On a cloudy fall afternoon in Southern California’s Anaheim Hills, Lorena P., a canvasser from the Orange County Congregation Community Organization (OCCCO) stood on a porch facing a skeptical retiree who’d warily opened the door to speak to her. It was early October, and campaigns for and against the state’s proposition 50, had riddled the neighborhood a month before the ballot measure would be decided at the polls.

Politics as usual.

But instead of launching into a voting pitch, she began with a question:

How has all this—politics, polarization, the feeling of division—touched your life? Read more

On Tuesday nights, when most kids were finishing homework or falling asleep in front of the TV, I was learning how power works.

I was 12 years old and barely tall enough to see over the podium at Fullerton’s City Hall, but I remember the feeling clearly—the fluorescent lights, the long wait, the adults who looked past us like we were on a school field trip instead of kids demanding something real. We weren’t there for extra credit. We were there because our park in South Fullerton didn’t have lights, and when the sun went down in our neighborhood, everything got smaller: practices ended, parents worried, and kids drifted toward streets that didn’t always forgive mistakes. Read More