Dec 30, 2021Member-onlyTales of A Reforming Workaholic2021 is the first in my adult life where I didn’t have a full-time job, by choice. It wasn’t as dreamy as I imagined it would be, especially as an immigrant woman. To deprogram from the pace and patterns of thirty years of working in ways that hurt me and…Self-awareness3 min readSelf-awareness3 min read
Jun 28, 2021Member-onlyStepping Off, To Step UpFor the first time since graduating from college over 30 years ago, I’m not working full-time. I want to tell you it feels great, liberating, joyous. But I would be lying. Achievement and productivity have been my central organizing principle as far back as I can remember. Without the structure…Leadership4 min readLeadership4 min read
Mar 8, 2021Member-onlyREST is the new WORKLast year, I wrote this widely circulated piece about the collective exhaustion women of color in leadership face as we both navigate white supremacy culture and try to dismantle it. In the year since, we faced new demands created by COVID-19 and the country’s racial reckoning. We became even more…4 min read4 min read
May 6, 2020Member-onlyJoe Biden is not our savior.Believing or not believing Joe Biden has very little to do with him. The context in which some are professing support and “belief” and others are expressing their rage and frustration matters. That context is the patriarchal and racist institutions of which he, and we, are products. That context pushes…Politics3 min readPolitics3 min read
Apr 7, 2020Leading in the Time of CoronaOn Super Tuesday 2020, the year already felt like too much. At the time, Elizabeth Warren was still a contender in the Democratic primary for President and Coronavirus was an abstract concept in a faraway land. Then shit quickly got real. Seattle became the U.S. epicenter for Coronavirus and Warren…Leadership4 min readLeadership4 min read
Published inZORA·Feb 11, 2020Member-onlyLet’s Get Real About Why Women of Color Are So TiredPlaying by the rules in capitalist America comes at the cost of our mental, physical, and emotional health — Women of color leaders are guarding a dirty little secret: Our work is eroding our mental, physical, and emotional health. We are slowly wrecking ourselves as we try to transform political organizations, foundations, media rooms, nonprofits, and the publishing industry. In the first few weeks of 2020 alone, every conversation…Women6 min readWomen6 min read
Mar 8, 2019No more Politics as UsualCelebrate, then hate. That’s been the cycle for the most outspoken newly elected Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar — all of them are women of color refusing to be silenced or to do what they are told. Widely celebrated by the media and House Democratic leadership for…Politics3 min readPolitics3 min read
Oct 23, 2018The Name GameLast week, as Elizabeth Warren played the race shifting game of claiming Cherokee heritage, Dear Abby warned against owning ‘otherness’ when naming our babies “foreign” names. Names matter, because they often come with personal narratives, which shape a sense of who we are and influence who we become. My…Election 20183 min readElection 20183 min read
Apr 18, 2017Post-Election Coping: Three StagesIt’s been nearly six months since Election Day, and I’ve been through three stages of coping. Here they are … First, there was powering through. The morning after the election, the work on my plate was just the same as the day before. So I got to work. Managed a team, led my organization through planning our national events in DC, and strategized about how we would show up…Donald Trump2 min readDonald Trump2 min read
Apr 3, 2017Run for Office? Maybe Not.My day job for six years has been to recruit people to run for local and state office. So I should be excited about media reports that more people are signing up to run. But I’m not. That’s because not everyone should run for office, and here are three reasons…Politics3 min readPolitics3 min read
