“People are the medicine for people.” This proverb from the Wolof people of West Africa set the tone for the first-ever Culture of CommUNITY event, organized by the Davis Phoenix Coalition on Saturday, Feb. 8.
A crowd of around 400, predominantly from Yolo County, filled the Woodland Community College theater for healing, connection and collective action.
A gathering that celebrated the strength of community and the healing power of solidarity, the event included breakout sessions that focused on making a local impact and building connections within communities, including immigration, LGBTQ+, public education, healthcare, and climate issues while addressing structural bias and community building.
“When we work together to lift everyone up, we are building a community that is strong and resilient and can bounce back in the face of challenges. The Culture of CommUNITY today is about action,” said organizer Anoosh Jorjorian, director of the Davis Phoenix Coalition, which exists to “engage and unite the Davis community in eliminating intolerance, preventing hate, and promoting a broader civic culture that embraces all aspects of our diverse community.”
While acknowledging recent emotions of community members and possibly “depression and other feelings” and mentioning their community–building team — which could offer space to process those emotions and “find solace in each other,” Jorjorian said, “That’s not what today is.”
“The Culture of CommuUNITY revolves around creating tangible, concrete change for the members of our community who are most vulnerable and advocating for policies that protect everyone,” she said.
Prior to the breakout sessions, the program included a welcoming and land acknowledgement from Tania García-Cadena, an introduction and community agreements by council member and Phoenix Coalition founder Gloria Partida, a statement from California State Senator Christopher Cabaldon and California State Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, and a keynote address from Raquel Aldana, a UC Davis law professor.
A graduate of Harvard Law School with previous faculty experience at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, Aldana was a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala, and her research has focused on transitional justice, criminal justice reforms, sustainable development in Latin America, and immigrant rights.
Since 2021, she has been the co-director of the AOKI Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies and has received several awards, including the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award and the UC Davis Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity and Community and the UC Davis Office of Research and Policy for Equity Ubuntu Award for Inspiring Social Change.
Aldana arrived in Miami from Guatemala at the age of 10 in 1982, the same year Efraín Ríos Montt became a genocidal dictator found decades later responsible for the genocide of indigenous Ixil Mayans.
In 2013, Aldana recalled attending Montt’s criminal sentencing hearing — presided over by Yassmin Barrios, “a soft-spoken but fierce female judge” — as an international human rights observer, where in Guatemala, the mood was tense due to bomb threats and intimidation against the trials.
In “that hot, packed courtroom,” Aldana clutched her purse tightly, grateful for her blue passport that promised safety for her family in the United States — a nation that three decades earlier “had greeted me with what I thought was a bid for success.”
“For you see, success in Spanish is ‘exito,’ which is what I hoped the red sign I read about the sliding doors while leaving the airport meant, but it didn’t. Instead, it meant outside.”
While “outside” is how Aldana often feels in the United States, she said, this is not a story of immigrant vulnerability.
Debating with her son over the premise of a high school writing assignment on The American Dream, she expressed her contestation of the very idea of The Dream,” at least for most so-called Americans.”
But she said his answer — “You are the American Dream” — was not wrong by all metrics. “I am the child of immigrants, a Harvard Law graduate, and now a UC Davis law professor. Yet, I often feel alone in my views on borders.”
She said, ironically, Trump’s “vile hatred and cruelty” seems to unite people on immigrant justice. Though images of children in cages “shocked many, including his supporters,” this morning, she said, addressing the audience, “I see your desire to act against the ongoing cruelty that targets immigrants: threats that keep families from school, efforts to overturn historic rulings, and laws incentivizing citizens to catch undocumented immigrants.”
Aldana said the Culture of CommUNITY project emphasizes the need for a model of engagement with other nations based on freedom of movement and human rights. She called for reframing the understanding of immigrant justice and the abolition of borders to move closer to liberation.
“It’s time to stop thinking about refugee status or asylum as an act of humanitarian grace,” she said, suggesting moving toward a framework of reparations that acknowledges how our country has benefited from colonization and “extractive policies in the Global South.”
“It’s time that we acknowledge the climate displacement and economic migration from the global south, which is also our legacy, not only of Manifest Destiny but of our pollution and our consumption,” Aldana said.
She said it’s also time to question why we don’t embrace a concept of legal migration that reflects the United States’ economic interdependence with neighbors like Mexico, our country’s largest trading partner. She advocated for an examination of gun policies and of “the failed war on drugs,” both of which have crossed borders and “have literally contributed to thousands of violent deaths throughout Latin America.”
She noted that it is crucial to recognize former Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama participated in harsh immigration policies.
She said, “To truly liberate ourselves, we must advocate for border abolition.”
“Until we evolve to liberate ourselves from borders, we will continue to fall prey to Trump and the Trumps of the world, who will use them effectively to sow fear deep in divisions, scapegoat our problems, and lie to us as they destroy our nation,” she said, ending her keynote in applause.
On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed budget bills — SBX1 and SBX2 — to protect families, workers, and employers. SBX1-1 allocates $25 million to the California Department of Justice for emergency aid for Californians during natural disasters. According to the California Courts Newsroom, “both supporters and opponents said the bill was meant to ‘Trump proof’ the state, ‘though Newsom criticized that language.’”
SBX2 provides funding for immigration Legal Aid and Services, which helps veterans, families, students, renters, domestic violence victims, and lawful immigrants. Lawmakers stated this bill’s funding does not pay for the legal defense for people convicted of violent and serious felonies.
“We will not leave anyone behind and are dedicated to legislation that supports working families, immigrants, and marginalized groups,” said Aguiar-Curry. “California will continue to lead in protecting human rights, including healthcare access, education, and the right to vote,” Aguiar-Curry said. As assembly member and chair of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, she said she prioritizes initiatives like affordable housing and environmental protections. “We will stand against bullying and ensure everyone is treated fairly in California.”
During the speaker portion of the event, images from illustrator and writer Devon Blow (@devthepineapple) rotated on a large screen as a backdrop of the WCC theatre stage, with inspiring quotes from such notables as Gloria Anzaldúa, Grace Lee Boggs, Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, James Baldwin, Desmond Tutu, Bell Hooks, Joan Baez, and Audre Lorde.
Returning to the essential question, “What do you want to do?” attendees chose which breakout session to attend. The options included immigration, LGBTQ+ issues, public education, healthcare, climate change, structural bias, and community building.
“It’s most important for them to work on and where they would want to make a difference. By focusing on that one thing, you can eliminate distractions,” Jorjorian said.
She said as part of a network within the Culture of CommUNITY, each individual can trust that others are managing their tasks, providing them with security while they concentrate on their responsibilities.
She said collaboration allows community members to share the workload, “fostering a sense of community as we face challenges together while also making time for fun and togetherness. Effective communication is crucial, which is where the space coalition comes in. We aim to break down silos in nonprofit work, ensuring that all teams are connected and can collaborate on shared issues. For instance, she led the LGBTQ+ team and said she looks forward to collaborating with the public education and healthcare teams “as these issues affect all of us.”
“Our intersectional approach means we must work together, allowing us to gather support for significant initiatives.”