an increased attention to multidisciplinary research,
I find one of the obstacles to such research is the arcane terminology that has been developed within
each discipline. My hope is that with an accessible introduction to Chela Sandoval's work, other
adult education researchers might realize the efficacy of investing the considerable time and energy
necessary to read her work and apply her ideas in the service of other adult education research in
social movements.
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 112.
 Ill

in the N e w Majority were often directed toward this "decolonizing of the imagination." So,

what is "decolonizing the imagination" and h o w can Chela Sandoval's insights apply to

understanding the learning tasks in radical conversations?

If the imagination needs to be decolonized, then the imagination must initially have been

colonized. The usual definition of colonialism generally refers to imperialism, "the extension

of power by an expansionist state to control another country economically, politically or

both." 240 In the postcolonial world, 241 in addition to political and economic control, there is

also cultural control of "ideas and values, consumer fashions and popular culture" 242 and

transnational corporate control. 243 Frantz Fanon's seminal works, Black skins, white

masks244 and The wretched of the earth243 argue that colonialism exerts tremendous

psychological control, though there always exist pockets of creative resistance and people in

social movements often engage this creative resistance as they talk to each other.

An important power dynamic associated with control is the assumption upon which the

control is based. Control is often rationalized as being benign because of c o m m o n sense

acceptance that some people, ideas, institutions, governments or ways of living are assumed

to be superior and to bring "progress" to those who are (and that which is) "backward" or

240
Chris Rohmann, A world of ideas: A dictionary of important theories, concepts, beliefs and thinkers (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1999), 194-195.
By postcolonial, I mean both an historical period after the collapse of European (and other)
colonial states and the critical approach that intellectually takes apart the assumptions, ideas and
effects of colonialism.
242
This refers to what is also called cultural imperialism: Rohmann, A world of ideas, 195.
This refers to what is also called neocolonialism: Rohmann, A world of ideas, 195.
244
Frantz Fanon, Black skin, white mask (New York: Grove Press, 1994; Originally published in
French under the title Peau Noire, Masques Blancs, 1952, Editions Du Seiul, Paris).
245
Frantz Fanon, The wretched of the earth, (New York: Grove Press, 1965), Originally published in
French under the title Les damnes de la terre (Paris, France: Francois Maspero, editeur, 1961).
 112
246
"primitive" in comparison. In other words, this control mostly gets "accepted as the

natural order of things. . . within successive generations," as education theorist Stephen

Brookfield suggests. In his book, Culture and imperialism, Edward Said quotes D . K.

Fieldhouse's "description" of Britain's "control" over white colonists in the pre-

revolutionary United States to clarify this point:

T h e basis of imperial authority was the mental attitude of the colonist. [His or her]
acceptance of subordination — through a positive sense of interest with the parent
state, or through inability to conceive of any alternatives — made [the British] empire
durable [emphasis mine].241

T h e "inability to conceive of any alternative" is precisely what Chela Sandoval addresses

when she speaks of the need to decolonize the social imagination. 248 Decolonizing the social

imagination means that people must learn to imagine that another city or country or world is

possible and act toward making what they imagine a reality. And people often learn to

imagine by gathering and talking to each other in social movements.

Although "overseas" imperial colonization still exists, 249 the kind of colonization to which

Chela Sandoval refers happens within societies, including so called "developed" countries

such as the United States. 250 She suggests that U. S. Third World feminists align with Franz

Rohmann, World of ideas, 194. Because of the scope of this dissertation, I am greatly simplifying the
tremendously complex dynamics of colonialism and postcolonialism here. As those situated in the
intellectual lineage of postcolonial and poststructural theory would be quick to point out, one
important dynamic that I am suppressing is that there are tremendously lively and creative pockets of
resistance in any colonial system.
247
Edward Said, Culture and imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 11. Edward Said is
quoting "distinguished conservative historian of empire" D. K. Fieldhouse from his 1965 book, the
colonial empire: A comparative survey from the eighteenth century (New York, McMillan, 1991), 103.
Although D. K. Fieldhouse's historical analysis about colonialism may be challenged as partial or
wrongheaded, his observations about the impact of colonialism on the mind and spirit seem accurate
to me.
4
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 183.
In fact, Native American nations, Puerto Rico, Iraq, and even the District of Colombia are
colonized, to bring it on home to the U. S. of A.
She is referring to what is called neocolonialism or the "new" colonialism.
 113
Fanon's idea that there is colonization whenever a society "freezes social hierarchy into

place,"251 and goes on to say that "a society that freezes social hierarchy in place is a society

in which liberty and justice between human beings is impossible to achieve." For example,

there is evidence of this kind of colonization within the United States even though the

Declaration of Independence is based on the principles of liberty and justice. However

United States history shows that the practice of these principles of liberty and justice is

certainly evolving and far less than perfect.252 All too often in the United States, people

have experience the practice of a liberty and "'justice' that naturalizes hierarchy through

domination [and is] constructed in a fashion that serves the dominant order. . . not liberty

and justice for all."253

Chela Sandoval also agrees with Franz Fanon's insight that the humanity of both those in

the position of being colonizer and those being colonized — a person or group could find

themselves in a position of being one, the other or even both — have their humanity

diminished by colonization. In other words, the ways that we all see, think, feel and act are

"under the influence" of a domination that diminishes our humanity unless we strive to

recognize and mend those deformations; unless we decolonize our imaginations.

251
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 127.
252
The struggle for emancipation of slaves, suffrage for women and sovereignty for Native
Americans are all examples of the colonization inherent in a country whose guiding principles include
liberty and justice.
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 127. For those intellectuals who would question the
interpretation of the United States as having naturalized hierarchy through domination, I offer a
statement about that hierarch and its effects on justice by philosopher and public intellectual, Cornel
West. His interpretation is appropriately strong, saying, A specter of despair haunts. . . America. The
quality of our lives and the integrity of our souls are injeopardy. Wealth inequality and class polarisation are
- with ugly consequencesfor the most vulnerable among us. The lethal power of global corporate elites and
! managerial bosses is at an all-time high. Spiritual malnutrition and existential emptiness are rampant. The
precious systems of caring and nurturing are eroding. Market moralities and mentalities —fuelled by economic
imperatives to make a profit at nearly any cost —yield unprecedented levels of loneliness, isolation and sadness.
 114
Liberatory learning through conversation in social movements contributes to this project of

decolonizing the imagination, which not only benefits those participating in the social

movement, but also benefits those in the wider society by increasing the possibilities for all

people to become more fully human. Because of this, Chela Sandoval goes on to suggest a

specific method for decolonizing the imagination in Methodology of the oppressed by

analyzing the practices of U. S. Third World feminists. Tracing an outline of how she

developed her method offers insight for analyzing talk and conversation threads across time

among people in the New Majority.

Differential consciousness and movement. Chela Sandoval studies U. S. Third World

Feminism, the consciousness and practices of U.S. Feminists of Color from roughly 1968-

1988. Alice Yun Chai succincdy expresses the vision of U. S. Third World Feminism during

this period when she says,

What "feminism" means to women of color is different from what it means to white
women. Because of our collective histories, we identify more closely with
international Third World sisters than with white feminist women . . . A global
feminism, one that reaches beyond patriarchal political divisions and national ethnic
boundaries, can be formulated from a new political perspective.254

Chela Sandoval suggests that U. S. Third World Feminists produced social innovations for

organizing opposition to the dominant order. The dominant order, as seen through the eyes

of these U. S. Third World feminists, also included the hegemony inherent in "second wave"

feminism that they interpreted as essentially a White women's movement. Although U.S.

Third World Feminists participated sporadically in this "second wave" White women's

movement, they largely interpreted White feminist's call for "unity" under the banner of

254
Alice Yun Chai, "Toward a holistic paradigm for Asian American Women's Studies: A synthesis of
feminist scholarship and women of color's feminist politics," Women's international studiesforum 8, no. 1
(1985): 59-66.
 115
"women" to be a smokescreen for White women's deeper and real need for homogeneity

that would allow them to sidestep thorny issues of race and class. The social innovation

produced by the U. S. Third World Feminist movement is a differential form of

consciousness and social movement.255 In fact Chela Sandoval's description of U. S. Third

World Feminism features this social innovation in approach to opposition prominendy. She

says,

U. S. third world feminism functioned as . . . an insurgent social movement that

shattered the construction of any one ideology as the single most correct site where
truth can be represented. . . .[demanding] a new subjectivity, a political revision that
denied any one ideology as the final answer, while instead positing a tactical subjectivity
with the capacity to de- and recenter, given the forms of power to be moved.256

Typical of her intellectually concentrated style of writing, Chela Sandoval packs a lot into this

definition that is worth unpacking because in later chapters this concept of differential

movement and subjectivity provides a more nuanced understanding and analysis of

conversation among people in the New Majority.

Chela Sandoval believes that since the 1960s, people in most groups or branches within

social movements have organized their opposition to "dominant and oppressive powers"

with great fidelity for one particular ideological standpoint or mode. To illustrate her point,

Chela Sandoval constructs a topology or constellation of four different ideological modes or

standpoints that different contemporary social movement groups have used to organize their

opposition: Equal Rights, Revolutionary, Supremacist, and Separatist as summarized in

Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 41-62.

Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 58.
 116
Figure 5.4.257 She claims that these single standpoint modes of opposition no longer work.

When groups of people within social movements declare fidelity to only one of these

ideological positions and dig their feet in, a problem arises. Eventually such movements get

divided from within. For instance, die "second wave" White Feminist movement developed

separate schools of feminism (e.g. socialist feminism, lesbian separatism, liberal feminism).

Each of those schools developed and adopted different oppositional tactics that all too often

were mutually exclusive, causing divisions and disagreement within the overall movement.

Chela Sandoval also argues that organizing opposition within a single ideological stance is no

longer effective against the new cultural logics of the "globalizing neocolonial forces of late

capital."258 These neocolonial forces that social movements face are so complex that it is no

long possible for people to "make sense of reality as it unfolds" because the forces have the

capacity to rapidly absorb and co-opt opposition through what Chela Sandoval calls the

"advertising culture." She claims that the time when it was "possible to know exacdy who

you are and where you stood" is past and this renders single standpoint opposition strategies

impotent.

The good news brought by Chela Sandoval is that U. S. Third World Feminists have made a

paradigm shift in thinking about how to organize opposition in the face of such complex

forces. The social innovation in opposition strategy of U. S. Third World Feminists is to

"enact one or more of the four ideological positionings. . . but rarely for long, and rarely

257
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 53-57; A complete description of Chela Sandoval's topology
of oppositional resistance is beyond the scope of the current discussion, but tracing an outline of her
thinking will hopefully assist the reader in understanding die usefulness of her insights for informal
education.
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 15-16.
 117
Figure 5.4. Chela Sandoval's modes of oppositional consciousness
Modes of oppositional consciousness can be thought of as standpoints that community organizers
take to develop and justify their strategies for opposing injustice. Examples of social movement
groups that consistently adopted one of these modes of opposition are offered.

r equal rights separatist

seeks to protect & nurture
argues for civil rights for all
differences that define a group
based on philosophy that all
through complete separation from
humans are equal
dominant order

examples: examples:
National Organisation for Women Nation ofIslam
League of United Latin American Citizens Chicano movement's A^ldn
Martin Luther King & Freedom movement Lesbian separatist (e.g. Michigan Womyn'sMusic
Festival)

differential consciousness and movement

argues tihat each m o d e is as potentially effective in opposition as
any other a n d practices weaving a m o n g a n d between modes

example: U. S. ThirdWorWFeminism

revolutionary
argues for a fundamental
restructuring of categories by
which the dominant is ordered to
lead society to function beyond
domination and subordination
examples:
Black Panthers and Brown Berets
American Indian Movement
US Marxists and Socialist Feminism
supremacist
n o t only claim differences, but assert
that those differences provide access to
a higher evolutionary level than that
attained by those who hold social
power
examples:
While the most obvious example is the extremism
of white supremacy, subordinated groups sometimes
claim that their experiences of oppression and
double-consciousness afford them higher ethical and
moral vision. For instance women might claim

V
Reference: Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the
that their experiences prepare them to be more
compassionate and ethical leaders or People of
Color might claim that their experiences of
oppression better prepare them to address the needs
Oppressed (Minneapolis, MN: University of
ofallpeople
Minnesota Press, 2000), 53-61.
 118

adopting the kind of fervid belief systems and identity politics that tend to accompany their

construction." 259 They assume that there are "manifold positions for truth."260 N o one

ideological stance can be judged as being better than another without context, without

examining what the most effective stance might be given what a group might be up against

at the moment. U. S. Third World Feminists applied a mobile and improvisational

consciousness in opposition, weaving "between and among" different ideological positions

self-consciously to secure influence and interrupt "shifting currents of power." 261 This

flexible strategy is what Chela Sandoval calls "differential consciousness and movement."

Practicing differential consciousness and movement proved to be an obstacle to the U. S.

Third World Feminists' acceptance into the "second wave" White women's feminist

movement. 262 According to Chela Sandoval, white women initially misunderstood these

practices of Feminists of Color as "disloyalty, betrayal, absence or lack:"

''When [Feminists of Color] were there, they were rarely there for long" went the
usual complaint. Or, "they seem to shift from one type of women's group to
another, and another." They were mobile (yet ever present in their "absence")
members of this, as well as of other race, class, and sex liberation movements. 263

What White feminists 264 failed to recognize is that the U. S. Third World Feminists'

paradigm shift toward differential consciousness and movement is significant because it

supports the use of fluid identities, combining the "strength to confidently commit to a well-

Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 57.

260
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 59.
261
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 57.
262
For examples of the struggles between White Feminists and Feminists of Color during the 1960s
through the 1980s, see: Benita Roth, Separate roads to feminism: Hack, Chicana and Whitefeminist
movements in America's second wave (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Winifred
Breines, The trouble between us: An uneasy history of Black and White women in thefeminist movement (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
263
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 57. Within this quote, Chela Sandoval is quoting other
sources.
264
Here, I am strategically essentializing "White Feminists" and "U. S. Third World Feminists," for
the purpose of drawing a broad general picture.
 119
defined structure of identity for one hour, day, week, month, year" with "enough flexibility

to self-consciously transform that identity. . . if readings of power's formation require it."

Differential consciousness and movement also allows practitioners the "grace to recognize

and act on alliances with others committed to egalitarian relations." Recognizing this quality

of flexibility and differential becomes important in future chapters, especially in the analysis

of conversations linked to processes of collective identity among the New Majority. People

in a movement of movements like the New Majority must traverse identities, issues, and

social habits that present obstacles for liberation (e.g. sexism, racism, ableism, classism,

heterosexism), organizations, social identities and neighborhoods as they organize in Boston.

Being able to engage these multiple levels of complexity in conversation requires such a

mobile and improvisational approach to consciousness and movement.

In the next section, a foundation for defining the learning tasks involved in social movement

conversation are identified through Chela Sandoval's "technologies of love." These

technologies of love combine her observations about differential consciousness and

movement with insights from the work of decolonial theorist and semiotician Roland

Barthes.

Technologies of love. Chela Sandoval's contribution to understanding the learning tasks

that goes on in the radical talk and conversation of social movements is rooted in her re-

definition of radical love. As bell hooks observes, "it is difficult to imagine that love really
 120
has the power to change everything," but Chela Sandoval argues that love — as she defines

it — is essential for the difficult task of decolonizing the imagination. 265

She affirms that love can break through whatever controls understanding and community,

she affirms as she describes a "hermeneutics of love that can create social change," a "love

that can access and guide our theoretical and political movidas — revolutionary maneuvers

toward decolonized being." 266 Chela Sandoval specifies love n o t as a feeling or an attitude,

but as a m e t h o d of interpretation, a set of procedures and practices that allow people access

both inside and outside colonized thinking. She draws on the insights of U.S. Third World

Feminist writers such as Gloria Anzaldua, E m m a Perez, Trinh Minh-ha and Cherrie Moraga

and thinks with the semiology of Roland Barthes 267 and the postcolonial theory of Franz

Fanon. 268

Chela Sandoval identifies five important and interrelated tasks that she defines as the

"technologies of love": semiotics, deconstruction, meta-ideologizing, differential movement

and democratics, 269 as summarized in Figure 5.5.

265
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 138-139.
266
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 139-140, 169.
267
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 81-82, 86-109, 116-126. Chela Sandoval argues that Roland
Barthes' contributions as a "de-colonial" theorist are underappreciated and should be further
explored by scholars. Roland Barthes was a contemporary of Franz Fanon and was working on the
"white problem" of colonialism. He wondered what mental habits allowed otherwise very decent
white colonizers to avoid decolonizing their minds. For those interested, my January 2006
Qualifying Paper has a section (p. 94-99) that discusses the model that Chela Sandoval has developed
from his work and how it relates to learning.
268
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 83-86, 126-129.
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 113.
 121
Figure 5.5. The technologies of love theorized by Chela Sandoval
From Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press, 2000), 81-113. Examples of the technologies are included in italics below the definitions.

semiotics deconstruction
profoumd commitment to sign-
reading; reading forms of practice of challenging
domination as artifacts; ability to ideological forms (such
distinguish deformation as artifacts and
meanings) through their
Roland Barthes: "semiology" deconstruction;
Gloria An^aldua: "lafacultdad" showing h o w these
Henry Loins Gates: "signifin"' ideological forms are
Fran^Fanon: "black, skin, white mask" wedded to maintaining
dominant power

Roland Barthes: mytbologi^ng

T democratics
?
a process of locating that gathers, drives and orients the other technologies with the
intent of bring about egalitarian social relations or with the aim of producing "love"
Roland Barthes: sowing in

meta-ideologizing

operation of appropriating
dominant ideological forms
<v differential movement
ability to manipulate
consciousness
and using them whole to improvisationally and move
transform them; social through stratified zones of
projection of new and form, meaning, resistance
revolutionary meaning and approach (including
systems to induce social those that are colonized)
justice
W, E. B, DiSois:
Roland Barthes: double consciousness:
revolutionary exnomination U.S. Third World Feminism:
differential consciousness
 122
Five conversation learning tasks involved in decolonizing the imagination: Building

a bridge between critical adult education and social movement theory. The

relationship of these learning tasks and Stephen Brookfield's parallel list (see Figure 5.3) is

striking and worthy of far more consideration than is warranted by the scope of this

study. A close reading of Chela Sandoval's technologies of love suggested a way to organize

Stephen Brookfield's critical adult education learning tasks, while also adding the essential

new learning task of differential movement. Figure 5.6 shows a conceptual map of this

organizing process that produces five learning tasks for conversation. Names and

definitions for the five learning tasks were assigned to be accessible for people who study

and work in education. This mapping forms a basis for analyzing people in the New

Majority learn through radical conversation (and radical conversation threads across time) to

decolonize the imagination. The five learning tasks (underlined for emphasis in Figure 5.6)

for radical conversations that decolonize the imagination then become:

1. perceiving hegemony: Perceiving hegemony is to perceive the deforming social and

emotional effects of beliefs practices, meanings, feelings and
consciousness that appear "natural" but that harm and work
to support the interests of others who have power over
them.270

2. unmasking power: Unmasking power is to be able to decipher, analyze and take

apart the mode of domination that is hidden within a pattern
of belief, practice, feeling or consciousness; to decolonize
meanine.271

270
This definition relies on Stephen Brookfield's definition of hegemony as "the process by which
we leam to embrace enthusiastically a system of beliefs and practices that end up harming us and
working to support the interests of others who have power over us": Brookfield, The power of critical
theory, 93.
271
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 82, 85, 109-110, 113, 173.
 123
Figure 5.6. Partial mapping of Chela Sandoval's technologies of love
to Stephen Brookfield's critical adult education learning tasks
Underlined terms are used to theorize decolonizing the imagination as five learning tasks found in social
movement learning conversation and conversation threads over time

Critical adult education

Technologies of love
learning tasks
Chela Sandoval
Stephen\^&ffipkfiel4

semiotics i ^> perceiving hegemony

deconstruction i *^> unmasking power

.. , . . ^* K^ overcoming alienation
meta-ideologizmg < _ Z Z _ > , . .
TT
» e ^— p^—^
combined reclaiming reason
challenging ideology
going beyond deforming ideology

differential movement < (noparallel task)

democratics •K. learning democracy

<
FT" learning liberation

o
combined

democratic commitment to
equal distribution of power
 124
3. going beyond Going beyond deforming ideology is to project new and
deforming ideology: revolutionary meaning systems that liberate those under
domination. This makes a move to meta-ideology by making
a liberatory movement in identity and perception. 272

4. differential Differential movement refers to an ability to practice

movement shifting mental gears through consciousness, "cruising"
a m o n g systems or zones of meaning, resistance, and
approach (including those that are colonized). 273

These systems or zones could include (but are n o t limited to)

paradigms, ideologies, systems of oppression (e.g. racism,
sexism, class) and specific approaches to addressing inequity
(e.g. in housing, jobs, education, civic participation).
Shifting mental gears is like being able to look at the social
and political landscape simultaneously from many
standpoints.

5. democratic Democratic commitment guides the first four learning tasks

commitment to equal through an ethical commitment to social justice according to
distribution of power egalitarian distribution of power across such differences as
race, gender, sexual orientation, nation, cultural or class
distinctions. 274

mental gears. T h e fifth learning task is the guiding moral force that directs all the others:
democratic commitment t o equal distribution of power. This last task assures that learning is
accountable to the goal of making the world work for everyone.

Chela Sandoval's insights also suggest a key relationship to indicate in the model: the

learning task involving democratics (democratic commitment to equal distribution of power)

serves to guide to the other four tasks. Further interpreting these five conversation learning

tasks through Paulo Freire's modes of breaking down ideas {deconstructiori) and putting

ideas back together {construction), adds another layer of relationship to the model, as shown

in Figure 5.7. T h e first two learning tasks involve deconstruction or breaking down what is

272
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 82, 85, 109-110, 113, 173.
273
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 82, 110, 173.
274
Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 82, 85, 111, 116-126, 173.
 125

Figure 5.7. Learning through conversation in social movements:

Five tasks for decolonizing the imagination and their relationship
to constructive and deconstructive modes of learning.

This model for analyzing conversations in social movements builds bridges linking the
insights of Chela Sandoval, Stephen Brookfield and Paulo Freire.
 126
going on to get at hidden meanings: perceiving hegemony and unmasking power. The

second two learning tasks involve construction or finding a way to make change and put

things back together in liberatory way: going beyond deforming ideology and shifting

mental gears. The fifth learning task is the guiding moral force that directs all the others:

democratic commitment to equal distribution of power. This last task assures that learning

is accountable to the goal of making the world work for everyone.

This model for decolonizing the imagination provides a more nuanced understanding of

how people in social movements learn through conversation in a distinctive way. The next

section shows how Mel King's 2003 New Majority Conference speech models the process of

decolonizing the imagination and serves as an example for illustrating an approach to

learning through radical conversation and talk among participants in the New Majority.

Decolonizing the imagination in practice:

The new majority conference keynote address

La facultad is the capacity to see in the surface phenomena the meaning of deeper
realities, to see the deep structure below the surface. . . Those who are pushed out of
the tribe for being different are likely to become more sensitized.
Gloria An^aldua275

The only way we can [overcome oppression] is by creating a whole structure that
touches every aspect of our existence, at the same time as we are resisting
Audre ljordi76

Social movements such as the New Majority often promote and involve distinctive learning

through conversation. As in other social movements, organizers in the New Majority

perceive that reality is a process undergoing constant transformation. They believe in their

Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/ JLafrontera: The new mestizo. (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books,
1999), 60.
Audre Lorde, Sister outsider. Essays and speeches (Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984), 103.
 127
own capacity to engage themselves in a struggle for creating liberatory change to that reality

so that "a new informed humanity" can emerge. O f particular focus and potential is such

radical conversation and talk in the N e w Majority. Radical conversations and talk identifies

n o t only the contradictions and root causes for problems that prevent a new informed

humanity from emerging, b u t also identifies revolutionary new ways to think about these

problems and to act o n t h e m in order to catalyze positive change.

After Mel King finished his 2003 N e w Majority Conference keynote address, Jose Masso

asked that everyone gathered use the speech as a context and a model for conversations

about the N e w Majority. Behind Jose Masso's suggestion is an understanding of the deeper

significance that the communications of people like Mel King play in social movements. Mel

King is an example of an "elder," not in the sense of age but in the sense of his experience,

leadership, skills and ability to pass along that experience to others. T h e biblical meaning for

"elder" confers a certain quality of leadership. An elder has deep knowledge of and

compassion for a community and,

knows how to assess the health and direction of the [community], and [he or she]
knows people, knows their needs, troubles, and weaknesses. . .
[An elder] knows h o w sensitive they are, how they can hurt one anoth-
er, h o w stubborn they can be, and how slowly and patiendy they must be
led. A n d when [an elder] doesn't know these things, [he or she] is quick to find
277

answers.

A n elder is also a teacher, w h o carries within himself or herself a vocation to protect, guide,

and nourish the community through words and actions. In social movements like the N e w

Majority, elders like Mel King also carry the history of a community's organizing not only in

their memories, but in their very bodies which they have often laid out in the way of harm in
Alexander Strauch and Paul Santhouse, Biblical Eldership Discussion Guide (Colorado Springs, CO:
Lewis and Roth, 2005), 6-11.
 128
past struggles. That is why there is often a certain palpable electricity and rapt attention in

the room when elders tell stories and offer advices. So, a talk given by someone like Mel

King, who carries these deeper meanings of eldership for Boston has the quality of

transmission. Transmission carries a particular meaning in some systems of spiritual

education, where an elder has the capacity, usually passed down through a historical lineage,

to transmit dharma, which can loosely be understood as combination of knowledge and

dutiful obligation. Because of their thick understanding of the tasks to be undertaken, such

elders serve as conduits; their words and stories are able to produce what might be called

"aha!" or "arrow in the heart" moments of experience in those who are present and

listening.278

Understanding Jose Masso's request that people at the New Majority conference use Mel

King's speech as a model and guide for conversation can be interpreted with fuller meaning

in the context of transmission. Not only did Mel King transmit ideas for people in the New

Majority to use in their conversation; he also transmitted a model for structuring

conversation and solving problems. The speech includes examples of all five learning tasks

in the model developed for analyzing talk that decolonizes the imagination. Figure 5.8 recalls

the speech, this time separating the speech into five parts to illustrate each of the five

learning tasks involved in decolonizing the imagination..

For readers who are interested in an anthropological rather than spiritual understanding of what I
mean by transmission, I suggest exploring the work of Keith Basso, especially chapters 2 and 3 of his
book Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache (Albuquerque, NM:
University of New Mexico Press, 1996).
 129
Figure 5.8. Decolonizing the imagination in practice: Five
learning tasks for radical conversation in social movements

Passages from Mel King's speech that apply directly to the learning task are underlined.

Learning task Definition of learning task Excerpt from Mel King's

2003 N e w Majority keynote
address

To perceive the deforming Self definition is an important

perceiving social and emotional effects of
hegemony beliefs, practices, meanings,
feelings and consciousness
that appear "natural," but that
harm and work to support the
interests of others who have
pECONSTRUCT) power over
thing. Everyone needs to be able
to do this. We need to define
ourselves. "It's different than
allowing others to define us.
When we accepted the term
minority, we were allowing
other people to define us.

To be able to decipher, None of the groups here are a

unmasking analyze and take apart the
power mode of domination that is
hidden within a pattern of
meaning, feeling or
consciousness;
To decolonize meaning
PECONSTRUCT)
minority on this planet!!!!"
"The model of self-definition was
Rosa Parks." Her act says, "I am
somebody." If she had gone to
the back of the bus, her act would
have said, "I am less than who I
know I am." "You can't allow
other people to make you less
than who you are."

Figure 5.8 continued (page two of three).
Learning Definition of learning task
task
3 To project new and
going revolutionary meaning
beyond systems that liberate those
deforming under domination;
ideology
To refuse the deforming
meanings and make a
libratory change of identity
(CONSTRUCT) and perception
Ability to practice shift
differential mental gears through
movement consciousness, cruising
among systems or zones of
meaning, resistance and
approach (including those
that are "colonized");
These systems or zones
could include (but are not
limited to) paradigms,
ideologies, systems of
oppression (e.g. racism,
sexism, classism) and
approaches to addressing
social inequity (e.g. through
housing, jobs, education,
civic participation)
Being able to look and act in
the social and political
landscape simultaneously
(CONSTRUCT)
from many standpoints.
130
Excerpt from Mel King's
2003 N e w Majority keynote address
Rosa's action has more to do with why
we are in this room. ''We've always
been the majority. How do we take
mat and move? We've got the
numbers!" When we organize
around being the [New Majority],
we need to get people to understand
what it means when you've got the
numbers.
The defining process in organizing is
culture. From studying the past, we
know the "power of culture." We
know the impact that understanding
this has had on the lives of those who
live in the US.
We've learned things from each of the
communities represented here at this
conference. There is a line from a song
in Dreamgirls that I like, where the
character says, let them have our music
so they can feel as good as we do.
However today we need to "develop a
culture of power." We have to come
to a place where we understand how
power works. We have to understand
the culture of power so deeply that it
becomes a second nature to us. like
food, music and dance. The culture
of power needs to become as second
nature to us as other aspects of
culture.
This is an imperative. So much hangs
on how we understand the culture of
power and behave out of that
understanding.

Figure 5.8 continued (page three of three).
Learning task Definition of learning
task
Ability to guide the first
democratic four learning tasks by an
commitment ethical commitment to
to equal social justice according to
distribution of egalitarian distribution of
power power across such
differences coded as race,
gender, sex, nation, culture
or class distinctions
(GLOBAL:
GUIDING ALL
OTHER TASKS)
131
Excerpt from Mel King's
2003 N e w Majority keynote
address
However by defining ourselves as
we do — as the N e w Majority —
we take on awesome
responsibility. We have to look at
issues in Boston and the world and
take them on. . . universal health care
for instance. . . who but us will take
this on. We must.
We are defining ourselves as people
committed to making the city work
for everyone. We are defining each of
ourselves as people who are part of a
process to make change.
We have to move from isolation to
the New Majority. . . We have to
move from isolation to inclusion.
Move this city! Change the
dynamics... The struggle is for a
new informed humanity. It's not
for equal access in a dehumanized
society.
To make a new and transformed
humanity is the task we're taking
on. The New Majority Agenda is die
new instrument that can be used for
strategic action. We've come together
in an agenda-building process. We
need to increase the level of
coordination between
organizations, leaders and
communities so the effectiveness
of each is advanced for the benefit
of all.
 132
p e r c e i v i n g h e g e m o n y . Mel King performs the learning task of perceiving hegemony

as he points out the deforming social and emotional effects experienced by People of Color

when they accept being defined as "minority" by other people. In the past, People of Color

might have accepted the label of "minority" as "natural" in the sense that its use was so

widespread that it appeared to be a common sense that required no questions. But Mel King

questions this term "minority" and stresses the importance of self-definition.

u n m a s k i n g p o w e r . Mel King decolonizes the meaning of the word minority when he

says "none of the groups here are a minority on this planet!" He performs the learning task

of unmasking power as he reads die hidden mode of domination, saying that the word

"minority" renders People of Color to be less than who they really are and goes on to

contrast this Rosa Park's act that communicated, "I am somebody!"

g o i n g b e y o n d d e f o r m i n g i d e o l o g y . After deconstructing the word "minority" and

advocating that it be rejected, Mel King goes on to suggest new ways of thinking and acting

that can be engaged instead, moving into the tasks of construction. He demonstrates the

learning task of going beyond deforming ideology to point out that People of Color have

"always been the majority" and urges them to instead organize around being the "New

Majority." To refuse the label "minority" as not true, and instead to go beyond that

deforming label to self-identify as the "New Majority" represents a liberatory change of

 133
identity and perception. Mel King solidifies this new identity by invoking a slogan that has

become synonymous with the Boston New Majority, "We've got the numbers!"279

differential m o v e m e n t . Finally, Mel King demonstrates differential movement,

shifting gears through systems of meaning, resistance and approach through his suggestion

that people in the New Majority seek to develop a "culture of power." He does this by first

lifting up a successful strategy from the past when the Asian, Black and Latino communities

sought to demonstrate the "power of culture" as they cultivated pride in their cultures and

communicated that pride in their actions. Now, Mel King suggests that this phrase can be

turned around on its head as a fresh strategy for the New Majority Initiative that encourages

people to develop a "culture of power." To have a culture of power means not only to

come to a place of understanding how power works. It also means to understand how power

works deeply inside, so that thinking and acting out of a culture of power becomes as second

nature to People of Color as thinking and acting with the power of culture.

democratic commitment to the equal distribution of power. Mel King ends

this part of his speech by outlining what he believes is the "awesome responsibility" of the

New Majority's democratic commitment to the equal distribution of power. He rejects a

culture of power driven by individual gain when he says "we are defining ourselves as people

committed to making the city work for everyone," not merely a city that works for People of

Color. Mel King paraphrases historian Vincent Harding's words from There is a river: The

"We've got the numbers" is actually a slogan that Mel King learned when he assisted in
the successful 1970 mayoral campaign of Kenneth Gibson in Newark, New Jersey.
 134
black struggle for freedom in A.mericam when he says, "The struggle is for a new informed

humanity. It's not for equal access in a dehumanized society." He is urging people in the

New Majority not to seek to increase their power and participation in Boston as it is right

now, but rather to catalyze a transformation in Boston so it becomes the city and community

it ought to be.

In this chapter, I argue that informal education in social movements can not only be

understood to foster learning through conversation in general, but also through a specific

form of radical conversation where people engage in learning tasks to decolonize the

imagination. This radical conversation and talk serves three separate purposes in the analysis

of learning through conversation in this ethnography study.

First, radical conversation, and radical conversation threads continue over time, are useful to

identify and analyze because they have particular potential to yield insights about learning in

the New Majority. Later on in Chapter 10, "To be or not to be 501(c)(3)," a story is told

about a radical conversation thread among people in the New Majority that stretched over

several years and most likely continues on as this ethnography is being completed.

Second, analyzing particular talk with these qualities — Mel King's twenty minute talk at the

2003 New Majority conference — and comparing that talk to insights from both critical

adult education and social movement theory leads to an analytic model for decolonizing the

imagination with five learning tasks. The entire model for decolonizing the imagination is

280
Vincent Harding, There is a river. The black struggle forfreedom in America (New York: Vintage Books,
1981).
 135
applied to uncover learning through conversation among people in the New Majority. In

Chapter 10, "To be or not to be 501(c)(3), the model of learning tasks that decolonize the

imagination is used to collect and organize data from a radical conversation thread. In this

case, applying the model provided a thick interpretation of what people in the New Majority

learned as they engaged in organization building.

Finally, the separate learning tasks described within the model and in particular the learning

task of differential movement, are applied to provide a deeper analysis of more general

conversation. In Chapter 7, "The purpose and vision of prophetic naming," the learning

task of differential movement is used to interpret how people talked the meaning of the

name "New Majority" over the five years of this ethnographic study.

The next chapter describes prophetic naming as the particular form that informal

education takes in the New Majority by telling the story of the New Majority's

participation in the 2004 Community Inaugural for People of Color w h o were

elected to public office in the November 2003 elections that took place soon after

the New Majority Conference.

Figure 3.3. Informal education in the N e w Majority

prophetic naming
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

+
new majority situated learning; new majority
environment purpose &
people form the values
new majority Chapter 7
community of
field of
history, patterns practice meanings that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
power of place
process of "what is the
collective identity new majority?"

I chwa&terOitCc' 2

collective learning is fostered in the new majority

through
I
through learning strategies: through action:
conversation:
Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapters
5&10 relying on the wisdom of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
implicit learning limiting access and building to the
participation, streets
by "decolonizing
& learning in a geography of
the imagination"
difference and struggle

Owformat/ edwocvtLcm ohcwa&terbitic/ 3

6
Prophetic naming:
Informal education distinctive to the New Majority
Prophecy is born in that moment when the emergence of a social political reality is
so radical and inexplicable, that it has nothing less than a theological cause.
Theologian Walter Bruggermar?81

A community of practice formed within one particular social movement has its own unique

process of collective identity, its own distinguishing environment, its own purpose and

values, and its own intention to foster learning. In other words, a particular social

movement is likely to have its own distinctive system of informal education. So far, in telling

the story of the New Majority, the environment or associational setting from "back in the

day" has been presented. An introduction to the 2003 New Majority Conference generated

an approach for looking at how learning is fostered through radical conversations or talk.

This chapter takes a step backward for a wider perspective in order to explore what can be

said about the whole system of informal education within the New Majority. Figure 6.1

places this chapter within the theoretical mapping of informal education in social

movements proposed in Chapter 3.

This chapter begins with the story of the New Majority's participation in the January 2004

Community Inaugural for People of Color elected to public office in the November 2003

elections. The events suggest an emerging general theme, "prophetic naming," that most

closely describes the spirit and distinctive arrangement of informal education of the New

Majority community of practice.

281
Walter Bruggermann, The prophetic imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers,
2001), 6.
 137
Figure 6.1. Informal e d u c a t i o n in t h e N e w Majority
The areas shaded like this box show how this chapterfitsinto the informal education model

prophetic naming
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

J
new majority situated learning: n e w majority
purpose &
environment people form the values
Chapters
4&8
new majority Chapter 7
community of
field of
history, patterns practice m e a n i n g s that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
process of "what is the
power of place
collective identity n e w majority?"

UvftrrryvaA/ ecUiocutUy-tv

T
dharcooterOitCo 2

collective learning is fostered in the new majority

through
II
through learning strategies: through action:
conversation:

Chapters Chapter 9
5&10 relying on the wisdom of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
implicit learning limiting access and building to the
participation,
by "decolonizing streets
& learning in a geography of
the imagination"
difference and struggle

[AvforyyvoU/ edUboa/tixm ofaavcL>cte<ri<itic> 3

The prophetic is the promised land
Social movements are prophets of the present.
Cultural sociologist, Alberto Melucd82

As I walked from the frigid evening air of January 10th, 2004 into the Community Inaugural

being held at Roxbury's Twelfth Baptist Church, the first thing I heard were the sounds of

recorded African American gospel choir music. The sense of social change history in this

particular church was poignant, because "when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a

doctoral student at Boston University in the early 1950s, he frequently graced the pulpit of

Roxbury's Twelfth Baptist Church, perfecting the soaring oratory that would help him lead a

movement."283

As I entered the back of the sanctuary, I could immediately see the New Majority presence.

Representatives sat at a table, registering new members and selling buttons with a design of

overlapping circles and the slogan, "New Majority: Uniting Boston's Communities of

Color." Although I did not know people from the New Majority would be here, I was not

surprised at their presence. The "word on the street" was that enthusiasm generated by the

New Majority had made an important contribution to the successful November 2003

election of Felix Arroyo as the first Latino on the Boston City Council a few months before.

Since then, there had been news articles written by pundits who pondered Felix Arroyo's

"surprising victory." He had received the second largest number of votes in the field of At-

Large City Council candidates. Yet few writers acknowledged the New Majority by name.

282
Melucci, Challenging codes, 1.
283
John C. Drake "Church honors King's struggle for civil rights: Service reaches out to younger
generation." Boston Globe, 14 January 2008, Local News.
Instead, news organizations like the Boston Globe chose to attribute the victory to what they

called an emergence of the " N e w Boston."

The. formal purpose of this Community Inaugural was to celebrate and bless through

ecumenical benediction n o t only the election of Felix Arroyo b u t also the re-election of

African Americans Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey to the Boston City Council. However,

this event also included what I interpret as an informal community inauguration and blessing

of the N e w Majority. The N e w Majority featured prominently in the Community Inaugural

program notes as a participant itself. A brief description of the N e w Majority included the

following paragraph,

O n October 18, some 300 people of color with a demonstrated commitment to

change gathered at UMass/Boston to hold the N e w Majority Conference, a first step
toward forging a c o m m o n agenda for communities of color in Boston and even
beyond. O n November 4, communities of color turned out to vote in record
numbers and sent a wake-up call to the city of Boston. We are the N e w Majority
and w e ' v e g o t the numbers to b e c o m e a real social and political force
[emphasis in original text].

T o lead off the inaugural program, the N e w Majority sent representatives from each of the

constituent communities — Mel King for the Black community, Lydia Lowe 284 for the Asian

American community and Jose Masso 285 for the Latino community — to give brief remarks

and issue an "open call to build the N e w Majority into an ongoing coalition." They also

announced upcoming plans for organizing "Street Talks," neighborhood dialogues to

identify a common agenda of concerns.

284
Director of the Chinese Progressive Association for over 15 years, Lydia Lowe has coordinated
some remarkable organizing efforts within the Boston's Asian American community.
285
Jose Masso, a native of Puerto Rico, has a special interest in Latinos in sports and society and was
Senior Associate Director of Northeastern's Center for the Study of Sport in Society (CSSS) between
1997 and 2000. He has been an activist in various community organizations and had been a member
of Boston Mayor Menino's Office of Cultural Affairs Planning and Assessment Advisory Task Force.
He is currendy the host of WBUR's popular bilingual radio program "Con Salsa."
 140

T h e N e w Majority was mentioned often in the many speeches. However the nature of re-

elected District 7 City Councilor Chuck Turner's remarks has implications for understanding

more about the distinctive nature of informal education in the N e w Majority. Speaking of

both Team Unity 286 and the N e w Majority, Chuck Turner said,

In 2003 [at the N e w Majority Conference], we found our Promised Land. T h e

Promised Land is our unity. The Promised Land is our confidence. O n c e you find
your promised land, you build your civilization. N o w our responsibility is to build a
civilization that will correct the errors of the past.

When such a compelling public speaker with a demonstrated capacity to mobilize people at

the grassroots makes a reference like this, there are often hidden layers of meanings for

community insiders. T h e Promised Land metaphor that Chuck Turner associated with the

New Majority to carries a number of resonances for Boston's N e w Majority and also

suggests the importance of prophecy in thinking about the N e w Majority's informal

education activity.

The "Promised Land" is a metaphor that holds deep meaning for African Americans; it is

associated with certain migration patterns and histories. Migration to Boston is legacy that

will be discussed in detail later as part of Chapter 4, "The N e w Majority begins "back in the

day." For African Americans, the Promised Land is often used as a metaphor for the "Great

Migration" or "Flight to the North," of African Americans from the rural South who

relocated to the Northern cities. T h e first trickles of migration began in 1910-1915 and did

286
In 2003, the New Majority and Team Unity were founded based on conversations about the
change in the 2000 Census for the City of Boston when People of Color were first recognized as
being more than 50% of Boston's residents. Team Unity is an alliance of the Boston City Councilors
of color who often choose to vote as a block on issues affecting communities of color, much to the
annoyance and sometimes even ridicule, of many of the other Boston City Councilors and Boston
officials. Chuck Turner's involvement as one of the founders of the idea of the New Majority is
described in detail as part of Chapter 4, "The New Majority begins "back in the day."
not slow until around 1970. Historical accounts describe how African Americans sought

to live out the promise of emancipation that seemed elusive in the South and moved to the

North hoping to escape racism and to find what were perceived as increased opportunities

for work. Like the N e w Majority, the Great Migration can be characterized as a movement

of people seeking equality and justice in both relationships and opportunities. Boston was

one of the northern destinations in the Great Migration. In 1970, just under half of the

people who identified as Black in Greater Boston had been born in Massachusetts and 45%

reported that they were originally from the American South or other U. S. states.288

Migration also played a role in creating a sense that "we've got the numbers" in the N e w

Majority. As community organizer Atieno Davis pointed out at an April 2004 N e w Majority

meeting, "how we got to be the N e w Majority is the immigrant population." For many

decades, Boston has been undergoing what government planners call an "historic. . .

revolution" of demographics. 289 The numbers are dramatic. From 1990 to 2000, while die

percentage of people who identified themselves as White living in metro Boston decreased

by 2.5%,290 the number of people in Greater Boston who identified as Black increased by

11.3%. The 2000 Census reported that people who identified as Black in Greater Boston

were culturally and linguistically diverse; 27% reported being born outside of die United

States (up from 6% in 1970)291 and 28% reported speaking a language other than English

287
Milton Semett, Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).
288
Charles Euchner, Governing Greater Boston: Meeting the needs of the region's people (Cambridge, MA:
Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, 2003), 80.
289
Charles Euchner, Governing Greater Boston, 80.
290
Charles Euchner, Governing Greater Boston, 80.
291
Charles Euchner, Governing Greater Boston, 82.
 142
292
(Haitian Creole and Cape Verdean Creole, African languages, French and Portuguese). In

the 1990s, the people who identified as Asian in the Greater Boston also grew by 71.9%,

with 3A reporting that they had been born outside the United States. At the same time, the

number of people identifying as Latinos in Greater Boston increased by 49%.293 So, when

People of Color became a majority of the population in the City of Boston, according to the

2000 U. S. Census, they were well-represented by a very literal social "movement" of

immigrants to Boston. This immigration flow from outside the United States runs parallel to

the African American metaphor of African Americans migrating North within the United

States, which was associated with renewed hopes and dreams for a "Promised Land."

The Promised Land that Chuck Turner links to the New Majority in his speech also refers to

a well-known biblical prophecy from the Old Testament about a place that God promise

to the descendants of Abraham. In this prophecy, God promises to deliver these people out

of slavery to a place where they can create develop relationships with God, with each other

and with the land that will be a model to the world. In Exodus 3:17 of the Bible, God says,

"And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery into . . . a land flowing with milk

and honey."

When Chuck Turner mentioned the Promised Land at an important spiritual home of

Martin Luther King, he was invoking the memory of the well-known Promised Land sermon

and linking the spirit of that sermon to the New Majority.294 On April 3 rd , 1968, Martin

Luther King preached at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple Church of God after attending a

292
Charles Euchner, Governing Greater Boston, 82.
293
Charles Euchner, Governing Greater Boston, 82.
294
Follow-up conversation with Chuck Turner after the Inaugural confirmed this point.
protest march for striking garbage workers in Memphis. Although in past sermons, h e had

mentioned "the promised land," this particular sermon has poignant meaning because it was

his last; he was assassinated the next day. T h e image of the Promised Land also is imbued

with the quality of transmission associated with elders that was discussed earlier. In the

often-quoted sermon, Martin Luther King says,

. . . I have been to the mountaintop. . . A n d I've looked over. A n d I've seen the
Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that
we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.

Finally, the later intellectual and organizing tradition of Martin Luther King is at the center

of the Boston organizing efforts that have actively engaged Chuck Turner. 295 For example,

he was one of the founders of the Fund the Dream Campaign, which places the concept of

the triple evils of racism, materialism and militarism "at the heart of an action agenda for

change." Martin Luther King introduced the idea of this triple evil to the public exacdy a

year before his death at the "Beyond Vietnam" speech given in N e w York o n April 4th,

1967 at Riverside Church. O n e of the Chuck Turner's editorials in the online journal Black

Commentator96 makes an explicit connection between Martin Luther King Jr.'s Promised

Land and these evils, saying,

295
One example is Chuck Turner's District 7 Roundtable. For over ten years, one Saturday morning
each month, residents of Roxbury and other communities have gathered for the District 7
Roundtable at the First Church of Roxbury ("the white church on the hill in Eliot Square) to become
informed, have conversations, offer feedback and share a free meal. Everyone is welcome and in the
half a dozen or so roundtables I have attended, the participants have crossed the spectrum from
people out of work looking to network for a job and people living without a house seeking a free
meal to hard-core intellectuals longing to thrash through theoretical problems and experienced
community activists seeking conversation and camaraderie. The District 7 Roundtable functions as
a grassroots public policy forum that Chuck Turner uses to guide his political agenda.
296
Chuck Turner is on the editorial board of the Black Commentator, an online political journal that
publishes the analytical work of public intellectuals of color.
 144
T h e "promised land" was n o t a green pasture just over the hill, b u t a new field of
struggle in which African Americans would add their voices and unique experiences
to the arsenals of human resistance to evil.297

These stories about the Promised Land can be considered to be a prophetic allegory n o t only

for the N e w Majority but for informal education in the N e w Majority. T h e Promised Land

symbolizes a state of earned inheritance and a spiritually sensitive place imbued with

possibility. T h e Promised Land can also be described as a social laboratory that supports

people as they learn h o w to reach the state of enlightened humanity that is their legacy

(which is arguably a process of informal education). When Chuck Turner used T h e

Promised Land as a metaphor, he was claiming that the N e w Majority community of

practice had these.prophetic qualities as well.298 In his speech at the 2004 Community

Inaugural, he also suggested that People of Color in Boston had the opportunity to create a

community of practice that could "build a civilization that will correct the errors of the

past."

T h e identification of the prophetic as a relevant theoretical theme for social movements is

also echoed in the work of social scientists. As discussed earlier, Alberto Melucci's work is

particularly relevant to the study of informal education in social movements because of the

cultural lens he uses as a focus. In fact, the lead-in to this discussion was a quote by

Alberto Melucci and is worth repeating in its entirety here,

Social movements are prophets of the present. What they possess is . . . the power
of the word. They announce the commencement of change; not, however a change

297
Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon. "Dr. King's Global Vision: Today's Missing Ingredient," Black
Commentator'73, (15 January 2004),
http: / / www.blackcornmentator.com/ 73 / 73_cover_since_mlk. html.
298
Follow-up conversation with Chuck Turner after the Inaugural confirmed this point.
299
Susan Klimczak, "Decolonizing the imagination: Some thoughts on education and social
movements." unpublished qualifying paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, January 2006.
 in the distant future but one that is already a presence. They force the power out
into the open and give it a shape and a face. They speak a language that seems to be
entirely their own, but they say something that transcends. . . and speaks to all.300

Later in his master book, Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age,

Alberto Melucci suggests that ideas generated within social movement communities of

practice often begin to name and articulate how people are already challenging existing

unjust systems of thinking and acting.301 This process of naming and articulating the idea of

"what is" then suggests how pushing these ideas further can offer opportunities for

developing more just systems of thinking and acting in the future. Other social movement

theorists mentioned earlier who take a more directly cognitive approach, such as Ron

Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, go so far as to say that social movements function as "social

laboratories" that allow people to experiment with knowledge, to "challenge dominant

assumptions of the social order, making problematic the self-image of societies."302

Both Chuck Turner's remarks about the New Majority being "the Promised Land" and

Alberto Melucci's notion of social movement as "prophet of the present," suggest that there

is indeed some thing prophetic about informal education in social movements. Focusing on

the prophetic also reinforces an earlier claim that the New Majority can be described as a

community of practice propelled together by a shared intellectual and moral history and

committed to fostering learning to explore the ideas and actions that promote an enlightened

humanity.

300
Alberto Melucci, Challenging codes, 1.
301
Klimczak, Susan. "Decolonizing the imagination." p. 34-39.
302
Eyerman and Jamison, Social movements.
Alberto Melucci also associates being prophetic with announcing or naming a change that

has already happened. T h e particular name, N e w Majority, announces something that has

happened; People of Color became the majority population in Boston according to the 2000

Census. T h e name " N e w Majority" announces that being a Person of Color in Boston

consequently has a new meaning in the present time and that forming a community of

practice to think, act and learn under that name can help shape w h o People of Color in

Boston can become together in the future. T h e next section explores the theoretical

significance of such naming within the N e w Majority's informal education.

Name it and claim it. Word is bond.

"Name it and claim it. Word is bond. You feeling me? Just saying. . . "
Teenqgedyouth teacher in the ljearn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn Program challenging his friend

N a m e it and claim it. W o r d is bond. Often, I hear the Boston Youth of Color I work and

learn with call each other out with a variation of these phrases when they challenge friends

who are putting themselves down by not speaking up or by being reluctant to say what they

know to be true about themselves. I believe what the youth mean is this: There is a curious

power in naming what you know (or even what you just want to believe) out loud. O n c e

you name it out loud, something happens inside you. What you know becomes yours, even

if you had doubts before you named it and claimed it. Further, you have made a strong

commitment to keep becoming what you know and to live out the consequences of what

you know to be true. There is power and commitment in naming. W o r d is bond.

This insight is also connected to a conversation I had at the 2003 N e w Majority Conference.

Raysa, a young Puerto Rican woman who looked to be in her early 20s, approached m e
 147
during lunch after an Education break-out session we both attended to talk about our shared

interest in environmental justice. After we spoke for a while, I asked her "What made you

come to this conference?" Raysa said that a friend had called her up and told her about the

conference, but as soon as she heard the name, "New Majority," she did not need to listen

to much else to be convinced. She said, "Something about that name touched me and I said,

'I want to go to that!" She told me that her reaction to the name wasn't logical; she just

knew she wanted to be involved. As I listened to her, I mought that the New Majority had

"named it and claimed it" for her and she wanted to come to the conference as an attempt

to leam, to better understand why and do something with others who felt the same way.

Word is bond. Certainly effects of such naming, claiming and committing can be observed at

the personal level. But how can naming impact the process of collective identity that goes

on in a community of practice?

A clue can be found by returning to Mel King's October 2003 keynote address at the New

Majority Conference presented in the last chapter. He describes the importance in taking

the name, "New Majority" by saying,

Self definition is an important thing. Everyone needs to be able to do diis. We need

to define ourselves. It's different than allowing others to define us. When we
accepted the term "minority," we were allowing other people to define us! None of
die groups here are a minority on this planet!!. . . you can't allow other people to
make you less than who you are. . . We've always been the majority. How do we take
that and move?. . . we've got to get people to understand what it means.

In this passage, Mel King is expressing a collective variation on the theme of "name it and

claim it" and "word is bond" when he breaks down why declaring and acting on a new name

for People of Color in Boston is relevant and important. Naming is an act of self-definition,

an act that ameliorates the efforts of other people to define your culture, your ethnicity or

your race in demeaning ways that "make you less than who you are." Mel King is also saying
 148
that within the act of self-definition and naming comes the responsibility and the

m o m e n t u m for people to " m o v e " differently in b o t h their personal lives and together as a

community. Rosa Parks and Long Guang Huang are examples of individuals whose acts of

self-definition sent the message, "I am somebody. I am deserving." In a way, each catalyzed

a whole community to move differently; to demand respect; and to demand what is deserved

but too often denied.

T w o other examples that express the collective quality of "name it and claim it; word is

b o n d " come from a N e w Majority gathering at the SEIU union headquarters in lower

Roxbury on April 13, 2004. Barbara Saliaterra picked up o n the theme of history, saying that

taking the name N e w Majority meant a community commitment to "take the rich history of

civil rights to an entirely different level." Another participant said, "The N e w Majority is our

reality. We need to take the possibility in that name and turn it into power together."

T h e significance of this process of reclaiming a collective name can also be found in the

literature of decolonization. In the introduction to Decolonising the mind: The politics of

language in African literature, Giguyu (Kenya) scholar Ngugi Wa Thiong'o describes

how people who live under oppression and exploitation often face a very "real" and

"palpable" ultimatum: accept theft. The theft he speaks about includes the economic and

political, but it also includes cultural and psychological thefts as well. O n e of the most

powerful and foundational effects of oppression and exploitation Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

describes is the annihilation of "a people's belief in their names." His prescription is to

303 Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature (Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 1986).
address this with a "creative culture of resolute struggle," where the people "have to speak

the united language of struggle contained in each of their languages. . . They must discover

their various tongues to sing the song: 'A people united can never be defeated.'" Ngugi Wa

Thiong'o says that reclaiming one's name in one's own language begins to decolonize the

mind, and helps to free the thoughts from control and constraint by others who seek power

over them.

At the New Majority Conference in 2003, Mel King pointed out that the act of naming the

New Majority has at least two important dimensions. First the act of naming the New

Majority was an act of rejecting a deforming definition made by others, an act that places

doubt in the truth of the "common sense" in calling people of color "minorities." Second,

the act of naming the New Majority was an act of self-definition, of claiming the right to

define who they are.

Prophetic naming closely describes the overall process of informal education in the New

Majority as shown Figure 6.1. Informal education in the New Majority's community of

practice is a process of collective identity, or as New Majority member Peter Lin Marcus

puts it, "unity for a purpose," that invokes a prophetic name. The process of collective

identity is prophetic in the sense that the New Majority can be thought of as the earned

inheritance of a spiritually sensitive social learning laboratory and the commencement of a

process of change that is nascent and seeded within Boston's Communities of Color. The

name, "New Majority," represents a way for People of Color in Boston to decolonize how

they think about themselves and how they can imagine the future. As New Majority member
 150
Gibran Rivera expressed it colloquially, the name "New Majority" is "the most innovative

thing we have."

Within the construction of that prophetic name is an acknowledgment of past and present

injustice, as well as a commitment to creating new relationships and learning that will lead to

justice for all. Mel King's talk about self-definition suggested ways to shape a new

community learning process to seek meaning for the name New Majority through

conversation and action. The 2003 New Majority Conference initiated the creation a

community of practice and a process of collective identity engaging the name "New

Majority," as prophetic and "imbued with possibility." The next chapter traces how people

have talked about what the New Majority is over five years of conversation and better

defines the purpose and vision of both the New Majority and the New Majority's distinctive

form of informal education, prophetic naming.

 151
7
Purpose and vision for a new informed humanity
To develop your ideas to meet the crisis that you're faced with, takes time.
Grace Lee Bogg/04

One important question that needs to be asked is, "What are the purpose and values that

define prophetic naming?" Grace Lee Boggs captures long-term nature of^the process of

collective identity that is at the center of prophetic naming: the process of how ideas about

the New Majority community of practice and ideas within the New Majority community of

practice develop over time, and how those ideas are turned into action. This is a process

that is often best measured in years.

In the last chapter, prophetic naming was described as the particular form of informal

education in the New Majority. The purpose and vision of the New Majority is evolving and

will continue to develop and evolve over time because that is the nature of any process of

collective identity. However, a picture of the New Majority's purpose and values can be

painted by looking at the different ways people have talked about the New Majority over

time. This chapter explores how people talked about the meaning of the name "New

Majority" over the five years of this ethnographic study. Figure 7.1 revisits how the purpose

and vision of informal education fit into this dissertation's map for describing prophetic

naming.

304
Grace Lee Boggs and Bill Moyers, Interview from Bill Mayers Journal, 15 June 2007, full interview
transcript available online at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06152007/transcript3.html.
 152

Figure 7.1. Informal education in the N e w Majority

^$$£8

X
I , ^ ' \ '^ V"' C ^ X ' ? ' .3 Chapter 6 0*; X.v , v ^ - ^ \ N * ^ - 1

psocess of "wKat is the

collective identity mew imjoiity?*'
informed/ eeLu&atlcnv
dhcwexvt&rOjtCc' 1 ch*wa&t&rlytic/ 2

collective learning is fostered in the new majority

^
JS \
^
through through learning strategies: through action:
conversation:
Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapters
5&10
relying on the wisdom ot
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
itiiplicit learning limiting access and building to the
b y "decolonizin g participation, streets
tlle imaginationi " & learning in a geography of
difference and struggle

Oivforryvai/ etUicatOcrtv oheura&terOytbC' 3

Innovation in a name
The most innovative thing that you have is that you are calling yourself "The New Majority.''
Facilitator and New Majority member Gibran Rivera at the 8 December 2007 New Majority Retreat

To prepare for a New Majority retreat four years after the 2003 conference, facilitators

Gibran Rivera and Kelly Bates informally interviewed some members from the original 2003

New Majority Initiative Steering Committee to gather advice and reflection. Gibran

Rivera's remarked that one of the insights coming out of these interviews affirmed that

"naming and claiming" the New Majority continues to be an important innovation for this

community of practice. Following up on this insight, analyzing how people talk about what

the New Majority is across the years can paint a larger and more colorful picture of this

innovation.

In this ethnographic study, identifying, collecting and analyzing common themes over many

years of conversation and action has been an indispensable research strategy for detecting

patterns of learning in the informal education of social movements. This is especially

relevant when considering one of the radical conversation learning tasks identified in

Chapter 5: the differential movement or shifting mental gears through systems of meaning,

resistance and approach (See Figure 7.2 for reference).

Looking over the years at what people have said and the symbols they have produced about

what the New Majority is reveals a number of seemingly incongruent definitions for the

"New Majority." In the context of just a few conversations, this seems to point to support a

claim for ambiguity about what "New Majority" means. But, looking over five years of talk
 154

Figure 7.2. Learning through conversation in social movements:

Five tasks for decolonizing the imagination and their relationship
to constructive and deconstructive modes of learning.

This model highlights the task of differential movement, shifting mental gears through
systems of meaning, resistance and approach

The area shaded like the box represents the learning task ofdifferential movement
to get a fuller picture and thinking with the learning tasks developed for decolonizing the

imagination, a different possibility emerges. What people in the New Majority have

produced together is a dynamic field of many meanings about what the New Majority is.

And they move among and between these different meanings as they think and act together,

as they are engaged in the process of collective identity in their community of practice. This

field of many meanings for "New Majority" has built capacity among people in the New

Majority to engage in differential movement, one of the five learning tasks for decolonizing

the imagination in social movements.

The rest of this chapter explores the kinds of opportunities that are created within the

community of practice to talk about what the New Majority is and the field of different

meanings for the New Majority that the community of practice generates together in their

evolving process of collective identity. The chapter ends by describing how the acts involved

in generating this dynamic field of multiple meanings are exactly what enables differential

movement through and among those meanings.

The definition of a public face for the new majority

People in the New Majority have always claimed and publicized a definition of who they are.

The original steering committee defined the New Majority as an "initiative" or "the first step

in a process that, once taken, determines subsequent action."305 The first recorded definition

by this New Majority Initiative Steering Committee was included with the invitation

materials for the 2003 Conference. This definition was the initial act of naming the New

305
Definition from Encarta World English Dictionary.
 156
Majority in academically oriented language, perhaps reflecting the participation of the

University of Massachusetts Institutes:

The Census 2000 revealed that the city of Boston is at a turning point with people of
color now comprising a majority of the population in the city. What the data cannot
tell us is how communities can work together at this historic moment to recreate our
social and political institutions, cultural and economic life in order to reflect this
diversity. . .

The purpose of the New Majority conference is to identify a common agenda for
Boston's communities of color and begin to develop strategies and sustainable
structures to promote and build upon that agenda. We hope that [the New Majority]
may serve as a unifying call to action for individuals and organizations that have
demonstrated a commitment to change.

This definition was first made public through conference invitations sent over the Internet,

by email and through the postal mail to activists and community leaders in Boston's

Communities of Color. It has remained a stable definition and some form of it has

continued to be used over the years for the New Majority's public communications.

The New Majority also has a symbol as part of its definition. On every conference invitation

was also a visual definition of "New Majority Initiative," a New Majority logo:
 157
T h e design with its four partially overlapping circles does n o t communicate its full meaning

to the outsider. But according to members of the original 2003 N e w Majority Initiative

Steering Committee, the logo has deep symbolism." Each of the four overlapping circles was

intended to represent one of Boston's Communities of Color: Asian, Black, Latino and

Native American, 306 joined inside a larger circle.307 This logo has been reproduced on all

written communications, on a banner which has been faithfully displayed at all 2003 - 2008

political forums and membership meetings, as well as on the button (pictured above) that the

N e w Majority has sold to raise funds. David Ortiz, one of the co-chairs of the N e w Majority

Steering Committee in 2007, has reminded steering committee members at three committee

meetings of the importance in having every communication from the N e w Majority carry the

logo, saying that it was an important part of New Majority "branding." 308 In political

science, symbols such as the N e w Majority logo are considered to have significance because

of their efficient ability to "quickly convey multiple emotions and meanings without verbal

explanation." 309

306
While the Boston Native American community is included in the New Majority and sent
representatives to the 2003 New Majority Conference, their participation has not been sustained
over the years. The Native American community in Boston is small and fragmented and members
often overlap with other communities. Therefore, when I refer to the New Majority constituents as
the "Asian, Black and Latino communities," I am speaking of the practical reality of the communities
represented by active participants.
307 Personal communication, Mel King October 2008.
I have personal experience with the positive impact of the New Majority "brand." For several
years, I wore the New Majority button on my coat. Quite often, in stores or on the T (Boston's
subway) or at community meetings, youth and adults who I did not know would approach me to talk
about the button and the New Majority. Some recognized the logo immediately and knew about the
New Majority; others were drawn to the symbol and wanted to know more about the New Majority.
I would often unpin my button and give it to the person who initiated the talk. Over several years, I
gave away several dozen of the buttons in this way.
3119
Mona Noriega, "Problem definition and agenda-setting: LGBT aging issues," in Proceedings of
the Midwest Political Association, Chicago, Illinois, 6 April 2008, 8-9.
 158
This stable and public written and visual definition represents the public face of the New

Majority and has everyday utility. When people ask about the New Majority, a definition and

brochure with an explanation and definition can be given to them. Press releases and letters

can be sent out with the New Majority letterhead and include an explanation of the New

Majority in the communication.

According to Alberto Melucci this kind of static definition used by the New Majority is

pragmatic and necessary for communicating the broad unity of purpose of a social

movement, though there is also a much more complicated process of collective identity

going on under the surface. Even though the written description and visual logo of the New

Majority have remained the same over time, in meetings and events since the 2003

conference, what people say when they talk about what the New Majority is does shift and

change, indicating precisely this kind of complicated process going on. This shifting and

changing of meaning suggests that accepting ambiguity and engaging in continuing dialogue

and deliberation about the definition has been and continues to be central to the work of the

people becoming and being the New Majority.

One sign that this definitional ambiguity and dialogue was anticipated is conveyed by the

very first sentence describing the "New Majority Initiative." The words that follow the

explanation of the meaning of Boston's 2000 U. S. census results are "what the data cannot

tell us is how communities can work together at this historic moment to recreate our social

and political institutions, cultural and economic life in order to reflect this diversity"

[emphasis added). What this implies is that coming together to develop mutual

understandings of what the New Majority means is exactly the point of the New Majority.
 159
That is why the N e w Majority is n o t only a prophetic name, b u t also a continuing process of

naming and growing into a name. Said another way, the informal education of prophetic

naming involves forming a community of practice and engaging in a process of collective

identity. Central to that process is engaging in a process of dialogue and action linked closely

with a prophetic name.

Associational settings for exploring what the new majority is

Looking at the associational settings or contexts where people gather to define what the

N e w Majority is offers some understanding for how this process contributes to learning.

People participating in many kinds of N e w Majority gatherings 310 regularly engaged in

answering, one way or another, the question of "What is the N e w Majority?" informally or

through a more formal facilitation process designed by the conveners. 311

Informally, speakers at N e w Majority gatherings often begin their talks or presentations with

a spontaneous personal interpretation of the N e w Majority. For instance, at a 2005

membership meeting Steering Committee member Lydia Lowe began a report on the

election of the Steering Committee by saying,

T h e N e w Majority is an electrifying idea, an idea to bring about social and economic

power. T h e N e w Majority is & group of people to move the idea forward, to bring
the community together, to talk about what we have in common and to mobilise.

310
The use of the word, "gatherings," here means that I am grouping together the data from field
notes from 2003-2009 New Majority membership meetings, steering committee meetings, and
retreats.
311
The New Majority is full of community organizers and nonprofit workers who bring rich and long
experiences of facilitation to gatherings and meetings. Although their skillful facilitation has been
integral to the informal education in the New Majority, a thick analysis of their contributions is
beyond the scope of tiiis dissertation.
 160
Another example comes from a discussion that took place at a 2007 Steering Committee

Meeting. Ty dePass started out his report on initial plans for a reworking of the New

Majority brochure by talking about the New Majority's role in supporting some of people's

despair in the community:

There is a sense of isolation. People think they are fighting by themselves. They
don't know where to go for help and they are worried about the payback. The New
Majority is this idea, that there's a group that's family that will rally. The New
Majority makes this real for folks.

Even though Lydia Lowe and Ty DePass were both saying that the New Majority is an idea,

each offered a different description of the New Majority. Lydia Lowe claims the New

Majority is "an electrifying idea to bring about social and economic power," while Ty DePass

says the New Majority is "an idea that there's a group that's family that will rally" for

individuals when they feel isolated, suspicious and discouraged. Also, Lydia says the New

Majority is both "an electrifying idea" and "a group of people." In these contexts, other

participants in the meeting listened to the definitions of the New Majority, but the

definitions were not then discussed directly in the meeting. However, it is possible that there

were informal discussions after the meeting between small groups of participants where

these definitions were part of the conversation.

A number of times conveners asked participants at New Majority gatherings to share in

round robin fashion what they believe the New Majority is. Typically, there was no time

structured in for discussion or dialogue about what people shared. One example of this

occurred at the 13 April 2004 New Majority meeting, which was held at the Service

Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1957 Hall in Lower Roxbury. New Majority

steering committee members Owen Toney and Todd Lee asked people who attended the

meeting to introduce themselves by describing the New Majority. Here are a few of their
responses. Each line is the voice of a different participant arranged in the order in which

they spoke:

"[The New Majority] is a voice to so many who wouldn't have one. The New
Majorityisyouth empowerment"

"The New Majority is an experiment that holds a lot of potential"

"The New Majority is a very important opportunity to bring together People of

Color and folks who want social changed

"The New Majority is an idea that there is potential for great change in Boston"

"[The New Majority] is a way to take a rich history to an entirely new level"

"[The New Majority] is a way of life."

The New Majority is an effort to empower citizens to stand up and vote and make a
difference in the city."

"The New Majority is our reality. The New Majority is a possibility we need to
take and turn it into power."

Again, people had divergent definitions of the New Majority. According to these

participants, the New Majority is a voice, an experiment, an idea, a strategy, a lifestyle, a

possibility and even a shared reality. One observation worthy of note was that people in the

room seemed to listen to one another in a relaxed way without verbally challenging each

other. The facilitators did not summarize or comment on what people said about the New

Majority. This suggests that there was something implicitly intentional and accepted about

these acts of verbalizing many different definitions.

There were two occasions when participants shared an explicit intent to develop consensus

about how to define the New Majority: two New Majority retreats in March 2006 and

December 2007. Participants at these retreats were mosdy, but not exclusively, New

Majority Steering Committee members. At each, the professional facilitators engaged to lead
 162
the retreats spent over an hour on exercises designed to elicit responses that define the New

Majority. For example, at the New Majority retreat held at the Association of Community

Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) offices in Codman Square in March 2006,

facilitator Sandra Mcintosh had the group spend about an hour on a "Vision statement

brainstorm," out of which a consensual statement, 'The New Majority is ." was

generated. Participants wrote phrases or ideas about the New Majority on small square

sticky notes, then stuck them on a large poster paper hung on an easel. Sandra Mcintosh

then asked the group pick out the most important words from among them. Finally, the

group worked together to put the words together in a sentence, which would become the

New Majority vision statement. Notably, the first draft of the sentence left the central noun

blank and was recorded on the poster paper as,

The New Majority is a jn) working together to build powerful

relationships, educate and unite communities of color and their supporters for social
economic and political change to gain power.

Extended discussion about what to put in place for the missing word(s) included suggestions

such as "social movement" and "coalition." The final consensus was to replace the missing

word with "organization." It is likely that that this consensus was influenced by the purpose

of the retreat, which was to lay plans for formalizing the New Majority as a 501(c)(3)

organization and a Political Action Committee (PAC). Two other heated points of

discussion that followed were "whether to use the word power or empower" and "the role

of white people." The final draft of the New Majority vision statement was:

The New Majority is an organization working together to build relationships, to

educate and to unite communities of color for social, economic and political power.
"We've got the numbers!"
The only time I recorded observing New Majority participants challenge each other in a

sustained way about what ought to be included or excluded in a definition was during these

retreat discussions.

What was different about the context of the retreat discussion from other contexts where

people talked about what the New Majority is? The purpose of die vision statement

discussion was to develop a momentarily static definition of the New Majority that could be

used for official communications such as brochures, websites, press releases, and

membership materials. What people came to consensus about at the retreat was a working

definition that would serve as the public face of die New Majority community of practice.

The other contexts or associational settings can be described more accurately as being

internal to the New Majority community of practice. So, in fact, these vision statements are

a working definition for the general public, but in the wider education process of prophetic

naming, it is only one in a field of meanings that people in die New Majority are developing

for dieir name.

Having one working definition of the New Majority diat serves as a bridge between the

community of practice and "society" is part of the process of collective identity. Up until

now, the informal education of prophetic naming that has concerned this study has mostly

involved learning within the New Majority community. This consensual definition is

intended not only for participants in the New Majority, but also for the Boston community

in general. What this indicates is that the informal education of prophetic naming also

involves learning that is "evolutionary" in the sense that philosopher and sociologist Jiirgen

Habermas proposes, meaning that this community of practice seeks to have their learning
impact "society" and help society "grow and mature." This public definition of the New

Majority serves to announce to "society" the possibility of — and indeed, the imperative for

— developing new ways of understanding, engaging and integrating People of Color into the

structures of power that determine Boston's direction as a city. Steering committee member

Lydia Lowe often reminded people of the need to insist that this evolutionary learning take

place in wider Boston society by asking the question, "Whose Boston is this?" outside of the

New Majority community of practice.

Another indication of an "evolutionary" element of learning is how people in the New

Majority chose to take on a public voice by forming an organization. The choice of the

word "organization" in this vision statement reflects a way to "institutionalize" and

"legitimize" the New Majority learning community as a social actor within Boston civil

society. Becoming a legal entity, an organisation — whether it be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

and/or a PAC — is creating a type of group democratic voice that already has accepted

legitimacy and comprehensible standing in the wider civil society, a legitimate operational

"educational bridge" for the New Majority to "teach society" and carry its insights to a

broader audience. Later, Chapter 10 "To be or not to be a 501(c)(3)" explores how people

in the New Majority engaged in the learning tasks of decolonizing the imagination as they

struggled to shape themselves into a recognizable legal organization.

Two important questions rise to the surface while exploring these observations related to

defining, naming and planning:

• What does the act of leaving meaning ambiguous accomplish for people in the
New Majority?
 165
• For what purpose do people in the New Majority return again and again to this
naming and definition process in their gatherings?

Exploring the social movement learning task of differential movement, shifting mental gears

through systems of meaning, provides one plausible explanation. People in the New

Majority are creating a field of multiple meanings that they can move among and between in

their conversations and in planning their actions.

Bringing many meanings into a field for differential movement

The mesti^a consciousness is characterized by the development of a tolerance for

contradiction and ambi-guity, by the transgression of rigid conceptual boundaries, and by the
creative breaking of the new unitary aspect of new and old paradigms.
Gloria Anzaldua, BorderlandsI 1M Fronterc?12

Gloria Anzaldua is one of the central figures in U. S. Third World Feminism. The

description of mesti^a consciousness in this quote suggests one approach for understanding

the function of ambiguity observed in New Majority conversations about definitions.

Central to her work, mestizo, consciousness is a state of mind and strategy for managing life

Woman of Color use to negotiate multiple collectivities. Tolerating ambiguity and even

welcoming mat ambiguity can be interpreted as intentional and purposeful for managing and

working with complexity in a process of collective identity. For, as mentioned in Chapter 4

"The New Majority begins "back in the day", developing this particular process of collective

identity among the New Majority involves building a collective identity that incorporates

many historical and ongoing processes of collective identity in the Asian, Black and Latino

communities. Mesti^a consciousness was also central to Chela Sandoval's development of

the notion of differential movement as a methodology of the oppressed.

312
Anzaldua, Borderlands, 80.
 166
The learning task of differential movement was introduced in Chapter 3 using Chela

Sandoval's example of how U. S. Third World Feminists practiced differential movement

through a field of four different ideological positions taken by groups of white women

within "second wave" feminism. In that example, U. S. Third World Feminists positioned

themselves improvisationaUy among and between separatist, supremacist, equal rights and

revolutionary approaches to resistance depending on which position allowed the most

effective tools for what they were up against in the moment. The salient observation here is

that U. S. Third World Feminists moved among and between already-established systems of

meaning. But, what if there is no already established system of meanings in which to practice

the learning task of differential movement? In the case of the New Majority, the name is

prophetic and at least part of the meaning for "New Majority" has yet to be created.

Under these conditions a field of multiple meanings or definitions can be invented or

created through conversation and reflection.

Since the 1990s when questions of definition and meaning have come into play in intellectual

communities, there has been a thorny problem in qualitative research brought on by

intellectual adventures in poststructuralism and postmodernism. This problem is often

described as a "crisis of representation"313 that makes for muddy waters whenever an

ethnographer is engaged in identifying what is "truth." In light of the work of such

philosophical theorists as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault and their followers, what this

problem boils down to is that it is difficult for educational ethnographers to find grounds for

313
N. Denzin, and Y. Lincoln. Eds. The landscape of qualitative research: Theories and issues (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998), 1-34.
 167
314
"determining the accuracy of one representation as opposed to another." One way out of

this dilemma suggested by educational ethnographers Phil Carspecken and Geoffrey Walford

is to turn again to Jurgen Habermas for his pragmatic theory of truth and say that truth is

always contestable, but what really matters is the field of possible and different meanings.

What is interesting and salient is primarily not some objective meaning and definition, but

how meanings and definitions are used to "coordinate actions between people" (and

between people and the world), and secondarily to persuade others to accept the

ethnographer's statements and explanations that apply the meanings.315 The learning task of

differential movement, of shifting mental gears through systems of meaning, is aligned with

this pragmatic approach to the "crisis of representation" being practiced. Thus, rather than

argue for the single "true-est" meaning for what the New Majority is, a field of different

meanings used by people in the New Majority is identified.

Categories in a field of different meanings for what the New Majority is rose organically

through successive analyses of the collection of definitions offered by New Majority

participants over time (patterns of participation are discussed in detail as part the next

chapter). The overall analysis showed that definitional statements about the New Majority

could be associated with one of five groups of meanings associated it. The first meaning is

the vision and mission statement that people in the New Majority formed by consensus to

present as a public face (as described in the last section). Other meanings identified as part

of this study can be associated with the following four statements:

314
Carspecken, Phil and Geoffrey Walford. Eds. Critical ethnography and education. Amsterdam: JAI,
2001:1-26. It is beyond the scope of this analysis, but interesting to note that the Houston school of
critical ethnography further ties meaning to validity claims in ways I believe many other researchers
might find as interesting to think with as I do.
315
Carspecken and Walford. Critical Ethnography and Education. 6-8.;
 168
The New Majority is an idea,
The New Majority is a reality,
The New Majority is a moral consciousness and a set of ethics to think and act with, and,
The New Majority is an effort to form new bonds of relationship.

The next sections discuss each of these meanings in turn.

The new majority is an idea

As Native American theorist Paula Gunn Allen put it in 1981, so much was taken away [by
acts of genocide and oppression] that "the place we live now is an idea" — and in this place
new forms of identity, theory, practice, and community became imaginable.
Chela Sandoval, describing the development of differential consciousness

We need space for the idea to exist, new space for orientation to the idea so that it can reach
a broader group of people.
Gibran Rivera, New Majority Retreat, December 2007

Of these four groups of meanings, the one previously identified in this chapter as most likely

to be the "innovation," is that "the New Majority is an idea." Thinking with Paula Gunn

Allen suggests the possibility that for the New Majority, "the place we live now is an idea,"

bom of People of Color's history of experiences of their exclusion and their resistance to

that exclusion in the social, economic and political life of Boston. And as Gibran Rivera

points out, creating space for that idea to exist and to be shared among People of Color in

Boston is central to the purpose of the New Majority. Ty DePass, a steering committee

member and education director of Roxbury's District 7 Roundtable, also commented that it

is necessary to find ways to "make this idea real for folks."

Four quotations from New Majority participants best represent their orientation to the New

Majority as an idea:

"The New Majority is an infectious viral idea that sets people moving."

"The New Majority is an electrifying idea, to bring about social and political power."
 "The New Majority is an idea that has emotional impact and comets confidence."

"We want to popularize the New Majority as an idea and present it as an exciting
social innovation."

Examining these quotations further suggests that the New Majority is not just any idea, but

an idea that "gets inside people," that spreads among people infectiously and that inspires

people to act differently and with more emotional charge than they might commonly act.

One dictionary definition says an idea is "what you intend to do" or "a plan or a scheme,"

but in the New Majority there is a twist because a process of multiple meaning and

ambiguity is at work in intention and in planning. Adding "viral" to the mix may also mean

that there is unpredictability about when and how the idea will be spread.

One example of a moment when the emotional impact of the idea was palpable took place

on December 8th, 2007 at a New Majority retreat of leaders and members held at the offices

of the Massachusetts Voter Outreach, Training and Education organization (MassVOTE) in

Downtown Boston. In the Saturday afternoon session of the day-long retreat, facilitator

Gibran Rivera had the participants do an exercise designed to get at answers to the question,

"why does the New Majority exist?" Gibran Rivera described the purpose of the exercise,

saying that he hoped this would help participants also answer the question, "what will be the

New Majority's direction?" His response, quoted at the beginning of this section, was, "We

need space for the idea. . . new space for orientation to the idea so that it can reach a broader

group of people."

Participants arranged their chairs into two lines, facing each other and close enough for

conversation. Those sitting across from one another paired off and Gibran Rivera asked
one person in the part to initially b e the questioner and one person to b e the listener. The

task of the questioner was to ask over and over again, "why does the N e w Majority exist?"

listening to each response and repeating the question after each response. After about five

minutes, the roles of questioner and listener were switched. I was one of the participants in

this exercise. 316 T h e emotion in the r o o m was electric and I was n o t the only one w h o felt

tears welling up in my eyes both when I was listener and responder.

After the exercise was complete, participants were asked to rearrange their chairs into a

circle. There was some lingering, a reluctance to separate from the pairs, that Gibran Rivera

noted when he led a discussion about what people felt and heard. When participants

responded to his question of "what did it feel like to listen?," many described the emotion in

the r o o m by saying that it was " d e e p " and "profound." Participants described the impact of

listening to each other, saying, " T w o of us made it deeper," "I felt I was n o t the only o n e "

and "we can get close and separate again." O n e described the emotional meaning of

speaking and listening, saying,

It was great to know that I have an ally on issues I feel strongly about. Feeling that I
could go down alone on issues, that's what made the separation more profound.

So one way an idea has emotional impact is when that idea breaks a person's sense of

isolation. What these comments suggest is that many people might already have an idea

inside them. However, they feel that they are the only one who has the idea and thinks that

the idea is important. T o hear the idea being communicated by others can be an affirming

316
When I asked permission to attend this retreat from David Ortiz who is one of the New Majority
steering committee co-chairs, David said, "Of course, but there is one condition. You must
participate." I did not contribute to every discussion and exercise at the retreat, but strategically
chose two of the exercises where I felt my voice from the perspective of participant observation
would be appropriate. This was one such moment when I chose to step in and participate. My
partner was Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association.
 171
experience that breaks one out of intellectual and emotional loneliness. Or, as one

participant put it, "if we break down the isolation, there are possibilities for change." One

thing that the process of collective identity in prophetic naming accomplishes is interrupting

the illusion of powerless isolation and providing hope for the possibility of change.

Another participant reflected on the quality of listening that allows an idea to be heard in a

way that leads to the possibility of transformation, saying,

To really listen means a willingness to change. If you are not willing to change, you
are not listening.

The person speaking was suggesting that an idea could possibly "go viral" among a group of

people who are "in contact" with a longing or an openness to change.

When Gibran Rivera asked what "came up" for people during the exercise, some answers

repeated phrases from the New Majority vision statement, such as "bringing people

together," "unify common agenda" and "political power for People of Color." Other people

revealed more of the emotional impact of the New Majority and the process of collective

identity. Maud Hurd, a steering committee member who is the executive director of the

Boston Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said the New

Majority exists "because we are not waiting for someone to tell us that the New Majority

matters." Edwin Argueta, the Civic Engagement Coordinator for the East Boston

Ecumenical Council (ESAC) said, "because we are in danger." Other participants said,

"because this will be our children's place and we need to be a voice for the children" and "to

break down our isolation." Notice that most of the statements colored by overt or implicit

emotion are phrased with "we" and "us." This pronoun usage suggests something shared in
 172
the thinking and feeling about participants' experience of the idea of the New Majority —

and the process of collective identity. Cultural theorist Raymond Williams' observations

about "structure of feeling," might apply here to describe what appears to be a shared but

difficult-to-articulate continuum between thinking and feeling associated with this idea that is

central to the New Majority. What this "structure of feeling" also suggests is a shared

sorrow about the necessity for the idea of the New Majority. This can be the kind of shared

sorrow and compassion that Gloria Anzaldua and Paula Gunn Allen referred to in the quote

at the start of this section, "so much has been taken away that 'the place we live now is an

idea.'" There is also hope embedded in the strength that was required to get to this "place";

the feeling is part of a tradition that allows displaced communities to resist assimilation.

As time has gone on in the process of collective identity within the New Majority, the

steering committee has increased their recognition of the New Majority as an idea. At a 26

February 2008 follow-up meeting to the 2007 retreat, participants decided to redesign of the

New Majority brochure as one of the action items. Until that time, the New Majority had

been using a brochure that took most of its written copy from the original documents from

the 2003 New Majority conference. The brochure committee, David Ortiz, Ty DePass and

Meiko Rollins,317 presented a very rough mock-up of the new brochure at the 27 March 2008

Steering Committee meeting held at the Chinese Progressive Association office. They

decided to maintain the original New Majority logo and have two goals for the other content

in the New Majority brochure. One was to keep the description of the organization in order

to name the rising expression of the New Majority as a political force, to encourage activists

317
David Ortiz works at MassVOTE, Ty dePass is a community organizer in Jamaica Plain and is
also the education coordinator for Councilor Chuck Turner's District 7 Roundtable and Meiko
Rollins works for Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation (Nuestra CDC) which advocates
for the Dudley Street neighborhood in lower Roxbury.
to join or collaborate and to serve as a first contact voice for the media and for alliance-

building outreach.

However, Ty dePass described another goal for the brochure, saying "-we want to popularize

the New Majority as an idea and present it as an exciting social innovation." Here is a fully

articulated indication that promoting the New Majority as an idea was as important for

creating a bridge between participants and the wider Boston civil society as organization-

building. Participants at the meeting went on to critique the content of a rough draft of a

paragraph to be included about the New Majority as an idea. The sense of the conversation

was that everyone in attendance was in agreement and the outcome was that the paragraph

about the New Majority as an idea would be reworked for the next draft of the brochure.

Informal education and its process of collective identity in the New Majority involves

developing a "public face" definition that shows some consensus about what the New

Majority is. This public identity includes a visual definition from the New Majority logo, a

vision statement that defines the New Majority as an organization and the articulation of the

New Majority as an idea, a social innovation to be promoted for the good of all in Boston.

Adopting an organizational structure and promoting a socially innovative idea also allows

informal education in the New Majority to be "evolutionary" in Jurgen Habermas' sense

because it creates a socially recognizable voice (organization) to spread the idea for the

purpose of "helping society to grow."

 174
"The new majority is our reality"

The New Majority is our reality and we need to take the possibility in it and turn it into
power.
Participant, New Majority Membership Meeting at SEIU Hall, 13 April 2004

What the New Majority is also reflects demographic reality. Cultural sociologist Alberto

Melucci points out that social movements are "prophets of the present" who "announce the

commencement of change; not, however, a change in the distant future but one that is

already a presence."318 The New Majority is a group of People of Color, which according to

the symbolism in the New Majority logo, includes the African American or Black

community, the Latino community, the Asian American community and the Native

American community of Boston. The New Majority origin story that is most often told,

claims that the New Majority came out of a conversation about the US Census figures from

2000, which showed that People of Color were the population majority in the City of

Boston. This has been expressed in everyday language through a continual lifting up of the

slogan, "we've got the numbers," since Mel King first offered it in his keynote speech at the

2003 New Majority Conference.

For the first few years of my work as a participant observer with the New Majority, this was

the only claim of fact that I recorded in my field notes. Sometimes, people would speak

about the role of immigration in increasing the population of Boston People of Color as an

additional fact. However, at the 2007 New Majority retreat, facilitators Gibran Rivera and

Kelly Bates asked the question, "Where are we in this precious moment in time? What has

changed socially, politically, economically since the start of the New Majority?" Among the

8
Melucci, Challenging codes, 1
many answers that were offered in the small and large group discussions that followed was

one by Lydia Lowe who said,

After this fall's election 319 there was a feeling of a setback. There are also worries
that though People of Color reached a "new majority" in the 2000 census, they are
getting pushed out of Boston by die high costs of housing, unemployment, and
gentrification. There is a political struggle going on, with people trying to stay in
Boston and change the political landscape.

After this, m o r e definitions of the N e w Majority as a reality emerged. Ty dePass, later o n at

the same retreat, offered his take on multiple meanings of the N e w Majority based on fact,

There are multiple New Majorities. I see at least three. First, the Census reality of
5 1 % . Second the young population. . . for example Boston Public Schools have 8 5 %
students of color. Third the potential, but not yet, electoral majority.

This suggests that even while basing the definition of the N e w Majority on demographic

facts, in the face of one fact being potentially changed, differential movement consciousness

within a "community of practice" allows for improvisation. Here, people in the N e w

Majority are developing other facts within this category of "the N e w Majority is reality,"

showing the efficacy of applying a mobile and improvisational approach to meaning.

Widening the number and type of facts used to describe the N e w Majority as a reality also

demonstrates an expanded capacity to respond to possible resistance within Boston's

established and largely White political structure. An example of the kind of potential

resistance to or dismissal of the N e w Majority's relevance that might be faced can be found

in a 2008 interview I conducted with Michael Flaherty, a White at-large Boston city

councilor. I asked him what he knew about the N e w Majority and its impact on Boston

319
In the Fall of 2007 Boston elections, incumbent Latino City Councilor Felix Arroyo was defeated
by Irish lawyer John Connolly who hails from the political genealogy of the white Irish and Italian
male Boston political machine. Felix Arroyo's election to the Boston City Council in 2003 had been
considered in part to reflect the New Majority's first contributions to the Boston political landscape.
politics. His immediate — and sole — response was to focus o n demographics and point

out that according to the latest trends in demographics, People of Color are likely to lose

their majority by a small (less than 1%) margin in the 2010 census. O n e interpretation of

this response might be that Michael Flaherty believes that the N e w Majority reality is likely

to be rendered irrelevant. The capacity of people in the N e w Majority to think

improvisationally about other kinds of numbers and facts that represent their reality beyond

the US Census demographic numbers in Boston will b e important in countering this kind of

potential resistance in the coming years.

The new majority is a moral consciousness and a set of values

It is often thought vaguely that our ideals are all there, shining and splendid, and we have
only to apply diem. But the truth is that we have to create our ideals. . . T h e test of our
morality is whether we are living not to follow but to create ideals, whether we are pouring
our life into our visions only to receive it back with its miraculous enhancements for new
uses.
Mary Parker Follett, 1918, Roxbury, Massachusetts21

T h e N e w Majority is not just people of color, but certain values, lifting up voices of all in a
way that respects all cultures.
Mel King, Community Inaugural January 2004

320
Notably, in June 2009 as I wrote this, both Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon (a member of the
New Majority and another at-large Boston city councilor) were both campaigning for mayor of
Boston against the incumbent Tom Menino. Michael Flaherty won a place as the run-off candidate in
the September 2009 primary. Despite having been able to raise dramatically less campaign funds
than Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon received only 3 % less votes than Michael Flaherty. And Michael
Flaherty has asked Sam Yoon to join his runoff ticket against incumbent Tom Menino as a deputy
mayoral candidate.
Mary Parker Follett, "The Unity of the Social Process," chap. 6 in The New State - Group
Organisation, the Solution for Popular Government (New York: Longman, Green and Co., 1918),
http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett/VI.txt
 177
From the start, participants in the New Majority have put moral consciousness at the center

of their process of collective identity. Mel King set the tone, putting values front and center

in his keynote speech at the 2003 New Majority Conference, saying,

Defining ourselves as we do — as the New Majority — we take on awesome

responsibility . . . we are defining ourselves as people committed to make the city
work for everyone. . . We are defining each of ourselves as people who are part of a
process to make that change.

Here, Mel King argues that the definition of the New Majority includes a moral

consciousness and commitment as a responsibility. Implied in his statement is an

argument that present political representation is administering the city in such a way that it

does not work for all people. The responsibility that he claims for the New Majority is to

make a change, not so the city works for only People of Color, but so that the city works for

everyone. This was underscored when he lifted up the words of Vincent Harding in this

passage from his speech,

"The New Majority is a struggle for new and informed humanity, not for self-interest
in a dehumanized society."

Other participants have also repeated this conviction in their own words at different New

Majority gatherings. Examples include,

"[The New Majority is] not just a question of individual gain, but gain that is fair and
equitable for all."

"This isn't just about 'us getting something for ours,' [the New Majority] is about 'we
the People of Color in Boston working together to improve life for all of us."

Jurgen Habermas suggests that the development of moral consciousness in adult learning

serves as "a lever of social evolution." This hinges on people's capacity to recognize,

name and analyze the ethical underpinnings of how and what they are learning. Then, by

following up with tests and adjustments to their conversations and actions, people embody

322
Stephen Brookfield, The power of critical theory, 256.
an the ethical commitment to make the city work for everyone and to strive for a new and

informed humanity. Here, people in the New Majority declare that they aspire increasingly

to have their thoughts and actions driven by an egalitarian impulse they find missing in

Boston social, economic and political life. This is akin to Chela Sandoval's learning task of

democratic commitment to equal distribution of power, the learning task that drives the

other four learning tasks for decolonizing the imagination.

The New Majority community of practice has continued to return to this definition of the

New Majority as moral consciousness or ethical commitment and has taken time out in

gatherings to reflect on the values that drive their process of collective identity. In one

instance, a values clarification exercise was an integral part of the 2007 New Majority retreat.

This exercise was an effort to document individual values in the group and use them as a

basis for developing a set of specific collective values for the New Majority. The exercise

facilitator Gibran Rivera framed the exercise as an act of resistance to current political

conditions, saying,

Something tragic happens in politics when we let the Right Wing run away with
values. You need alignment between your values and the values of your
organization. The most important thing to do is to know who you are. You need to
have your organization values align in the New Majority.

In the exercise, participants were asked to write down the three most important personal

values, one on each of three small "sticky paper squares," then go into the hallway outside

the conference room and group them in some kind of affinity relationship on several large

sheets of paper mounted on the wall. Some general categories (in no particular order,
categories mine but approved as part of the retreat meeting notes distributed by the N e w

Majority) were: 323

Community: This was mentioned by a number of participants, including o n e

description as "ubuntu — I am because you are."

Lope: This was also mentioned by a number of participants with variations,

such as, "express love." "love and caring," compassion,"
"compassion and caring," and "carino — caring personal
relationships."

Freedom: Variations on freedom included, "freedom for self," "personal

freedom," and "freedom of speech."

Commitment to a place: Several participants expressed commitment to Boston,

"situatedness" or commitment to the land of their cultural roots, for
example, "Puerto Rico."

Family: This was mentioned by over 1/3 of the participants. Some

mentioned a particular family member such as a child, "Calvin Taino
Feliciano, Jr." and other expressed it more generally as "carino —
caring personal relationships" or "all the children are my children."

Justice and Humanity: This was another category that was well-represented, with
contributions such as "justice — right relationship," "seek equality,"
"people of color as human beings matter, despite where they come
from," "fairness," "belief in the humanity of people with struggles,"
"respect for everyone," "justice — lifting every voice," and "we all
have the ability to progress and contribute."

Other Values: There were other values that did not exactly fit into the categories.
They included, "spiritual belief," "hardworking/drive," "personal
power," "integrity — wholeness of person," "rhythm
(tension/movement/balance) and "offer hospitality."

Time was allowed for everyone to look over the responses, have informal conversation and

to adjust the grouping of the stickies. I even overheard one of the youngest organizers,

Calvin Feliciano, reacting to seeing so many stickies joining his and grouped around the idea

of love, provoking laughter by memorably saying, "Love and care is why I am so 'gangsta'!"

(a reference to popular culture).

323
As a note, this was one of the exercises in the 2007 New Majority Retreat that I chose to
participate in; I contributed my own three stickies to this values clarification exercise.
T h e n facilitator Gibran Rivera gathered the participants together and asked them to reflect

o n these personal values and take a step towards what Jiirgen Habermas might describe as

"testing the universality" 324 of their convictions, by posing the question, " H o w do we go

from 'me' to 'we'?" For the next part of the exercise, Gibran Rivera asked each participant

to come up with one value "that would make you want to commit to the N e w Majority." 325

T h e list that was generated differed somewhat from the original list of values and included

one new value, "possibilities," which was lifted up as compelling to participants:

Family and Community Power of Love

Justice Strength
Family Unity
Spirit Possibilities
Clarity

Participants used a process of voting to winnow down the list to five and "possibilities"

went from having only 2 votes to being one of the five final values: unity, power of love,

justice, family and community, and possibilities. Figure 7.3 shows these values as a concept

map, quoting some notable participant comments about each value.

The remarks that people made as they changed their votes to "possibilities" were particularly

interesting. Participants said, "possibility has something to do change and responsibility," "I

want to change from strength to possibility because I see the possibility of strength," and "I

like possibilities. Maybe in a sentence: Unifying in the power of love for endless

324
Jiirgen Habermas, Autonomy and solidarity: Interviews with jiirgen Habermas (London: Verso, 1992),
269.
325 While I participated in offering my three contributions to the original list of personal values, I
participated only as a listener to this part of the values clarification process.
Figure 7.3. Concept map of 2007 N e w Majority values clarification
with some notable remarks about each value from participants

possibilities ^ \
power of love
"possibility has something to do with
change and responsibility" carino, "caring personal
relationships"
"possibility of strength"
compassion
"unifying in the power of love for
"if we don't have love,
endless possibilities"
there is no foundation"
"possibility lets us not get boxed in
by 501(c)(3)" K.
V r family and
community
unity
"all the children are my
among People of Color children"
among "people with ubuntu, "I am because
struggles" vou. we are"

I
"in our shared humanity"

N e w Majority's shared values

"struggle for a new informed humanity, not for self-interest in a
dehumanized world"
"People of Color in Boston working together to improve life for all"

I
justice
"right relationship"
"belief in the humanity of people with struggles"
"people of color as human beings matter"
"seeking equality"
"lifting every voice"
'there is injustice in the world and we ought to do something about it"
 182
326
possibilities." Edwin Argueta said, "possibility lets us not get boxed in by becoming a

501(c)(3) 327 nonprofit." What he was referring to is the N e w Majority's three-year struggle to

seek legal status as an organization and possibly as a nonprofit. Here the last-minute

inclusion of "possibilities" among the values of the N e w Majority and immediate support

among the retreat participants affirms the importance of the learning task of differential

movement, being able to mentally m o v e among a set of possibilities. Edwin Argueta's

statement about considering possibilities for modifying the legal status of the N e w Majority

as an organization, even with two years effort toward nonprofit status was prophetic, and

will be discussed in detail in Chapter 10. Within days of the end of this retreat, a foundation

would approach the N e w Majority with the possibility of funding if they organized as a

501(c)(4) rather than a 501(c)(3) and the N e w Majority's "possibility" would very literally be

engaged.

In prophetic naming, the process of collective identity involves people developing moral

consciousness as part of their evolving identity. What drives the moral consciousness in the

N e w Majority is an often-stated belief that they are seeking a "new informed humanity"

rather than increased "access" to the "dehumanized" workings of Boston's social, economic

326
Edwin Argueta is a New Majority Steering Committee member and the Civic Engagement
Coordinator for the East Boston Ecumenical Community Council (EBECC). His biography from
the EBECC website describes him as, "An immigrant from El Salvador, Edwin came to the U. S. in
the 1980's. He joined EBECC in 1998 as an Immigration Counselor. Edwin is a well-known activist
involved in many issues in the East Boston neighborhood and in the Greater Boston Latino
community over the past 10 years." EBECC is a neighborhood-based organization founded in 1978
to promote racial harmony. Now EBECC focuses on the advancement of Latino immigrants of all
ages in East Boston.
327 "501 (c)3" is shortcut term that refers to a form of tax exempt status nonprofit organizations and it
stands for the legal code of the U. S. IRS for nonprofit tax exempt status.
and political life. They also restate a commitment to "making the city work for everyone,"

not just People of Color. This moral consciousness is dynamic in that the New Majority

Steering Committee has practiced values clarification as part of their retreats to better define

it. The continuing development of this moral consciousness and a set of values that define

the New Majority is also linked to the learning task of democratic commitment to equal

distribution of power presented in Chapter 5, "A call to conversation: Talk as struggle to

gain a new informed humanity." The learning task of democratic commitment is especially

important as it infuses and shapes the other four learning tasks involved in decolonizing the

mind. The New Majority's values and commitments will also be useful in evaluating the

effectiveness of of prophetic naming in the final conclusions for this study, to see if the

informal education in the New Majority community of practice has lived up to its values.

the new majority is a bond of relationship

The New Majority — what we are asking is, "Whose Boston is this?"
Lydia ljtwe, New Majority Membership Meeting at SEIU Hall 13 April 2004

Bonds of relationship have been central to the New Majority's definition from the first

conversation where Felix Arroyo, Jr. essentially asked, "what does it mean to be the new

majority if there are no operational relationships among People of Color in Boston?" Lydia

Lowe asked, "Whose Boston is this?" a question that has often been repeated in New

Majority conversations. This question extends the New Majority's bond of relationship to

include not only people, but also the city of Boston itself. The need to develop and deepen

relationships among and between People of Color is based on a sense that the present

functioning of economic, political and social life in Boston has largely led People of Color to

experience being cut off from a full belonging to Boston.

When the bond of relationship that defines the New Majority is discussed, sometimes the

New Majority is defined in the practical terms of aspirations for a structure that represents

the New Majority's public face. For instance, here are a few declarative statements from

participants,

"The New Majority is an organization."

"The New Majority is an incorporated nonprofit organization."

"The New Majority is a Political Action Committee."

Certainly, building the bonds that make possible an organization with legal status is one

aspect of the process of collective identity. Functionally, the New Majority has also created

networked relationships among organizations that represent Communities of Color. For

instance, individuals can pay dues to become individual members of the New Majority and

organizations can pay dues to become organizational members of the New Majority.

Further, the political candidate forums sponsored by the New Majority have brought

together a network of member and nonmember organizations representing People of Color.

As will be seen in Chapter 10, the structure of the New Majority has evolved from the dual

nonprofit and political action committee structure that was originally imagined.

However, most of the time, people in the New Majority speak about the bond of

relationship among and between People of Color in Boston, saying such things as,

"The New Majority brings together People of Color and folks who want change."
"The New Majority is uniting communities of color; creating one community."
"The New Majority increases coordination among diverse groups to strengthen each group.'
"The New Majority together is a social and political force."

Participants also describe the bond of relationship in the New Majority at an interpersonal,

and even what might be called an intimate, level, through remarks such as, "The New

Majority is a group of brothers and sisters in a circle of trust."

 185

In prophetic naming^ developing relationships among and between People of Color is part

of the process of collective identity in the New Majority community of practice. Through all

the activities of informal education — the development of an associational setting, through

an evolving purpose and vision, and by learning through conversation and action — people

in the New Majority engage in building the relationships that form — and re-form — their

community of practice.

It is important, however, to remember that the New Majority engages in a process of

collective identity that is linked to other historical and continuing processes of different

collective identities in and within the Asian, Black, Latino and Native American communities

as seen in Figure 6.4. All these processes of collective identity serve purposes along a

continuum between affirmation of culture and opposition to injustice. For example, recall

the New Majority slogan "We've got the numbers!" which evokes both a sense of

affirmation and pride in People of Color being identified as the majority population in

Boston and a call to opposition against a pattern in Boston's public life where those

numbers are not reflected in the way social, political and economic power work in the city.

This definition of the New Majority as the bond of new relationships is linked to both

historical and educational coalition-building processes in Boston.

The concern about increasing relationship among People of Color to each other and the city

connects historically, "back in the day," to the Rainbow Coalition. For instance, Chuck

Turner recently said,

 186

Figure 7.4. One interpretive mapping of multiple layers of Boston

People of Color collective identities

Such a nesting of collective identities makes differential movement possible among and
between them for the purposes of both affirmation and opposition to injustice

African American
Vietnamese

South Asian

Cambodian

Haitian
Korean

Chinese Somali

Cuban
Cape
Verdean

Columbian
Puerto
Rican

Sarvadoran
 187

the Rainbow Coalition has been included [in discussions of the N e w Majority]
because it was from that mayoral campaign . . . that people really saw [the N e w
Majority] as the next stage in the development of the Rainbow Coalition. 328

However one important difference exists between the Rainbow Coalition and the coalitional

relationships being developed in the N e w Majority. The Rainbow Coalition was a coalition

that included not only People of Color groups in Boston, b u t also constituencies that were

(and continue to be) largely White, such as Lesbian and Gay groups and some feminist

groups organized in the "second wave" of feminism. 329 During the years 2003 — 2009,

people in the N e w Majority have largely been concerned with developing coalitional

relationships exclusively among People of Color and not so m u c h (or at all) with including

White progressive allies. For instance, earlier in this chapter, the visual definition of the

N e w Majority showed a design of overlapping circles representing the shared relationship of

four Communities of Color in Boston as defined by Asian Americans, African Americans,

Latino Americans and Native Americans. 330 In light of this, the question that arises is, " H o w

can the N e w Majority be interpreted as representing "the next stage of development" from

the Rainbow Coalition, rather than a "step backward" in coalition-building because

progressive White constituencies who might share values and goals with the N e w Majority

are excluded?

O n e approach to interpreting the answer to this question can be found by thinking with

both Chela Sandoval's notion of differential movement as a tactic of opposition, as well as

with some of the insights from the different Communities of Color who participated in the

328
Chuck Turner, Interview with Susan Klimc2ak, 13 June 2009.
329
The Rainbow Coalition also included individuals who were not affiliated with groups.
330
New Majority leadership is continually explicit about youth and Native American people being
included, even when diere are not yet die resources to recruit and retain them.
 188
Rainbow Coalition presented in Chapter 4's discussion. W h e n Chela Sandoval describes the

oppositional strategies of the U. S. Third World Feminists, she speaks about the

improvisational movement of W o m e n of Color among allies and across the range of

ideological stances from the second wave White Feminist movement. Rather than take a

consistent analytical standpoint (such as equal rights or revolutionary arguments and

strategies), U. S. Third World Feminists practiced differential movement through groups and

stances. They changed tactics of resistance, depending on what they believed would present

the best opposition to what they were up against in addressing any given issue.

Recalling the discussion of the Rainbow Coalition from Chapter 4, People of Color groups

formed coalitions with some neighborhood groups and constituencies that were largely

White. Although the Rainbow Coalition was experienced as having a very energizing effect

o n Asian and Latino community grassroots organizing, the Black community organizers'

reflection on the Rainbow Coalition was more ambivalent. 331 T h e Black community

organizers participating in the Rainbow Coalition went so far as to say,

T h e sentiment voiced by approximately seventy black campaign workers. . .can be

seen as a reaction to the stifling of semi-independent activity in the Black community
over the course of the campaign, particularly in the post-primary Rainbow Coalition.
It can also be seen as a manifestation of the general need for independent
organisation among minority [sic] nationalities whose cultures are always subject
to subordination, intentional or unintentional, by the dominant culture^1
[emphasis mine]

What this reflection from the Black community suggests directly is that, in order to be

successful, "Rainbow" coalitions need more than just People of Color participation from the

331 This summary is based on the articles contributed by Rainbow Coalition organizers from the
Asian, Black and Latino communities to a double issue of Radical America (November 1983 —
February 1984) dedicated to participation and reflection on the Rainbow Coalition. This issue is
quoted in the analysis of the Rainbow Coalition offered in Chapter 4 of this dissertation.
332
Cason, "The Mel King campaign and the Black community," 45.
individual Asian, Black and Latino communities. Established means of opposition that

effectively counter intentional or unintentional patterns of "subordination" in place when

organizing with people from the dominant — read largely White — culture must also be in

place. What this suggests is that developing strong relationships and a capacity for coalition

among and between Asian, Black and Latino communities are necessary for People of Color

to act together efficiently and effectively when such subordinating habits and tactics are

impacting issues that come up in "rainbow" coalitions.

There has already been a historical pattern of Boston People of Color practicing differential

movement through multiple level coalition-building, for instance the Chinese community

organizing at different times by engaging their collective identity as Chinese and/or as Asian

American, depending on which collective identity or identities presented the most effective

resistance or opposition to what they were up against. And when the issue of police

brutality toward Long Guang Huang came up, the Chinese community took the lead in

organizing, supported by the Asian American community. The Rainbow Coalition, as well

as the Black community, also issued formal statements and participated in the collective

actions against Boston police brutality that were organized by the Chinese community.

One interpretation of the utility of a coalitional consciousness across Asian, Black and

Latino communities is that it adds another collective identity to the field of collective

identities that can be effectively engaged in resistance to stubborn patterns of injustice. This

expands the capacity for differential movement among and between the various levels of

People of Color identities that were shown in Figure 7.4. Through conversations and action
 190
together, the Asian, Black and Latino grassroots organizers establish a working relationship

that they can choose to engage as one of the many strategies for, as Cherrie Moraga puts it,

. . .how we cope, how we measure and weigh what is to be said and when, what is to
be done and how, and to whom. . . daily deciding/risking who it is we call an ally, call
a friend.333

The New Majority can become operationally one among many possible collective identities

that people can engage differentially in the struggle for justice. As Chela Sandoval argues,

this practice of differential consciousness requires,

. . .grace, flexibility and strength: enough strength to confidently commit to a well-

defined structure of identity for one hour, day, week, month, year; enough flexibility
to self-consciously transform that identity according to the requirements of another
oppositional ideological tactic if reads of power's formation require it; enough grace
to recognize alliance with others committed to egalitarian social relations and race,
gender, sex, class, and social justice, when these other readings of power call for
alternative oppositional stands.334

This bond of relationship among and between Boston's People of Color represents a kind of

evolutionary learning process of collective identity that impacts not only the New Majority,

but the general community within which it works. A coalitional consciousness like this also

has the potential to be part of other coalitions and efforts for social change across Boston.

summary and conclusions

The New Majority is the most innovative thing you have!

Gibran Rivera, Facilitator of the December 2008 New Majority Retreat

The New Majority is an experiment.

hydia ljowe, Steering Committee Member of the New Majority

In their book, Social movements: A cognitive approach, sociologists Ron Eyerman and

Andrew Jamison make a strong case for social movements being social laboratories where

333
Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color (New
York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1981).
334
Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the oppressed, 59.
 191
learning processes produce social innovations, new ideas and new political and social

identities.335 They also argue that social movements are not only learning processes.

However the learning processes in social movements are what gives those movements their

particular character, especially those learning processes that involve identity development.336

The New Majority's purpose and vision is defined by a continuous engagement in reflection

and a self-conscious process of exploring what the New Majority is. This chapter has

discussed how people in the New Majority engage in formal and informal conversations to

describe an evolving field of five different kinds of meanings for what the New Majority is

as a principal part of the process of collective identity.

In their process of collective identity, people in the New Majority eventually developed an

shared, understandable and stable definition of the New Majority,

The New Majority is an organization working together to build relationships, to

educate and to unite communities of color for social, economic and political power.
"We've got the numbers!"

At the same time, this definition carries in its shadows a much more complicated, contingent

and evolving process of collective identity. It is a process that involves learning by tolerating

ambiguities about meaning over time. In tolerating these ambiguities, people in the New

Majority are creating and shaping a field of many meanings through which they can move

differentially. These meanings are summarized in Figure 7.5. The New Majority's process of

collective identity includes the exploration of the meanings of the New Majority as the

335
Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social movement: A cognitive appnach (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1991).
336
Eyerman and Jamison, Social Movements, 55-56.
 192

Figure 7.5. What is the New Majority? A field of multiple meanings

for the learning task of differential movement

an idea
"The N e w Majority is an infectious viral idea that sets
people moving."

"The N e w Majority is an idea that has emotional

impact and confers confidence."

"We want to popularize the N e w Majority as an idea

and present it as an exciting social innovation."

the public face of

a moral consciousness
an organization
"The N e w Majority is a struggle for
The N e w Majority is an new and informed humanity, not for
organization working self-interest in dehumanized society."
together to build
relationships, to educate "unity"
and to unite communities "possibilities"
of color for social, "power of love"
economic and political "family and community"
power. "justice"

"We've got the numbers!"

the new majority i s . . . .

I
differential movement through a
field of many meanings

P a bond of relationship
"The N e w Majority brings
together People of Color"
"The N e w Majority is uniting
communities of color; creating
one community."
"The N e w Majority is a group of
brothers and sisters in a circle of
trust."
r I
a reality
People of Color are more than 50%
of Boston's population
Boston Public Schools have 85%
students of color
People of Color are a potential
electoral majority
V
 193
public face of an organization, as a reality, as an idea, as moral consciousness and as the

bond of relationships.

I argue that creating this field of multiple meanings for the New Majority is part of the social

movement learning task of differential movement, shifting gears through systems of

meaning and approach. In the continuing process of collective identity that shapes the New

Majority community of practice, this field of multiple meanings develops in people the

capacity to shift improvisationally among seemingly separate and even contradictory

meanings for what the New Majority is, depending on which meaning or set of relationships

will best help guide action or learning.

The public face in the organizational definition of the New Majority allows for the New

Majority to be a conduit for new ideas within and beyond Boston's Communities of Color.

This chapter has also introduced the ways that the process of collective identity involves

learning within the New Majority community of practice. Further, the process also involves

setting up bridges to other potential allies not presendy an active part of the movement.

This set ups conditions that allow for the possibility of evolutionary learning that impacts the

wider Boston community. The bond of relationships being developed among and between

Communities of Color have the capacity to impact other wider coalitional social change

efforts engaged in by People of Color and perhaps even including those coalitional efforts

that include White constituencies.

Stepping back even further, there is something remarkable in all this sustained talk activity

about meaning in the New Majority. One could ask, as one of my intellectual mentors did in
reading an early version of this research, "What's going on with all this self-reflection and

self-consciousness, asking the same questions over and over?" One possible explanation is

that this focus on meaning reflects changes in what people need to learn and do to effect

positive social change. Trying to effect incremental single-issue change so as not to alarm

"media power brokers" is becoming increasingly difficult. Many seasoned activists such as

Michael Lerner and Grace Lee Boggs are speaking out about the importance of changing the

culture of values among people, making a shift so that the culture of consumerism and

materialism are no longer seen as the sources of happiness and well-being. In fact, Michael

Lerner speaks about forging an explicit "politics of meaning," that reconnects people to their

greatest hopes, saying,

"Any institution or social practice is to be considered efficient or productive to the

extent that it fosters ethically, spiritually, ecologically and psychologically sensitive
and caring human beings who can maintain long-term loving personal and social
relationships. While this. . . does not reject the importance of material well-being, it
subsumes that concern within an expanded view of "the good life": one that insists
on the primacy of personal harmony, loving relationships, mutual recognition and
work that contributes to the common good.337

Michael Lerner suggests that meaning-based movements have the capacity to attract people

who feel alienated and sense an inner need. Grace Lee Boggs puts the politics of meaning in

a different way, saying, "these are times to grow our souls" because the problems that need

to be solved can't be solved through government. She talks about the need to life and

organizing more relational, intimate, caring, and local. I would like to suggest that at least

part of what the New Majority is learning to do through these continually self-reflective and

meaning-making activities is forging a new path toward such a new politics of meaning.

337
Michael Lerner, The politics of meaning: Restoring hope andpossibility in an age of cynicism (Reading MA:
Addison-Wesley, 1996).
 195
While this chapter has examined the purpose and vision in prophetic naming, die informal

education system particular to the New Majority, the next chapter expands the description of

the overall environment or associational setting of prophetic naming. The history of

association and coalition-building among and between Boston of People of Color was

explored in Chapter 4. The next chapter provides an in-depth examination of la vie associative

of the New Majority.

 196
8
Associational life and patterns of participation
The group process contains the secret of collective life, it is the key to democracy, it
is the master lesson for every individual to learn, it is our chief hope or the political,
the social, the international life of the future. . .

As long as we think of difference as that which divides us, we shall dislike it; when
we think of it as that which unites us, we shall cherish it.

Instead of shutting out what is different, we should welcome it because . . . through

its difference will make a richer content of life. . . Every difference that is swept up
into a bigger conception feeds and enriches society.
Mary Parker Follett, 1918, Roxbury and East Boston, Massachusetts3*8

A century before the New Majority was formed, Quaker community educator Mary Parker

Follett was theorizing and practicing pioneering approaches for collective informal education

in the very Roxbury and East Boston Massachusetts neighborhoods where many participants

in the New Majority now live. She served as staff at the Roxbury Neighborhood House and

helped establish neighborhood centers in high schools, such as the East Boston High School

Community Center. Mary Parker Follett's visionary work describes the importance of

cultivating group and associative life because she believed that creativity and learning are

realized in such settings. Diversity was the key ingredient of her vision of community, just as

it is for participants in the New Majority. So her voice provides a fitting introduction to a

chapter describing the associational life of the New Majority.

Prophetic naming — informal education in the New Majority — takes place in a community

of practice. According to Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a community of practice is,

Mary Parker Follett, "The group and the new psychology" and "The group process: The
collective idea (continued)," Chaps. 1 and 3 in The New State - Group Organisation, the Solution for Popular
Government (New York: Longman, Green and Co., 1918), online Virtual Mary Parker Follett Institute,
http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett/Fins-MPF-01.html; For more information on
Mary Parker Follett, see Infed.org, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-foll.htm.
 a set of relations among people, activity and the world over time and in relationship
with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice." 339

Put another way, at the heart of a community of practice is la vie associative, which

expresses the importance of "association in the widest sense of the word and the effect

which this association can have both o n the life of the individual and o n the life of a village,

town, region or country." 340 T h e N e w Majority community of practice and the informal

education of prophetic naming are defined in part by this environment or associational life

as shown in Figure 8.1.

This chapter portrays the associational life or environment of the N e w Majority community

of practice in two ways. T h e general and specific patterns of people's participation and

access from the periphery to the center of the N e w Majority Steering Committee are

described. These patterns of people's participation define the form of situated learning

practiced in the informal education of prophetic naming. The N e w Majority's learning

process of collective identity is also uniquely shaped by purposefully limiting access to the

N e w Majority to People of Color. H o w and why the N e w Majority limit such access is

explored.

Then, two patterns of participation observed over the five years of this study are identified

and interpreted as learning strategies particular to the association life of the N e w Majority

community of practice. T h e N e w Majority community of practice often takes a grassroots

approach, directing learning from the bottom up. They often seek out wisdom from the

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated learning, legitimate peripheralparticipation (Cambridge,UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 98.
Mark Smith, "association, la vie associative and lifelong learning," Infed: The Informal Education
Homepage (London: infed.org, 2000, updated 2008), http://www.infed.org/association/b-
assoc.htm.
periphery of the community of practice in making key decisions about how to structure and

guide learning. While the New Majority's associational life and learning involves the

participation of people, it also is influenced by the.places in Boston where the community of

practice gathers. So the second pattern of participation that I interpret as a learning strategy

is the way that the New Majority community of practice situates their learning in a

"geography of difference and struggle." When these two learning strategies are described, I

also explore the possible theoretical basis for their educational efficacy.

Participation in the new majority community of practice

Learning is a process that takes place in a participation framework, not in an individual mind.
. . distributed among co-participants. . .

Learning is a way of being in the social world, not a way of coming to know it.
William Hanks, introducing Situated learning: legitimate peripheralparticipation341

At the center of prophetic naming, the informal education that takes place among the New

Majority, is situated learning. Situated learning "crucially involves participation as a way of

learning — of both absorbing and being absorbed in a "culture of practice."342 Participation

is the source of learning opportunities in a community of practice. Jean Lave and Etienne

Wenger describe the general form of individual participation in a community of practice as

moving in a centripetal direction, one that gradually increases levels of access and

involvement. Some activities of a community of practice create openings, access and

opportunities for initial participation. Through these peripheral activities, newcomers

become acquainted with how people in the community think, talk, organize and act together.

William Hanks, "Introduction," in Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated learning: legitimate
peripheralparticipation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 15, 24.
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated learning, legitimate peripheralparticipation (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 95.
 199
Figure 8.1. Informal education in the New Majority
The areas shaded like this box shos how this chatter fits into the informal education model

ptc*0ii0i& iratMr|g
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

T
new majority situated learning: new majority
eiayir*)ftmeM purpose &
people form the values
Chapters
new majority Chapter 7
4&t community of
field of
history, patterns practice meanings that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
power of place
process of "what is die
collective identity new majority?"
informed/ education/ informal education/
cfaafouot&irOstic/1

I
collective learning is fostered in the new majority
cbAxracterittGc 2

through through action:

through learning strategies:
conversation;
Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapters
5&10 relying on the wisdom of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
implicit learning limiting access and building to the
by "decolonizing participation, streets
& learning in a geography of
the imagination"
difference and struggle

informed/ edAMMtOotv ch(Mracter0i£0o 3

 200
As time goes by, newcomers gradually gain access to greater levels of participation in the

activities of the community that are more central to its functioning. Jean Lave and Etienne

Wenger refer to this gradual enlarging of access and participation in a community of practice

as "legitimate peripheral participation."

If participation is a way of learning, then what can be said about the opportunities for

participation that the New Majority offers? In the conceptual map of Figure 8.2, the New

Majority can begin to be described using three concentric circles of participation. The New

Majority has created opportunities for peripheral participation by sponsoring community

activities that allow people to become introduced to the New Majority as part of a mission to

create a unified agenda for Boston People of Color. Examples of such community

activities are Street Talks and At-Large City Councilor Political Candidate Forums, which

will be more fully explored in the next chapter.

According to an article by Lydia Lowe published in the Sampan, Boston's bilingual biweekly

Chinese-American newspaper, Street Talks are "informal meetings held in neighborhoods

throughout the city to build membership, educate voters and identity the important issues

for a common city-wide agenda."343 They have been convened about six months prior to

city elections. Information gathered from these conversations has been used to generate

agendas and questions for At-Large City Councilor Political Candidate Forums held in

neighborhoods where People of Color live and sponsored by coalitions of organizations

brought together by the New Majority.

Lydia Lowe, "Opinion: 'Street Talks' to build New Majority coalition," Sampan, 22 July 2004,
http://sampan.org/pastissues/2004/0716/opinion.htm.
Figure 8.2. Peripheral patterns of participation

particularly skilled ^ r ex-officio

u mass institutes state legislators
moderators / facilitators
community lawyers team unify:
elders city councilors
^ of color j

retriats ^/_

/ /
•
/ committee
meetings \
X O
o
a to •n
3
C
C co-chairs
Steering treasurer
Committee secretary
I C
3
a
monthly #"
to
retreats
meetings

A
'V^A. AV^°V^ >
*

\ % ^ o n a l & < o ^ /
%

New Majority in the Media

e,g.
Bay State Banner
Sampan
Boston Globe
Touch FM 106.1
Listserves, Blogs
 202
These Political Forums and Street Talks also serve as openings for peripherial participation

in the N e w Majority by individuals and organizations. For instance, some people learn about

the N e w Majority by attending Street Talks and Political Forums, where they see the N e w

Majority banner, receive N e w Majority literature and hear short explanations given about the

N e w Majority. Others read newspaper accounts and comments o n these gatherings in local

and city-wide media such as the Bay State Banner, Sampan, and the Boston Globe544 or

through the internet on local list serves and blogs. Finally, some people find out about the

N e w Majority through "word o n the street," by speaking directly with those who have

attended these gatherings.

Organizations that are not yet N e w Majority members participate in the coalitions that

sponsor Street Talks and Political Forums, providing an introduction and peripheral

organizational access to the N e w Majority. People who are part of organizations concerned

with issues raised by the N e w Majority participate in the Street Talks and Political Forums,

even if their organizations are neither members of the N e w Majority nor participants in the

coalitions that sponsor those activities.

In the middle level of increasing peripheral participation, organizations and individuals

can become members and vote. Both members and other participants become more

familiar with the N e w Majority and involve themselves in their purposeful gatherings,

retreats and annual meetings. At these events, people gather to shape their practices, to

344
E.g. Editor, "Boston's New Politics," Boston Globe, Editorial, 25 October 2005,
http://www.mccomiack.umb.edu/centers/cms/press-25Oct05.php; Toussain Losier, "Candidates
make case at New Majority forum," Bay State Banner 41, no. 8, 13 October 2005,
http://www2.baystatebanner.com/archives/stories/2005/101305-5.htm; Lydia Lowe, "Opinion:
'Street Talks' to build New Majority coalition," Sampan, 22 July 2004,
http://sampan.org/pastissues/2004/0716/opinion.htm.
evaluate and celebrate what has been accomplished, and to plan future directions for the

New Majority community. Examples of such gatherings include:

• N e w Majority Conference, 13 October 2003 at the University of

Massachusetts Boston Campus. This gathering of 2-300 Organizers of Color
split into seven discussion groups to find common ground on issues and create
action steps for dealing with those issues together.

• Practice and Preparation Session for Street Talk Hosts, 13 July 2004 at the
Chinese Progressive Association. At this session, New Majority Steering
Committee members shared a format for Street Talks, including a standard
outline and introduction that could be used by Street Talk Hosts. Hosts received
help in producing an invitation flyer and learned how to register new voters at
the sessions.

• Annual Meeting held 11 November 2005 at the Freedom House in Grove

Hall. The successful election of the first Asian American city councilor, Sam
Yoon and the work of Team Unity, the four City Councilors of Color were
discussed. Plans were made to focus on organizational development for the next
year, including formalizing the New Majority's structure and by-laws. As with all
the Annual Meetings, a lunch from a local restaurant operated by People of
Color was served.

• N e w Majority Celebration of Incorporation, 17 December 2008 at the

United South End Settlements House in the South End. This gathering
was a celebration of the successful Massachusetts incorporation of the New
Majority as an organization, the end of several years of work by the New
Majority Steering Committee. The celebration included a large circle reflection
on what the New Majority has done and what it should do in the future.

The centripetal movement that characterizes communities of practice such as the New

Majority creates increasing levels of opportunity for access and participation over time.

Membership represents one such opportunity for access and participation. People of Color

become members by filling out a form and offering a small donation in support of the New

Majority, $10 per year.345 People of Color organizations typically donate $100 per year to

become members. Membership allows individuals and people from organizations to

officially vote in Steering Committee elections and in initiatives, on political candidate

Each of these membership fees is listed in the New Majority brochure. Though there is a fee for
membership, I have never seen anyone who wanted to participate turned away for lack of resources
to donate.
 204
support of on the adoption of organization by-laws. People who are White but wish to

support the New Majority are allowed to become non-voting supporters by offering a

donation of $10 per year.346

The innermost level involves participation in the activities of the New Majority Steering

Committee. Elected members of the steering committee and members can attend monthly

steering committee meetings, biannual planning and reflection retreats and committee

meetings where the business of the New Majority is conducted. The monthly steering

committee meetings are typically two hours long and are open to members. The day-long

retreats are facilitated professionally by members or those associated with the New Majority.

The most active committees have involved civic participation and have organized the Street

Talks and Political Forums that will be described in the next chapter.

Participation in the New Majority community of practice ebbs and flows over time. For

instance, in the first few years, the New Majority actively created multiple opportunities for

access and participation at all three levels. However, from 2006 — 2008, when the focus of

the community of practice turned inward to organization building, much of the activity was

focused within the tight inner circle of the steering committee. The Political Forum for at-

Large City Council Candidates during this time was organized without initiating another

round of Street Talks. Participation in the New Majority decreased dramatically as fewer

opportunities for participation and access at the outermost levels of the community of

practice were created and the organization became vulnerable because of this attrition. In

2009, plans are underway to revitalize participation and access in the New Majority through

This is how I have participated, as a registered supporter.

another round of Street Talks that will structure a Political F o r u m for the 2009 mayoral and

city council election cycle.

What is central to situated learning is a learning curriculum, "situated learning opportunities

for the improvisational development of new practice. . . [or] a field of learning resources in

everyday practice viewed from the perspective of learners.,"347 This chapter begins to

describe the N e w Majority's learning curriculum by introducing some of the characteristics

of participation and some learning strategies associated with these patterns of participation

in the N e w Majority.

Situated learning rooted in the wisdom of groups

Groups, under the right circumstances, can be incredibly smart. In fact, they are often
smarter than the smartest individual in them. . . Although our inclination is to chase the
expert. . . the right answer is often to ask the crowd, instead.
James Surowiekf48

T h e general patterns of N e w Majority participation begin to describe the situated learning

that takes place within this community of practice. Some of these patterns of participation

can be investigated in more depth as being important learning strategies within the N e w

Majority "learning curriculum." O n e such learning strategy in the N e w Majority involves the

practice of often relying on the wisdom of group to organize the learning activity of the

many community organizers w h o participate in the innermost circle of the N e w Majority.

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 97; Here, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger claim it is important to
distinguish a learning curriculum from the more familiar teaching curriculum used in many forms of
education. Rather than structuring learning opportunities, a teaching curriculum "structures
resources for learning, the meaning of what is learned" and control of access to what is learned as
mediated through an instructor's participation and an external view of what knowing is about.
James Surcwieki, The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom
shapes business, economies, societies and nation (New York: Little Brown, 2004).
From the start, the New Majority has been committed to "lift up the voices" of Boston

People of Color and form new relationships among and between People of Color that allow

for fuller representation at all levels of the social, political and economic life of the city. To

model their project of "lifting every voice" within the New Majority itself, members of the

Steering Committee consciously create learning opportunities to uncover the wisdom of the

members and peripheral participants.

For instance, at the 2003 New Majority Conference, a process was designed for the people

who attended to self-select into issues groups and participants in those issue groups were

called upon to name and prioritize action items. Another example of the learning strategy of

relying on the wisdom of the group took place around the Fall 2004 First Annual New

Majority Meeting as the community of practice went about choosing the cultural caucuses to

be represented on the New Majority Steering Committee.

At 7:00 p. m. on the evening of the 2nd of September in 2004, about a dozen New Majority

Steering Committee members attended a monthly Steering Committee meeting in

Chinatown in the conference room of the Chinese Progressive Association. The agenda was

largely dedicated to making plans for the First Annual New Majority Meeting. When I

entered, a lively discussion was underway about the possible support and endorsement of

Andrea CabraL an African American with Cape Verdean family roots campaigning to

become the first woman to serve as Suffolk County Sheriff.349 After a while, attention

turned to making plans for the upcoming First Annual New Majority Meeting to be held on

349
Andrea Cabral was successfully elected as the 30 th Suffolk County Sheriff and the first woman to hold the
office of Sheriff in Massachusetts history.
 207
11 October 2004. Up until this point, New Majority gatherings had been organized by

members from the original New Majority Initiative Steering Committee that set up the 2003

New Majority Conference.

At this First Annual Meeting, a new Steering Committee would be nominated and elected

for the first time by New Majority participants. However no process existed to guide the

nomination and election of the new Steering Committee. Todd Lee started out the

discussion about the designing a process to decide the next New Majority Steering

Committee, saying,

There's a proposal to structure the next [New Majority] steering committee by

majority vote. The question is, "How can we maximize representation and make the
leadership as broad and large as possible?"

By any stretch of the imagination, the people gathered at this meeting could be described as

experts with impressive backgrounds and experience to shape their understanding of the

complexity of Boston communities. For instance, Lydia Lowe is a long-time organizer in the

Chinese American community and has served as executive director of the Chinese

Progressive Association of Boston for over fifteen years and Chuck Turner has been a

Boston community organizer and politician for over forty years. Each of the people in the

room could have put forth an informed design for representing New Majority constituents

on the new steering committee. Yet the proposal that was immediately suggested and

supported without much struggle was one that positioned the steering committee as learners

and facilitators of a learning process for the group. Todd Lee went on to state the proposal

as,

One suggestion was to have people [at the Annual New Majority meeting] divide
themselves into whatever cultural groups they believe are important and have each
group nominate representatives. Based on the groups proposed, we will decide
 208
together on the number of representatives from each group that will be elected.
Some at-large candidate spots will also be filled outside of the groups.

Instead of relying on die "experts" gathered in the room, the proposal was in the form of a

learning strategy that relied on the wisdom of the group of New Majority participants that

would gather for the Annual Meeting. Shelia Martin, an African American community

advocate since the 1970s, pointed to "learning" in her support of the proposal when she

described it as "creative,"350 saying,

I agree that the creative way to deal with the issue is to turn it over to the Annual
Meeting group, let everyone have a chance to self-identify and let that drive which
cultural groups are used to select the next steering committee.

Steering Committee members decided to neither assume or predict nor recommend how

New Majority participants self-identify and anticipate what kinds of groups would be

important to have represented on the new committee.

One point of discussion offered by Peter Lin-Marcus, a self-identified biracial New Majority

organizer was the question, "How appropriate is it to divide into cultural groups when there

are mixed race groups?" One of the younger members of the New Majority, Peter's question

seems to me to have tremendous merit, for even the 2000 Census acknowledged the growing

multiracial population in the US by allowing residents to check more than one racial box on

One definition of "creative" from the Merriam Webster Dictionary is "to make or bring into
existence something new," that is, coming to know or learning something new.
 209
the Census form. 351 Peter Lin-Marcus' concern about the problem of including those with

multiple race and ethnicity in their family or those who might not fit into any one cultural

caucus was taken seriously by the Steering Committee. African American city councilor

Chuck Turner immediately acknowledged his point and responded by saying, "Having at-

large seats [on the N e w Majority Steering Committee] are one way to respond to Peter's

concern if n o mixed race group forms."

These exchanges illustrate a learning strategy that relies not o n design by individual experts

but one that puts faith in the wisdom and participation of the N e w Majority participants as a

group. A fuller understanding of diis learning and participation strategy can be gained by

considering the tradition of community organizing that is shared by many o n the N e w

Majority Steering Committee.

Many members and participants come to the N e w Majority with experiences in community

organizing. And, the historical traditions of community organizing have had an impact on

the N e w Majority's community of practice and learning curriculum. O n e of the clearest and

most useful educational explanations of community organizing was given in an interview of

I have experienced this increase in people identifying as multiracial among the teenage Youth
Teachers of Color in the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn Program when I ask them to self-identify.
They often choose to identify in ways that confound common categories. Last year, a majority of
our 40 youth teachers preferred to have their ethnic or family roots to be identified in two or more
cultural categories. Data from Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn youth teachers was collected for the
past four years using an online survey tool with an open-ended essay question about how the youth
would like to be described when foundations who consider partnering with the program ask us for
information about their racial/ethnic/cultural backgrounds. Although the annual number of youth
teachers is relatively small with 25-40 in each cohort, the small samples are notable in that youth
teachers are purposefully chosen to represent diversity in gender, neighborhood, school, and cultural
background in Boston. For example, one indicator of the diversity among mis year's cohort is that
youth teachers reported speaking 12 languages as well as the English language.
 210
political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell in a recent issue of FlypMedia that focused on the

future of race and politics:

What community organizers do is they start with the assumption that the answers
already exist among the people who have the problems.

[They avoid] assuming that [on the one hand], there is a community that has a
problems, issues, concerns and then [on the other hand] there is a community of
smart people who have the answers, and that the goal is to bring the smart people
with die answers together with the less informed people with problems. That's a
kind of leadership model that is missionary in its impulse in the sense that it brings
answers to people with problems.

What community organisers assume is that the answers already exist in the very
communities that are challenged. A n d it says that the role of any given leader is to
help the ordinary people have a path to take their answers, which they already have,
and put them into practice. 352

If die N e w Majority community of practice is conceptualized as a "collective leader," dien

Melissa Harris-LacewelTs quote sheds some light on an important learning strategy, relying

on the wisdom of groups. First, the attitude toward learning and solving problems in the

N e w Majority community of practice echoes Alberto Melucci's definition of the

"prophetic" characteristics of social movements; that there is an assumption that people

already know the answer to the problem under discussion. T h e role of the community of

practice as a leader is to create opportunities for discussion that lead people to articulate

those answers and to synthesize their various interpretations of the answers in way that leads

to action.

Earlier, the point was made that prophecy describes a reality that already exists in the

present, but at the same time points to a future reality. This learning strategy left r o o m for

Alan Stoga, "Welcome to the Future: Race and Politics / Interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell,"
Flypmedia 20, (29 December 2008 - 19 January 2009): 4, http://www.flypmedia.eom/issues/20/#2/l
(go to page 4 of the Flypmedia "article" on Melissa Harris-Lacewell, then click on the "community
organizer" videolink to view the interview transcribed for this quotation).
 211
the possibility that together the people in New Majority who gathered at the First Annual

Meeting would be able to identify important cultural groups that exist in the present and

need representation on the present steering committee. Relying on the wisdom of the group

of people gathered at the Annual Meeting also allowed the New Majority group process to

be flexible enough to accommodate the identification of important cultural groups that are

not yet imagined as important but might emerge as important for the future.

The day before the 11

Monday Celebrate our first
October 11,2804 onrtrversaryf
1:B3-4:0Qpm team aSoul the October 2004 New Majority
activities of the past
Vtetnamera yearl
CommunBy Canter
42 Charles Stress East Cast your vote to elect
First Annual Meeting, the
(orss btoekfromthe the New Majority
FteMsComsr Steering Comrritteel
T-slafton!. Boston Globe featured an
Enjoy refieshmente and
Music, dance, oral cuBaal performances!
spofcenword Free ot charge, and article mat highlighted the
performance* by wheefcsho* accewtote.
sees u.drja m o o
Murcla. Yvonne For more Information,
lotyre, and Pcur! pJeosecaH
617-422-0586.
progress of the New
While.

The New
Majority Majority since the October

2003 conference and

New Majority First Annual Meeting a
anticipated the annual

meeting. Lydia Lowe was quoted as saying, "There was a lot of energy after the conference.

. . we were beginning to see that people didn't want this idea to end there." The voice of

Atiya Dangleben, a young voting organizer active in the New Majority, was also featured in

the article. She gave her own definition of what the New Majority is, what it means, and one

question that would be discussed at the First Annual Meeting:

353
Avi Steinberg, "The TSIew Majority' takes it to the streets, gently," Boston Globe, 10 October 2004,
via boston.com,
http://www.boston.com/news/locd/massachusetts/articles/2004/10/10/the_new_niajority_takes_
it_to_the_streets_gently?mode=PF
 212
There are so many people doing good work in different pockets of this city. The
New Majority is a way of putting the pieces together. . . The goal is to give all of
Boston's communities of color a voice in shaping a unified agenda and ultimately to
establish a new political order that more closely matches Boston's demographics. . .
The numbers show that we are a majority in this city. The question is how are we
going to translate that into political power?

The same article also goes on to describe what was planned for the next day's "New Majority

First Annual Meeting and Celebration," saying,

The three-hour event will bring together residents from Boston's communities of
color to widen their "Street Talks" discussions, elect a steering committee and
celebrate their anniversary with music, food, dance and spoken word performances.
Recently elected Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral is expected to stop by.

Lots of people and energy were already present when I entered the Vietnamese Community

Center in the Fields Corner neighborhood in Dorchester a half hour before the start of the

New Majority Annual Meeting at 1:00pm on 11 October 2004. Against the windows were

long tables that were being filled with platters of food. When I poked my head into die

small and busy kitchen in the back to ask if there was anything that I could do to help, I was

immediately put to work unpacking drinks to be carried out by volunteers. Then I was given

very specific instructions for how to cut donated round cakes that would be served as dessert

so that they would produce the greatest number of pieces. The calmly organized women

who were preparing to feed over 100 folks expected to show up at the Meeting impressed

me. When I remarked about how efficiently and well they were working together at a big

task in a small space, one of the women said, "Ah, this is nothing. . . we've got church

training!" Food is always present at New Majority gatherings and more than once someone

has remarked that eating together helps people know one another better and helps people

ease into conversation and — I would add — learning.

 213
The 11 October 2004 Annual Meeting started with James Bui, the Director of Organizing at

Viet Aid welcoming New Majority participants. He spoke about how his growing

community here in Boston has roots and ties far across the world in Vietnam and how the

building where we were meeting used to be a blight on the street before it was turned into

the first Vietnamese Community Center in the nation.

In Mel King's opening and Chuck Turner's featured talk, both emphasized the prophetic

meaning and action mat the New Majority is initiating for not only Boston, but the world in

the future. Mel King said, "It's in everyone's interest to come together. . . everyone,

everywhere. What we have accomplished is a meaningful part of what needs to happen all

over the world." Chuck Turner specifically linked the New Majority to a learning and

knowledge tradition rooted in Boston. Referring to Boston's political history and the

concentration of research universities and colleges in the area, he said, "Boston historically

sends out new thought. . . People of Color can be unifed across these kinds of issues and

build a movement through this country and the world that puts human beings before

politics."

Chuck Turner also spoke more explicitly about the hard work of learning that was to be

done that day by organizers within the New Majority as a form of learning by generating new

ideas, saying,

Organizers work on conceiving new worlds, conceiving new ideas, conceiving justice
and equality.

I have a belief that the New Majority has the capacity to evolve a set of politics
different than what we have seen. . . We need to work to conceive a city, when
despite all that we are up against, everyone has a home that they deserve. We need
to conceive a school system that educates all children. We need to conceive of a city
with a health care system that takes care of all.
O n e interesting note is that the w o r d "conceive" can be defined as a verb that means n o t

only to gestate a new life through the body, but it also associated with the learning involved

in forming or developing an idea through the mind.

After the speakers, T o d d Lee stepped up to introduce and guide the steering committee

selection process, saying,

We are working to build leadership and we want to b e able to stabilize that

leadership and elect a steering committee. Why. . .? First, it will establish a more
permanent body that can prepare agendas, oversee the budget. . . make short term
decisions and do fundraising. Second and most important it will represent different
communities in the N e w Majority w h o are constituencies. Third, it will make form a
large and broad leadership group.

. . . T h e task before us here is to form cultural groups from like-minded, racial, or

ethnic backgrounds. . . people are free to chose how to establish these groups and
one or two representatives from each group will serve on the steering committee.

A lively, loud and somewhat chaotic process ensued with people mingling about the room,

punctuated by some groups gathering and declaring themselves, asking for recognition and

recruiting members. Somewhat predictably, a Latino cultural caucus group based on shared

language, an Asian American cultural caucus and an African American cultural caucus based

on ethnicity quickly formed. The first change came as a group of South Asians split off from

the Asian Americans. Nasim Memon, a scientist and South Asian-Indian organizer was a

strong advocate for this move, hoping to have an independent South Asian representative

i • • 354
o n the steering committee.

Outside her professional work, Nasim Memon is a long-time organizer in the South Asian-
American community, serving on both national and local boards of Asian American Action Fund
PAC, Indian American Forum for Political Education (IAFPE), and the Northeastern University
Asian American Alumni Association.
 215
Then, the African American cultural caucus shifted to the n a m e Black, which refers to skin

color but is often used to unite those from the African Diaspora. O n e reason this is an

important detail is because using the category Black makes the group more inclusive and

reflects the Boston non-African American Black populations with cultural roots in Africa,

South American and the Caribbean. According to social scientist Regine Ostine Jackson,

Currently [2005], o n e o u t of every four blacks in Boston is foreign born. 25.4 percent
of the total Black population claim a West Indian ancestry, 355 14.4 percent are sub-
Saharan African and 5.5 percent are of Hispanic origin.

This was exactly the point made by longtime N e w Majority Steering Committee member

Shelia Martin when I asked her if she wanted to be identified as African American in this

dissertation. At first she said, "yes," but then immediately she said " n o , I am Black." The

cultural category Black, when referring to loosely joined African Diaspora communities is

sometimes referred to in social sciences as a socially-constructed "imagined community," a

group of people w h o share a sense of connectedness that is politically and historically

derived. 356 The wisdom of the group in naming the cultural caucus Black, rather than

African American, loosens the boundaries of the categories to include rather than exclude,

supporting the moral intent of the N e w Majority to lift all voices.

A small group of people who identified as having roots in Cape Verde did n o t join any of

the three groups. Instead, they successfully proposed that their needs were different enough

Ambiguity that is sometimes part of this term, for West Indies is both another name for the
Caribbean Islands and other times is used to refer specifically to those Caribbean Islands colonized
by the British. Some scholars, for instance sociologist Mary Waters, link Haiti into the studies of
West Indian Immigrants. Here, West Indian refers to Caribbean Islanders and people from Guyana.
356
James Brow, "Notes on community, hegemony and the uses of the past" Anthropological'Quarterly,
63, no.1(1990): 1-6; Felipe Smith, American body politics: Race, gender and Black literary renaissance
(Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998), 208-213
 216
to establish that a Cape Verdean 357 representative should be granted one of the At-Large

seats. Cape Verdeans have often been misunderstood in Boston because they do not easily

identify easily themselves with commonly used racial categories. Cape Verdeans often

consider themselves to be "not White, not Black, not Hispanic" 358 according a Boston Globe

article published a few months before this N e w Majority Annual Meeting. In the same

article, Paulo D e Barros, a local teen program coordinator is quoted as saying,

Being Cape Verdean in Boston is hard because we are a minority within a minority... We
aren't accepted being Black because I am Cape Verdean and my culture is different and I am
lighter. We know we are from Africa, but we are from Cape Verde. We are n o t accepted in
the white culture because we are dark and speak Portuguese. We are caught in the middle of
blacks and whites. 359

There is another reason that those who identified as Cape Verdean might have wanted a

separate voice on the steering committee. A pattern of gun violence and retaliation has

disproportionately affected the Boston Cape Verdean community. In fact, in the summer of

2005,1 joined the Annual Boston Parents' and Children's Walk for Peace, that was founded

in 2000 by Cape Verdean American Isaura Mendes who lost two of her teenaged sons to gun

violence. T h e annual march goes through the Dorchester neighborhood where many Cape

Verdeans live. So both identity and special community concerns were likely to have

influenced the request for a Cape Verdean At-Large seat on the N e w Majority Steering

Committee.

People with Cape Verdean origins in have ancestral roots in a string of islands off the western
coast of Africa, uninhabited until the Portuguese brought African Slaves there in the 15th century.
358
Johnny Diaz, "One thing they could use: A litde respect: Not white, not black, not Hispanic —
Boston's Cape Verdeans have long been misunderstood," Boston Globe, 15 February 2004, via
Boston.com,
http://www.boston.com/news/locd/massachusetts/articles/2004/02/15/one_thing_they_could_u
se_a_little_re spect/
For those interested in learning more about Boston Cape Verdean identity, I recommend: Gina
Sanchez Giban, "Diasporic identity formation among Cape Verdeans in Boston," Western journal of
Black Studies (June 2005).
T w o cultural caucus groups coming out of this 11 October 2004 Annual Meeting process

were n o t organized by race, ethnicity or language. O n e collection of individuals formed,

loosely calling itself "Artists for Movement Building." However, after a few minutes

discussion, the group decided to disband and disperse among the other cultural caucuses.

Another cultural caucus of " Y o u t h " formed and those in the group asked to b e represented

separately on the Steering Committee. Cheers and clapping from the r o o m suggested that

this Youth cultural caucus had strong support for its formation.

Nominations for At-Large seats o n the Steering Committee were then taken from the

gathered participants and self-nomination was not only permitted, but encouraged. At one

point, a White man named Ralph who often participates in local progressive organizing

events nominated himself as a candidate. 360 Lydia Lowe, w h o was recording nomination

names, didn't miss a beat and put his name to the list. There was n o protest from the rest of

the group when she did.

This incident schooled me and exposed the bias of my own white privilege front and center

because I misinterpreted h o w the wisdom of the group was expressed by this event.

Earnesdy wanting to continue in a role of white supporter, I took the Ralph aside in the

kitchen and rather strenuously labored with him about why his self-nomination was

inappropriate and at odds with the mission of the New Majority and n o t a positive and

constructive contribution as a White ally. H e was singularly unimpressed by my arguments,

I was not the only white present at the Annual Meeting. Several white community workers who
work primarily in communities of color as I do, were present. Also present was a white progressive
politician, Maura Hennigan (who ran for Boston Mayor) and a couple of white organi2ers from
Boston's liberal/progressive community.
 218
as he calmly stood by his right to an At-Large seat and walked out of the kitchen. I saw

Lydia Lowe and stopped her to explain what just happened with the White man, Ralph. She

cheerfully laughed and brushed my concerns lighdy away, saying, "Don't worry. We are

going to have an anonymous vote for the At-Large candidates and he just won't get any

votes."

And what happened was just that. The At-Large candidates were announced, but the actual

voting counts were not publicly announced for those nominees who did not secure a seat. I

suspect that no Person of Color in the room protested Ralph's self-nomination because they

already felt confident about what the nominating and election committee would do to

preserve the exclusion of White People from leadership in the New Majority. It was only me

who was worried and confused!

A new Steering Committee for the New Majority came into being through this process of

relying on the wisdom of the group. The New Majority participants who gathered worked

together to form a set of cultural caucuses and nominated representatives from those

caucuses as well as at-large candidates. At the end of the day as I helped to clear the tables,

stack chairs and haul bags of garbage out to the dumpster, I thought about how the old

Steering Committee would probably never have come up with exacdy the same

representation spread that came out of this group process.

The learning strategy of relying on the wisdom of the group to shape decisions about the

direction of learning and action was consistently practiced over time within all three levels of

participation in the New Majority and more examples of this strategy will be explored in
 219
Chapter 9. People in the N e w Majority seem confident that learning in social change efforts

should not be done primarily through a banking model with "teacher leaders" disseminating

knowledge and directing learning but more through a collaborative learning model where

each person in the group is both teacher and learner and much of the knowledge is

constructed in the group comes through contributions from each participant. 361 T h e power

of relying on the wisdom of groups as a grassroots community organizing strategy was

explained by Melissa Harris-Lacewell earlier. But is there any theoretical basis to explain the

efficacy of the wisdom of groups as a learning strategy?

T h e educational efficacy of a "wisdom of groups" strategy is actually becoming more widely

documented in education as well as the wider social science disciplines. I began this section

with a quote from business and finance journalist James Surowieki, w h o is also an American

History scholar. H e claims that groups are often smarter than the smartest individual in

them under the right circumstances. T h e right circumstances, according to James

Surowiecki, include a relatively independent and a diverse group who have some collective

m e t h o d for shared decision making. In fact, he argues that groups of experts are often the

worst at solving problems because they usually are trained to think in the same way. This

means that as individuals and as a group, these experts come up with the same set of ideas

and replicate the same mistakes.

Education theorist Parker Palmer has a marvelous discussion of the intricacies of such a
community education model in: Parker Palmer, To know as we are known: Education as spiritual journey
(San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 1993).
 220
Legal educator Lani Guinier brought up the relevancy of this notion of the wisdom of

diverse groups for Communities of Color at the 2009 State of the Black Union address. 362

She spoke of the necessity of redefining merit and thinking specifically in terms of the

collective merit of a diverse group for taking on problems, citing the work of complex

systems theorist Scott Page. Scott Page uses computer models for solving difficult problems

and for developing insights that clarify the efficacy of the wisdom of diverse groups. He

believes that successful problem-solving balances the ability to exploit already-developed

approaches with the capacity to imagine and explore new approaches. Simply put, Scott

Page shows that when people solve problems, they use approaches and perspectives they

know until they get stuck. People w h o have similar experiences will get stuck in the same

places and not be able to move forward. H e suggests that exploring and developing new

approaches requires not a group of experts, but a diverse group of smart people w h o get

stuck in different places. Together such a diverse group possesses a collection of approaches

that help them negotiate a wider range of stuck places. H e says "perspectives therefore

matter. . . we need diverse perspectives" when approaching problems. This is also why Scott

Page suggests that often "diversity trumps ability" in solving difficult problems. Community

organizers have been using this strategy of relying on the wisdom of groups for several

generations, but research like that of Scott Page is beginning to more explicitly uncover its

learning and problem-solving advantages. 363

Lani Guinier, "Video excerpt from 2009 State of the Black Union," 28 February 2009,
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2009/03/youtube-lani-guinier-state-of-the-black-union-2009/.
Scott Page, The Difference: How the Power of'Diversity Creates better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), especially Part Two, "Diversity's Benefits:
Building from Tools," 129-174.
 221
purposefully limiting access to support learning 364

Exclusivity doesn't bother me. There aren't spaces for People of Color to speak about
power among themselves in Boston.
Atiya Dangleben, 16 March 2006 New Majority Retreat

The N e w Majority is part of the rainbow, but n o t all of the rainbow. We have to strengthen
the colors in the rainbow before we can work together with the whole rainbow.
Paul Wantanbe, 17 Decvember 2008 New Majority Celebration Gathering

O n e specific pattern of participation that shapes the N e w Majority's process of collective

identity that might seem obvious — but tihat is worthy of an analytic eye — is die practice of

purposefully limiting full participation access to People of Color. Both who is in a group and

w h o is excluded matters and shapes the kind of learning that takes place. If diverse

perspectives increase the learning and problem-solving abilities of a group — as was

suggested in the last section — then why would a group purposefully limit access to

participation?

This question is particularly relevant because, excluding White People from the N e w

Majority has been a learning strategy from the beginning. During the 2003 N e w Majority

Conference, an explicit intent to exclude White People from New Majority leadership and

decision making processes was made clear. At the wrap-up session of the Conference, Paul

Wantanabe, Director of the Institute of Asian American Studies, stepped up to speak about

some of the questions he got about the N e w Majority Conference from "mainstream"

reporters. H e specifically addressed one question that many reporters had asked him. "Why

I want to acknowledge and thank Rony Raphael for inspiring me to think more deeply and
develop this section. As you can imagine, there have been a number of times when my presence as a
White participant observer has impacted people in the New Majority. At one Steering Committee,
Rony Raphael took a stand about the presence of White People at discussions. I decided to leave die
meeting to allow space for the group to discuss this without my presence. When writing up my
memo that evening, I resolved to find a way to take this strategy of limiting access and participation
seriously in the dissertation.
 222
didn't you reach out to the old majority?" they asked, with a challenge in their voices. It was

plain for most to understand that "old majority" was being used as a codeword for "White

people." Paul Wantanbe chuckled as he repeated their phrasing and said, "We all know

what that means." He proceeded to reply with another question, "Why can't the New

Majority be experts about our own lives?" Paul Wantanabe continued on by offering an

interpretation for what he believed was the greatest fear behind that question asked by White

"mainstream" reporters. He said, "Growing power [for the New Majority] is not to get

back at the old majority, not to separate. [We believe] people who have experienced

injustice are the best people to build a city that is just for everyone"

Before the New Majority's October 2004 First Annual Meeting, I witnessed several heated

conversations among people in the New Majority about excluding White People from

participating in leadership and decisionmaking. Almost all these conversations underscored

the purpose of New Majority as being to lift up People of Color voices and People of Color

leadership.

How can this pattern of limiting access be more carefully described? For the New Majority,

exclusion was not an either/or proposition, meaning White people were neither fully in the

group nor completely left out and banned from the group. Rather, the participation of

White people in the New Majority is more accurately described as being limited on a

continuum. There have always been limited opportunities for White people to participate in

the New Majority outside of structured group conversation and leadership. White people

participate by attending and listening at New Majority gatherings. White people can "join"
 223
the New Majority by paying membership dues as "New Majority Supporters," with the

understanding that they have no vote in New Majority business.

There have even been occasional roles for White "supporters." One example is that I was

asked by a member of the New Majority to take aside and speak with White folks who might

attend the Grove Hall Street Talks and want to discuss why they felt the mission of the New

Majority to lift up the voices and leadership of People of Color excluded their voices and

concerns. This behavior by some White folks had not only caused frustration, but more

importantly had derailed conversation among New Majority People of Color in other Street

Talks.

The 11 February 2004 New Majority Annual Meeting described earlier in the chapter offers a

revealing example of this pattern of access and exclusion. White people did attend the

meeting and observed the cultural caucus process. A clear boundary for the participation of

White people was drawn during the vote on members of the new steering committee; only

members participated in voting and since White people had standing as supporters, but not

as members, they did not vote.

However, other boundaries for White participation were negotiated in a much less explicit

way. The New Majority's norms for White participation were transgressed when a White

man nominated himself for consideration as a member of the steering committee. His

nomination was allowed to stand and be voted upon, but he was not elected to serve on the

steering committee. Several years later, at the 16 March 2006 New Majority Retreat, Lydia

Lowe commented on this incident in a discussion about including "Others" — White people
 224
— in the N e w Majority. She said, "Though the issue keeps coming up, I have never had any

problem with having White people participate. It's n o t even a problem w h e n White people

run for the steering committee; we just don't vote for them." However, everyone does n o t

share this point of view. At the other end of the continuum, are People of Color w h o seek a

much stronger and explicit exclusion of White people. For instance at this same 18 March

2006 N e w Majority retreat, Nasim M e m o n expressed anger when the group dedicated time

to considering the inclusion of Whites and at one point remarked, "Uniting Communities of

Color doesn't mean including Whites. . . they had their chance and blew it." 365 In general

there is an acceptance of ambivalence toward the participation of White People. Peter Lin

Marcus summed up this attitude at the same meeting, saying, "Lots of People of Color

organizations aren't clear about the role of antiracist Whites." 366 In general over the years,

the sense has been that these conversations about clarifying the participation of White

people are at the very least unproductive and mostly, they are distractions from the main

focus of the group in building relationships and power among People of Color communities.

Beyond the pattern of exclusion that has been defined, there is a more interesting question

to consider from the perspective of understanding learning in the N e w Majority. H o w does

This continues to come up from time to time. For instance, I voluntarily stepped out of a January
2009 Steering Committee monthly meeting when one person suggested that he would not participate
in the New Majority if White people were allowed into the meetings. I was the only White person at
the meeting and stepped out so that the committee could continue the discussion without my
presence.
Some of this tolerated ambiguity around the participation of White people may also be a result of
the difficulty of defining who is White and who is a Person of Color also comes up from time to
time. In fact, this issue arose during this March 2006 retreat conversation. Peter Lin Marcus pushed
at the group, saying, <cWhat about me? There are no clear cut boundaries between Whites and
People of Color. I am half white." However the group did not engage in further conversation about
his point and the sense was that there was no question that Peter Lin Marcus was included in the
People of Color category. He was a member of the Steering Committee at the time and in later years
went on to serve as Co-Coordinator of the New Majority.
 225
limiting access affect collective learning in a positive way and create conditions for

developing relationships, conversations and learning that might otherwise n o t happen? In

an earlier chapter, one explanation was offered based on the history of Boston multiracial

and multiethnic coalition building. O u t of die Rainbow Coalition era came the insight that

was stronger relationships and a larger capacity for coalition building a m o n g and between

Asian, Black and Latino communities are necessary to build. Building such relationships and

capacity would allow People of Color to act together efficiently and effectively when

subordinating habits and tactics impact the discussions of issues and actions in "rainbow"

coalitions that include White constituencies.

At the 17 December 2008 N e w Majority gathering to celebrate die filing of Articles of

Incorporation for the N e w Majority with the State of Massachusetts, a group conversation

ensued that expands the answer to diis question. When several participants asked questions

about whether or not the N e w Majority defined itself as a "progressive" organization and

asked about the historical participation of White people, a revealing discussion followed.

Many underscored important reasons for the New Majority to focus on Communities of

Color. Cindy Suarez, a field director with Northeast Action, 367 pointed out the racial and

ethnic segregation of progressive organizations, saying, "There isn't a lot of overlap between

People of Color organizations and White [progressive] organizations. A n d there are not

spaces in Boston for people to talk about that, especially since most candidates [for political

Cindy Suarez has experience in community-building, grassroots organizing and training both
within Boston's Puerto Rican community through Inquilinos Boriqua en Accion (IBA) and within
other disenfranchised Boston communities. She has served as both training director and field
director for Northeast Action, a hub of progressive movement building in New England and New
York.
 226
office] are still running after White voters and White allies." Sheik Martin, a longtime Black

N e w Majority Steering Committee member, clarified that the N e w Majority has been

focused o n "uniting Communities of Color for change: for social, economic and political

change. We did not define the N e w Majority as progressive, liberal or conservative; the

commitment is to change." Gloribell Sota broke down the problem that needed change,

saying, "People of Color are n o t in positions of power. People of Color are

disproportionately represented in the achievement gap and in home foreclosures."

An Asian American organizer then spoke up, saying that recent anti-immigrant violence

suggests that, despite mainstream media discourse, "This is n o t a post-racial world. Race is

critically important part of our world and this town. The idea of this unity among People of

Color — or at least opportunities for having dialogue among people from different

Communities of Color — is so precious because it doesn't happen here in Boston. T h e

preciousness of this organization cannot be stressed enough." Yawu Miller, a Black

community activist and journalist for the Bay State Banner supported his point, saying,

"That kind of space [for talking among People of Color] is something we don't have. In

order for those dialogues to happen, the N e w Majority needs to hold a space." 368

Paul Wantanabe 3 6 9 made a moving statement about the original intent of the N e w Majority

Initiative, explaining,

F r o m the beginning, the movement and structure of the N e w Majority were going to
exclude the 'new minority.' We reached a point where [People of Color] 370 were in a

Yawu Miller has also been involved in organizing informal conversations in homes for members
of the Black Community to discuss issues of concern.
Paul Wantanabe is the Director of the Institute for Asian Studies at the University of
Massachusetts Boston and served on the original New Majority Initiative Steering Committee that
organized the 2003 New Majority Conference.
 227
position to come together. For this m o m e n t at least, People of Color need to come
together and talk.

Almost by definition, this is going to exclude new minority people.

There is a need to talk without intermediaries about issues that we have in c o m m o n ,

to create a space where People of Color can work out issues among People of Color.
As we mature we can talk about conflict among Communities of Color. . . .

Maybe at some point in time, we may reach for something other than that [and
include White People]. But now is n o t that time.

What Paul Wantanbe is pointing out is that, beyond simple visions of 'unity,' a community

of practice has to struggle through some real problems associated with coming together.

This is another aspect of what the N e w Majority has to "learn": h o w to live out and achieve

actual solidarity among People of Color, in circumstance when that solidarity isn't

"naturally" present. Here, "uniting" as a verb indicating process is more accurate than the

noun "unity."

T o engage in the process of "uniting," Paul Wantanbe identifies two kinds of dialogue that

People of Color need to create a space for and engage. First, he suggest that dialogue is

needed to continue identifying emerging issues that Boston Communities of Color have in

common. Second, once relationships among People of Color from different communities

mature, dialogue about conflicts between Communities of Color and People of Color need

to be addressed. Luisa Pefia, a Boston community organizer and state director for

MassVOTE, voiced one particular conflict that might need conversation, saying, "Boston is

Paul Wantanbe actually used the term, "nonWhite People of Color" in response to an earlier
comment at the gathering by an African American woman who insisted that "white is a color and so
White People should be included in the designation of People of Color." I am not using the phrase
here because I believe that Paul Wantanabe meant the phrase "nonWhite People of Color" to include
white Latinos, so the distinction is misleading. I will keep on with the convention in this dissertation
that "People of Color" refers to all people who identify as Asian, Black and Latino.
 228
a hard political environment to be in. What will happen when People of Color run against

People of Color? This will require some conversation and foresight."

Longtime Roxbury activist Bob Terrell spoke up in support of Paul Wantanabe's position

and added a historical perspective that supports the need for limiting access to the New

Majority, saying.

We haven't seen People of Color [gathering together to talk across Communities of

Color] since the early 1990s. The New Majority Conference was taking place at a
historical moment and gathering Communities of Color was a powerful political
statement that sent waves out and made the folks in power say, "What's their next
move? What will they do?"

Bob Turrell was pointing out here that when People of Color gather without White People,

this makes people in power (who are largely White) nervous and there is a certain advantage

to that.

Rony Raphael, a New Majority Steering Committee member, asked Paul Wantanbe, "Do you

feel the New Majority should be representative of the rainbow?" Paul Wantanabe's

memorable reply, which was quoted at the beginning of this section was,

The New Majority is part of the rainbow, but not all of the rainbow. We have to
strengthen the colors in the rainbow before we can work together with the whole
rainbow.

Byron Rushing, an African American who is the Massachusetts Assistant Majority Whip in

the Massachusetts State Senate, brought the conversation around Paul Wantanabe's remarks

to a close by saying,

What's important to understand is that there are times when, to organize well, you
can't organize everyone. Exclusion is only wrong when it is done for the wrong
reasons.

And it is difficult for People of Color to get commensurate power unless something
dramatic happens. [People of Color] can talk about expectations, what people
 229
should have if they are the N e w Majority; that is a useful conversation to have among
People of Color. [People of Color] should have conversations together over and
over until we get to know each other.

In describing exclusion as a positive strategy, N e w Majority participants Paul Wantanbe and

Byron Rushing suggested the possibility that the policy of exclusion could change over time,

taking into account the dynamic and change-full character of community life. They b o t h

made the point that a focus on "strengthening the colors of the rainbow" is most important

at the moment, but allowed for the possibility of expanding N e w Majority conversations to

include White people in the future.

Figure 8.3 is a concept map that shows one possible way to organize these conversations and

remarks into five points that explain the learning strategy of limiting access and participation

in the N e w Majority. However, what is implicit and missing from the concept map is the

radical or root obstacle to N e w Majority informal education, what Community Change, Inc.,

a Boston antiracist education organization and action calls "the white problem." 371 T h e need

for the N e w Majority's learning strategy of limiting access and participation of White people

is actually a result of and a response to Boston's peculiar social patterns of white

supremacy 372 that have had the effect of limiting access and participation of Communities of

Community Change Inc. (CCI) serves as a hub for antiracist learning and action, with a special
focus on involving white people in understanding and challenging systemic racism,
http://www.communitychangeinc.org/
Here, I am referring to white supremacy in the general sense used by Critical Race Theorists and
others, rather than the popular use of die word to refer to people who have explicit beliefs in the
superiority of White people to members of other racial and ethnic groups (i.e. Neo-Nazis, etc.).
 230

Figure 8.3 Summary of N e w Majority conversations about the

learning strategy of limiting access to participation

r Fills historical learning gaps;

r
Since early 1990s, there have been Provides learning
few spaces created for Boston People opportunities that
of Color to come together and talk situate People of Color
front and center as
Boston Communities of Color have "experts about their
been historically segregated and own lives"
People of Color need to get to know
each other

Creates learning space for at least two kinds of necessary

conversations:
• To identify common issues that Boston Communities of Color
have in common
• As relationships mature, to address conflicts among People and
Communities of Color (i.e. when multiple Candidates of Color
. run against each other) «
V J
limiting access and participation
as a
learning strategy

r Gathering Communities
Fill a current learning need to of Color creates a
"strengthen the 'colors' part of that political advantage
rainbow" that could allows for because it captures the
future efficient and effective attention of Boston's
conversations that include politicians, "sends out
White people for the purpose of waves" and makes those
increasing the social, political and in power say "What's
economic power of People of Color their next move?"
 231

Color to social, political and economic life in Boston.

Although a history of Boston's white supremacy, and an explanation of racism in general, is

beyond the scope of this dissertation, a few salient points can be made. Boston's "white

problem" exists o n at least two different levels: the structural and the everyday interpersonal.

First, access and participation by People of Color t o the structures of political, economic and

social power in Boston has been limited. Evidence of this can be seen in the under

representation of People of Color in government, regulation authorities, management of

corporations, philanthropy and other political and economic bodies. Evidence can also b e

seen in the overrepresentation of People of Color being negatively affected by such pressing

social issues as the achievement gap and the housing foreclosure crisis, as Gloribell Mota

pointed out in her remarks at the December 2008 N e w Majority Gathering. American

Studies scholar George Lipsitz points out in his book The possessive investment in

whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics,

White Americans are encouraged to invest in whiteness, to remain true to an identity

that provides them with resources, power and opportunity. . . Whiteness is. . . a

A meaningful documentation of the history and impact of Boston's race relations is beyond the
scope of this dissertation. However, we can hope that the colleagues of Tufts University historian
Gerald Gill are able to publish the book on this subject he never had a chance to complete before his
untimely death in 2007, Struggling Yet in Freedom's Birthplace. In a Tufts Journal article about
his research and writing progress on the book, Gilbert Gill said "Boston's racial history. . . was
influenced by many circumstances specific to the city; it's a mistake to compare race relations in
Boston to other places." The book which was largely complete at the time of his death, intended to
look "at how one of the most progressive cities in the United States in terms of race relations toward
the end of the 1800s and first several decades of the 20th century became 'the most racist city in the
United States' by the '70s and the decades after."
(http://toftsjournd.tufts.edu/arclrive/2001/november/people/giU.shtml)
 232
social fact, an identity created and continued with all-too-real consequences for the
distribution of wealth, prestige and opportunity. 374

H e goes o n to suggest that this whiteness "possesses" White people, unless "White people

develop anti-racist identities, unless they divest themselves of their investments in white

supremacy." 375 This has clearly n o t happened in a widespread manner in Boston, which is

often ranks high on lists that attempt to define trie most racist cities in the United States. 376

Community Change, Inc.'s Yvonne Pappenheim Library o n Racism has many volumes

documenting how Boston's particular expressions of white supremacy have limited access

and participation in public life to People of Color.

At the second level, "the White problem" in Boston has everyday impact on the possibility

of "full spectrum rainbow organizing," in particular. Whiteness operates to confound

everyday relationships and situations for People of Color. George Lipsitz points out that

unspoken white norms permeate everyday life, saying,

Whiteness is everywhere in U. S. culture, but it is very hard to see. . . whiteness never

has to speak its name, never has to acknowledge its role as an organizing principle in
social and cultural relations. 377

Microagressions are a notable example this "White problem" because they are characteristic

of the very White liberals who might be "White allies" for the N e w Majority.

Microaggressions are activities of individuals who are often well-intentioned but not

consciously aware of beliefs, attitudes and actions that often discriminate against People

374
George lipsitz, The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profitfrom identity politics
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006), vii.
Lipsitz, The possessive investment in whiteness, vii
For example, on 28 July 2008, in the popular Freakanomics blog at the New York Times, Sudhir
Venkatesh published an entry entitled, "What is the most racist city in America?" that named Boston
as a city under contention for the title. This entry generated a lot of interest and discussion across
the Internet. See: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytinies.corn/2008/07/22/what-is-the-niost-racist-
city-in-america/
377
Lipsitz, The possessive investment in whiteness, vii-ix.
 233
ofColor. Microaggressions are "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or

environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile,

derogatory or negative racial slights and insults, sending denigrating messages to People of

Color because they belong to a racial [ethnic, or language] minority [sic] group." 3 7 8 Pervasive

and automatic in everyday conversations and often delivered as "subtle snubs or dismissive

looks, gestures and tones," they are often erroneously dismissed as being innocuous.

Examples of microaggressions are found in everyday acts and communications that, for

instance, effectively pathologize or put down different cultural values and communication

styles, deny that race plays a role in success, or bestow preferential treatment to White

people. 379 Microagressions are detrimental because they impair performance, and in the case

of the N e w Majority, the claim is that they impair learning by derailing meaningful

conversation.

People in the N e w Majority are seeking to ameliorate the effects and consequences of these

limits to their access and participation imposed by the peculiar forms of white supremacy

that operate in Boston. Superficially, the N e w Majority learning strategy that limits the

access and participation of White people to the N e w Majority may appear to perpetuate the

very same anti-democratic impulse that is the source of their under representation in

Boston's political, economic and social life. In fact, participants in the N e w Majority are

aware of this. Sandra Mcintosh, facilitator of the 2006 N e w Majority Retreat, represented

this awareness in a discussion about limiting the explicit participation of White people in the

N e w Majority when she suggested, "two wrongs don't make a right."

378
Derald Wing Sue, Christina Capodilupo, Gino Torino, Jennifer Bucceri, Aisha Holder, Keven
Hadal and Marta Esquilin, "Racial microaggressions in everyday life," American'Psychologist62 No 4
(May-June 2007): 271-286.
379 • . . .
Derald Wing Sue et. al., "Racial microaggressions in everyday life," 271-286.
 234

However, I suggest that the strategy of limiting access and participation in the New Majority

is different in three important ways that prevent it from being an anti-democratic impulse.

First, People of Color are making a conscious and strategic choice to the limit access and

participation of White people, in contrast to a pervasive social denial of limits to access and

participation of People of Color in Boston's political, economic and social power structures.

Second, People of Color in the New Majority are willing to consider the (the admittedly hard

to imagine) possibility that this strategy might no longer be necessary in the future if

political, economic and social changes bring positive impacts. Third, and perhaps the most

important reason, is that the conscious intention of this strategy is actually strongly

democratic because the New Majority seeks to create change Boston into "a city that works

for everyone."

Figure 8.3 sets out some of the positive reasons for the New Majority strategy of limiting

access and participation. I argue that this learning strategy fills in some historical learning

gaps in terms of opportunities for conversation among People of Color that identify

common issues and address conflicts. It also creates opportunities for learning and acting

based on the insights of People of Color serving as experts on their own lives. There is an

intent that this learning strategy will serve to strengthen "the colors of the rainbow" and

provide a political advantage as well.

 235
situating learning across a geography of difference and struggle

. . . geography. . . is infused with sensations and distinct ways of knowing. . . geography holds
in it the possibility to speak for itself.
Katherine McKittrickfrom Demonic grounds: Black women and the cartographies of strupple380

Considering the intellectual possibilities of the cultural landscape provides a very different
sensation from encountering officials at public meetings while trying to plan a project.
38138
Dolores Hoyden from The Power of place: Urban landscapes as public history

This chapter began with a discussion of associational life and a claim that describing

environment or patterns of participation is integral to describing informal education.

Associational life of the New Majority community of practice includes not only the

participation ofpeople, but also the influence of Replaces in Boston where people gather.

This section discusses the often-undervalued contribution oiplace to the opportunities for

participation and learning. In prophetic naming, where learning and participation takes place

matters.

The New Majority purposefully hold their meetings and events in different neighborhoods

of Boston, but to understand one reason why this is an important learning strategy requires a

deeper understanding of what it takes to move around Boston. Lack of equitable

transportation access for Boston Communities of Color is a prominent environmental justice

issue. According to Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), Boston

Communities of Color can be described as transit dependent communities, that is,

"neighborhoods that are predominantly people of color and/or lower income, where riders

are likely to not own cars and therefore depend on public transit to get to work, school,

Katherine McKittrick, Demonic grounds: Black women and the cartographies of struggle (Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), ix.
381
Dolores Hayden, The Power of place: Urban landscapes as public history (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press),
 236
382
recreation, or shopping." ACE further describes their solution to the problem, saying that

people need to,

. . . demand [a] fair share of service because the MBTA and the state have failed
to meet the needs of riders in low income neighborhoods and neighborhoods
of color. Buses are unreliable, crowded and slow, and continue to pollute the air we
breathe with dirty diesel exhaust, [emphasis from the original]383

Under such conditions, bringing meetings of the New Majority to neighborhood settings

across Boston has a significant impact on access and participation. Lydia Lowe, who has

served as a member of the New Majority Steering Committee since its founding, emphasized

this point saying, "Well, people are more likely to be able to attend meetings in their

neighborhoods. So at a very basic level, rotating the meetings allows more people to have a

chance to attend." Access to learning under the transportation conditions faced by many

People of Color in Boston is important. Where the learning takes place has to move closer

to the people, rather than asking the people to always travel the distance to where learning is

taking place. So, one obvious contribution to learning made by holding gatherings in

different neighborhoods is an increase in access for participation in the New Majority

community of practice. However, providing physical access is not the only reason that this

learning strategy is important. Lydia Lowe also said, "I guess we also move the meetings

around because, the way that Boston is, we don't get that many chances to see where each

other live, you know. And that's a good thing too."

Observations from the 12 February 2004 New Majority Meeting, held just a few months

after die 2003 New Majority Conference, are examined to identify another reason why such a

Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) is a Roxbury-based nonprofit whose focus
is on building power for environmental justice in Boston. The quote is from their website page,
http://www.ace-ej.org/tru.
http://www.ace-ej.org/tru
 237
learning strategy linked to place is needed. These observations can also explain why, beyond

overcoming particular place-based challenges to transportation that prevent access, there are

m o r e general implications for a learning strategy that takes seriously geography and the

places where people learn.

T h e 12 February 2004 N e w Majority meeting was held at the Vietnamese Community

Center 384 in the Fields Corner neighborhood of Dorchester, a neighborhood where about

half the estimated 20,000 Boston families with Vietnamese cultural roots live. T h e overall

purpose of the meeting was to form committees and to choose which of the 36 action items

generated in the N e w Majority Conference would be acted upon first.

Jose Masso led the meeting. Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Jose Masso has had

roots in Boston since 1973 and is familiar to many in the Latino community of Boston. H e

has produced and hosted the Latin music radio show "jCon Salsa!" on one of Boston's

public radio stations WBUR for over thirty years. In his opening remarks to the 12 February

2004 meeting, Jose Masso voiced a concern I have heard many times in the N e w Majority

about the combined effect of the segregation of cultural groups in neighborhoods and the

"politics of scarcity" practiced when "the City and State act like resources from the State and

Federal government are scarce." H e said,

We know this is n o t true. W e have to have the will to use those resources in a way
that benefits all people and helps those most in need. . . There is a desire to n o t fight
among ourselves for the crumbs offered. The N e w Majority is here because w e
need to k n o w each other better. S o m e t i m e s I believe that the s a m e

Boston's Vietnamese American Community Center opened in 2002 and has the distinction of
being the first full-service community center built and operated by Vietnamese immigrants and
refugees in the United States. The Center offers senior services for the elderly Vietnamese, after-
school programs, a bilingual child care center and has a library, meeting rooms, office space, and a
large gathering hall for the larger community.
 238
prejudicial attitudes as we see in the media go on among People of Color as
well, [emphasis mine]

Stating some of the divisions that exist among Boston People of Color, Jose Masso is

offering his own interpretation of one of the "common themes" that emerged from

workshop sessions in the 2003 New Majority Conference. According to the New Majority

Summary Proceedings of the First Conference, people attending separate workshop

sessions all identified the theme as follows,

Due to misinformation and lack of information and knowledge about each other, as
well as history, communities of color are divided among themselves. The many
divisions and subdivisions work against communities' progress [emphasis mine].385

Jose Masso engages the some of the learning tasks for decolonizing the imagination

introduced in Chapter 5 in this talk. He points out a particular learning task for the New

Majority is one of perceiving hegemony and challenging the deforming "common sense"

behind City and State governments' implications that resources from the state and federal

governments are scarce. He also unmasks the power imbalances that result when this

"common sense" is falsely accepted as truth, by pointing out how this politics of scarcity

often results in competition and infighting among People of Color groups for what are

perceived as "scarce resources." Jose Masso then suggests that "prejudicial attitudes among

People of Color" are linked — perhaps as both cause and effect — to infighting among

People of Color groups for scarce resources. His statement can also be interpreted as a call

for learning to go beyond this deforming "common sense" approach on a path to "know

each other better" as way to dispel the prejudicial attitudes.

New Majority Conference Committee of Recorders and Editors. "New Majority Summary
Proceedings of the First Conference: October 18, 2003," Unpublished Manuscript, New Majority.
 239
After Jose Masso's remarks, people in the meeting went round-robin offering opinions about

what they believed were the most important tasks of the N e w Majority, saying which of the

action items they felt the N e w Majority needed to address first. Education theorist Griff

Foley links action and learning, so these action items can also be interpreted as calls for

learning.

Many people at the meeting made pointed remarks echoing the theme and concerns that

Jose Masso brought up, affirming his analysis and the need for learning and action. People

called for this action and learning, saying that "working to build cultural approaches is

important for the development of power," "the cultural part is precisely what is dividing us.

. . need to show that the three cultures [African American, Asian American and Latino] can

come together. T h e N e w Majority will be o n e of the few things that unites." and "we need

to use cultural understanding to bind us together." 386 Here people in the N e w Majority

community of practice are identifying obstacles in their process of collective identity that

prevent situated learning from taking place. These observations were taken seriously by

those gathered, and to address them, a new category of "culture" was added at this 12

February 2004 Meeting.

Looking at the context for these observations and analysis can provide an explanation for

how the N e w Majority developed a learning strategy to address the geography of learning in

Cultural theorist Raymond Williams famously said in Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, 76) that "culture is one of the two or three most
complicated words in the English language."386 True to his insight, the people in the New Majoirity
who spoke about culture often referred to a mix of understanding about what the word culture
means. However, when people spoke of the common sense understandings of culture as art, music
and spoken word poetry, a more anthropological understanding of culture as socially transmitted
behavior, beliefs, work and thought was always present as well.
 240
a serious way. It is likely that some current public discussions about obstacles to organizing

among People of Color set an important context for the learning the People in the New

Majority believe needs to be done. For example, one obstacle to coalition building among

People of Color being discussed actively in online People of Color organizing communities

is the insularity of various groups — e.g. African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans. Many

groups address only those expressions of racism that directly impact their group without

often giving thought to how the struggles of others are the same or different. Andrea Smith

from INCITE!, breaks this down by suggesting that conflict arises among People of Color

from different groups working in coalition because they often "presume that. . .communities

have been impacted by white supremacy in the same way. . . and assume that all. . .

communities will share similar strategies for liberation."387 Latoya Jackson, an organizer and

editor of the blog Racialicious, explains one consequence of this conflict, that coalition

conversations often get reduced to the level of "oppression Olympics," where people

"effectively waste time arguing over who has it worse, who has a claim to certain ideas and

who should be the first to cast off the yoke of racism."388

At this 12 February 2004 Meeting, several New Majority participants went on to speak

specifically, often with emotion, about how the divisions among People of Color extended

to youth and how important building cultural bridges of communication and understanding

between the communities is , as a strategy to stem youth conflicts that sometimes result in

387
Andrea Smith, "Heteropatriarchy and the three pillars of White supremacy: Rethinking
Women of Color organizing" in The Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, ed. INCITE!
Women of Color Against Violence, 66-73 (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006).
Latoya Jackson, "Series introduction: The things we do to each other / the things we do
to ourselves," via the online blog Racialicious.com, 9 December 2008,
htto://www.rackHcious.com/2008/12/09/series-inttoduction-me-things-we-do-to-each-
otherthe-things-we-do-to-ourselves/.
 241
violence. A number of people pointed out that youth were not present at the Meeting and

suggested that part of the reason had to do with turf and cultural tensions. For example

one man said,

I am a youth activist and really concerned with die future of the New Majority.
Youth of Color are pitted against each other. They say, "What do you mean, New
Majority?" There is an increase in violence and even intra-Asian violence.

City Councilor Chuck Turner walked in at that point and explained his late arrival to the

Meeting saying, "The reason I am late is because I was working as a Black Group Leader in

an neighborhood effort to decrease tensions between Black and Latino youth. We need to

develop mechanisms to help folks resolve differences." Chuck Turner points out that

learning the ways in which prejudices and competition among youth for " t u r f can result in

conflict and violence needed to be added to Jose Masso's call for learning that will

strengthen the process of collective identity in the New Majority community of practice

Before the Meeting, I heard several people chatting about a piece of history relevant to the

discussion; the fact that this New Majority Meeting was the second gathering of Blacks,

Latinos and Asian Americans in this Vietnamese American Community Center room in just

a few weeks. In late January 2004, local youth workers brought together Vietnamese, Black

and Latino youth here to talk and try to address some of long-simmering tension and

violence between teenagers "growing up in the same Dorchester neighborhood, yet divided

by cultural, racial and ethnic misunderstanding."389 In an article about the youth gathering

Hoston Globe, Monica Rohr, "Teen rivals face off, learn: Aim is to bring Blacks, Latinos,
Vietnamese closer in Dorchester," Local News section, 31 January 2004.
 242
390
published in the Boston Globe , the tensions between the three youth communities were

described vividly:

On the streets of Dorchester, this is what's real.

Black and Latino youths say they don't step in Fields Corner. Vietnamese youths say
they never cross over to Geneva Avenue or Harbor Point. They stick to their own
corners, hang with their own crews, and don't mess with anyone they don't know.

And, when one crew happens to run into another, it doesn't take much to set things
off: A "grilL" a look held just a moment too long. A stare perceived as a taunt.
A face remembered, sometimes mistakenly, from a brawl last month.

Then it's on. . . another clash pitting Vietnamese teenagers against Black and Latino.

Ken Johnson, then the executive director of the Ella Baker House, which serves Black and

Latino youth, says in the same article, "It's not as if these youth are fighting over something

significant. They just don't know one another, and that lack of understanding spills out in

antisocial behavior. . . And that can be overcome."391 To address the learning task of going

beyond what is deforming, a learning approach of "knowing each other" is offered as an

antidote to infighting is affirmed by these insights. Figure 8.4 organizes some of the

Boston Globe, Monica Rohr, "Teen rivals face off, learn."

391
As a Boston youm education worker for the past five years I have encountered much
everyday evidence that many youth and adults who rarely move beyond their neighborhoods
and schools. Turf issues exist between youth living in different housing developments in the
same neighborhood. To lessen the tensions, one collaborative summer project sponsored by
my community technology center involved recruiting youth from three different local
housing developments to work together on multimedia projects and get to know each other.
In our Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Leam program we purposefully hire teenaged youth teachers
from different cultures, neighborhoods and schools across the city and many youth find that
interacting across these differences is one of the most significant aspects of the program
because they have never had a chance before. I have long conversations to reassure parents
of youth teachers regularly express anxiety about our practice of sending youth teachers to
offer science and technology programs in community organizations across the city. They say
things like, "my daughter is a Soutfi End girl and I don't let her leave the neighborhood," or
"I don't want my child to go to *X' neighborhood in the city." In the minds of these
parents, a strategy to keep their children safe is to keep them in one neighborhood that they
know and where they are known.
 243

Figure 8.4. Mapping cultural understanding conversation from the

12 February 2004 N e w Majority Meeting

Democratic commitment to equal distribution of power:

Guiding all learning tasks of the N e w Majority is a conscious c o m m i t m e n t to
unity among People of Color and efforts to form new relationships among People of Color

going beyond, deforming

petcefvTWig hegemony
'HSommon sense", that h a r m s PeopleoFColoti
• "the City and State act like resources &om the
State and Federal government are scarce."and
"W« know this is not trtie. we have to have
die -will to use those resources in a way tiiat
benefits all people and helps those most in
need"
• "the same prejudicial attitudes as we see in the
media go on among People of Color" and
"communities of color are divided among
themselves."
ideology
New paths towards the "New Majority" to
achieve the goal of equitable social,
economic and political power;
• Finding approaches to "loiawing
each other Better" that guide People
of Color toward unity and positive
new relationships as expressed by
remarks, "we need to use cultural
understanding to bind us together"
and "show that the three cultures
[African American, Asian American
and Latino] can come together"

unmasking power
T h i s " c o m m o n seo.se" p u t s d o w n a n d d e n i e s the p o w e r
of P e o p l e of C o l o r :
• the combination of the scarcity model and prejudicial
attitudes causes People of Color to "fight among ourselves for
the crumbs offered" and creates conditions where "due to
misinformation and lack of information and knowledge about
each other, as well as history, communities of color are divided
among themselves"
• of concern is how this division among communities of color
plays out as conflict and even violence among Boston youth of
color

situating learning in a geography of struggle and difference

:
 244

conversation and context from this meeting through the analytic model for social movement

learning tasks to trace a learning path.

How can the New Majority's strategy to "situate learning across geographies of struggle and

difference" break down prejudices among Boston Black, Latino and Asian American

communities? How can this learning strategy help people better understand what they have

in common behind the differences? The New Majority Steering committee actively and

consciously to locate gatherings — be they conference, forum, meeting, or retreat — in as

many different neighborhoods and types of organizations in Boston as possible. Figure 8.5

is a map that represents Boston neighborhoods and Figure 8.5 shows die meeting sites and

neighborhoods of some New Majority gatherings, and provides some strategic information

about that location. New Majority members and participants from different cultural, ethnic

and language groups go out to visit and become familiar with each other's neighborhoods

and organizations. To further explore reasons why this strategy has the potential to impact

learning requires unpacking some Boston history and geography, as well as thinking with

some landscape architects and ecologists.

A "geography of difference"392 exists in Boston neighborhoods and the differences matter

because of they are connected to uneven development in cultural, economic, ecological

social and political conditions that affects the everyday lives of people in these

David Harvey, justice, nature and the geography of difference (Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996).
 245
Figure 8.5. Map representing Boston's neighborhoods

Pdrchester
 246
Figure 8.6 Meeting sites and neighborhoods of some N e w Majority
gatherings
New Majority Site and Remarks about neighborhood
Meeting neighborhood
New Majority University of This campus is located right on Boston Harbor;
Conference Massachusetts at Boston UMass Boston has had an "urban mission" to
18 October 2003 provide educational opportunities for both non-
Columbia Point in East traditional as well as traditional students in the
Dorchester greater Boston area; only campus in city with ethnic
research institutes specifically interested in Boston.
Steering Committee Vietnamese Community Fields Corner is a diverse community of many
Meeting Center Vietnamese businesses and residents (more than
12 February 2004 10,000), but also African-American, Caribbean, Irish
At Large City Council Fields Corner in South and Latino residents; Vietnamese Community
Dorchester Center is the first of its kind in the United States.
Candidate Forum
6 October 2005
Membership Meeting SEIU Office This Lower Roxbury community is located between
1 March 2004 (Service Employees the South End and Roxbury. It is home to the
International Union) Boston Medical Center and its residents are largely
Lower Roxbury African American. The union office is located
behind the Boston Medical Center.
Street Talk Host Chinese Progressive Boston's Chinatown is the only historically Chinese
Practice and Association (CPA) neighborhood in New England and is located
Preparation between the city's financial and theatre districts, not
31 July 2004 Chinatown far from Downtown Crossing. The third largest
Chinese neighborhood in the country, it is also one
of the most densely populated neighborhoods in
Boston. CPA is a community organization that seeks
to improve the living and working conditions of
Chinese Americans and to "involve ordinary
community members in making decisions that affect
our lives."
General Meeting League of Women for The South End is one of the few historically
21 May 2005 Community Service multiethnic neighborhoods of Boston. It is also
home to people living with a wide range of incomes.
South End The League of Women for Community Service is
one of the oldest African American women's
organizations in the city and its building was once a
stop on the Underground Railroad.
Annual Meeting Freedom House Grove Hall is a low income neighborhood located on
11 November 2005 the border of Roxbury and North Dorchester.
Grove Hall in Roxbury Residents are largely Black, represented by both
African American and Caribbean Americans. There
is also a large Cape Verdean population.
Muhammad's Mosque No. 11 and the Nation of
Islam have had a historical influence on this
neighborhood, especially because of their emphasis
on developing black-owned businesses. Freedom
House is a historical center of civil rights and
advocacy for Boston's African American community.
 247
Figure 8.6 Meeting sites and neighborhoods of some New Majority
gatherings, continued

New Majority Meeting Site and neighborhood Remarks about neighborhood

Planning Retreat Greater Boston Center for Codman Square is a mid-
18 March 2006 Healthy Communities Dorchester low income and
predominanuy African American
Codman Square in neighborhood. GBCHC does
Dorchester community health planning with
neighborhoods around die city.
Annual Meeting Tobin Community Center Mission Hill is a diverse low
10 February 2007 income neighborhood that borders
Mission Hill in Roxbury Roxbury and Jamaica Plain with a
large African American and Latino
population.
At Large City Council Roxbury Community Roxbury is a historically African
Candidate Forum College American neighborhood in Boston.
11 October 2007 Roxbury Community College is the
Roxbury only college in New England diat
serves primarily People of Color.
Its is to serve die higher education
needs of minorities who have been
historically deprived of access to
higher education and who are
newcomers to die Boston area and
the United States.
Retreat MassVote Offices Government Center is home to
8 December 2007 City Hall and many state and city
Government Center in agencies.
Downtown Boston
Incorporation Celebration United South End The South End is one of the few
Setdements Harriet historically multiemnic
Tubman House neighborhoods of Boston. It is
South End/Lower Roxbury also home to people living with a
wide range of incomes. USES is an
organization with a long history in
the South end of advocacy and
family programming for largely low
income African Americans.
 3
neighborhoods. This well documented neighborhood segregation is especially high among

widely defined cultural groups such as White, Black, Latino and Asian.

However, social networking, as well as other factors such as redlining housing sales and

reverse redlining predatory mortgage lending practices, has also led to the dynamic rise and

fall of many distinct neighborhood enclaves where those with similar family cultural and

ethnic roots gather to live.394 There are many examples of this in today's Boston, such as

the deep Puerto Rican ethnic roots in the Villa Victoria area of my o w n South End, the

historically African American neighborhoods in Roxbury, the Latino neighborhoods with

Caribbean, Central and South American roots in Jamaica Plain and East Boston, the Haitian

neighborhoods in Mattapan and the presence of a Vietnamese community concentrated in

Fields Corner. 395

The current Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino and other political leaders are often quoted

as celebrating Boston positively as a "city of neighborhoods." Yet there are less positive and

sometimes downright negative consequences of this segregation by neighborhood and they

are often underreported. David Harris, former Executive Director of the Fair Housing

John Logan, Deitdre Oakley and Jacob Stowell. "Segregation in neighborhoods and schools:
Impacts on minority children in the Boston region," paper prepared by the Lewis Mumford Center
for Comparative Urban and Regional Research at the University of Albany and presented as part of
the Harvard Colorlines Conference sponsored by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 30 August - 1 September 2003, ERIC 480995.
394
James P. Allen and Eugene Turner. "Boston's emerging ethnic quilt: A geographic perspective,"
paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, Boston, MA, 1
April 2004, via California State University Website,
http://www.csun.edu/~hfgeg005/eturner/gallery/Bostonatlas/Bostonadascover.html.
It should be noted that there is at least one neighborhood in Boston that has been culturally and
ethnically diverse at least since the early part of the 20* century, the South End. Within the diversity
of the South End neighborhood, however, there have been shifting and stable ethnic enclaves.
 249
Center of Greater Boston, is among those community leaders who point out that some of

the neighborhoods and enclaves in Boston reinforce segregation and racism, saying

"Neighborhood can be a code word for exclusion and exclusivity. Too often, our reliance

on neighborhood in fact has a way of keeping us apart."396

How is it possible that people from the New Majority learn about each other from simply

visiting unfamiliar neighborhoods? Delores Hayden, who studies the history of landscape

and the politics of place, writes about the public meaning of a neighborhood as representing

a complex network of social and cultural ties and memories as well as the spatial ties of a

physical place.397 This implies that social, cultural and historical meaning are "recorded" in

physical spaces like neighborhoods.

But can people somehow learn by "reading the urban landscape"? This is not such a far-

fetched notion in the field of ecology, where scientists have long been considering the

natural history of landscapes, as opposed to the natural history of individual organisms.398 In

fact, while teaching experiential environmental education in the Gulf of Maine, I often used

Ecologist Tom Wessels' excellent text called Reading the forested landscape.399 When

people walk around neighborhoods, they can develop cognitive maps and mental images. I

suggest that one learning strategy that could be linked to the practice of New Majority

participants in visiting each other's neighborhoods is to consider the "intellectual

Beth Potier, "Has Boston shed its racist reputation?: Panel tackles racism and segregation in
Boston," Harvard Gazette, November 7, 2002, via Harvard University,
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/ga2ette/2002/ll.07/09-racism.htrnl
397
Hayden, 3-4, 9.
398
May Watts, Reading the landscape (New York: Macmillan Co., 1964).
399
Tom Wessels, Reading the forested landscape: A natural history ofNew England (Woodstock, VT:
Countryman Press, 1997).
 250
possibilities" stored in the landscape of each neighborhood, as suggested in the Delores

Hayden quote that begins this section, "considering die intellectual possibilities of die

cultural landscape provides a very different sensation from encountering officials at public

meetings while trying to plan a project." There is evidence for this in the informal

neighborhood curiosity I have often seen expressed at New Majority gatherings. At the

beginnings and endings of meetings, I have frequendy heard people who live far from the

meeting place ask local members questions about what they noticed as they walked through

the neighborhood, as well as questions about recent local as well as about both recent and

historic neighborhood events.

Research in environmental psychology suggests another implication that links geography

and learning, the possibility that visiting each other's neighborhoods could shift dynamics in

communication and interaction between New Majority members as they learn togedier.

Environmental psychology is a relatively young discipline that provides insight into the effect

of place on people. One insight about how people learn from geography comes from

pioneering research by psychologist Robert Roger Barker, who began to question the focus

of psychology on individual personality traits and the use of experimental laboratory settings

in the 1950s. Instead, he used observational data from everyday life in a small Midwest

town and his analysis was akin to the kind of grounded theory approach now widely used in

qualitative research. He considered setting as well as personality traits as possible indicators

that determine a range of behavior possible in a particular setting. One finding was that

behavior cannot be separated from setting and that setting provides clues about the roles

played by people in a setting and can strongly determine behavior. Robert Roger Barker

introduced the term "behavior setting" as a way to describe this finding. He found that
knowing about a behavior setting was more useful in predicting behavior than knowing the

psychological characteristics of individuals in that setting.

This suggests that what and how people share and learn together can be affected as people

speak in their own neighborhoods and organizational settings and as they leave their own

familiar neighborhoods and organizations and visit the neighborhoods and organizations of

others in the New Majority. In everyday conversation, people often acknowledge that

group dynamics can or should change based on place. For example, consider the athletic

competition phenomenon "home field/court/diamond/ice advantage" in which a team

playing at home is considered to have a significant advantage, even at an international level

of competition such as the Olympics. Or consider another example in the popular advice

that suggests adopting the cultural traditions of others when visiting as a sign of respect,

"when in Rome, do as the Romans do." Rotating New Majority meetings among

neighborhoods and groups allows whatever advantage and responsibility for adapting

behavior as a sign of respect to be spread out equitably across time.

This section begins with a quote from critical geographer Katherine McKittrick who urges

other scholars to consider that "geographies of domination"400 exist. Unequal power

dynamics in a city are expressed geographically, and one of the most powerfully effective

ways to limit economic and political rights has been to limit access to space. The issue of

transit justice and the inequities of access to efficient public transportation for Communities

of Color represents one such way of limiting access to space. The economically driven

400
McKittrick, Demonic grounds, x.
 252
segregation of neighborhoods in Boston that, at least in part, represents such a geography of

domination is another. Situating learning in such a geography of difference of struggle,

rotating meetings among neighborhoods, is an attempt to overcome some of the effects of

this geography of domination. These effects can be as simple as a lack of reliable

transportation that Lydia Lowe suggests or as complicated as the prejudice or lack of

understanding that Boston Blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans can still maintain about

each other, as Jose Masso observed at the February 2004 New Majority meeting. Where

people learn — or where situated learning is physically situated— can and should be

considered as a factor in the informal education and learning in social movements.

learning curriculum of the New Majority's associative life

The practice of the community creates the potential "curriculum" in the broadest sense. . .
Learning activity appears to have a characteristic pattern. Learning itself is an improvised
practice: A learning curriculum unfolds in opportunities for engagement in practice.

Jean T-Mve and Etienne Wenger, Situated learning: legitimate peripheralparticipation401

For nearly a century, starting with Mary Follett and her work in the early 20th century

mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, researchers have been considering Boston's

associative life as the cornerstone of informal community education. Describing the

patterns of access and participation in the New Majority's 21 st century community of practice

has been an important focus of this chapter. These patterns of participation describe the

associative life or environment of prophetic naming, that is, situated learning in the New

Majority. Centripetal patterns of access and participation introduce newcomers to the New

Majority and provide increasing opportunities for engagement and taking part in making

decisions that guide the New Majority. In fact, situated learning is best described through a

Lave and Wenger, Situated learning, 92-93.

 253
learning curriculum, the structuring of opportunities for access and participation, rather

than the more familiar teaching curriculum that focuses more closely on what is to be

learned and the order in which it will be learned. A learning curriculum focuses on the

method for generating, legitimating and transmitting learning and practices, rather than on

documenting the particular facts and skills that are being transmitted.

One important way to generate, legitimate and transmit learning and practices is found in a

signature pattern of participation of the New Majority community of practice: Purposefully

limiting access and participation largely to People of Color. This pattern of participation is

interpreted as having positive learning outcomes for the community of practice. People of

Color in Boston need to have a social laboratory dedicated for People of Color. This is a

social space where People of Color can not only engage in a process of collective identity; it

is where they can be experts about their own lives, where they can generate, legitimate and

transmit learning that is by and for People of Color. It is a social space where People of

Color can learn together how to gain political, economic and social power in Boston. As

Paul Wantanabe pointed out at the New Majority Conference, who could better understand

how to make the city work for everyone than principled people who have experienced

injustice themselves?

People in the New Majority situate this particular pattern of limiting access and participation

in time and acknowledge that, should the political, economic and social conditions change in

the future, their approach to limiting access and participation might also change. This

underscores that patterns legitimate peripheral participation involved in situated learning are

dynamic and communities of practice are expected to change them over time.
 254

Other patterns of participation can be interpreted as learning strategies particular to

prophetic naming and the New Majority community of practice. Relying on the wisdom of

groups is one example of a pattern of participation that can be interpreted as a learning

strategy. Although this learning strategy largely reflects the representation and influence of

grassroots community organizing practice within the New Majority, there is also a theoretical

basis in emerging for its educational efficacy. When learning involves describing and

solving difficult problems, emerging research shows that a collaborative group of diverse

individuals can come up with "smarter" solutions than the "smartest" person in the group.

Finally, the places where people learn are important to the associational life of the New

Majority. In face, the New Majority Steering Committee's practice of situating learning in

a geography of difference and struggle can be interpreted as a learning characteristic of

prophetic naming. Geography can play an important role not only in determining who has

access to learning but also can shape people's intellectual capacity to engage with the learning

curriculum and each other.

From this general description of the New Majority's associative life, the next chapter

provides a closer look at how this learning curriculum has supported social change action.

Over the past five years, people in the New Majority have been engaged in agenda building

for Communities of Color by organizing Street Talks, threshing meetings and political

candidate forums in Boston.

 255
9
Taking prophetic naming to the streets
The fact that People of Color were finally the New Majority was the focus of the
[2003 New Majority] Conference and that's been the momentum of the New
Majority since then. We're still working on getting into Communities of Color and
educating Communities of Color about their New Majority status. . .
New Majority Steering Committee member Shelia Martin, 17 December 2008

Our biggest role and contribution has been to put together agendas [of issues and
questions from Communities of Color] and [political candidate] forums.
New Majority Steering Committee member Lydia Lowe, 17 December 2008

On 17 December 2008 participants in the New Majority gathered to celebrate their (not yet,

it turned out) legal incorporation provided a chance for New Majority leaders to summarize

and reflect on what had been done and accomplished. As Shelia Martin pointed out in her

remarks, people active in the New Majority do see their work together as education. Lydia

Lowe also suggests that New Majority education efforts have taken a particular form,

providing spaces for the voices of People of Color to be heard through "Street Talks" held

among People of Color living in different Boston neighborhoods. Recording these Street

Talk conversations and threshing through the insights from these conversations, people in

the New Majority developed an agenda of issues important to Communities of Color. They

took action by using that agenda to develop questions that were not being asked of Boston

politicians and organize political candidate forums for People of Color communities that

have had been noted to have the highest attendance in Boston.

This chapter widens die understanding prophetic naming, the informal education practiced

by participants in the New Majority, by continuing to describe how collective learning is

fostered. In earlier chapters, situated learning has largely been described in terms of efforts

to change and learn from within the community of practice, as the New Majority attempted
 256
to create practices within their own group as a strategy to effect change among themselves

and to better model to others what they want to see happen in Boston and the rest of the

world.

However, at the same time, the New Majority has tried to effect change from within, they

have also engaged in actions that are organized attempts at what Jiirgen Habermas calls

evolutionary learning. These actions are evolutionary learning acts because they are

systematic attempts to engage the wider Boston society in constructive learning that

produces more positively socialized individuals.402 This chapter describes how collective

learning is fostered as the New Majority takes their ideas out "into the streets" of Boston in

actions that are also attempts at organizing evolutionary learning. Figure 9.1 locates the

subject of this chapter among the three informal education characteristics of prophetic

naming.

When most people think about social movements, they think about people taking action in

the streets, inside legislative halls, and during election processes. These actions are arguably

the most intuitive sites of learning for an adult education researcher to observe in a quest to

find interesting insights about what and how people learn when they try to make change in

their communities.403 These actions are also particularly characteristic of the situated

learning in social movement communities of practice. The theory of situated learning

described by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger came out of a survey of ethnographic research

on apprenticeships, none of which involved action for social change. So, to deepen

Stephen Brookfield, The power of critical theory, 250.

Griff Foley, Learning in social action.
 257
Figure 9.1. Informal e d u c a t i o n in the N e w Majority

prophetic naming
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

+
n e w majority situated learning: n e w majority
purpose &
environment people form the values
Chapters
4&8
new majority Chapter 7
community of
field of
history, patterns practice m e a n i n g s that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
power of place
process of " w h a t is t h e
collective identity n e w majority?"
Onformab ed/wocutton/ informal/ etUwxvttOTV

I
collective learning is fostered in the new majority
chtMrouct&rOytVo 2

IT I
through through learning strategies: through action:
conversation:
Chapter 8
Chapters Chapter 9
5&10 relying on the wisdom of
uncovering groups, taking agenda-
limiting access and building to the
implicit learning
participation,
by "decolonizing streets
& learning in a geography of
the imagination" difference and struggle

Onfornnab edwocutOovb ohcura&t&rC&tte' 3

 258
understanding about learning and social actions, what makes sense is to turn back to theories

of informal learning^

Social actions can be interpreted as incidents and as such, the informal learning theory of

incidental learning can offer one framework for understanding social actions. According to

adult education researchers, Victoria Marsick and Karen Watkins, incidental learning takes

place "whenever people have the need, motivation and opportunity for learning" and often

begins with some kind of trigger, "an internal or external stimulus that signals dissatisfaction

with current ways of thinking or being." 405 As people in the N e w Majority engage in

collective learning through action, the need motivation and opportunity for learning as well

as the trigger for learning can be described.

For instance, the overall learning catalyst for the New Majority was that "[t]he Census 2000

revealed that People of Color. . . compose a majority of the population of the city of

Boston." 406 O n e important dissatisfaction with current ways of thinking was identified by

Mel King when he spoke about the reason why People of Color were gathered at the 18

October 2003 N e w Majority Conference. H e broke down what was w r o n g with the way that

People of Color have been thought of and accepted being thought of as a "minority" saying,

Self-definition is an important thing. Everyone needs to be able to do this. We need

to define ourselves. It's different than allowing others to define us. When we

Here, it is important to remember that adult educators often confound informal education with
informal learning, as discussed in Chapter 3. The theory of incidental learning that follows is a theory
of informal learning.
405
Victoria Marsick and Karen Watkins, "Chapter 3: Informal and incidental learning," in ed.
Sharan Merriam, The New Update on Adult Learning Theory: New Directionsfor Adult and Continuing
Learning No 89 (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Spring 2001): 25-34.
406
New Majority Steering Committee, "What we hope to accomplish today," from The New
Majority Uniting Boston's Communities of Color: 18 October 2003 New Majority Conference
Brochure, University of Massachusetts at Boston.
 259
accepted the term minority, we were allowing other people to define us. None of the
groups here are a minority on this planet!!! Self-definition allows us to say very
powerful things.

The model of self-definition was Rosa Parks. Her act says, "I am somebody." If she
had gone to the back of the bus, her act would have said, "I am less than who I
know I am." You can't allow other people to make you less than who you are.

Rosa's action has more to do with why we are in this room. We've always been the
majority. How do we take that and move?

We've got the numbers! When we organize around being the majority, we need to
get people to understand what it means when you've got the numbers.

One "dissatisfaction with current ways of being" is that People of Color as the majority are

not reflected through representation in economic, political and social institutions in Boston.

From the beginning, the organizing question of the New Majority has been, "How can

communities work together. . . to recreate our social and political institutions, cultural and

economic life in order to reflect this diversity?"

As Lydia Lowe points out, the initial New Majority answer to this question can be summed

up under the umbrella of "agenda-making activities." This chapter explores some of the

incidents and incidental learning involved in these agenda-making actions of the New

Majority. Specifically examples of the incidental learning among people in the New

Majority are given as they:

• developed the original 2003 N e w Majority agenda at the New Majority

Conference among a group with a large representation of People of Color
academics and community organizers that large served to find ways that
organizations and campaigns could find common ground across People of
Color communities,
 260
• organized 2004 Street Talks to find out what people in different
neighborhoods who "are largely disconnected from politics"407 thought they
were up against and what issues were most important to them,

• used the information gathered from the Street Talks to thresh out a 2005
agenda of important issues to Boston People of Color and used that
agenda in 2005 to conceive questions that were missing and needed to
be asked in many public conversations about Boston, and

• sponsored a 2005 At-Large City Council Candidate Forum, a public

conversation where their questions could be asked and answered in the
presence of People of Color.

Interpreting these actions through an education research lens, I suggest that at the heart of

what people in the New Majority have done in "taking change to the streets" is a learning

strategy that seriously takes on a discipline of listening and questioning. Descriptions of

purposeful and complex ways that people in the New Majority listen and question is another

indication that they approach this learning in agenda building from perspective of ongoing

change. For instance, rather than seeking a stable agenda for the New Majority, participants

keep an eye out to adjust for accommodating the everyday contingencies, breakdowns,

opportunities and unintended consequences encountered in a changing world. This habit of,

"living with change and managing change" is considered by some to be emerging as an

essential skill in all education efforts.408

Lydia Lowe, "Opinion: 'Street Talks to Build the New Majority Coalition," Sampan: New England's
only Chinese Newspaper, 22 July 2004, http://sampan.org/pastissues/2004/0716/opinion.htm.
408
JISC InfoNet, "Change Management Info Kit" (Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Northumbria
University, 16 May 2006), 2, http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-management.
 261
building the first new majority agenda and coalition with organizers

Half of them were from outside the United States. Nearly all spoke two or more
languages. They were from Roxbury, Dorchester, Boston, Somerville. They were
Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans, activists all. A n d they
converged early one morning at UMass Boston to speak up and set an agenda.
From "Minority theNewMajority,''UMassMediastudentnewspaper, October2003

F r o m the beginning, people in the N e w Majority have defined their project as being centered

around an agenda building process. I n dictionaries, an agenda is defined as "a list or

program of things to be done or considered," 409 "matters that need attention: the various

matters that somebody needs to deal with at a specific time" 410 as well as "personal

motivation: an underlying personal viewpoint." 411 So, this suggests that as people in the

N e w Majority develop an agenda, they are seeking different viewpoints and finding out what

matters to Boston People of Color and from that, developing a list of things to be done. In

the case of the N e w Majority, the most important "thing to b e d o n e " was to design

questions for politicians that forced them to consider what People of Color in Boston are up

against, questions that turned out to be quite different than the usual questions asked at

Boston political candidate forums.

Researchers of learning in social movements will find that there is a whole body of political

science literature that specifically deals with "agenda-setting theory." 412 Although much of

this body of literature is beyond the scope of the discussion at hand, a few basic ideas can b e

helpful in understanding general relevance of agenda-setting as practiced by people in the

Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agenda.

410
MSN Encarta Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agenda.
411
MSN Encarta Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agenda.
412
A concise summary of agenda-setting theory that I found helpful is in: Mona Noriega, "Problem
definition and agenda-setting: LGBT aging issues," in Proceedings of the Midwest Political
Association Held in Chicago, Illinois, 6 April 2008, 8-9.
 262
New Majority. Agenda-setting theory attempts to "explain the evolution of issues, how

problems are defined and the strategies used to present an issue to government officials for

action."413 At the heart of the New Majority agenda building is learning how to move

identified issues from conversations among Communities of Color into the public discourse

for the purpose of catalyzing evolutionary learning. Success in learning in the agenda

building of the New Majority means developing learning strategies that allow people in the

New Majority to identify issues that are relevant to Communities of Color and coming to be

able to define them in a way that shows their relevance to the wider Boston community.

Success can also defined in terms of agenda-setting theory, as being when people in the New

Majority are able to find ways to persuade politicians — and people — that they not only

have the moral imperative, but also the means and a concrete political path for solving the

issues, to get others to "perceive [these issues] to be amenable to human solution."414

The first New Majority agenda-building process came out of carefully choreographed

workshops at the 2003 New Majority Conference, which was attended by a group largely

made up of community organizers. Paul Wantanabe put it best when he described those who

were invited to the Conference, saying, "We invited the doers, not just the thinkers. We

invited doers, not just visionaries to the conference." This Conference was competently

steered and organized by a committee with representatives from the three University of

Massachusetts institutes, as well as the directors and board officers from community

organizations that serve the Black, Asian American and Latino communities in Boston.

Many of the people from this Board, such as Mel King, Jose Masso and Pal Wantanabe, have

Mona Noriega, "Problem definition and agenda-setting," 2.

Mona Noriega, "Problem definition and agenda-setting," 5-7.
 263
gone on to serve the New Majority from time to time as "elders," as trusted advisors with.

wisdom and experience.

A concise description of the agenda-building process was included in the materials I was

given by Chuck Turner when he invited me to attend the 18 October 2003 New Majority

Conference.416 The description said,417

United, we seek to:

• Develop a New Majority Agenda as a major instrument for the diverse

communities to use as a strategic plan for action.

• Institutionalize an agenda-building process that identifies the challenges and

opportunities facing New Majority communities.

• Increase the level of coordination among diverse groups, organizations, and

leaders in the communities, so that the effectiveness of each is enhanced for
the benefit of the larger community.418

415 It feels important to reiterate here that the use of the word "elder" is not a reference to age, but to
wisdom and experience.
416
All through 2003, my research on learning in Boston social movements was much more
general. I was listening and taking field notes with a number of different organizing groups,
one of which was City Councilor Chuck Turner's District 7 Round Table. The Round Table
is a monthly three-hour gathering of Chuck Turner's constituents to meet, discuss an issue
facing the community, develop strategies to address the issue and share a meal. Chuck
Turner knew about my research, because earlier in the year, I had asked permission to take
field notes at the Roundtables. At an early Fall 2003, he told me about the New Majority
Conference and suggested that I attend as part of my research, saying that the conference
was "open to all."
417
Participation from members of the three University of Massachusetts policy institutes
(The Wiliam Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture, the Maurico Gaston
Institute for Latino Community Development and the Institute of Asian American Studies)
are evident in many of die published documents that came out of the 18 October 2003 New
Majority Conference.
418
New Majority Steering Committee, "New Majority Agenda," Fall 2003,
http://www.iaas.umb.edu/newmajority/agenda.shtml
 264

Lydia Lowe, Executive Director of

the Chinese Progressive
Association and Jorge Capetillo,
Chair of die University of
Massachusetts Latino Studies
Department facilitate one of die
two workshop discussions on Civie
and Political Participation at die 18
October 2003 New Majority
Conference.

Photo through kindness ofUMassMedia

student newspaper

The morning of the 18 October. 2003 New Majority Conference was cold and overcast. The

University of Massachusetts Boston campus is located on a peninsula called Columbia Point

in Dorchester that extends out into Boston Harbor. Even though I lived within the Boston

City Limits, I still had to take the 66 Bus, then a Red Line T subway, then finally a UMass

loop bus which dropped me off to face a 15 minute walk through a maze of buildings and

courtyards, following taped "New Majority Conference" signs with arrows. The people

coming to build this New Majority agenda certainly were those who could arrange to be free

for a whole Saturday (including some who had to arrange childcare since none was provided

at the Conference), who felt comfortable coming to a college campus and who could

navigate the traveling necessary to get to Columbia Point.

After registering and getting some refreshments, I sat down in the back of the Lipke

Auditorium in the University of Massachusetts Boston Science Building to wait for

Conference to begin. Opening the blue two-pocket folder I was given with the New
 265
Majority logo, I found a handsome 7 page conference program with a cream heavy-weight

cardstock cover. The "Day at a Glance" page said that after the 45 minute long General

Plenary, we would be attending one of seven discussion groups for two hours.

The discussion groups (or workshops)419 seemed to correspond to the seven issues

identified as part of the "New Majority Agenda," which "was developed by representatives

of the African American, Hispanic/Latino and Asian communities — all active members of

the New Majority Steering Committee"420 a few weeks before the Conference. The seven

issues identified on the original agenda were:

/. Civic and Political Participation

2. Civil Rights, Anti-Immigration Policies
3. Education
4. Economic Development and Workers' Rights
5. Health and Human Services
6. Housing, Land Use and Community Development
7. Youth421

The Conference Program stated three goals for the discussion sessions:

(1) to deepen our understanding of how specific issue areas affect different
communities of color in Boston;
(2) to identify sustainable structures, systems and processes to promote a
common agenda;
(3) to begin to discuss areas of collaboration and action steps.422

At the end of the Plenary Session, a woman came on stage to organize participants into

discussion groups. She struck a playful pose with her hand on her hip, saying "You better

New Majority participants and literature around the conference described these break-out
sessions interchangeably as either discussion groups or workshops.
420
New Majority Steering Committee, "New Majority Agenda"(Long four page version), 18
October 2003. The original New Majority Steering Committee was made up of
421
New Majority Steering Committee, New Majority Conference Program, 18 October 2003,
University of Massachusetts at Boston.
422
New Majority Steering Committee, New Majority Conference Program.
 266
listen up, people!" and told us that the discussion groups would break out to meet in three

different buildings. After giving us instructions, she struck her hand-on-hip pose again and

said "We're tired of talking. . . Let's do some action!" I decided to attend the Education

discussion session meeting and, along with over twenty other folks, was directed to a

classroom on the first floor of die Wheatley Building by smiling young university student

volunteers w h o were posted in the hallways with signs to help us get to the right place.

Miren Uriarte and Tulaine Shabazz Marshall 423 were the facilitators of the Education

Discussion G r o u p and the classroom was set up with an easel pad for recording "ideas for

collaboration" As part of introductions, participants from Black, Asian American and Latino

communities identified themselves through their relationship to education, such as principal,

teacher, alternative educator for "drop out" parents, "survivor of the Boston Public School

system," chair of education for Chuck Turner's District 7 Roundtable, chair of curriculum

and instruction for the UMass teacher education department, parent, and pastor of Leon de

Juda. 424 An education reporter from the Boston Globe newspaper covering the Conference

was also present.

Miren Uriarte is Director of the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community
Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Tulaine Shabazz
Marshall is an African American educator, activist and artist. She recently worked as the National
Director of Graduate and Youth Opportunities at YouthBuild USA where she oversaw a series of
initiatives that help YouthBuild graduates enroll in college and participate in the 21st century
economy and workforce.
Leon de Juda an evangelical church in Lower Roxbury that serves Boston Latinos and has many
education programs. I attended a music-filled Sunday service there as part of a course dealing with
organizational diversity at Harvard Graduate School of Education. The service was given entirely in
Spanish, but headphones that streamed a simultaneous translation of the service in English were
available to people without Spanish language skills.
 267
After the introductions, Miren Uriarte and Tulaine Shabazz Marshall explained that

workshop was "designed to solicit different perspectives and experiences with education."

They also presented groundrules for the discussion. Along with the usual kinds of

groundrules, two unusual rules set the tone for the conversation, "Make conversations that

build on the points that are made — it's a function of listening, not just focusing on that 'I

have my list of things I want to say'" and "Don't dwell on the 'awfuls."

Almost all the education workshop participants, most of whom were women, spoke in this

conversation that followed and many spoke with great feeling. The New Majority Steering

Committee had arranged for one person, Carlos Maynard, to serve as recorder for the all the

comments, which were later published in the Conference Proceedings.425 Comparing my

own field notes with the summary comments for each person's contribution published in the

Proceedings, I found some differences that led me to reflect on an underreported quality in

the conversations that is central to both learning and the collective identity process. The

recorder often summarized the meaning of the comment into a kind of education shorthand

that often downplayed the emotional dimension of the comments. One good example of

this occurred when a woman spoke about the impact of the Massachusetts Comprehensive

Assessment System (MCAS often pronounced "em-cass"), "high stakes" English Language

Arts and Mathematics tests that students must pass as one condition for eligibility for

graduation. MCAS are also the tests used to hold schools accountable to the No Child Left

Behind Act. In the Conference Proceedings, one woman's contribution was summarized as

I found it interesting to compare my field notes to the Conference Proceedings because I

recorded exactly what people said in their own words, while the recorder obviously was familiar with
educational policy and issues and recorded an interpretation of the comment through that lens.
 268
MCAS — the students are the ones that are affected; labeling is reinforced — creates
greater problems (example: English High School — some students don't pass, but
they are fine students working hard).

Whereas in my field notes, I recorded the woman's comment as,

MCAS and labeling children is a problem. The only people being punished by the
MCAS are the students, not the test designers or the politicians! There is continuous
discourse about the students not being able to achieve. The students experience
heavy anxiety and tears. They can't sleep. Their discouragement leads to dropouts.

In my field notes, the cause of suffering is not just the MCAS, but real people like the test

designers and politicians, who the woman holds accountable for their discourse and actions.

The woman was inviting other people in the room to feel the emotional toll on students, the

anxiety, tears, sleeplessness and discouragement. Here is evidence that action steps and

summaries capture only part of the learning that happens in conversations like these when

people share the suffering they believe can be eased through equity and change. The

proceedings and lists of action steps were important, but so was the laughter I heard as

people were eating lunch or listening to the musical group or chanting "we've got the

numbers!" together. Organizer Fran Peavey describes this process using the metaphor of

having people tune a radio to a particular frequency to learn together, saying it is like a

"tuning of the heart."426 Alberto Melucci also discusses these nonrational — but not

irrational — processes as being one of the three most important characteristics of any

collective identity process. He believes that a certain emotional investment is necessary to

maintain unity. In fact, Alberto Melucci goes so far as to say that "passions and feelings,

love and hate, faith and fear are all part of a body acting collectively" and that "there is no

cognition without feeling and no meaning without emotion."427

Fran Peavy, "American willing to listen," in Heart"Politics(Philadelphia, PA: New Society

Publishers, 1986), 73-91.
427
Melucci, Challenging codes, 71.
 269
If emotions can support learning, are there also ways that emotions can be an obstacle in

these kind of conversational learning processes that go on in social movements? When the

facilitators of this Education workshop suggested that one of the groundrules be, "Don't

dwell on the awfuls," they were pointing to this. Miren Uriarte followed up the introduction

of this rule saying,

We have had incredible accomplishments here in Boston. Let's think of those

before the "awfuls." One example is that during the 1960s there was separate but
equal education and building of schools. Think of our history and moving forward.
We had the first transitional bilingual program in the nation here that included
Latinos, Blacks and Asians, even though we just lost it. What happened here
impacted education for children all over the United States.

Her words can be interpreted to be a caution about the obstacle to learning and acting that

exists if people get immersed in the immensity of the present suffering and the size of the

present problems without also reminding themselves of what has been accomplished

together in the past. Forgetting that problems have been faced, and that suffering has been

lived through to victories in the past, can have negative consequences for people engaged in

learning how to best make change in their communities. From the point of view of the

learning tasks in the model for decolonizing the imagination proposed in Chapter 3,

facilitators Miren Uriarte and Tulaine Shabazz Marshall suggested that there is an emotional

toll taken when people limit themselves to the learning tasks of "deconstructing" without

"constructing" possible solutions and generating a vision and hope for change.

As the Education Workshop continued, the facilitators went about the work of recording

categories of "ideas for collaboration" that came up on the easel pad. These "ideas for

collaboration" were taken into the afternoon New Majority meeting where all the individual

issue groups gathered together for a "strategy session."

 270
After the workshop ended at noon, all the participants gathered in the University Club on

the 11th floor of the Healy Library to eat a box lunch. During the lunch, a musical group

named Solj Canto performed and elicited the same kind of emotional response that

Alberto Melucci says is necessary to create and maintain unity in a collective identity learning

process. Puerto Rican/Argentine singer and bongo player Rosi Amador and New Mexican

guitarist and composer Brian Amador performed from "El Doble de Amigos/Twice as

Many Friends," a CD of bilingual songs they wrote for children as part of their work as

bilingual education advocates. They said about their songs, "twice as many languages is

twice as much fun and twice as many friends!" Looking around the room, I saw many

smiles and many New Majority conference participants put down their sandwiches to sing,

clap and even dance.

After lunch, New Majority participants remained gathered in the University Club of the

Healy Library for an hour and a half long "strategy session,"

. . . to reach agreement on up to five collective action steps/projects on each topic

area. Working groups will reconvene to brainstorm, prioritize ideas, and report back
to the group.428

Each of the seven issue groups convened briefly in different sections of the large room and

each came up with two overall goals they thought were important for the New Majority to

address. They also used their "ideas for collaboration" lists to come to an agreement about

five bold action steps to recommend to the whole gathering on their particular issue, as well

as some suggestions for keeping the momentum of the New Majority Conference going.

Each of the seven groups presented their action agendas. The day ended with a discussion

of the upcoming Boston City Council election and the At-Large City Council Candidacy of

428
New Majority Steering Committee, 18 October 2003 New Majority Conference Program,
University of Massachusetts Boston.
Felix Arroyo. N e w Majority conference participants enthusiastically voted yes o n a

resolution to support and work for election of Felix Arroyo, 429 suggesting a bullet-voting

strategy. 430 Paul Wantanbe promised that the three University of Massachusetts Boston

Institutes would publish and distribute the Proceedings of the New Majority Conference to

all w h o attended. In closing remarks to the 2003 N e w Majority Conference, Mel King said,

Real education is measured n o t by h o w much math you know, but by how m u c h

impact your education helps you to have on the place where you live.

This city is our H O M E . This conference represents what we have been going
through, the struggle of developing solidarity, being positive and making community.
We shape our reality through our living.

As Lydia Lowe and Shelia Martin pointed o u t in the quotes at the beginning of this chapter,

building an agenda for People of Color has been at heart of the N e w Majority's incidental

learning. Creating spaces for listening and learning is an important learning strategy in the

N e w Majority's engagement of informal education, prophetic naming.

This first gathering of N e w Majority involved a set of conversations among public

intellectuals and organizers from across Boston's Communities of Color for the purpose of

building relationships and networks across seven different issues. Many of the conversations

and activities included nonrational processes, not recorded in the Conference Proceedings

and Action Steps. Social movement theorist Alberto Melucci points out that these

The New Majority sent out a letter announcing a "New Majority Rally for Felix Arroyo" that was
held e a few days before the election on 1 November 2003 at the First Church Parish Hall in
Roxbury. Although the event was called a rally, much of the time was spent doing a literature drop
among the homes of the largely African American residents in Roxbury.
4
° The way that Boston At-Large City Council elections work, die four candidates that receive the
most votes in the election are seated as At-Large Councilors and each voter can cast up to four votes
among the field of At-Large City Council Candidates. Bullet-voting is a voting strategy that
encourages voters to cast only one of their four possible votes. In this case, the number of votes for
Felix Arroyo would increase but not the number of votes for the other (by the way all White) At-
Large Candidates.
 272
notitrational process are an important part of communal learning in any process of collective

identity. In the course of the day's conversations, people laughed, sang and danced together;

they shared and gave witness to the suffering in their communities that stemmed from

inequities in Boston political, social and economic life. These qualities in incidental learning

contribute to the emotional investment needed to maintain the unity of a social movement

such as the New Majority.

When the New Majority Summary Proceedings of the First Conference: October 18,

2003 was published later that fall, the seeds for the New Majority's next grassroots agenda

building activity can be found. Earlier in this section is a photograph of Lydia Lowe and

Jorge Capetillo leading one of the two workshops on Civic and Political Participation at the

2003 conference. Among the remarks published in the conference proceedings about that

workshop is a note that "a speaker suggests that we organize on a street-by-street basis, on

issues over and above the voting process and try to convince people that the system can

work." Members of the New Majority Civic and Participation Committee developed the idea

from that remark into a learning campaign they called "Street Talks."

Street talks to "define our Boston": a new kind of agenda built through
neighborhood listening and learning

Instead of calling it a political agenda, we can call it defining our Boston, the new
Boston. We can assert a vision of the city that is ours. . a vision of what the city
would be if it were the way we want it to be.
Participant, 30 March 2004 New Majority Civic and Political Participation Committee Meeting

This summer, as part of its strategy to build political clout, the New Majority will
hold "Street Talks," or informal meetings in neighborhoods throughout the city to
build membership, educate voters and identify the important issues for a common
citywide agenda. . . The goal of Street Talks is to promote the idea that communities
of color can build a citywide movement to gain political power.
 273
Lydia Lowe from the Sampan, New England's Only Chinese Newspaper, 22 July 20044}1

At a well-attended 12 February 2004 New Majority Steering Committee Meeting, the group

decided to organize issue-based committees. The Civic and Political Participation

Committee generated the largest interest and was chaired by Lydia Lowe. Bimonthly

meetings were held in the Gymnasium at the Josiah Quincy School in Chinatown during the

Spring of 2004.

The first New Majority Civic and Political Participation Committee meeting on 15 March

2004 included an overview presentation of the political and civic work already going on in

Boston People of Color communities and a discussion about the "particular role that the

New Majority could and should fill here, given our limited capacity."432 Most of the time

was spent talking about what people meant when they said, "we want to build the New

Majority into a political mechanism with a grassroots base."433 Participants felt this was the

idea underlying all the action steps that came out of die New Majority Conference and

February 2004 Steering Committee Meeting.

When the Civic and Political Participation Committee met again on 30 March 2004 at the

Quincy School, discussion revolved around what the New Majority could actually

accomplish in the seven months before the next elections that would have impact.

Participants suggested that "the New Majority could become more of a unifying force" and

they rallied around a conviction that "finding a consensual agenda is the key to uniting

431
Lydia Lowe, "Opinion: 'Street Talks to Build the New Majority Coalition," Sampan: New England's only
Chinese Newspaper, 22 July 2004, http://sampan.org/pastissues/2004/0716/opinion.htm.
432 ,-
New Majority Civic and Political Committee, Agenda Notes for 03.15.04 Meeting.
433
New Majority Civic and Political Committee, Notes for 03.30.04 Meeting.
 274

neighborhoods." Discussion gathered momentum around an idea to hold neighborhood-

based Street Talks as part of a neighborhood-unifying process: "We could come in with

what our vision [of the New Majority] is and capture the issues of people in the

neighborhoods." One person suggested the goal for the Street Talks should be to "develop

an agenda for the mayoral race and make the development process for that agenda lively and

engaging." This led to a back-and-forth around the room about the process involved in

agenda building. During that part of the discussion, the following remarks made by different

participants:

What is the process for developing the agenda? Is it what people are talking about?

The New Majority Conference developed an agenda, but there was litde discussion
about it. An agenda is an ever-evolving thing, not like a blueprint. Our agenda
should be a framework and we should let it be really organic and let it grow and
change.

Framework is almost a worldview, basic values for how we look at issues. Building
an agenda is a long-term process and other folks want short-term gains. There is
always a tension between the two.

We need something to recharge up the New Majority. Do we start with the broad
agenda from the Conference?

No, let's have initial discussions looking at issue patterns by having Street Talks on
issues. . . trying to increase civic and political participation by going out and doing
Street Talks.

Instead of calling it a political agenda, we can call it defining our Boston, the new
Boston. We can assert a vision of the city that is ours. We can set up a time frame
for making the city ours, making our city a reality. We can define a vision of what
the city would be if it were the way we want it to be. We have the power in numbers
and it must be a neighborhood process.

Here, New Majority participants are again thinking about agenda building from a perspective

of ongoing change, "not like a blueprint," but emerging and evolving out of their learning

experiments. Yet, at any moment a "snapshot" can be taken of the agenda and a concrete

action can grow out of part of the agenda for "short term gain." One participant even went
 275
so far as to describe the purpose of agenda building to be the building of a vision that

redefines Boston through the eyes of People of Color. Like the slogan, ' W e ' v e got the

numbers!" which has continued to be repeated over and over in N e w Majority meetings and

literature, this idea of "defining our Boston" has gained that same popularity, often being

repeated in the form of the slogan, "Whose Boston? Our Boston?" 4 3 4

What also became clear as I listened to this discussion at the 30 March 2004 Civic and

Political Participation Committee was that the learning strategy of relying on the wisdom of

groups would b e continued in Street Talks. At this meeting, people determined that "Street

Talks" were not to b e talks given by N e w Majority leaders to people "in the streets," but

discussions facilitated by N e w Majority participants in order to gather the insights of people

living in different neighborhoods about what they are up against. O u t of this meeting, the

Civic and Political Participation Committee decided to submit a formal proposal to the N e w

Majority Steering Committee to "launch some neighborhood, ward or district-based 'street

talks' which can m o v e us toward building a geographically organized structure." T h e

proposal was accepted by the Steering Committee and N e w Majority Street Talks became a

reality.

The "Whose Boston? Our Boston" slogan also echoes a movement in urban cities across the
country where new organizing is being fueled by the idea of an urban commons. The national Right
to the City Alliance (http://www.righttothecity.org/) is one example with a unifying message of
"The city belongs to all of us!" Philip Cryan recently wrote an excellent 20 page report on the
emergence of this type of organizing called "The city belongs to all of us: New organizing on
economic issues is fueled by the idea of an urban commons" as part of an internship with the On the
Commons and Grassroots Policy Project (http://onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2399).
The New Majority Civic and Political Participation Committee designed a flyer "What are

the New Majority Street Talks?" in order to recruit Street Talk sponsors. The flyer explained

the goal of Street Talks as being,

. . . to form the foundation of a citywide, grassroots political mechanism to build

power for the New Majority communities, recruit new members and add voices to
the creation of our agenda. The issue agenda emerging out of the Street Talks can
become our agenda for the 2005 city elections. Out of Street Talks, we want people
to become active on whatever level they are able.435

The format of the Street Talks was also explained as being,

- Hosted in targeted precincts by Steering Committee members or member

organizations in different Boston neighborhoods, held at regular intervals during the
summer/fall 2004 and ending with a citywide voter registration rally and
multicultural event on 11 October 2004.

- Structured, approximately 2-hour gatherings, in which participants learn more

about the New Majority, register to vote, review the New Majority agenda and come
up with a list of priority issues for their neighborhood or community that should be
highlighted in the 2005 city elections.

Because the Democratic National Convention was held in Boston at the end of July 2004,

the first Street Talks were scheduled after the end of the Convention, at the beginning of

August. An official New Majority press release was sent out on 27 July, 2004 titled, "New

Majority Launches 'Street Talks.'" In that release, Street Talks were described as

conversations that attempt "to help people who are disconnected from politics to

understand how voting and participating is important to daily issues that they care about."436

A few days later on Saturday morning, 31 July 2004, a Practice and Preparation Session for

Street Talk Hosts was held in the UNITE Building in Chinatown. As part of that practice

New Majority Civic and Political Participation Committee, "What are the New Majority STREET
TALKS?"flyerfor recruiting people to organize Street Talks in their neighborhood or precinct,
Spring 2004.
46
New Majority Steering Committee, "New Majority Launches 'Street Talks'" Press Release, 27 July
2004.
 277
and preparation, sponsors of Street Talks received a two-page "Standard Outline and Intro

for Street Talks." Quotes from these two documents — the press release and the outline for

the Street Talks — can be mapped onto the learning tasks model for "decolonizing the

imagination" suggested in Chapter 3, as shown in Figure 8.2. An outcome of these learning

tasks, the New Majority Street Talks combine at least three prophetic naming learning

strategies discussed in Chapter 8. As mentioned, Street Talks relied on the wisdom of

groups as they gather people who are disconnected from politics to identify and discuss

"issues" and "concerns" that they believe are important for political candidates to address.

These Street Talks were held in different Boston neighborhoods, applying the strategy of

situating learning in a geography of struggle and difference. The design of the Street Talks

prioritized public transportation access and the participation of People of Color in the

conversations. Using issues and concerns gathered in many such neighborhood

conversations, participants in the New Majority then created a political agenda to use in the

2005 Boston City elections.

 278
Figure 9.2. Mapping the N e w Majority Street Talk Press Release onto
the learning task model for decolonizing the imagination

democratic commitment to equal distribution of power:

Guiding all N e w Majority learning tasks is a conscious commitment to "unite and empower
(Boston's Communities of Color] through political action"

perceiving hegemony going beyond deforming

"Common sense" that harms People of Colon
* People of Color ate not a minority, even
though they are often labeled so: "We've got
the numbers, said Mel King referring to
census figures that revealed Boston's
population to be over fifty percent people of
color."
unmasking power
This "common sense" puts down and denies
the power of People of Color:
* Many People of Color in Boston feel
"disconnected from politics" and
disconnected from "understanding how
voting and participating is important to daily
issues they care about"
• "While close to 5 1 % of Bostonians are people
of color, 10 out of 13 city councilors and 12
out of 17 representatives in the Boston
delegation are white. A recent study showed
that 95% of Boston-based corporate directors
are white.
ideology
N e w paths to achieve the goal of
equitable social, economic and political
power:
• New Majority has already achieved
success and begun "developing a
culture of power" through "Felix
Arroyo's surprisingly strong finish... in
last year's [2003] city council race."
"P]n last year's [2003] city elections,
increases in voter turnout were highest
in communities of color. Voting was
up 78% in precincts with the largest
proportions of black voters, up 76% in
the heavily latino precincts, and up
83% in the five precincts with the most
Asian voters.
• Launching Steet Talks "to promote the
idea that communities of color can
build a city-wide movement to gain
political power. The Street Talks
projects seek to help people who are
disconnected from politics to
understand how voting and
participating is important to daily issues
that they care about, as well as register
voters and begin to build the New
Majority as a political force in Boston.

~C^T
applying the learning strategies of prophetic naming
situating learning in a geography of struggle and difference
relying on the wisdom of groups
taking active listening and the shaping of questions seriously

Note: All quotes takenfrom 27 July 2004 Press Release. "New Majority haunches 'Street Talks'
 279

T E E K E W RS&J@KIW Ei$VE¥ES VOV T® It is n o t surprising that the first and

_^fcf;jTJ|^|pppp E
IB largest Street Talk was held o n 4 August

(HKZICSmORMOOB COWVSBSMTIOSTOCVSEB OXCRSBTBICB 2004 at t h e Quincy School in

cwuiesm BosroN-jaovsnta, EDUCATION, POLITICS, POWEMU)

Dates 08/04/04 Chinatown, sponsored by t h e

, tt irVfTfrii -'n>- < ~i««^rtYMBMitiiirM«-HB«
flEEE@2 € E 3 © gEwSfifi. Chinatown Resident Association and the

Chinese Progressive Association.

fosion g i u u c y School
F&GTt Boston's populatiojs le CAFETERIA
ovevSOK people of color.
88S WosnSnfifton Street Chinatown's political might has been
FMCTt Sostott**) City CotmoSI is
28% people off color. i n Chinatown

<S>y N e w E n g l a n d
nXC& Boston's gtate &^gtate<arc
M e d i c a l Centier^
growing quietly and steadily because of
delegation le 3©*4 people of color
station)
fXCSi Ovgat&lBod people » power*
VeL 617-352-4199
Wa aare tfla© &ew BS^oritF! the innovative and strenuous voter

sme! £&<? Stew &%&$&*$£&•

SPONSORED BV
Chinese progressive Association
education efforts by many Asian
0<n> <£&•&&£<&&> __ss s}ep&x&*gaL Chinatown Resident Association
a s a s c m & e r e off ^TteiS?

THE N E W IW&f0SUYY [/;-•• American organizers in Boston,

SJOWBt Sir** ( a n d o p c u to t _ e pnMJe-

§__H including the N e w Majority's Lydia

Lowe. According to a Boston Globe article, "Their political attentiveness a n d sophistication

have grown. . . [Asian American] voters n o w appear more invested in the political process

and more concerned about specific issues." 437 According to the Street Talks Progress

Report published in September 2004, 438 109 people participated in the Chinatown Street

Talk, breaking up into six small discussion groups. A bilingual introduction t o t h e N e w

Majority was given and five of the discussion groups were conducted in Chinese, while o n e

discussion group was conducted in English. Seven N e w Majority buttons were sold and 10

people became new members of the N e w Majority (the N e w Majority asked for a $ annual

437
Yvonne Abraham, "Chinatown voter awareness helped propel Yoon's win: Turnout tripled in
last eight years," Boston Globe, 10 November 2005,
http://www.boston.com/news/locd/articles/2005/ll/10/chinatown_voter_awareness_helped_pro
pel_yoons_win/ Ppage—2.
438
New Majority Civic and Political Participation Committee, "Street Talks Progress Report," 23
September 2004.
 280
membership fee). About a dozen of the attendees had previously paid memberships.

Detailed notes at each of the six discussions were taken and sponsors reported that "top

issues of concern were affordable housing, crime and public safety, elder services and health

care." Street Talks were also held in the South E n d at Castle Square Housing Development,

in the Mission Park Housing Development, in Dorchester's Codman Square, as well as in

Roxbury's Madison Park and Grove Hall.

I served as recorder for the Street Talk Meeting held on Wednesday evening, 22 September

2004 at the Freedom House in "one of Boston's oldest neighborhoods of color," 439 Grove

HalL near the border of Roxbury and Dorchester. 440 Freedom House was founded in 1949

and has a long history as a "a center of civil rights and advocacy for Boston's African

American community." 441 T h e Street Talk was co-sponsored by the N e w Majority, Project

RIGHT 4 4 2 and the Freedom House. Atiya Dangleben from the N e w Majority Steering

Committee, an energetic statewide director of MassVote in her 20s at the time, was the

facilitator.

Freedom House website, www.freedomhouse.com

Grove Hall is also home to Muhammad's Mosque No. 11, which serves Boston's Nation of Islam
(Black Muslim) community. The shopping mall at the center of Grove Hall was named "Mecca," in
part to acknowledge the positive role that the Nation of Islam community has played in the
neighborhood. For instance, a number of small businesses run by members of Muhammad's
Mosque No. 11 keep money flowing inside and around the Grove Hall neighborhood, instead of the
usual flow out into other neighborhoods or into corporations without meaningful ties to the
community.
441
From "Freedom House (Roxbury, Massachusetts) Wikipedia entry,
http://en.wildpedia.org/wild/Freedom_House_(Roxbury,_Massachusetts)
442
From www.projectright.org: "Project RIGHT, Inc. is a strong coalition of community based
resident led, Grassroots Street Associations, Crime Watches, Social Service Agencies, Housing and
Neighborhood Development Corporations, Churches, Youth and Senior Advocates and Service
Providers, and the Businesses sector, within the greater Grove Hall Area of Boston Massachusetts. . .
[OJur mission has been to strengthen and coordinate existing services and programs for our
community through grassroots organizing of neighborhood residents.
 281
An intergenerational gospel choir was rehearsing on the first floor of the Freedom House as

a group of about 20 people came together in a circle upstairs at 6:00pm. On a table in the

meeting room was soda, juice and other refreshments, including some trays of vegetables

and tiny frosted cupcakes. The Street Talk began with Executive Director Ricardo Neal

welcoming people on behalf of the Freedom House, pointing out a similarity between the

efforts of the Freedom House and the New Majority Street Talks saying, "This is a vehicle to

engage the community in conversation, something the Freedom House does every day."

Atiya Dangleben then gave an inspiring history of the New Majority and described the

aspirations of Street Talks,

Street Talks are conversations where people try to flesh out issues that are present in
the community. We are trying to work together to draw out what issues communities
have tried to deal with together — whether the outcome was good or bad — and use
that to help figure out what the agenda of the New Majority should be.

Atiya Dangleben then presented the two open-ended questions she wanted to have people

discuss,

How have Communities of Color worked together in Grove Hall (Boston)?

What issues should be a priority for Communities of Color in creating an agenda for

Boston?

She suggested that as people answered the questions, they try to distinguish between

symptoms and issues.

As people discussed the first question, Atiya summarized what people said on large easel-pad

sheets posted in the room. For the first question, "How have Communities of Color

worked together in Grove Hall (Boston)? She had three columns for recording summaries

of the responses.
 282

In the first column was a "A" symbol to recotd struggles where people might have wished

outcomes were different. People mentioned "fiefdoms" and "turfs" that were difficult to

break through among churches, community development corporations (CDCs), health

organizations and some established community organizations. They also spoke about

frictions between African Americans and Latinos, saying that "you can't cross race lines" and

that there are very palpable barriers that often prevent African Americans and Latinos from

working together. One person said, "we really should be working more hand in hand, but

we haven't since 1996."

In the second column was a "+" symbol to record struggles where people thought the

outcomes were positive. One person spoke about how when a community crisis arises and

things need to be addressed in Grove Hall, people do show up, pull together and work well

together. Another person said the same thing in a different way, "when push comes to

shove, when it is darkest before dawn, you can depend on people to show up." People

mentioned particular organized groups that work well, such as the Beulah Avenue Task

Force. Someone else mentioned that loosely held together groups were often quietly

successful. The example given to illustrate this phenomenon was an informal group of 50

teenagers who have played football every weekend for three years and "organize themselves

to be safe." "This seems to be a success with all kinds of kids working together. . . and

nobody knows about it."

The third column was marked "insights." The insights that were recorded in this column

included both signs of hope that people see in their communities, as well as concrete
 283
suggestions for strategies that would help People of Color Communities collaborate

together. One person said, "I have a strong sense that this is a new time with a new vision

for people working together." Several people mentioned the positive impact of Andrea

Cabral's success, a Cape Verdean American who was elected as Sheriff. They said, "she

helped educate people about what she did differently and what the job is really all about."

One person said, "Things are getting better on my street because I saw three or four Sheriff

Cabral signs and had three or four conversations with folks about the election. People have

the sense that the political tide is changing. That's what's impressive and that is what

motivates me!" Some of the strategies for collaborating that were suggested included:

• Dedicating one staff person from community organizations to do networking,

• Doing joint fundraising among community organizations,
• Thinking about and addressing historical problems that are barriers to collaboration
so that collaborations can succeed. For instance, work on addressing the fighting
around turf and funding which siphons energy away from emerging possibilities for
collaboration
• Changing how people talk about issues because how people talk about issues
"matters tremendously" and it is possible for issues to be presented "in a way that
makes people want to collaborate,"
• Working around the positive and negative contributions by "gatekeepers" in the
communities who "don't necessarily speak for the community as a whole"; one
person said, "We always have to fight to keep our heads above water, then
sometimes gatekeepers get in the way and we can't get around them."
• Considering the effectiveness of "loose collaborations" that "let people step in and
out of the organizing. . . working in a way that folks don't have to come to every
meeting to participate.

Atiya Dangleben's method for organizing and summarizing the conversation helped people

to learn together and to build on each other's ideas. She kept bringing the conversation back

to show how their ideas could make a contribution to the New Majority. The enthusiasm

and participation that was generated from this listening and recording exercise laid a

foundation for the lively conversation that took place around the second question.
 284
When Grove Hall Street Talk participants discussed the second question, "What issues

should be a priority for Communities of Color in creating an agenda for Boston?" they often

offered their suggestions in the form of questions. A list of four important issues was drawn

up: education, development and housing, getting seats at the decision making tables and

making decision makers accountable, and problems with "go to" people and gatekeepers in

the community. Figure 9.3 maps these four issues and some of the remarks and questions

that were offered by participants in the Grove Hall Street Talk.

Education. Talking about education, one participant asked "How is the Boston Public

School plan to go back to community schooling with walk zone schools going to impact us,

when many of the schools in our neighborhoods have been closed? and "Are we really

taking care of the New Majority of 85% students of color in Boston Public Schools?"

Development and housing. When speaking about the advertisements around the

neighborhood that were springing up for housing about to be built, a number of questions

were asked. "Who's developing the housing? Who will live there?" These two questions

addressed a fear that new housing will now "preserve the history that is already in the

neighborhood" and will "push people out" by raising housing costs in the neighborhood.

People asked questions about the subsidized "Section 8" housing cuts, pointing out how the

mobilization of people around these issues was fragmented: "Where's the mobilization

around cutting Section 8 for 6,000 families? Why are some people working only on the issue

of project-based Section 8 and some only working on the issue of Section 8 vouchers?"
 285

Figure 9.3 Map of issues and questions identified by participants

at the 22 September 2004 Grove Hall Street Talk

Education
schools, assignments, quality Development and housing
development and housing that does not
questions raised during take away from the neighborhood's
discussion: history and does not push people out

How is the Boston Public School Questions raised during discussion:

plan to go back to community
schooling with walk zone schools
going to impact us when many of the
schools in our neighborhoods have
been closed?
Are we really taking care of the New
Majority of 85% students of color in
Boston Pnhlir Schools?
Who's developing the [new condominium]
housing? Who will live there?
Where's the mobilization around cutting
Section 8 for 6,000 families? Why are some
people working only on the issue of project-
based Section 8 and some only working on
the issue ofSection 8 vouchers?

What issues should be a priority for

communities of color in creating an
agenda for Boston?

Getting seats at the decision Problems with

making tables and holding gatekeepers and "go to"
decision makers accountable people
confusion about how to identify the gatekeepers can be an obstacle
decision making tables that impact their to collaboration and change
neighborhood and where they can go to and don't necessarily represent
hold people accountable the community

Where is the master plan for these decision-
making tables? Why aren't [People of Color]
at the decision making tables?
How can we make people voting be a
lifestyle? How can we make having people
accountable for voting be a lifestyle too?
Or should we be organizing around other
things besides voting?
not enough "go to" people for
the individual problems faced
by people in the neighborhood
elected officials do not always
have the resource to be
effective "go to" people
 286

Getting seats at the decision making tables and making decision makers

accountable. Some people spoke out against "a small group of men downtown making

decisions" and expressed confusion about how to identify which "decision making tables"

were impacting their lives. They asked the questions, "Where is the master plan for these

decision-making tables?" and "Why aren't [People of Color] at the decision making tables?"

Another person addressed issues related to voting, asking "How can we make people voting

be a lifestyle? How can we make having people accountable for voting be a lifestyle too?"

Other people questioned what political power meant: "Is just getting the vote out political

muscle? Or should we be organizing around other things besides voting?"

Problems with "go to" people and gatekeepers in the community. Early in the Grove

Hall Street Talk, the issue of gatekeepers came up in a discussion about barriers to coalition-

building and collaboration. One of the participants said, "Gatekeepers can 'do in' a

collaboration or coalition effort. They are different in different neighborhoods. They don't

necessarily speak for the community as a whole." Another participant said, "We always have

to fight to keep our heads above water. Then sometimes the gatekeepers get in the way and

we can't get around them." The sense I got was that the gatekeepers were powerful people

in the neighborhood who had more influence man most residents and more influential in

community-wide issues than problems faced by individuals. Although people did not name

gatekeepers or suggest which gatekeepers might be good ones or might present problems,

examples of gatekeepers who impact the Grove Hall neighborhood might be Don

Mohammed from the Nation of Islam and Reverend Eugene Rivers of the Ella Baker House

(located in the nearby Four Corners area).

In fact, the participants distinguished between gatekeepers and "go to" people. "Go to"

people appear to be those people who can give advice to individual people with personal

problems and who can help resolve those personal problems. Participants in the Grove Hall

Street Talk spoke about the fact that there are "too few 'go to' people." One participant

insisted, "We must have a lot of 'go to' people because of the number of people in our

community with serious problems they have to serve." Another participant brought up the

issue of holding "go to" people accountable, saying "There is a need to hold 'go to' people

accountable and make sure communications are happening."

A discussion that included complaints from participants about elected officials as "go to"

people was revealing. One person said, "Elected officials act as though 'we' work for them.

They call us." Another said, "Elected officials have been leaning on community

organizations to do their work, claiming they have limited resources."

Throughout these discussions at the Grove Hall Street Talk, Atiya Dangleben was listening

intendy and writing notes on the poster paper. I was assigned to be a recorder and take

detailed notes, as well. One way to describe what happened at the Street Talk is "listening

for change." "Listening for change" includes listening for the questions that are not being

asked or answered. "Listening for change" means listening for the issues that most needed

to be addressed to make real positive change in People of Color communities such as Grove

Hall. "Listening for change" also creates a space for people to articulate out loud what diey

know and make sense of what they know and have learned from their life experiences. It
 288
offers an opportunity for taking the crucial step in experiential learning to go from just

"having experiences" to 'learning from experiences." 443

Educators have recognized that listening certainly "plays a lifelong role in the processes of

learning and communication essential to productive participation in life." 444 Community

organizer Fran Peavey writes that the "Asking questions and listening for the strategies and

ideas embedded in people's own answers can be the greatest service a social change worker

can give to a particular issue." Community organizer Mel King often points out that true

listening means having the capacity and willingness to change. This "listening for change"

can be interpreted as a creative force that builds relationships and possibilities for learning in

both those who listen and those who are listened to and deserves m o r e attention in future

education research.

Bringing the Street Talks back to the N e w Majority community of

practice and into action during the 2005 City of Boston Elections

As a community organizer in Maine working on a thorny issue in the 1990s, I was one of the
conveners of a Listening Project. A Listening Project is both participatory research and a community
survey organizing technique developed by the Rural Southern Voice for Peace (RSVP). Leaders on
both sides of an issue are invited to create questions for a community survey using a consensus-based
decision making process. Volunteers are trained go out into homes in the community to ask the
survey questions and listen, not offering any comments but simply recording the answers given. As a
team of us sorted through the data and talked with the listeners, one insight that came through very
clearly was that as people were given an opportunity to talk through their answers to questions, they
often would change their answers or soften their answers as they spoke. The act of speaking their
thoughts aloud actually allowed people to self-evaluate their own thought processes and make
changes without any conversation or persuasion from others. What appeared remarkable to me then
and now is that spaces for asking questions and listening are potent spaces for change because people
learn and change as they have an opportunity to speak from their experiences.
Nancy Hyslop and Bruce Tone, "Listening: Are we teaching it, and if so, how?" Eric
Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills, Eric Digest ED295132, 1988.
445
Fran Peavey, By life's grace: Musings on the essence of social change (Philadelphia, PA: New Society
Publishers, 1994).
 289
Everybody is talking about "the new Boston" these days, but whom are we talking about
when we use that phrase, and what social, economic, and political changes are on the
horizon?

With the Boston mayoral and city council elections just a half-year away, it is time for the
New Majority to focus our efforts on influencing the debate and building power for die
2005 elections. . .

By focusing on issue topics prioritized through last year's Street Talks, we are working to
develop the New Majority's policy platform for 2005 — i.e. identifying a few City of Boston
policy priorities shared by New Majority communities which can become a focal point of
this fall's political debate.
5 April 20-05 letter to the New MajorityfromNew Majority co-chairs Lydia luowe and Shelia Martin

In last few months of 2004 and the first few mondis of 2005, the New Majority Steering

Committee, facilitated by co-chairs Lydia Lowe and Shelia Martin, reviewed the meeting

notes from the Street Talks that were collected and organized by the Civic and Political

Participation Committee. The Steering Committee also continued to discuss how the New

Majority would "influence the debate and build power" in the Boston mayoral and city

council elections fhat were coming up in November of 2005. By the early spring of 2004, a

way forward was decided. The focus electoral issues for New Majority would align with the

information gathered from the Street Talk discussions. A process would be designed so

that, with help from New Majority members, this information from the Street Talks would

form the basis for developing an overall "New Majority Agenda/Platform."

The Steering Committee imagined fhat such a New Majority Platform with policy points

could be used in several ways. First, the New Majority Platform could be released to the

press as a way to begin a process of prioritizing New Majority advocacy during die Fall 2005

City of Boston elections. The Steering Committee decided that the New Majority would not

support or endorse political candidates unless those political candidates supported the New
 290
Majority Platform. Second, questions associated with each policy point could be posed on a

New Majority candidate questionnaire that would be distributed to those running for mayor

and city council. Finally, the Platform could be used to design the questions for a New

Majority At-Large Candidate Forum to be held before the November 2005 City of Boston

elections.

To accomplish what the New Majority Steering Committee imagined, they took "listening

for change" back into the wider New Majority community of practice. On May 21, 2005,

the New Majority held "a lively general meeting"446 at the League of Women for Community

Service in the South End for the purpose of turning the information gathered from Street

Talks into a New Majority Platform.

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and I had to check the address twice to make sure I had

arrived at the home of the League of Women for Community Service because the building's

front was largely boarded up. It turned out the boarding was protection for a major

reconstruction effort on a historic site. The League of Women for Community Service is

one of the oldest African American women's organizations in the city. This brownstone

building where the New Majority general meeting was held is believed to have been a station

on the Underground Railroad when James FarwelL a sea captain and anti-slavery activist

owned it. Coretta Scott King, who helped lead the Freedom (Civil Rights) Movement along

side her husband Martin Luther King, Jr., lived when she won a scholarship to study concert

singing and violin at the New England Conservatory of Music.447

446
New Majority, "New Majority adopts 2005 Platform," press release *May 21, 2005)
Historical information on the League of Women for Community Service can be found on the
website of the Boston Women's Heritage Trail, http://bwht.org/tours/south-end.
 291

So, as I — and about fifty other folks — stepped into history when we walked into the two

large ground floor rooms with wood paneling and high ceilings. As always, there were two

New Majority Steering Committee members behind a desk set up in the entrance hall with

brochures, membership forms, and New Majority buttons for sale. As always, the large

room in the back was laid out with a wonderful array of warm food, bought to support

family-owned People of Color establishments. The belief that sharing familiar warm

comforting food together builds bridges across differences and supports local businesses was

always mentioned and acted upon when a New Majority gathering was planned.

The front room had nearly a do2en poster-sized post-its covered with information from the

New Majority Street Talks that the Civic and Political Participation Committee had

organized into policy topics. The posters looked quite dramatic because there were

spotlights shown on them, as if they were works of art.

People were mingling, perching with plates by the walk and contemplating what was written

on the poster papers. So, when the time came to thresh out a New Majority Platform from

the large collection of suggestions gathered in the citywide Street Talks, a spirited

participatory process ensued. The facilitated threshing process involved both visual cues

and discussion. People were given sheets of colored dots and asked to place their dots

beside the policy topics and issues within those topics that they felt were most important for

the New Majority to name as being the most important shared priorities among the Black,

Asian and Latino communities in Boston. One person, who obviously came with a strong

agenda already in mind, called for clarification out from the back, "Can we put all our dots
 292
on one point?" The question was received with laughter. And the answer was "well...yes...if

you want to..."

Some decisive folks possessing immediate clarity moved swiftly among the posters to place

their dots. Others clumped together in small groups, talking and gesturing around the

various posters, before hesitantly indicating their choices. Some placed their dots and

stepped back for a while to think about their choices. A few changed their minds and then

had to scrape the dots off in order to put them somewhere else. One woman sighed and

said, "with so many important issues, it is hard to choose!" As a dotless observer, I was

taken by the seriousness and sense of purposeful activity of the people.

After a while, the two facilitators asked people to sit down for a group dialogue about the

results. The eight-point platform, shown as a concept map in Figure 9.4, slowly emerged

through a process far more complex than a simple majority vote. After summarizing the

issues and policies that had the largest constellations of dots beside them, the facilitator

asked if anyone wanted to advocate for an issue or policy point that they believed had

received fewer dots than it deserved. A couple of people did and they were each given a few

minutes to address the group. The facilitator then asked if anyone wanted to change their

dots, based on what had been said.

As the discussion went on, the final eight policy points were decided more by the sense of

the meeting than by strict by-the-rules voting. The facilitators kept asking strategic questions

for clarification to winnow down the choices. I noticed that a policy point was finally

adopted when a quiet came over the room and everyone seemed satisfied that
Figure 9.4 Eight point of the 2005 New Majority Policy Platform

Permanent line item in the city budget for

Y O U T H employment and

Permanent line item in the city budget for

Y O U T H leadership programs

Multilingual
Equitable VOTING
funding of RIGHTS
SCHOOLS
to close the
achievement
gaP

/ \ / \
Hire Redefine
family/community
coordinators
HOUSING
affordability
in every
standards
SCHOOL

Fund crime Municipal

prevention VOTING
and re-entry RIGHTS
strategies for for U. S
PUBLIC permanent
SAFETY residents
 294
there were no more compromises or adjustments that needed to be made. Lydia Lowe kept

adding notes and arrows to the poster papers as she tried to visually record the discussion

and then made new poster papers as points were clarified. In all, eight policy points were

proposed for the 2005 New Majority Platform.

Although housing and public safety were assigned but one policy point each, they "rose

clearly to the top of the agenda."448 Of critical importance to people in the New Majority was

the exodus of People of Color due to inflated housing rentals and costs. The members

decided to push for a redefinition of housing affordability standards because the current

method for calculating what constituted "affordable" housing actually represented

"unaffordable" housing for too many in Communities of Color. Instead of the usual call for

hiring more policemen, people at the New Majority decided to address the issue of public

safety by addressing crime prevention and positive re-entry strategies.

Three topics were assigned two policy points each: schools, youth and voting rights.

Under the topic of education, people felt that addressing both the issue of equitable funding

and the need for a famfly/community coordinator at each Boston Public School to boost

parent support and participation were important. Municipal voting rights was a topic that

united both the Latino and Asian American New Majority members. The issues chosen as

policy points involved increasing multilingual voting rights and expanding municipal voting

rights to include U. S. Permanent Residents. The topic of youth was both a swiftly decided

platform point and provoked one of the most contentious discussions. There were so many

needs that people wanted to lift up for youth, it seemed difficult to decide which among

448
New Majority, "New Majority Adopts 2005 Platform," Press Release (May 21, 2005).
 295
them to pursue as a platform point. The final decision was to have two policy points that

linked youth issues to the city budget: permanent line items on the Boston city budget for

both youth employment and youth leadership.

After the eight points were threshed out, an official Robert Rules of Order vote was taken

among member to officially adopt them as die 2005 New Majority Policy Platform. The

"ayes" were hearty and unanimous. Then came the work of designing questions for each of

the policy points as shown in Figure 9.5. Members from the gathering volunteered to

"adopt" a policy point and question. Their job was to take one policy point and adjust the

wording of the question, then create an accompanying paragraph that offered a brief factual

history about the issue and its impact on Communities of Color. By the end of the day, a

press release entitled "New Majority adopts 2005 Platform" was ready and issued.

In diis New Majority Policy Platform threshing process, classic situated learning that applies

the wisdom of groups to engage a community of practice is in full display. All three learning

levels of the New Majority's pattern of participation described in Chapter 8 were engaged

(See Figure 9.6 for a reprise). The wisdom of the group of middle level New Majority

members who attended this General Meeting was engaged in threshing through information

gathered from Street Talks. The Street Talks, in turn, had engaged the wisdom of small

neighborhood groups on periphery of community of practice. Finally, the innermost circle of

participation, people on the New Majority Steering Committee, served as coordinators of

access and participation for all three levels of participation.

 296
Figure 9.5. 2005 New Majority Platform Questions for Candidate Questionnaire
Platform Item Question posed in Fall 2005 Candidate Questionnaire
Redefining Affordable housing programsfollow income guidelines which are skewed upward
Housing because theyfollow Area Median Incomefiguresthat include 127 surrounding
Affordability cities and towns and exclude single-person households. This means that much of
Standards our new "affordable housing" is actually unaffordable to most Boston residents
Will you support a redefinition of affordable housing income
guidelines to be calculated based on the city's median
household income in order to better target housing resources
toward keeping Boston residents in their homes?
Fund crime It is expected that in 2005 three thousand ex-offenders will be released from
prevention and re- institutions and returning to Boston without services, supervision or other support.
entry strategies for It has also been reported that the Boston Chamber of Commerce has been
public safety reluctant to address the adverse impact of the use ofCORI data on offenders
seeking work once released from county and state institutions.
H o w would you address these issues and help make these re-
entering citizens' impact on the city positive rather than
negative?
Hire Educators believe that engaging parents and families is a crucial ingredient to
family/community improving the education of our children.
coordinators in Will you support a plan to hire a Family/Community
every school Coordinator in every Boston Public School within the next three
years?
Equitable funding Available educational resources vary greatlyfrom school to school.
of schools to help H o w would you as a city councilor work for equity in the
close the distribution of resources as one strategy to close the educational
achievement gap achievement gap?
Permanent line Youth represent our future, yet our commitment toyouth programs variesfrom
item in the city year toyear.
budget for youth Would you support a permanent line item in the City budget to
employment and fund youth employment and leadership development programs?
youth leadership H o w do you define "youth leadership" and how would you
work as a city councilor to develop and support programs that
foster youth leadership?
Municipal voting U. S. permanent residents live permanently in our communities, work, pay taxes
rights for U. S. and raise their children here,yet have no voting rights to give them apolitical voice.
Permanent Would you support a city law to provide U.S. Permanent
Residents Residents with the right to vote in municipal elections?
Multilingual More than one infour Bostonians isforeign-born, and one-third ofBoston
voting rights households speak a language other than English. The Secretary of State already
provides voter registrationforms in six major languages.
Would you support a city policy to increase multilingual access
to polls through increased hiring of bilingual election workers,
multilingual signage and information, and publication of
bilingual municipal ballots in the six languages for which we
have voter registration forms?
Figure 9.6. New Majority patterns of participation, reprised

particularly skilled ex-officio

u mass institutes state legislators
moderators / facilitators
( 00 SflSS l ») lawyers team unity:
city councilors
i of color j

°°'&
retreats V
committee \
i meetings
\
O
•n
C
3
C
C
CO
I cochairs Steering treasurer I
I Committee secretary I
I
(D
3

retreats monthly S>

meetings

*x ^J^onal &*&«*
V^No^ndpa^
'Oi A*
*/• ,* v
Oo, ,oW
'"""unity pa**'
\
New Majority in the Media
e.g.
Bay State Banner
Sampan
Boston Globe
Touch FM 106.1
. Ljstserves, Blogs
 298
The learning product of this threshing process was a Policy Platform with eight of the most

important issues in Communities of Color that have not received the attention and action

they deserve within the political life of the city. In the next section, the list of questions

associated with each of the policy points generated in this General Meeting is used as an

evolutionary learning instrument. This happens when the New Majority community of

practice attempts effect positive change in the wider Boston community by sponsoring an

At-Large City Council Candidate Forum for the November 2005 city elections.

An evolutionary learning experiment: The 2005 New Majority At-Large

City Council Candidate Forum
"If you had your wish, what would you hope to see in Boston's Future?"
Question posed to a "handful ofBostonians" by Globe staff writer Meghan Irons

"The City Council would be made up of folks who look like the New Majority."
Lydia ljowe 's answer449

Exactly a month after the New Majority General Meeting, on Tuesday, June 21, 2005, the

New Majority Steering Committee met at 6pm in the conference room at the Chinese

Progressive Association. Plans to sponsor a New Majority At-Large City Council Candidate

Forum in October before the city elections took up most of the agenda for this meeting and

the many other Forum planning meetings that following in the ensuing months. The date

and place for the At-Large City Council Candidate Forum were set: October 6, 2005 at the

Vietnamese Community Center in Fields Corner.

The Steering Committee decided a coalition-building model and invite other Boston People

of Color organizations to co-sponsor the Forum. Shelia Martin volunteered to talk to the

Meghan Irons, "Hopes for a brighter tomorrow," Lydia Lowe's response Boston Globe, March 29,
2009, Local News Section.
 299
League of Women Voters of Boston because their presence would add credibility. Other

organizations contacted ranged across the New Majority communities: for example, the

Chinese Progressive Association and the Asian Pacific American Agenda Association from

the Asian Community, the Black Political Task Force and the Muslim American

Society/Freedom Foundation from the Black Community, and City Life/Vida Urbana and

(jOiste? in the Latino Community. Other organizations that promoted citywide civic

participation were also invited as co-sponsors. In all, a total of nineteen community

organizations agreed to serve as Forum co-sponsors. Not only did this event serve as an

access opportunity for peripheral participation in the New Majority community of practice

by the organizations; each organization mobilized their individual members to come out for

the Forum.

The Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) was engaged to tape and televise the Forum

prior to the November 8 elections. Translators and translation gear were lined up for those

attenders not yet fluent in English. Candidate Questionnaires that were based on questions

from the New Majority's eight point Policy Platform were drawn up and emailed. jCon Salsa!

radio host Jose Masso and transportation justice activist Khalida Smalls accepted the New

Majority's invitation to serve as Forum moderators.

On Thursday evening October 6, 2005, shen I arrived on bike a half hour early, the room

and hallways of the Vietnamese Community Center were already packed with people. In all,

nearly 200 people attended the New Majority At-Large Candidate Forum, which was earned

it the distinction of being the candidate forum with the largest attendance in the November

2005 city election cycle. After welcomes from Nahm Paul Ton That on behalf of VietAID
and the Vietnamese Community Center and from Shelia Martin on behalf of the New

Majority's coalition of sponsors, the Forum got underway. All eight At Large City Council

Candidates attended and even more surprisingly, all eight stayed through to the end of the

event. This was in direct contrast to the candidate's spotty and partial attendance of other

Forums and at least "partly an indication of how important the votes of these [Communities

[of Color had] become," according to reporter Toussaint Losier from the Bay State Banner?50

The Forum program got off to a start with opening remarks by all the candidates. Another

indication of how seriously the At-Large City Council candidates took the Forum is

illustrated by the opening remarks of Sam Yoon, which elicited laughter from the audience

and nods from the other candidates. Sam Yoon commented, "I've got to admit I'm more

nervous talking now to all of you than I've been at any of the previous forums."

These opening remarks were followed by a list of questions for all candidates drawn directly

from the 2005 New Majority Policy Platform.

Then Lydia Lowe elicited laughs as she stepped onstage to coordinate the next part of the

program armed with a large fishbowl complete with fish-shaped papers on which questions

were written. This was, of course, the "fishbowl question" part of the programs where

candidates chose random questions to answer.

Some of the White candidates stumbled to answer some of the questions that were clearly

new to them. Several years later when I spoke to City Councilor Michael Flaherty, he

immediately remembered the New Majority coalition's Forum without prompting and

Toussaint Losier, "Candidates make case at New Majority Forum," hay State Banner 41 no. 9,
October 13, 2008.
 301
confirmed the impact of the New Majority's Platform, saying, "Some of those other [White]

candidates were real surprised by the questions, but I wasn't. I'd been visiting around the

city and talking with people for years. I already knew about the New Boston." Sam Yoon,

whose membership on the original New Majority Coordinating Committee for the 2003

conference inspired him to seek political office, used his closing remarks to send a "very

New Majority" message, urging the audience to "elect people to city council and elected

positions who look like you, who understand your culture and your background."

As mentioned earlier, the At-Large Candidate Forum indeed served as an excellent

opportunity for peripheral participation by both organizations and individuals from

Communities of Color. Furthermore, the Forum served as the New Majority's initial

experiment into evolutionary learning, that is trying to effect a change in thinking among

those in the wider Boston community. The New Majority community of practice designed a

learning instrument to effect that evolutionary learning: a list of strategic questions of

concern to Communities of Color diat had not been asked or answered in any serious way in

die economic, political or social mainstream of Boston. These questions had their origins in

the "grassroots," not the seasoned community organizers who predominate New Majority

membership. They reflected die genuine concerns of the neighborhood people who attend

one of the many the Street Talks and were the result of the New Majority community of

practice's commitment to "listen for change." The questions were refined by the New

Majority general Membership during a learning process that was designed to build another

instrument for evolutionary learning: the 2005 New Majority Policy Platform.
 302
While this chapter has described how the New Majority has attempted to use agenda

building to catalyze evolutionary learning outside the community of practice in Boston, the

next chapter returns to a learning process that takes place largely within the New Majority.

The chapter that follows tells the story of organization building that took place largely in the

innermost circle of in the New Majority community of practice as they took an educational

journey to discover if the New Majority was "to be (or not to be) a 501(c)(3)" nonprofit.
 303

10
Learning "to be (or not to be) a 501(c)(3)"
The New Majority needs to finally have a structure and by-laws and become. . . more
than just a loosely held-together coalition. I am committed to the concept of the
New Majority formalizing their organizational status. . . the organization needs to be
legitimate. People like to see permanency, know how the organization will continue
to go on.
Shelia Martin, Interview December 2008

Membership organizations are stagnating and struggling with people's time

constraints and the bad economy. Many organizations have staff-driven leadership
and board models. Most organizations have staff because people do not have the
time to devote to them. That's not new. Our community has never had time. The
board model is a white model that's not working for organizations and busy people.
We need an on-the-ground model that works for the community/
Kelly Bates, New Majority Retreat, 8 December 2007

On 11 November 2005, the New Majority held a second annual meeting at the Freedom

House in Grove Hall on the border of Roxbury and Dorchester, the site of one of the Street

Talks described in the last chapter. At the end of the meeting, New Majority Co-Chairs

Lydia Lowe and Shelia Martin presented recommendations for the upcoming year, saying,

"organization building needs to be a priority." Plans were made to hold a retreat to refine

the New Majority mission and better define the role of the New Majority plays among other

civic engagement organizations. However, the recommendation that would engage New

Majority participants with a learning journey that required time, sometimes conflicted

conversation, and energy for the next two years was this:

We also recommend formalizing the organization's structure and by-laws with the
proposal that the New Majority form itself as a non-profit organization which can
include individual and organizational membership, and that we also start a New
Majority PAC, which can support and endorse the candidates.

In Chapter 5, one meaning for the New Majority, identified as part of the process of

collective identity, was a relatively stable and public definition of the New Majority as an

organisation.
 304
Many community organizers, like those in the New Majority, are reconsidering the "old

school" model of forming a tax-exempt nonprofit organization and a recognized legal entity

as a strategy to support and offer long-term stability for their work. Sheila Martin a seasoned

organizer on the New Majority Steering Committee communicates the traditional connection

between becoming a legal organization and being "real" in her remarks at the end of the 18

March 2006 New Majority Retreat when she said,

We can make a new spin on organization. . . This will engage members and attract
new members. We can communicate that we believe in the New Majority and the
message of the New Majority. . . We need activity to bring people back to the
point that the New Majority is real [emphasis mine].

Certainly becoming an organization with legal standing makes the New Majority real — or

legitimate — in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of foundations that give money to

organizations with legal standing. However attaining legal standing can put constraints on

what the New Majority participants can do as they continue their mission to seek social,

economic and political power for Boston's Communities of Color. As Kelly Bates suggests

in the quotation that begins this chapter, this might be the time to develop a different "on-

the-ground model that works for the community." This chapter documents uses the

learning task model of decolonizing the imagination to uncover how participants in the New

Majority learn organization-building into the mix of their collective identity process. Figure

10.1 shows how this chapter fits into the informal education model of prophetic naming in

the New Majority.

 ^65
Figure 10.1. Informal e d u c a t i o n in the N e w Majority

prophetic naming
Chapter 6

informal education in the new majority

+
n e w majority situated learning: n e w majority
purpose &
environment people form the values
Chapters
4&8
new majority Chapter 7
community of
field of
history, patterns practice m e a n i n g s that
of participation
limits to and engage in a answer the
inclusion & question:
process of " w h a t is t h e
power of place
collective identity new majority?"
OnformaX/ acbuvcvtOoiv
dharcooterOitCo 1

I
collective learning is fostered in the new majority

through
I
through learning strategies: through action:
conversation:
Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapters
5&10 relying on the wisdom of
groups, taking agenda-
uncovering limiting access and building to the
participation, streets
implicit learning
& learning in a geography of
by "decolonizing difference and struggle
the imagination"

Onfbrmal> e^cUtoatCo-n/ oharasCt&rObtio 3

 306
Starting out "to be a 501(c)(3)"

501 (c)3 is type of incorporation that is used to set up a charitable corporation. A

charitable company is a type of company that is set up with the intention of
providing a service to the community, rather than making a profit. Incorporating a
company makes it a legal entity, responsible for its actions in the community.
online explanation of 501 (c)(3)from "msegeek">5'

O n e of the tried and true ways for a group to gain a degree of legitimacy and stability is to

become incorporated with the state government, then to file for nonprofit status with the

Federal Internal Revenue Service. 452 Becoming incorporated in Massachusetts means

producing and filing articles of incorporation, a public document. However, in order to

create the articles of incorporation, it is also necessary to produce By-Laws for the

organization, an internal document that sets out procedural mechanics for the organization.

Both are rather lengthy complicated processes that often involve lawyers. However, these

organizational structures have produced Boston People of Color organizations that

sometimes struggle to survive. Additionally, organizations with these structures have not

yet effectively brought together People of Color together into coalitions with the ability to

effective widespread social, political and economic change. People in the N e w Majority have

been moving forward for three years on both filings, with the help of pro b o n o legal

assistance from lawyers David Clancy and John Alessi of the Boston legal firm, Skadden,

Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. This section presents observations about the process

and a learning strategy that describes die process.

wisegeek.com, "What is a 501(c)(3)?", http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-501c3.htm.

452 • • • • • • i
Becoming an organization whose articles of incorporation are registered with the State is the first
step towards applying for IRS nonprofit status, often referred to in casual conversation as "being a
501(c)(3)."
Organizational development planning retreat, 18 march 2006
Let's move the N e w Majority to the next level of organizational development. Help create
the strategic plan to b e p u t in place in 2006. Bring thoughtful ideas and collaborative spirit!
Invitation postcard for the New Majority Planning Retreat, Saturday 18 March 2006

..— — T h e day of the N e w Majority Planning Retreat

• PI«nnrng Retreit*
on 18 March 2006 was cold and fiercely windy.
The New pattaffflMtoWOa SilnsttuigiaiJ Idas sad (KSS&O
v
J rcsreepeai
W •'••••

w
{ Ra>BS*OTJsn£t*fcnm«»t*»erWKt $S-7 mxieami
That made it difficult for m e to negotiate the
Detest Saturday, lUmrh ISth
i ISmci 9<bm.-4p.at.

|
;
e r r a t a BoetonCertei for HsathyOoiramjnites
622 Wtchinsion Stress
many hills on my seven-mile bike ride from the
CnAnen Sopem. Osrcftsoef

RWUng uiUWWod on WMMngwi St. and ToBat Aw..

2-hour En Codman Sq H c a t t Center tot (across w m

to MSTA (to Ctetaffln Sot Orange Una to Buggos. fc*e

South E n d of Boston to the 9:00 am meeting in
1
ttoff22o?23:RedUntftoMftincr>Ltal<fiBu£tf22.23

the Association of Community Organizations for

Reform N o w (ACORN) 4 5 3 office at the Codman Square Greater Boston Center for Healthy

Communities in Dorchester. I stopped at an A T M in Codman Square to get some cash for

the $5-7 donation requested for breakfast and lunch at the Retreat, and I am startled to find

the Bank of American machine charges $2.25 for a withdrawal, far more than the $1.25

charged at the upscale Back Bay Station A T M not far from the South E n d where I live and

work! Then the reality I know from experience settled in, that everything from groceries to

ATM fees (and sometimes even rent) cost more in the lowest income areas of Boston like

Codman Square. I returned to a thought I have had many times before, "It's just not fair

that the people who live with the least money should have to pay more for everyday things."

This is the Boston office of the same ACORN organization that came under attack from
Republicans in the 2008 elections who questioned the legitimacy of their efforts to recruit and
register voters of color and voters who live with low incomes. ACORN in Boston had the foresight
to organize around predatory loans in early 2000, a number of years before the current 2008
foreclosure crisis that has impacts not only Boston but across the nation.
 308
Even though I was ten minutes late, only a few N e w Majority folks have arrived. I

recognized the retreat host, Maud Hurd, who serves as die National President of A C O R N ,

from some other organizing meetings and from State House hearings about predatory loans.

So I took time to ask her some questions about the colorful art on the walls, depicting

African American and Caribbean themes. Maud told m e that the paintings were made by

young people from Artists for Humanity, an organization that engages Boston teens in arts-

based entrepreneurship, paying them an hourly wage to produce paintings, murals, theatrical

sets, photographs, silk-screened T-shirts, and graphic designs that are sold to individual and

corporate clients.

T h e meeting r o o m was a large space filled with natural light, set up with tables arranged in a

U-shape with paper, pens and nametags at each chair ready to begin. Some men from me

N e w Majority brought in bagels, cream cheese, donuts, coffee and juice, and set up a table.

As always there was a soy milk alternative to cow milk because large numbers of People of

Color in the community are lactose intolerant. A member of the N e w Majority, Sandra

Mcintosh, served as facilitator of the retreat. 455456 Sandra led the group through the

photocopied agenda for the day that sat in front of each participant. T h e morning was taken

up with developing a "vision/mission statement" and with "brainstorming how to build

community/strategy to build power." Lydia Lowe stepped up to tell about the afternoon

agenda, quickly summarizing the two tracks for organizational development suggested by the

This is the first time I saw men, rather than women, doing food preparation and setting up at a
New Majority event. Usually the food is handled by women, so the feminist in me marks this!
455
In addition to her work as Family Coordinator for Boston English High School, Sandra Mcintosh
was awarded one of Community Change's 2004 Drylongso Awards in recognition of her work
"doing what needs to be done in fighting against the destructive forces of racism."
456
Peacework, "2004 Drylongso Awards, " November 2004, via www.peaceworkmagazine.org,
http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/0411/041119.htm.
New Majority Steering Committee: pursuing nonprofit status as an organization and/or

pursuing status separately as a political action committee (most commonly referred to as a

PAC).

After lunch, New Majority steering committee member Shelia Martin facilitated the group

through a discussion of what it would mean and what it would take for the New Majority to

become a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit. The discussion uncovered reasons why pursuing the

nonprofit status would be beneficial. Perhaps the most important benefit offered was that

becoming a credentialed organization confers legitimacy, "gets you respect if you can pull

out the numbers," "can build cache," and "allows the capacity to shape policy and educate

people through that process." A related advantage for building membership was mentioned:

"nonprofit organizations can more easily attract members." Since New Majority members

include organizations as well as individuals, it was also suggested that nonprofit status would

encourage organization membership, especially when compared to (or acting in tandem

with) a New Majority Political Action Committee arm:

I don't think other organizations would participate [as organizational members of the
New Majority] in a Political Action Committee, but would participate in a nonprofit
setting agenda. We need to see cooperative, not competitive, participation in the
New Majority.

Finally, people discussed the possibility that nonprofit status could expand the ability of the

New Majority to raise funds, or "build cash flow," saying "a lot of the work of the New

Majority is educational, so we can get donations and grants though we want to rely on these

less."

In this session, the New Majority participants also began what was to become a wider and

longer conversation stretched across time. They began to discuss the drawbacks of pursuing
 310
nonprofit organizational status, deconstructing what has worked against the interests of

People of Color in organizational structure. One point with implications for continuing

discussion was,

Will the structure of the nonprofit and the dependence on grant money limit die
functioning and activity of die organization? This requires vigilance on the part of
the board to prevent. The New Majority's big goal is to achieve a membership and
participation base for support and use the grant money as an option only.

Tension between pursing the legitimacy conferred by official status and what the New

Majority hopes to achieve in the community continued as participants sought to define what

it means to be a member of the New Majority. It was pointed out that members are the

"source of leadership and new ideas. . . and the organization should support this happening."

Yet the process of pursuing nonprofit status focuses on the development of a structure and

one of the participants pointed out that "people don't participate in a structure; people get

involved to make their life better." There is concern that energy spent in developing and

maintaining the structure might siphon energy from the social change purposes of the New

Majority, because it has happened in odier organizations. The possible danger of pursuing

nonprofit status as a means for getting money for the New Majority was succincdy described

by longtime administrator in social change organizations, Maud Hurd, when she declared

that, "money makes you mean."

One approach was identified to help with making the organization structure work for

people: to be vigilant in promoting an upside down hierarchical structure for the

organization:

Since this is a long passage, I wanted to note that this is close to a quote from a participant; a few
words might be paraphrased. I was handwriting field notes at the session, but the point seemed so
relevant that I went back and worked the full quote as soon as I wrote it down.
 311

Membership

Steering committee
Co-chairs

Instead of having a president or executive director at the top of the hierarchy, the New

Majority would have two co-chairs at the bottom. The top of the hierarchy would be the

membership, who would be driving what is done by the organization. While this is another

example of the New Majority's fidelity to a learning strategy of "relying on the wisdom of

groups," it also is an example of how participants in the New Majority work through the

learning tasks involved in "decolonizing the imagination" presented in Chapter 5.

As people in the New Majority took steps toward organizational legitimacy, they were also

taking up the learning task involved in deconstructing the idea of an organization. First

they engaged in perceiving hegemony, keeping their eyes open to the aspects of becoming an

organization, "mat may seem natural, but that harm and work to support the interests of

others who have power over." They also deconstructed the idea of an organization by

unmasking power by "taking apart the' mode of domination that is hidden." Their hope

was to find a new way to operate as an organization that allowed people to attempt to go

beyond what has been deforming in other social change organizations. To reiterate what

Shelia Martin said in the same conversation, "We can make a new spin on organization,
 312
encourage people and take a positive attitude. We need the kind of activity that will bring

people back to the point that the New Majority is real and invite people to be part of the

success of the New Majority."

As the afternoon of the retreat progressed, participants decided to recommend nonprofit

status to the New Majority members. They also decided to recommend that a Political

Action Committee be formed to operate in parallel with the New Majority nonprofit

organization. Thirteen action items were identified to make these steps real and people

stepped up to make commitments toward them under a timeline. Shelia Martin continued

to provide leadership toward pursuing nonprofit status, starting with developing by-laws and

taking other steps toward establishing nonprofit status for the New Majority. Owen Toney

committed to developing by-laws for the Political Action Committee. Nasim Memon

committed to finding the pro bono lawyers who could help with the legal paperwork and

filings.
 313
Bringing the first by-laws to the general meeting, 13 September 2006

The New Majority mailed out a membership

Thi A'eir Majority is an tuyunr.ttunn of petipU
working uwther to built' u-fatiouships, vdun'h-
awl unite t-omimmiiiv* uf afar far s-iciat. newsletter in the summer of 2006 to not only recount
trcrmtunic and f'tlifitu/ f-r>vn'r
We've gat the number*! \
C -Mm u- H... u-\t
the electoral successes for People of Color politicians
New Majority (jeneral Meeting!
Wcd&.,5ept. 15* ! in Boston since 2003, and also to encourage
6-6 om
i I
.•J tht- C i i ' - i t \ M i ir ( .iiJnwir. .Siju.ire i attendance at events, including the New Majority

-Non-Prtuit and i*AC incorporation i Membership Meeting. This Membership Meeting was
-Discufw and \oU on by-laws ;
-Oubernatoriu! Race '
j -pta0> for s .am lw a„d acmiucs j , held on Wednesday 13 September 2006 in the Great
i RSVP: txwnttBZG&e lhermi'mttJorit¥.o»% t I
! '_ " I I

Hall at Codman Square in Dorchester. The agenda

would include nonprofit and PAC incorporation and a vote on a draft of the by-laws, as well

as a discussion of the 2006 gubernatorial race, in which there was an African American

candidate, Deval Patrick. Above the Membership Meeting announcement, the newsletter

said, "The power and potential of the New Majority is clear. The challenge is to get

organized to wield that power."

A Georgian Revival style building from 1903, the Great Hall in Codman Square sits on the

site of the old Dorchester Town Hall. The public library it once held was moved in 1975

and mat left the building largely abandoned. The 1970s were terrible times for the Codman

Square neighborhood. The Great Hall's present incarnation as a meeting space for the

Codman Square Health Center and the community is a testament to the efforts by local

residents to organize around reviving the neighborhood and improving conditions in the

community. Walking into the Great Hall on Wednesday 15 September 2006 for the New

Majority Membership Meeting, I saw that the room was set up so that people would be
 314
clustered at round tables, rather than sitting on chairs arranged in rows or in a circle as I had

seen at previous New Majority meetings.

Atiya Dangleben and Peter Lin-Marcus were serving as Co-Chairs of the Steering Committee

that year. These relatively young organizers, in their 20s and early 30s led the Membership

Meeting. They started by having all the folks attending introduce themselves. The intention

was to get the by-laws passed at the meeting, but a number of sticking points came up as the

by-laws were discussed. The longest discussions had to do with the difference between the

board officers required by by-law legal conventions and how those requirements compared

with the actual composition of the New Majority Steering Committee. It was decided that

after the membership elected the Steering Committee, the Steering Committee would choose

those who would serve as the Board Officers from among them.

Another issue that came up was about how to describe the participation of youth on the

Steering Committee. One member pointed out that the by-laws specified that youth be at

least juniors in high school and that there might be youth who have dropped out of school

that might like to serve, "If there are young people who have dropped out of school who

want to be involved, that's great." Someone also mentioned that Steering Committee

member Lydia Lowe started getting politically active as a freshman in high school. The

discussion ended with a decision that 3 youth aged 14-21 would be eligible to serve on the

Steering Committee and that these youth would be fully enfranchised with a vote.

The by-law discussion ended with a commitment to pass drafts around by email and have a

vote taken on the By-Laws later. Then the New Majority went on to have a lively discussion
 315
of the upcoming election in which African American Deval Patrick was a candidate for

governor. Even though the New Majority defined itself as being concerned mainly with the

City of Boston and the gubernatorial race was statewide, the people in the New Majority

voted to endorse Deval Patrick and encourage members to volunteer for the campaign in its

last weeks before the election.

At the New Majority Annual Meeting on Saturday 10 February 2007 at the Tobin

Community Center on Mission Hill, Shelia Martin presented the proposed organizational by-

laws and they were approved unanimously. This allowed the New Majority to begin to move

forward with gaining non-profit status. Owen Toney also presented the by-laws for the

parallel political arm, the New Majority Political Action Committee, which were also

approved, with an amendment that the Endorsement Committee would make endorsement

recommendations to the membership.

In early summer of 2007, pro-bono attorneys John Alessi and David Clancy of the Boston

legal firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP sent a five page memorandum to the

New Majority that provided a "high level summary of considerations for incorporating as a

Massachusetts corporation and seeking tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the

United States Internal Revenue Code."

Just days after the devastating electoral defeat of at-large city councilor Felix Arroyo,

Attorney John Alessi and an assistant attended an 8 November 2007 New Majority Steering

Committee Meeting held at the Chinese Progressive Association, bringing with them a highly

technical 18-slide tutorial on the New Majority's process covering the same ground. He
 316
explained that legally the N e w Majority fits in as a hybrid of a "Charitable" organization that

provides service to the community and an "Educational" organization that promotes

information in the community. Much of the discussion with members of the Steering

Committee centered on the intricate financial definition of "public support" that the N e w

Majority would have to meet in order to be classified as a "Charitable" organization, rather

than a "Private Foundation." Questions were also asked about the possibility of having both

the co-chairs of die N e w Majority Steering Committee sign as "President" o n the articles of

incorporation.

After the attorneys left, the N e w Majority Steering Committee focused their discussion on

an upcoming December 2007 retreat. T h e amount of energy and effort that had been put

into the legal work involved in making the N e w Majority an organization over the prior year

seemed to have taken a toll on die group. Attendance at the Steering Committees was down

and it had taken half a dozen urgent emails to gather a quorum for this meeting. The impact

of losing one of the three People of Color on the city council seemed to also be creating a

sense of urgency about moving forward. Gloribell Mota 458 arid Lydia Lowe spoke up

summarizing a sentiment that seemed to capture the spirit of the group. Gloribell said, "We

should focus on revamping the N e w Majority to rejuvenate die work. . . We need to lay the

groundwork for what we want to accomplish, the tangible goals we should be meeting."

Lydia Lowe followed up by saying, "We should focus on what we want to do and not worry

about the legalities."

Gloribell Mota has a long history of activism in East and South Boston. She was executive
director of the Mary Ellen McCormack Task Force in South Boston and a board member of Action
for Boston Community Development (ABCD). She served as an aide to at-large Boston city
councilor Felix Arroyo and ran an unsuccessful campaign to become die first Latino state
representative holding a seat in East Boston. Presently she is Director of Education and Training for
the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
Awareness of the tension between the pull of the getting the organization structured and a

feeling of impatience about getting o n with the community work of the N e w Majority was

heightened by the disappointing election results surfaced during the discussion of the retreat.

Sheik Martin continued to be the strong steady voice for building an organization structure

"that can do it. . . everyone wants to get to the end right away, b u t it takes time." Lydia

Lowe and Peter Lin-Marcus wanted the group to focus on relationship building and open up

the retreat to more members for that purpose, "especially after the elections." However,

Shelia Martin pressed for the Steering Committee to limit the retreat attendance and focus

on what the N e w Majority would gain from keeping a focus on the future. She said,

T h e group will b e here until we get the organization structured and get the by-laws to
move forward. That's when the real internal relationship building will take place. So
don't inject other agendas and get off on a tangent and then n o t be able to complete
what we have started. . . First focus on the business of building the group.

Lydia Lowe replied, "I am thinking about [opening up the retreat] as getting more minds

thinking. There is a danger I see in just focusing on the by-laws." Meiko Rollins 459

supported Shelia Martin, saying, "We need a foundation, like Shelia said." T h e retreat focus

was then summarized by Maud Hurd, who said, "First the retreat should focus on

organizational development. Second, [the focus should be on] generating an idea of where

we want to go." Shelia Martin added to Maud Hurd's statement saying, "[and] what we need

to look at together. H o w will we make an impact? How [will we get] elected officials [to be]

accountable to Communities of Color?"

Meiko Rollins works for Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation, an organization

"devoted to building the wealth and enhancing the physical, economic and social well-being of
Roxbury and other underserved populations in greater Boston, through a community driven process
that promotes self-sufficiency and neighborhood revitalization."
 318
One of the 2007 Steering Committee Co-Chairs applied for and received a grant from the

Partnership for Democracy and Education to support the December 2007 retreat, including

the hiring of two professional retreat facilitators who were also insider participants in the

New Majority Community, Gibran Rivera and Kelly Bates.46n The retreat was held at a

conference room of the MASSVote Offices near Government Center in downtown Boston.

The retreat began with Gibran Rivera as facilitator asking the poignant question,

Where are we in this precious moment of time?.. .What has changed socially,
politically, economically? We think too much in the context of organizations.
501(c)(3) defines us too much and lots is happening outside of those spaces. . . There
are lots of informal conversations going on. You are not just on your own. As far as
501(c)(3), you don't have to get all the people in the room to make things happen. . .
how do you bring these conversations alive? Through networking and self-
awareness? Consider calling yourself a "network". . . make connections inside. .. do
it!

Kelly Bates followed up Gibran Rivera's remarks and picked up on the continuing

conversations about shaping the New Majority organization in nontraditional ways. Her

message was that it was necessary to keep the eyes, ears and heart of the steering committee

focused on the limitations as well as the strengths of organizations,

There are lots of organizations "on the block." Lots want to be big and bold and
raise awareness. . . There are also quite a number of People of Color situated in
traditional White organizations. . . There are structures in organizations, "C3," "C4"
and PAC. [A lot of People of Color] organizations have found that all the structures
are necessary to do work, yet this creates a bureaucracy. . .

There is a need to move away from foundations, there is less money now, less focus
on long-term support. Organizations are moving toward having media experts and
lobbyists. There is no recognition that this is happening. Membership organizations
are stagnating and struggling with people's time constraints and the bad economy.

Many organizations have staff driven leadership and board models. Most
organizations have staff because people don't have the time to devote to them.
That's not new: our community has never had time. The board model is a white
model that's not working for busy people. We need an on-ground model that works
for the community.

Gibran Rivera served on the New Majority Steering Committee and Kelly Bates has been a
participant/member of the New Majority.
After this introduction, Kelly and Gibran broke the participants into small groups to discuss

the context of the New Majority by using the questions, "What do you see happening in

social, political, and economic trends in Boston? What should the New Majority be focusing

on?" There was so much thick conversational exchange about the New Majority as an

organization in this session that I have found it worthwhile to record several pieces of

conversation.

The group that I joined had six people participating. The discussion began with the general

weariness that people felt from being stretched for time and from their disappointment with

the elections. The weariness was also fed by growing alarm and frustration with strong anti-

immigrant forces that have taken up energy and divided People of Color communities.

Then some spoke about the 501(c)(3) process. Steering committee member Edwin Argueta,

an immigrant from El Salvador who is also the Civic Engagement Coordinator for the East

Boston Ecumenical Community Council, said,

I'm frustrated with the 501(c)(3) structure because I see it as limited. It could mean
that we can't be radical and we have to start with a compromised position, even
when we push for policy — in Congress for immigration reform, for example.

I think it's dangerous that folks from Communities of Color are going into white
organizations, selling themselves out to the political machine. They don't have the
interest of the whole community in their minds. They just consider that the position
looks good on their resume and puts them in a position of power.

Communities of Color have not done a better job of working with stereotypes that
exist that lead to more dividing of people. People of Color need spaces to know
each other and get away from competing for positions and power.

Here, Edwin Argueta voices an important concern that the constraints on political activity

imposed by having 501(c)(3) status will even further limit the means of resistance that people

can officially apply if they act as members of the New Majority. Wanting to keep the option
 320
of "radical" and "edgy" expressions of N e w Majority resistance open is an impulse that

several other Steering Committee members share, most often in informal moments.

Hammering out the intricate details of the by-law and incorporation articles has siphoned off

time and energy so there is not really space to explore other possible directions.

At the same time, Edwin Argueta also seems to be saying that the structure of an

organization is a space that fosters competition rather than the kind of activity that furthers

the interests of the "whole community" of Color. Rony Raphael, 461 a community organizer,

responded by saying,

When I think about [At-Large City Councilor] Felix Arroyo's defeat, I think that we
should consider that there is something inherent in our structure that allows that to
happen. W h e n this happens, it is a big loss, not just for Hispanics but for all People
of Color. We need to put structures into place so that this does not happen.

The small group continued their conversation until Kelly Bates and Gibran Rivera called all

the small groups together and asked them to report. Lydia Lowe gave the summary for our

small group and included some remarks about organizational development in her report,

saying, "We can't be limited by structures. . . Coalition building [in traditional organizations]

is just a few staff and n o t the whole community as it should be."

Some of the full group conversation that followed included more remarks about the N e w

Majority organizational development. Steering Committee Co-Chair and Puertorriquefio

David Ortiz spoke about how his role in MASSVote takes him out to see organizations in

Rony Raphael is a community organizer who became involved in politics through his volunteer
work in Deval Patrick's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, then decided to continue his activism through
the New Majority.
many communities and he wondered aloud how the New Majority could pick and choose

among best practices, even those from the corporate sector, saying,

I see organizations working in all different ways . . . The fun is it is the learning. . .
How do we start preparing ourselves to be more dynamic. . . How do we learn from
the corporate sector and embrace it and make that impact too while still taking an
organization further in development.

Lydia Lowe, Executive Director of the Chinese Progressive Association, followed, making a

historical link to the idea of nonprofit organizations, saying,

For the older generation, 501(c)(3) is a framework — this has never been our
framework. It was just something you did. For the younger generation, this is a Big
Deal. The main thing is to figure out what we should do as far as the 501(c)(3) [is
concerned].

Lydia Lowe's remarks are interesting because she is not that young. She started organizing

as a high school student in the 1970s. That puts her age in the 40-something range. So

when she is talking about "the younger generation," she refers to community workers and

organizers who are at least 40 and under.

Peter Lin-Marcus, an organizer and public servant who is at least ten years younger than

Lydia Lowe, offered related comments about the younger generation of leaders, saying,

There are emerging leaders in the new generation, but. . .there is a lack of connection
to die infrastructure of the establishment. One place they are overrepresented is [as]
social innovators. People of Color find creative and effective ways to solve
problems. We need to help them have input and connect them to power.

Maud Hurd, the African American National President of ACORN, responded after Peter,

saying,

501(c)(3) ties your hands because you can't move on issues we normally want to
work on. Where is our base? Is it community? We need to begin to look at the
organization community as our base, our reach into the community. . . can't do
enough of that. People can speak for themselves, if given the opportunity.
 322
Ty dePass, a longtime social justice organizer and a man of Afro-Cuban and Louisiana

Creole roots, responded with some history schooling, saying,

I want to pick up on what Lydia said. . . The new Black and Latino leadership does
not share the legacy of the 60s, for example Deval Patrick [Governor of
Massachusetts], Cory Booker in Newark [Mayor of Newark, New Jersey], and Barack
Obama. These folks are knocking on the door, instead of the old model of Jesse
Jackson kicking down the door! Folks who walk in have to put Civil Rights aside.
Deval took the issue of race off the table — it's hard to be broader than that to
appeal. . .

This is a new trend, happening since the New Majority began. We need to talk about
raising the next generation to know the struggle is not over.

Then Calvin Feliciano, a young Latino and former youth gang member turned organizer,462

took the theme of the generation gap a step further, saying,

I am so glad Ty said this. . . Young People of Color Leaders shy away from race...
there is a generation gap, they think, "I will get elected by ignoring that I am
Black".. .There is a "second generation syndrome." I felt like I was talked down to
by old Black Leaders [sic]. This is important. Young folks and old folks are moving
apart more and more. Old folks [sic] have outdated strategies that are not working.
And young folks are too eager to jump out of the box and reject the older
generations' lessons. Old versus young is important.

People in the New Majority went on to talk about other things and to plan a two-hour

retreat follow-up meeting to brainstorm and decide among the proposed actions for the

New Majority.

This meeting took place on the evening of 26 February 2008 in Chinatown at the Chinese

Progressive Association offices. Using a brainstorm and threshing process, action items

were decided upon, one of which was to continue moving forward with the New Majority

incorporation and toward filing as a nonprofit.

This is the self-definition given by Calvin Feliciano for a New Majority grant proposal: "a former
youth gang member turned organizer who has served on the boards of Teen Empowerment and the
Hip Hop Summit and as an assistant to city councilors Chuck Turner and Felix Arroyo."
Decolonizing the imagination tasks: Legitimacy, permanency, money

Through these conversations and steps to have the New Majority become an incorporated

organization and pursue nonprofit status through the end of 2008, people were negotiating a

"common sense," "tried and true" path toward the three advantages they named. People in

the New Majority said that one advantage to formalizing their organizational status is

legitimacy. For instance, they say that the legitimacy "can build cache," "encourage

membership," and "gets [the organization] respect." People mentioned that formalizing the

organizational status also provides a foundation and assures people ofpermanency that the

organization will continue to go on and that is better than the "loosely held-together

coalition" begun under the name of the New Majority. The third advantage to becoming a

legal nonprofit organization identified by people in the New Majority was money, the capacity

to get tax-deductible donations from individuals as well as donations from foundations,

which often require organizations to have 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

So, on one hand, people in the New Majority acknowledge that formalizing their status as an

organization sends a recognizable message to the City of Boston communicating, "we are

real, we are here, we are part of Boston and we are not going away." On the other hand, as

seen in the narrative, people in the New Majority spiraled round and round in their group

conversations, meeting by meeting, to gradually break down and uncover how the "common

sense" of organizational development did not necessarily always serve the "common good"

especially in Communities of Color.

 324
What is also interesting to note in these conversations about whether "to be or not to be a

501(c)(3)" is how they provide opportunities for people to name and learn about other

"divides" in the New Majority community of practice. Edwin Argueta's concern about

having a New Majority structure that leaves room for "radical" expression signals a divide:

the steadying conservative influence of some members who believe that organizational

legitimacy will attract people to the New Majority and those who believe that having a more

dynamic "out there" and "edgy" quality in the New Majority's activities would attract new

members. Calvin Feliciano brings up a generational divide; young people are more reluctant

to see how identifying with race will benefit them. These "new school" young people feel

that more "seasoned" and "old school" leaders reject their ambivalence in a condescending

way without being willing to listen. So, in conversations where people are learning one

conflict can give rise to opportunities for learning about other conflicts that might pose

obstacles to the community of practice in the future.

An interesting way to reorganize the conversations and comments and see how people in the

New Majority moved toward working as an organization on their own terms is to use the

learning tasks model for "decolonizing the imagination" introduced in Chapter 5. Some

participants in the New Majority recognized mat the "common sense" of organizational

development harms People of Color and supports the interests of Boston Whites,perceiving

hegemony. They took apart and named some of the ways that traditional nonprofit

organizational development puts down and denies the power of People of Color,

unmasking power. And finally New Majority participants identified new paths towards

becoming an organization that will better serve People of Color and help them achieve their

goal of equitable social, economic and political power, going beyond deforming ideology.
 325
Figure 10.2 shows a diagram of the learning tasks of decolonizing the imagination, with these

three tasks highlighted. Figures 10.3 - 10.7 that follow reorganize the conversations from

the narrative to show how people in the New Majority are moving around and between

these learning tasks to unpack some of the problems linked to the "common sense" ideas

that formalizing organizational status will provide the New Majority with legitimacy.

permanency and money.

In regard to the legitimacy that being an incorporated nonprofit is commonly assumed to

confer, the people in the New Majority talked about this formal organization model as being

a White model that actually puts up obstacles that harm People of Color seeking

commensurate social, political and economic power. While there is no doubt that this

organizational structure confers some recognisable outward legitimacy'. especially in the

White-dominated social, political and economic culture of Boston, the legitimacy breaks

down when the effectiveness of impact within People of Color communities is considered.

New Majority participants pointed out that the incorporated nonprofit structure diminishes

the power of the New Majority. For example, they also said that many such existing People
 326

Figure 10.2. Learning through conversation in social movements reprise:

Five tasks for decolonizing the imagination and their
relationship to constructive and deconstructive modes of learning.
This model for analyzing conversations in social movements builds bridges linking
the insights of Chela Sandoval, Stephen Brookfield and Paulo Freire.

democratic commitment to
equal distribution of power

perceiving
hegemony
Identify the "common sense"
that harms People of Color
and supports die interests of
White people in power
g o i n g beyond
deforming ideology
New paths toward becoming
an organization that will
better serve People of Color
and achieve the goal of
equitable social, economic
and political power

I
deconstruction
I
construction
"break it down" "put it back together"

I I
unmasking power differential
movement
Show how "common sense"
puts down and denies the
power of People of Color
 327
Figure 10.3 Breaking Down Legitimacy Assumptions:
What kind of New Majority organization structure support
and promotes the power of People of Color?

Identify the New paths toward

"common sense" becoming an organization
Show how "common sense" that will better serve
that harms People of
puts down and denies People of Color and
Color
the power of People of Color achieve the goal of
and supports the
interests of White equitable social, economic
People in power and political power

going beyond
perceiving deforming ideology
unmasking power
hegemony

The model People of Color time constraints People in the New

associated with associated with the bad economy and Majority need to develop
formal lack of economic wealth is directly a new spin on what an
organization linked to how many organizations organization is and how it
status is a White with "common sense" formal runs, an "on the ground
model that structures in Communities of Color model" for organizing that
doesn't work for are stagnating and struggling. works for Communities of
Communities of Color and allows People
Color and These same time constraints drive
of Color to exercise
actually harms organizations to adopt staff-driven
power.
People of Color leadership and board models with
seeking change little participation by membership.
In fact, an active membership is The Steering Committee
often replaced by professional media of the New Majority will
experts and lobbyists. lift up and support People
of Color in the
"Common sense" organization membership base as the
structure encourages competition for source of leadership and
positions and power and discourages new ideas. The New
People of Color from having the Majority Steering
interest of the whole community in Committee should make it
their minds. a priority to give people in
their membership
Developing and maintaining the legal opportunities to speak for
and nonprofit organization structure themselves.
takes and time and energy and
creates a bureaucracy. This takes
energy and time away from vital
social change organizing and action.
 328
Figure 10.4 Breaking Down Legitimacy Assumptions:
What is best N e w Majority organization model to solve
problems in Communities of Color?

Identify the New paths toward

"common sense" that Show how "common sense" becoming an
harms People of organization that will
puts down and denies
Color better serve People of
the power of People of Color
and supports the Color and achieve the
interests of White goal of equitable
people in power social, economic and
political power

perceiving going beyond

unmasking power deforming
hegemony
ideology

Contrary to Legal rules that govern 501(c)(3) People in the New

"common sense," the organizations limits the ability of People Majority need to
formal structure of of Color to be radical, and historical imagine new ways of
organization is not evidence is too often the need for working as an
the best way to solve change is so great in People of Color organization, perhaps
problems in People communities that "it is difficult for even look to adapt
of Color Community. People of Color to get commensurate some of the successes
power unless something dramatic in corporate sector to
happens." 463 have impact.

Many emerging People of Color leaders People in the New

in the new generation have a lack of Majority need to
connection to the infrastructure of the create spaces to help
establishment and these are often social People of Color social
innovators who are finding creative and innovators have input
effective ways to solve problems in and connect to power.
People of Color communities.

463
Massachusetts House Representative Byron Rushing at New Majority gathering to celebrate
incorporation, 17 December 2008.
 329
Figure 10.5 Breaking Down Legitimacy Assumptions:
What is N e w Majority organization model that includes
People of Color of all ages?

Identify the "common New paths toward

sense" that Show how "common sense" becoming an
harms People of Color puts down and denies organization that will
and supports the the power of People of Color better serve People of
interests of White Color and achieve the
people in power goal of equitable social,
economic and political
power

perceiving going beyond

unmasking power deforming
hegemony
ideology

The "common sense" Youth don't serve on the Boards which The New Majority
formal organization hold power in the formal organization Steering Committee will
structure excludes youth structure and youth do not have voting reserve three spots for
and the voices and ideas power. youth aged 14-21 and
of youth are important diese youth will be fully
to include in the New enfranchised.
Majority.
Figure 10.6 Breaking Down Permanency Assumptions:
How does the N e w Majority lay down a foundation for
permanency?

Identify the New paths toward

'common sense" that Show how "common sense" becoming an organization
harms People of puts down and denies that will better serve
Color the power of People of Color People of Color and
and supports the achieve the goal of
interests of White equitable social, economic
people in power and political power

unmasking power going beyond

perceiving
deforming ideology
hegemony

The incorporation To be or not to be a 501(c)(3) is Addressing the growing

and 501(c)(3) a "Big Deal" for the younger generation gap is important
nonprofit model is generation of People of Color. for people in the New
the framework and Majority around the status
strategy of the older Since the New Majority began, as 501 (c) (3) and around
generation of People there is a new trend by Black other strategies such as
of Color, "just and Latino leadership to take taking race "off the table."
something you did." race off the table as a strategy.
This adds to a widening
generation gap in Communities
of Color. "Older folks have
outdated strategies [such as
501(c)(3)] that are not working -
— young folks are eager to jump
out of the box and reject
lessons of older generation.
Figure 10.7 Breaking Down Assumptions about Money:
How does the New Majority gain the resources needed for
social change?

Identify the "common New paths toward

sense" that Show how "common sense" becoming an
harms People of Color organization that will
puts down and denies
and supports the the power of People of Color better serve People of
interests of White Color and achieve the
people in power goal of equitable social,
economic and political
power

perceiving unmasking power going beyond

hegemony deforming
ideology

There are hidden The agendas of foundations that
drawbacks to the give money to organizations can
"common sense" drive the agendas of organizations -
assumption that Legal — organizations take on only
and nonprofit agendas that they can raise money
organization status to support. This may make them
allows organizations to steer away from vital and radical
raise money and other actions that are not supported by
resources more easily. foundations.
There is less money available now
because the bad economy.
The New Majority can
depend mostly on
membership to provide
money and resources
and limit dependence on
foundations for support.
Participation in the New
Majority will not be
limited by means.

People who give money sometimes

expect to have more power in an
organization and in decisions about
the direction of the organization,
e.g. a place on the Steering
Committee.

"Money [and lack of money] makes

people mean" and creates difficult
relationships within organizations.
of Color organizations are stagnating and struggling to make ends meet. They suggested that

the bad economy stretches People of Color thin and creates, in the absence of an active

membership, participation gaps that are often replaced by professional media experts and

lobbyists. They complained that the power that staff wields in such organizations

encourages competition for positions and power and discourages People of Color in those

organizations from having the whole community on their mind. Furthermore, in the past

few years that New Majority participants have experienced firsthand how developing and

maintaining the incorporated nonprofit structure takes time and energy away from vital

social change organizing and action. New Majority participants also claimed that the

legitimacy of the incorporated nonprofit structure as the best means to solve problems

within and across People of Color communities is questionable. They pointed out that

problems in People of Color communities are so serious and urgent that "it is difficult to get

commensurate power unless something dramatic happens," and that the legal rules

controlling an incorporated nonprofit structure limit the ability of People of Color to take

radical steps.

Furthermore, legitimacy becomes problematic when important groups within and across

People of Color communities are excluded. For instance, many of the social innovators

who are emerging as the new generation of leaders in finding creative and effective ways to

solve problems are not connected to the infrastructure of the establishment. New Majority

participants have also claimed the importance of including the voices and energies of youth

in the New Majority and question the legitimacy of incorporated nonprofit structures that

often exclude youth from participation and voting power on governing structures.
While "common sense" logic says that the incorporated nonprofit organizational structure

lays a foundation for permanency of an organization, looking across generations and

strategy trends in People of Color communities reveals contradictions in this permanency

assumption. Many of the "younger generation" (including people into their 40s) in the

New Majority claim the 501(c)(3) model is the framework and strategy of the older

generation of People of Color, "just something you did." However "to be or not to be

501(c)(3)" is a "Big Deal" for many others in the younger generation of People of Color.

This phenomenon was referred to by Calvin Feliciano as the "second generation syndrome,"

where the younger generation does not take up the values and strategies of the Freedom

Movement (now commonly referred to using the much narrower term "Civil Rights"

movement). New Majority participants argued that part of this generation gap is showing

itself in a new trend that post-dates the 2003 New Majority Conference, where new Black

and Latino leadership "take race off the table" as a strategy.464 Some New Majority

participants found that this contentious trend is widening the generation gap and is an

obstacle to organization- and base-building across generations.465

Some New Majority participants even found hidden drawbacks within perhaps the most

straightforward reasoning behind the incorporated nonprofit organisation model, the

ability to raise money. They point out that foundations often have what seem to People of

Color to be fickle trends in their agendas. In the worst case, the agendas of these

See Gwen Ifil's recent book, Breakthrough: Politics and race in the age ofObama (New York:
Doubleday, 2009) for an interesting treatment of this phenomenon.
46
Interpreting the generational gap from another direction raises an even more significant
problem not explicitly identified by people in the New Majority. If the younger generation
does not value developing and expressing a racial or ethnic identity, how will they ever be
attracted to New Majority? For, at the center of the New Majority community practice is the
process of building a collective identity that is unabashedly racial and ethnic.
 334
foundations can drive the agendas of community organizations as they compete for support

and resources. Some New Majority participants claimed that organizations are sometimes

financially strapped enough to steer away from vital and radical actions that are not

supported by foundations. In today's shaky economy, they said that not only are

foundations making less money available, but also are less likely to make commitments to

long-term support of organizations. An issue about what benefits might be implicitly

assumed by a member who gives money to the New Majority came up; people who have

the means to give money sometimes expect to have more power in an organization and

more influence in the decisions to be made about the direction of that organization.

"Money [and lack of money] makes people mean," and makes for difficult inner-

organization relationships was the remark of one New Majority witness to such a discussion.

Breaking down the ways that the "common sense" approach to an incorporated nonprofit

organizational structure was not the end of the learning process for New Majority

participants. The deconstructing learning tasks they engaged in have opened their eye to the

limitations of such a structure for New Majority Communities of Color. However,

participants in the New Majority also engaged in the learning task to go beyond the

deforming limitations of the "common sense" incorporated nonprofit organization structure

and have started to develop new learning paths towards organizing themselves in a way that

will better serve People of Color and achieve their goal of equitable social, economic and

political power. Again, the insights from spiraling conversations over the course of many

meetings point toward imagining a new "on the ground" model for organizing themselves

that works for and across Communities of Color, including:

 335
• Upending the traditional power structure of organizations to put membership is
at the top, by lifting up and supporting People of Color in the membership base
as the source of leadership and new ideas,

• Considering that becoming an incorporated nonprofit represents only apart of

how the New Majority can function, seeing their group also functioning as a
network to connect not only other People of Color organizations, those who
organize and strive in conversations and actions that go on outside of
organizations (as well as the parallel efforts to form a separate Political Action
Committee to specifically support political candidates and efforts),

• Creating spaces that help include important groups within and across People of
Color who might be excluded by the "common sense" model, such social
innovators and youth,

• Making a point to address the growing generation gap in People of Color

communities, and

• To depend mostly on membership to provide needed money and other

resources, to limit dependence on foundations and to be vigilant ensuring that
participation in the New Majority is not limited by a person's means.

What is interesting about this learning process is that it is nonlinear, and occurs over a period

of time measured in years, not the days or weeks or months like an institution-based

academic learning community. Participants in the New Majority have been willing to

continue looking and reflecting and imagining the kinds of relationships within their own

organization and within the Boston People of Color communities that will allow them to

further their goal of equitable social, economic and political power.

Thoughts about learning through conversation and the (almost)
incorporation celebration, 17 December 2008

At the 17 December 2008 New Majority Gathering to celebrate the incorporation of the

New Majority, there was an open conversation about the future of the New Majority and

affirmed the importance of these kinds of conversations. As mentioned previously in

Chapter 8, Paul Wantanabe, a scholar from the Asian American Institute at University of

Massachusetts Boston who was on the original Steering Committee to plan the 2003

conference, spoke movingly about importance in what seems like a simple act of New

Majority creating spaces for conversations to happen among the people who are now the

"new majority," without the participation of the "old majority," where People of Color can

talk to other People of Color about issues. Bob Turrell reminded the group about the

alarmed response from the largely White political establishment in Boston, that just the idea

that the New Majority was organizing conversations among People of Color "sent out shock

waves" and had an impact. Massachusetts House Representative Byron Rushing spoke

plainly about the need for People of Color to come together and "have conversations over

and over until we get to know each other. . . and talk about the expectations of what people

should have if they are the "new majority." People at this New Majority gathering lifted up

the fact that creating spaces for conversations to happen and keep happening among People

of Color and having a willingness to look at what is considered widely to be "common

sense" is an important strategy. From listening in on these conversations over the years, I

would add that diis is also an important strategy for learning into liberation.

The emailed Evite invitation link for this Wednesday 17 December 2008 New Majority

Gathering said,
 The New Majority is (still) Happening!
Join us after work to:
Celebrate the incorporation of the N e w Majority!
Mingle with old and new friends
Share hopes and concerns for 2009
G e t involved and help build N e w Majority power!

As always there was a wonderful dinner provided and I volunteered to serve drinks and

watch over the food table so Shelia Martin, who had organized the refreshments, could

mingle with the crowd. While I was there, Shelia pulled Lydia Lowe and Maud H u r d aside

near the food table and told them that the pro b o n o lawyers had called to report a conflict

with the filing of the N e w Majority incorporation papers. Since the N e w Majority Steering

Committee uses a has two people serving as Co-Chairs, both of those Co-Chairs signed the

incorporation document in the space designated for the "President." T h e Secretary of State

rejected the filing on the grounds that the N e w Majority cannot file with "two Presidents."

There was some quiet rolling of eyes among them, but very quickly Lydia said to instant

approval from Maud and Shelia, "just make one or the other a Vice President and let's just

get the thing filed.

After the 2009 new year began, the articles of incorporation were refiled with the state and

again rejected; this time the issue had to do with how the "secretary" was named. Finally, at

the Spring 2009 N e w Majority annual meeting held in a meeting r o o m at the University of

Massachusetts Boston overlooking Boston Harbor, Shelia Martin stepped up to give the

N e w Majority treasurer's report. She announced that on 19 February 2009, the articles of

incorporation were successfully filed at the offices of the Secretary of State with Mel King

serving in the role as "sole incorporator." Shelia Martin then called o n the participants at the
Annual Meeting to officially ratify the actions of the New Majority's sole incorporator. The

room rang out with a joyful chorus of "Ayyyyeee!"

To be a 501(c)(4): unexpected epilogue to the learning journey

A 501(c)(4) is a nonprofit organization that is capable of extensive lobbying activities,

as opposed to a 501(c)(3), which is very limited in the amount of political lobbying it
can do. . . The goal of a 501(c)(4) is usually formed to promote social welfare. . . The
main benefit of being a 501(c)(4) is that it comes with a tax-exempt status. Thus, any
money taken in is not taxed as income. . . One of the biggest differences between a
501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4) is that donations to a 501(c)(4) are not tax deductible.466
wisegeek

Just before the incorporation celebration, the New Majority Steering Committee was

approached by the Jobin-Leeds Partnership for Democracy and Education, the same

foundation that funded the 2008 New Majority Retreat. Jobin-Leeds extended an invitation

to the New Majority to submit a $25,000 grant proposal. The timeline for submission was

tight, within just a few days after the invitation was extended, but Lydia Lowe headed up a

committee to produce the proposal, which was submitted on 15 December 2009.

At the 6 January 2009 New Majority Steering Committee meeting, a report was given on a

meeting between Lydia Lowe, Gloribell Mota, Meiko Rollins and David Ortiz from the New

Majority and representatives from the Jobin-Leeds Partnership for Democracy and

Education LLC. Jobin-Leeds wanted to make the grant proposal, but their focus is on

supporting nonprofit 501(c)(4) organizations (as opposed to 501(c)(3) nonprofit

organizations). Lydia Lowe and David Ortiz explained that in Boston, while there are many

nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations, there is a void in the field of 501(c)(4) organizations.

There are not enough 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations in the area for the few foundations

wisegeek.com, "What is a 501(c)(4)?" http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-501c4.htm.

 339
that give to 501 (c) (4) s. They explained the main differences between the 501(c)(3) and the

501(c)(4) nonprofit designations. Unlike 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations can

endorse political candidates as long as that is not their primary activity. 501(c)(4) nonprofit

organizations can also do more lobbying and spend a part of their resources to support

political campaigns. The drawback of the 501(c)(4) organization structure is that

contributions to the organization are not tax deductible.

After discussion, a motion was made by Lydia Lowe to go back to Jobin-Leeds Partnership

for Democracy and Education LLC with an intention for the New Majority to become a

501(c)(4) nonprofit organization and to start the process of having the New Majority

become a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. The motion was seconded by Gloribell Mota,

Rony Raphael and Calvin Feliciano and the vote was all in favor with one steering committee

member abstaining. And as of March 2009, the story of the New Majority's journey learning

"to be or not to be a 501(c)(3) fell on the side of "not to be."

 Appendix A

Literature on anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork, with focus

on education research used to guide this ethnographic study
 365
Appendix B
Literature on anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork, with focus on
education research used to guide this ethnographic study

Agar, Michael. 1996. The professional stranger. An informal introduction to ethnography. San Diego,
CA: Academic Press.

Anderson, G. 1989. Critical ethnography in education: Origins, current status and new
directions. Review of educational research 59(3) 249-270.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Homogenization and heterogenization. In Modernity at large:

Cultural dimensions of globalisation, Arjun Appadurai, Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 248-280.

Badley, G. 2003. The crisis in educational research: A pragmatic approach. European

educational researchjournal 2(2): 296-308.

Behar, Ruth. 1996. The vulnerable observer. Boston: Beacon Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre and Alain Accardo. 1999. The weight of the world: Social suffering in contemporary
society. Stanford, CA. Stanford University Press.

Bourgeois, Phillipe. 1991. Confronting the ethics of ethnography: Lessons from fieldwork
in Central America. In Decolonizing anthropology: Movingfurther toward anthropology for
liberation, edited by Faye Harrison, Washington, DC: Association of Black
Anthropologists and American Anthropological Association, 110-126.

, 2000. Violating apartheid in the United States: On the streets and in academia. In
Racing research, researching race: Methodological dilemmas in critical race studies, edited by
Francis Widden Twoine and Jonathan Warren, New York: New York University
Press, 187-214.

Brewer, J. 2000. Ethnogroaphy. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

Britzman, D. 2000. "The question of belief': Writing postructural ethnography. In

Working the ruins: Feministpoststructural theory and methods in education, edited by E. St.
Pierre and W. Pillow, New York: Routledge.

Brown, Stephen Gilbert and Sidney I. Dobri. eds. 2004. Ethnography unbound: From theory
shock to criticalpraxis. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Buranoy, Michael, et. al. eds. Global ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.

Carspecken, Phil Francis. 1996. Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and
practical guide. London: Roudedge.
 366

Colson, Elizabeth. Spring 1984. The reordering of experience: Anthropological

involvement with time. Journal of anthropological research 40 no. 1: 12..

D'Andrade, Roy. June 1995. Moral models in anthropology. Current anthropology 36 no. 3:
399-408.

Ellen, R. F. ed. 1984. Ethnographic research: A guide to general conduct. San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.

Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. 1995. Writing ethnographicfieldnotes.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Eisenhart, M. 2001. Changing conceptions of culture and ethnographic methodology:

Recent thematic shifts and their implications for research on teaching. In Handbook
on research and teaching, edited by B. Richardson, Washington, DC: American
Educational Research Association: 209-225.

Fleuhr-Loban, Carolyn. 1994. Informed consent in anthropological research: We are not

exempt. Human organisation 53 no. 1: 1-9.

Foley, D. A. 2002. Critical ethnography: The reflexive turn. International journal of qualitative
studies in education 15 no. 4: 469-490.

Forester, J. 1992. Critical ethnography: On fieldwork in a Habermasian way. In Critical

management studies, edited by M. Alvesson and H. Willmott, London: Sage: 1-20.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973, Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In The
interpretation of cultures, New York: Basic Books: 3-30.

Glaser, B. and Anselm Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine.

Hammersley, M. 1992. What's wrong with ethnography'? London-NewYork: Roudedge.

Heggenhougan, Kris. 1992. The inseparability of reason and emotion in the anthropological
perspective: Perceptions upon leaving the field. In The naked anthropologist, edited by
Philip R. Devita, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth: 244-252.

Herzfeld, Michael. 2001. Anthropology: Theoreticalpractice in culture and society. Maiden, MA:
Blackwell Publishers.

Howe, K. R. 1998. The interpretive turn and the new debate in education. Educational
researcher 27(8): 13-20.

Jackson, Jean. 1990. "I am a fieldnote": Fieldnotes as a symbol of professional identity. In

Fieldnotes: The makings of anthropology, edited by Roger Sanjek, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press: 3-26.
 367
Jackson, Michael. At home in the world. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Jordan, S. and D. Yeomans. 1995. Critical ethnography: Problems in contemporary theory

and practice. Britishjournal of sociology and education 16(3): 389-408.

Kumashiro, K. K. 2000. Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. Review of educational

Research 70 no. 1: 25-53.

Marcus, George. 1998. Ethnography through thick and thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

Maseman, V. L. 1982. Critical ethnography in the study of comparative education.

Comparative Education Review 26: 1-15.

Pelto, P. & G. H. Pelto. 1978. Anthropological research: The structure of inquiry. New York:
Cambridge University Press.

Quantz, R. 2000. On critical ethnography (with some postmodern considerations). In

Handbook of qualitative research in education, edited by N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, New
York: Sage.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

, June 1995. The primacy of the ethical. Current anthropology 36(3): 409-420.

,2002. Ire in Ireland. Ethnography 1(1): 117-140.

, 2002. Demography without numbers. In Anthropology demography, edited by David

Kertzer and Tom Fricke, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Simon, R. and D. Dippo. 1986. On critical ethnographic work. Anthroplogy and education
quarterly 17 no. 4: 195-222.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London:
Zed Books.

Spradley, James. 1979. The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Reinhard and Winston.
1979.

Thomas, James. 1993. Doing critical ethnography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Thorne, Barrie. 1980. "You still takin'notes?": Fieldwork and problems of informed
consent. Socialproblems 27: 284-297.

Twine, Francis Widden, and Jonathan Warren, eds. 2000. Racing research, researching race:
Methodological dilemmas in critical race studies. New York: New York University Press.
 368
Van Maanen, John. 1988. Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.

Willis, P. 2000. The ethnographic imagination. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

 369

Sources

This list of sources cited in this manuscript has been divided into the following sections:

Education and Social Theory

Social Movements
Boston
Ethnography
 370
Education and Social Theory

Albert, Michael, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Robin HahneL Mel King, Linda Sargent and
Holly Sklar. Liberating theory. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1986.

Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mesti^a. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute
Books, 1999.

Bentley, Tom. Learning beyond the classroom: Education for a changing world. London: Routledge,
1998.

Boggs. Grace Lee. "A paradigm shift in our concept of education" (Transcript of talk given
at An Educational Summit on the Urban Crisis, State Theatre, Detroit, Michigan,
August 20, 2002), http://www.boggscenter.org/paradigrn-shift.shtnil.

. "The beloved community of Martin Luther King." Yes!Magazine no. 29 (Spring

2004), http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/a-conspiracy-of-hope/the-beloved-
community-of-martin-luther-king.

. "A new school year begins." Michigan Citizen, September 13-19, 2009.

British Ministry of Reconstruction. Adult Education Committee Final Report (Chaired by

Arthur L. Smith and commonly known as 'The 1919 Report1) Cmnd 321. London:
HMSO, originally published in 1919, reissued in 1956.

Brookfield, Stephen. The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

Christensen-Ruffman, Linda. "Introduction." In FeministPerspectives: The global feminist

enlightenment: Women and social knowledge, edited by Linda Christensen-Ruffman,
Madrid, Spain: International Sociological Association): 1-15.

Coombs, Philip and Manzoor Ahmed. Attacking ruralpoverty: How nonformal education can help.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Coombs, Philip, Roy Prosser and Manzoor Ahmed. New paths to learningfor rural children and
youth. New York: International Council for Educational Development, 1973.

Coffield, Frank. The necessity of informal learning. Bristol, UK: The Policy Press, 2000.

Dewey, John. On education. Edited by Reginald Archambault. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Press, 1964.

Einstein, Albert. "Why socialism?" Monthly Review 1, no. 1 (May 1949).

http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php.

Elsdon, Konrad, John Reynolds and Susan Stewart. Voluntary organisations: Citizenship, learning
 and change. Leicester, UK: National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education
(NIACE), 1995.

Emirbayer, Mustafa and Ann Mische. "What is Agency?" American Journal of Sociology 103
(1998): 962-1023.

Finger, Matthew. "New social movements and their implications for adult education." Adult
education quarterly 40, no.l (Fall 1989): 15-22.

Foley, Griff. "Radical adult education and learning." International journal of lifelong education 20,
no. 1-2 (January-April 2001): 71-88.

. learning in social action: A contribution to understanding informal education (London: Zed

Books, 1999).

Follett, Mary Parker. "The group and the new psychology" and "The group process: The
collective idea (continued)." Chaps. 1 and 3 in The New State - Group Organisation, the
Solution for Popular Government. New York: Longman, Green and Co., 1918. Chapter 1
and Chapter 3, online Virtual Mary Parker Follett Institute,
http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett/Fins-MPF-01.html.

Freire, Paulo. The Paulo Freire reader, edited by Ana Maria Araiijo Freire and Donaldo
Macedo. New York: Continuum, 1998. Originally published in Paulo Freire,
Pedagogy of the oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1970).

Gadotti, Moacir. Reading Paulo Freire: His life and work. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 1994.

Gibson, Margaret. Accommodation without assimilation: Sikh immigrants in an American high school.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Guinier, Lani. "Video excerpt from 2009 State of the Black Union." (28 February 2009).
Embedded on Jack and Jill Politics Blog,
http://www.jacl^ndjiUpoHtics.coni/2009/03/youtube-km-g\iinier-state-of-the-
black-union-2009/.

Habermas, Jurgen. Autonomy and solidarity: Interviews with Jiirgen Habermas. London: Verso,
1992.

Hall, Budd. "Chapter 19: Social movement learning: Theorizing a Canadian tradition." In
Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives, edited by Tara Fenwick, Tom Nesbit
and Bruce Spencer, 230-238. Toronto, Canada: Thompson Educational Publishing,
2006.

Hanks, William. "Introduction." In Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated learning: Legitimate
peripheralparticipation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991): 1-24.
 372
Harding, Vincent. There is a river. The black struggle for freedom in America. New York: Vintage
Books, 1981.

Harris-Lacewell, Melissa. "Welcome to the Future: Race and Politics / Interview with
Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Alan Stoga)," Flypmedia 20, (29 December 2008 - 19
January 2009): 4, http://www.flypmedia.eom/issues/20/#2/l (go to page 4 of the
Flypmedia "article" on Melissa Harris-Lacewell, then click on the "community
organizer" videolink to view the interview transcribed for this quotation).

Hayden, Dolores. TheVower of place: Urban landscapes as public history. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.

Holford, John. "Why social movements matter: Adult education theory, cognitive praxis,
and the creation of knowledge." Adult education quarterly 45, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 95-
111.

Hoist, John D. Social movements, civil society and radical adult education. Westport, CT: Bergin and
Garvey, 2002.

Hutchins, Edward. Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.

Hyslop, Nancy and Bruce Tone. "Listening: Are we teaching it, and if so, how?" Eric
Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills. Eric Digest ED295132, 1988.

Ilsley, Paul. "The undeniable link: Adult and continuing education and social change." New
directions for adult and continuing education 54 (1992): 26, 31 -33.

JISC InfoNet. "Change Management Info Kit." Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Northumbria
University (16 May 2006): 2, http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-
management.

Jeffs, Tony and Mark K. Smith. Informal education. Conversation, democracy and learning.
Nottingham, UK: Educational Heretics Press, 2005.

. What is education? Informal education homepage,

www.infed.org/foundations/f-educ.htm.

Kilgore, Deborah. "Understanding learning in social movements: A theory of collective

learning." International journal of lifelong education 18, no. 3 (May/June 1999): 191-202.

Klimczak, Susan. "Decolonizing the imagination: Some thoughts on education and social
movements." Qualifying Paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2006.

Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated learning, legitimate peripheralparticipation. Cambridge,
United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Leadbeater,Charles. Uving on thin air. The new economy. London: Penguin, 2000.
 373
Lerner, Michael. The politics ofmeaning: Restoring hope andpossibility in an age of cynicism. Reading
MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996.

Linderman, Eduard. "Building a social philosophy of adult education." In learning

Democracy: Eduard Undeman on adult education and social change, ed.Stephen Brookfield
(Wolfeboro, NH: Croom Helm, 1987), 129-130.

Lipsitz, George. The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profitfrom identity politics.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006.

Lofland, John. "Charting degrees of movement culture: Tasks of the cultural cartographer."
In Social movements and culture, edited by Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, 188-
216. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.

Lorde, Audre. Sister outsider. Essays and speeches. Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984.

Marsick, Victoria and Marie Volpe. "The Nature of and Need for Informal Learning." In
Informal Learning on the Job, Advances in Developing Human Resources No. 3, edited by
Victoria Marsick and Marie Volpe. San Francisco: Berrett Koehler, 1999.

Mayo, Peter. "Synthesizing Gramsci and Freire: Possibilities for a theory of radical adult
education." International journal of lifelong education 13, no. 3 (1994): 31-39.

McGiveney, Veronica. Informal learning in the community. Leicester, United Kingdom: NIACE,
1999).

McKittrick, Katherine. Demonic grounds: Black women and the cartographies of struggle.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Merriam, Sharan and Ralph Brockett. The profession andpractice of adult education. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Mezirow, Jack. "Transformation theory and social action: A response to Collard and Law."
Adult education quarterly 39, no. 3 (Spring 1989): 169-175.

Moraga, Cherrie and Gloria Anzaldua. This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of
color. New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1981.

Ogbu, John. "Cultural model, identity and literacy." In Culturalpsychology: Essays on

comparative human development, edited by J.W. Stigler, R. A. Schweder and G. Herdt.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1996.

Page, Scott. The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups,firms,schools, and societies.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. (especially relevant for educators is
Part Two, "Diversity's Benefits: Building from Tools," 129-174.)
 374
Palmer, Parker. To know as we are known: Education as spiritual journey. San Francisco, CA:
HarperOne, 1993.

Peterson, Ralph. Life in a crowdedplace: Making a learning community. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann, 1992.

Rossing, Boyd E. 'Tatterns of informal learning: Lessons from community work."

International journal of lifelong education 10, no. 1 (1991): 45-60.

Rutherford, Stephanie. "An alternative consciousness: Knowledge construction in the anti-

globalization movement." In Proceedings of the ACEEA/ CASAE 21stAnnual conference
on adult education and the contested terrain of public policy (Toronto, Canada: May 30-31
and June 1,2002),
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/CASAE/cnf2002/2002_papers/rutherford20002w.pdf.

Salamon, Gavriel. Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Smith, Felipe. American body politics: Race, gender and Black literary renaissance. Athens, GA:
University of Georgia Press, 1998.

Smith, Mark K. "Informal education," Infed: The Informal Education Homepage (London:
infed.org, 1996, updated 2009), http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-nonfor.htm.

. "introducing informal education," Infed: The Informal Education Homepage.

London, UK: infed.org, 1997, last updated March 2009, http://www.infed.org/i-
intro.htm.

. "association, la vie associative and lifelong learning," Infed: The Informal

Education Homepage (London: infed.org, 2000, updated 2008),
http://www.infed.org/association/b-assoc.htm.

. "Communities of Practice." the encyclopedia of informal education.

www.mfed.org.bibUo/comniunities_of_practice.htrn, last updated: 21 June 2006.

Stern, Mark and Susan Seifert. "From creative economy to creative society," policy brief
published by the University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project (2008),
http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/SIAP/.

Sue, Derald Wing, Christina Capodilupo, Gino Torino, Jennifer Bucceri, Aisha Holder,
Keven Hadal and Marta Esquilin. "Racial microaggressions in everyday life."
American Psychologist 62 no. 4 (May-June 2007): 271-286.

Surowieki, James. The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective
wisdom shapes business, economies, societies and nation. New York: Little Brown, 2004.

Thiong'o, Ngugi Wa. Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1986.
Vygotsky, Lev. Mind in society: The development of higherpsychologicalprocesses. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1978.

Watts, Mary. Reading the landscape. New York: Macmillan Co., 1964.

Welton, Michael R. "Social revolutionary learning: The new social movements as learning
sites." Adult education quarterly 43, no. 3 (Spring 1993): 152-164.

Wenger, Etienne. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.

. "Communities of practice: Learning as a social system" Systems Thinker. (June 1998).

Wenger, Etienne, Richard McDermott and William Snyder. Cultivating communities of practice:
A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2002.

Wessels, Tom. Reading theforested landscape: A natural history ofNew England. Woodstock, VT:
Countryman Press, 1997.

Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1976.
 376

Social movements
Bruggermann, Walter. The prophetic imagination. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress
Publishers, 2001.

Davis, Angela and Bettina Martinez. "Coalition building among People of Color" Inscriptions
(1994),
http://hurnanities.ucsc.edu/CultStadies/PUBS/Inscriptions/vol_7/Davis.htrnl.

Boggs, Grace Lee. "Introduction to the New Edition." In Revolution and evolution in the
twentieth century. James and Grace Lee Boggs, vi-xlvi. New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1974, 2008.

Boggs, Grace Lee and Bill Moyers, Interview from Bill Mqyers Journal, 15 June 2007, full
interview transcript available online at
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06152007/transcript3.html.

Brienes, Winifred. The trouble between us: An uneasy history of White and Black women in the
feminist movement. London: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Yun Chai, Alice Yun. "Toward a holistic paradigm for Asian American Women's Studies: A
synthesis of feminist scholarship and women of color's feminist politics" Women's
International Studies Forum 8, no. 1 (1985): 59-66.

Cryan, Philip. "The city belongs to all of us: New organizing on economic issues is fueled by
the idea of an urban commons." OntheCommons.org library, February 27, 2009,
http://www.onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2399; On the Commons (formerly
Tomales Bay Institute) is a a network of citizens, scholars and organizations that
champion the cause of the commons.

Diani, Mario. "Chapter 9: The concept of social movement." In Readings in contemporary

political sociology, edited by Kate Nash, 155-176. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell,
2000.

Eyerman, Ron and Andrew Jamison. Social movements: A. cognitive approach. University Park,
PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

Fanon, Frantz. Black skin, white mask. New York: Grove Press, 1994. Originally published in
French under the title Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (Paris, France: Editions Du Seiul,
1952).

. The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press, 1965. Originally published in French
under the title Tes damnes de la terre, 1961 by Francois Maspero, editeur).

Follett, Mary Parker. "The Unity of the Social Process." Chap. 6 in The New State - Group
Organisation, the Solution for Popular Government. New York: Longman, Green and Co.,
1918, http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett/VI.txt
 377

Ford, Glen and Bruce Dixon. "Dr. King's Global Vision: Today's Missing Ingredient."
Black Commentator'73 (15 January 2004),
http://www.bkckcornmentator.coni/73/73_cover_since_mlk.htrnl.

Green, James. Taking history to heart: The power of the past in building social movements. Amherst,
MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).

Harris, Duchess. "All of who I am in the same place: The Combahee River Collective."
Womanist theory and research 3, no. 1 (1999),
http://www.uga.edu/~womanist/harris3.1.htm.

Jenning, James. "Changing urban policy paradigms: Impact of Black and Latino coalitions."
in Blacks, Latinos and Asians in urban America: Status andprospectsforpolicy and action, ed.
James Jenning. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing, 1994.

. "Coalitions between Blacks, Latinos and Asians: A retrospective look for

the future of economic democracy in the U. S." The Black Commentator-224 (5 April
2007),
http://www.blackcommentator.com/224/224_retrospective_economic_democracy_
jennings_ed_bd_pf.html.

Klein, Naomi. "Reclaiming the commons." In A movement of movements: Is another world really
possible? edited by Tom Mertes, 219-229. London, UK: Verso, 2004.

Mjaqukii, Nina. Organising Black America: Encyclopedia of African American associations. New
York: Roudedge, 2001.

Melucci, Alberto. Challenging codes: Collective action in an information age. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University, 1996.

Noriega, Mona. "Problem definition and agenda-setting: LGBT aging issues." In Proceedings
of the Midwest Political Association. Chicago, Illinois, 6 April 2008.

Peavy, Fran. "American willing to listen." In Heart Politics. Philadelphia, PA: New Society
Publishers, 1986.

. By life's grace: Musings on the essence of social change. Philadelphia, PA: New Society
Publishers, 1994.

Poletta, Francesca and James Jasper. "Collective identity and social movements." Annual
Review of Sociology 27, (2001).

Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement: A radical democratic vision. Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Roth, Benita. Separate roads to feminism: Black, Chicana and White feminist movements in America's
Second Wave. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
 378

Said, Edward. Culture and imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota

Press, 2000.

Smith, Andrea. "Heteropatriarchy and the three pillars of White supremacy: Rethinking
Women of Color organizing." In The Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, ed.
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge, MA: South End Press,
2006.

Snow, David. "Collective Identity and Expressive Forms." Center for the Study of
Democracy. Paper 01-07 (October 1, 2001). http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/01-07.

Chuck Turner, "Political strategy: What are we going to do?" Part 2 of a 3 Part Series
"Organizing objectives and strategies." Black Commentator 2&\ (12 June 2008),
www.blackcorrrmentator.com/281/281_what_are_we_going_to_do_part_2_turner_
ed_bd.html.
 379
Boston

Abraham, Yvonne. "Chinatown voter awareness helped propel Yoon's win: Turnout tripled
in last eight years." Boston Globe. 10 November 2005,
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/11/10/chinatown_voter_aware
ness_helped_propel_yoons_win/?page=2

Allen, James and Eugene Turner. "Boston's emerging ethnic quilt: A geographic
perspective." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association
of America (Boston, MA, 1 April 2004), via California State University Website,
http://www.csun.edu/~hfgeg005/eturner/gallery/Bostonatlas/Bostonatlascover.
html.

Aucoin, D o n . " T h e Discomfort Z o n e . " Boston Globe, the first in an occasional series on the
experiences of Blacks and Latinos in Greater Boston, 22 June 2005.

T h e Boston Foundation, "Education" in A time like no other. Charting the course of the next
revolution, A summary of the Boston Indicators Report 2004-2006,
http://www.tbf.org/IndicatorsProject/Education/Default.aspx.

T h e Boston Foundation. "Boston's Civic Community" The Boston Indicators Project,

http: / / w w w . tb f. org/indicator sProject.

Boston Globe Editor, "Boston's N e w Politics," Boston Globe, (25 October 2005). Editorial,
http://www.mccormack.umb.edu/centers/cms/press-25Oct05.php

Bruno, Melania and Mauricio Gaston. "Latinos for Mel King: Some reflections." Radical
America 17 no. 6 and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 — February 1984).

Capetillo-Ponce, Jorge. " T h e thin and the thick: A study of two opposite trends of collective
identification among Boston's Latin and Black communities." the submitted version
of an article, "Black-Latino relations in Boston: T w o Trends of Collective
Identification." under edit and to be published in a formcorning issue of Latino
Studies (sent to me Summer 2009 with permission to use by the author, who is an
assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston).

Cason, Candace. 'The Mel King campaign and the Black community." Radical America 17 no.
6 and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 - February 1984).

Cerullo, Margaret, Maria Erlien, Kate Raisz and Jessica Shubow. "Lavender is a color in the
rainbow: Lesbians and gays and Boston politics," Radical America 17 n o . 6 and 18 no.
1 (double issue: November 1983 — February 1984).

Diaz, Johnny. " O n e thing they could use: A litde respect: N o t white, not black, n o t
Hispanic — Boston's Cape Verdeans have long been misunderstood" Boston Globe,
(15 February 2004), via Boston.com,
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/02/15/one_thin
g_they_could_use_a_]ittle_respect/
Drake, John C. "Church honors King's struggle for civil rights: Service reaches out to
younger generation." Boston Globe Local News, 14 January 2008.

Euchner, Charles. Governing Greater Boston: Meeting the needs of the region's people. Cambridge,
MA: Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, 2003.

Evana, Judith. "Hub Blacks support Asians in beating case." Boston Globe, 9 June 1985,
Metro Section.

Flynn, Raymond. '"83 mayoral race brought people out - and the city together." Dorchester
Reporter (21 August 2003), www.dotnews.com/comment%2008.21.03.html.

Giban, Gina Sanchez. "Diasporic identity formation among Cape Verdeans in Boston."
Western Journal ofBlack Studies (June 2005).

Green, James. "The making of Mel King's Rainbow Coalition: Political changes in Boston
1963-1983. Radical America 17 no. 6 and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 -
February 1984).

Hardy-Fanta, Carol, Latina politics, Latino politics: Gender, culture andpoliticalparticipation in Boston.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993).

King, Mel. Chain of change: Strugglesfor Black community development. Boston: South End Press,
1981, 187-188.

Leung, Kye and Duke Rhoden, "Justice for Long Guang Huang," A^ine: Asian American
Movement Elaine, (2000),
http://www.aamovement.net/community/long_guang_huang/justice_for_huang.ht
ml.

Liu, Mike. "Grassroots politics and Boston's Asian community." Radical America 17 no. 6
and 18 no. 1 (double issue: November 1983 - February 1984).

Losier, Toussain. "Candidates make case at New Majority forum" Bay State Banner 41, no. 8 (13
October 2005).

Lowe, Lydia. "Opinion: 'Street Talks' to build New Majority coalition" Sampan (22 July
2004), http://sampan.org/pastissues/2004/0716/opinion.htm.

Most, Doug. "Divided we stand;" Boston Magazine (November 2002),

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/divided_we_stand/.

Milton Semett Bound for the promised land: African American religion and the Great Migration.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

Monica Rohr, "Teen rivals face off, learn: Aim is to bring Blacks, Latinos, Vietnamese
 381
closer in Dorchester," Boston Globe (31 January 2004), Local News section.

Potier, Beth. "Has Boston shed its racist reputation? Panel tackles racism and segregation in
Boston." Harvard Gazette (November 7, 2002), via Harvard University,
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/ll.07/09-racism.htrnl.

Steinberg, Avi. "The 'New Majority' takes it to the streets, gently." Boston Globe (10 October
2004), via boston.com,
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/10/10/the_new
_majority_takes_it_to_the_streets_gentiy?mode=PF

Stocker, Carol. "Chronicling the lives of Chinese Americans." Boston Globe, 4 December
1988, Arts and Film Section.

Witcher, Gregory. "'I'm afraid,' says victim of Chinatown beating" Boston Globe, 23
December 1985, Metro Section.

Wong, Doris Sue. "200 March to City Hall Plaza to protest alleged brutality against Chinese
immigrant" Boston Globe, 19 June 1985, Metro Section: 24.
 382
Ethnography (cited in manuscript)
Agar, Michael. The professional stranger An informal introduction to ethnography. N e w York:
Academic Press, 1980.

Basso, Keith. Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apaches.
Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

Bridges, David. " T h e ethics of outsider research." Journal of philosophy of education 35, no. 3
(August 2001): 371-376.

Briggs, Charles, learning how to ask: A sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social
science research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1986.

Brow, James. "Notes on community, hegemony and the uses of the past." Anthropological
Quarterly 63, n o . l (1990): 1-6.

Foley, D o u g E. learning capitalist culture: Deep in the heart of the tejas. Philadephia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

Griffiths, Morwenna. Educational research for social justice: Getting off the fence. Buckingham,
United Kingdom, O p e n University Press, 1997.

Heath, S. Brice. Ways With Words. Language, life and work in communities and classrooms.
Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press: 1983.

Henning, Philip H. "Ways of learning: An ethnographic study of the work and situated
learning of a group of refrigeration service technicians." journal of Contemporary
Ethnography 27, no. 1 (1998): 85-136.

Henze, Rosemary C. Informal Teaching and Learning. A study of everyday cognition in a Greek
Community. Hillsdale, N e w Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992.

Herzfeld, Michael. Anthropology: Theoretical practice in culture and society. Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.

Jackson, J o h n . "Some thoughts about ethnography." Brainstorm Blog ofthe Chronicle of Higher
Education (May 17, 2008), http://chrorricle.com/blogPost/some-thoughts-about-
ethnography/5943.

Kuper, Adam and Jessica Kuper. "ethnography." In The social science encyclopedia, edited by Adam and
Jessica Kuper, 263. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheralparticipation. Cambridge,
United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Maxwell, Joseph. Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 1996.
Sanjek, Roger. Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1990.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1992.

Waters, Mary. Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
 384
VITA
Susan A n n Klimczak

1976-1984 University of Maryland B.S. E. E.

College Park, Maryland

1984-1991 Electrical Engineer, Communications

Technology Service Corporation
Silver Spring, Maryland

1991-1993 A u d u b o n Expedition Institute B. S. Env. Ed.

Lesley College

1993-1999 Faculty, Environmental Education

A u d u b o n Expedition Institute
Lesley College
Belfast, Maine

1999- present Harvard Graduate School of Education M.A. Ed. 2002

Cambridge, Massachusetts

2001-2002 Adjunct Faculty

H o b a r t & William Smith College

2002-2006 Teaching Fellow

Field Experience Program
Harvard Graduate School of Education

2004- present Education worker

South E n d Technology Center @ Tent City
Boston, Massachusetts