You. Good morning everyone. As Griff mentioned, I'm Isabella Romo and I'm a senior at UC Berkeley. And we are joined today
by the lovely Mayor Lopez. What's up y'all? They're like, come on, what's up? Good morning. He's excited to see you. Yeah 30 to see you so much
I love you guys. Well Mayor Lopez, let's get right into it. Where are you from? And when did you first become interested
in pursuing a career in public service? Oh, shoot. Well, you know, where I'm from
is a very layered question because, well, I'm from East Palo Alto,
so I'm from the South Bay. born and raised EPA California. How many people have heard of East Palo
Alto? Raise your hand. Okay. Yeah. And how many people have heard
good things about East Porto? Okay. How about bad things? Right. So a little bit a little bit
both a little bit good, a little bit bad. And so I'm from these parts are born
and raised, but my family's from Mexico. So they migrated from the, from Mexico
in the 1980s. my dad was a farm worker. He actually,
you know, interestingly enough, the whole reason why I'm here is because
he was able to get amnesty from the, Reagan administration
to get a path to citizenship. So just to show you, like, how federal policy percolates down to people's individual
lives, like, I'm an example of that. so I'm from he's Palo
Alto, born and son of Mexican immigrants. Same. My mom from the same town, Garnet, girl
next door, Peter Parker kind of thing. My mom and dad and, Yeah, just grew up in the 90s
when EPA was in the in the thick of it, as it were,
you know, trying to rise from its ashes of having the notoriety
of being the quote unquote, murder capita. So it's a majority minority city,
Bipoc working class. And, of course,
in the heart of Silicon Valley, so many of you are from San
Rafael, Oakland High School. You see the issues of gentrification. You see the issues of how expensive
it is for families to live there. So, you know,
I grew up in that environment where you love your community,
you love the culture, and you have a sense of pride. For even though we didn't have as many resources as other cities
because we're next to Palo Alto or next to Stanford,
we're next to all these big techs. So how do you have a sense of identity
in a place that is so obsessed with making money
and is obsessed with the new app? Right. So I grew up in that in this sort
of environment or crucible, if you will, where people are trying to make ends meet, but also in the meantime,
they make community, they break bread. that's the kind of like DNA
that I'm, that I'm cut from. Well, that's really interesting
because a lot of the times, and I'm sure a lot of the students here
can relate to this, we are eager
to get out of where we grew up. We're eager to go explore new places. But you came right back to East Palo Alto,
and now you're nearing the end of your first term
or your fourth term as mayor. So what does a mayor do? And what are the responsibilities
of the East Palo Alto government? Yeah, so a mayor,
depending on what city you're live in, it could be a strong city like in San Francisco and Oakland,
where they elect the mayor. In small towns like ours in East Palo
Alto, it's a rotation. So it's kind of a musical. Chairs. I got elected to City Council four years
ago, then I became mayor last year. So the city council itself
appointed me to become mayor. What does the mayor do? The mayor is the face of a city. The mayor represents
what a city's trying to do. Everything from environmental justice,
from public safety, to education to improving our roads. So it could be, you know, one of the things
I'm doing, for example, right now and keep it on the DL, one thing, for example, is creating
a sister city with the island of Tonga, because we have a very rich Pacific
Islander population and so creating ties with the Pacific Islander community at the
very same time, working with mothers whose sons have been killed over the past
few decades, I want to bring together, create an event in the summer
to help honor those those women who have been holding so much grief. And of course, I also deal. This Tuesday,
we're looking at the budget, right. So everything from, and making sure that our staff is
well paid, that the roads are well paved. Just last week
I was just in Washington DC. We're talking about DC earlier
and working with our federal departments to get more money for East Palo Alto,
because we have a tremendous issue with water. Right. The our infrastructure. Right. The pipes in the roads are so old
because they've never been, renovated because we've been a poor
a low income city for a long time. And so part of my job
is to look at the whole picture. What are the needs? What are the gaps? Affordable housing. Tremendous issue. But also is environmental sea level rise. Also is parking also is water. And so how do you create consensus? How do you get everyone
in a room to agree. This is what we need to do.
Like you are right. Y'all have families. You guys
figure out what what you want for dinner. You know, and someone says, oh,
I want tacos or I want American, burger or I want Chinese, right? Okay. Now imagine trying to agree on that. Not dinner,
but a policy with 30,000 people, right? It's kind of a tough job. And so it's my job
to try to bring it together and try to remind people
that we're all in the same. We're on the same boat, you know? And I think it's easy in a city like ours
to get divisive, particularly as because
of the demographic changes over the years, we now it's majority
Latino used to be historically black, and now we have middle class folks
coming in from gentrification. So it's a changing city. And so how do you still maintain
a sense of identity, a sense of, you know, we're all in this together when there's
so many pressures that people are facing. That's part of
my job is to represent that unity. And that's what I'm trying to accomplish
in my term as mayor. Well, that's very admirable. And I'm sure that the students
who are either thinking about college
or getting ready to go to college would like to hear about your experience
getting to this point in your career. It's easy for them to feel pressured
or stressed about choosing a college major or even a career long term
when you're only a teenager. And so your story is a great example
of how there's no linear path
to get to where you end up one day. And so what advice
would you give to students about finding their interests
and entering higher education or career? You know, for me and I want to speak
specifically to all you guys, but I also want to address
as a child of immigrants, you know, the pressure is different for me
and for our communities because it's like you not only have to sort of
bring yourself up, but your whole family, and they're coming from communities
where they want to be a doctor. They want you to be a lawyer. They want you to do something that's
going to make that sexy six figure salary. And but at the end of the day,
as people who are living in the Bay area, who are students in the Bay area,
you guys are soaking up ideas, passions, interests
that your parents may not have had and a lot of their push to you is fear. It's fear of how can my kid
make a good living? How can they be successful? But you need to also trust your gut. And I'm not trying to say, oh, Antonio, I heard the mayor said,
and I listen to you. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying that you have to be able
to go with what you love, whether it's right. You know, for me, for example, like before
being a politician, like I'm a poet. So, like, when I was in high school,
I was coming from a k through a public school education.
I was pretty rough. I went to an affluent,
private school in the peninsula. And that identity crisis is
what prompted me to want to tell my story. Right? Because I felt like people didn't
understand who I was, where I came from. So what I'm saying to you guys is it's
not a linear path. It's not like I said, oh,
I'm going to be a mayor at the age of 29. Like, no,
it's about how can I do what I love and take people's
perspectives, even if they're my family, but say, I'm going to speak, I'm
going to live my truth. I'm going to live my passion
and live my interest. And you have to trust
that that is going to get you far. Like you have to be able to maintain
a sense of, belief in oneself. And also, I would say, surround yourself
with people who are like minded. There's that old saying,
that old, old school proverb is, I can tell you who you are
by the people you surround yourself with. It's so true. So making sure that if whether it's
being an artist or an engineer or being doing robotics or doing dancing,
like be around those same people, those same kids ask for help,
go to the coaches. I mean, the sky
truly is the limit for you guys. We live in some of them. One of the most beautiful places
in the world with so many resources. So please do not be a stranger. Last thing on this note, when I was coming from East Palo Alto,
one of the most under our school was in the bottom
5% of the state of California. We talked about Department of Education. We had our charter revoked because of low
test scores when issues of gangs, which is of people getting caught up
with dumb, dumb crimes. Right? Teachers, teachers who come in
left and right, they would leave. Why do I say that? I say that because when you when I got into this private school,
Menlo School, one of the first mentors that I had
was a white guy named James Dam. And he told us the 6 or 7 of us
people of color, kids who were recruited into the school,
the shy people starve, right? In other words, ask for help. Be humble enough to say,
I don't know something. And I think when it comes to
following your dreams, if you don't know, if you don't know exactly the ingredients,
talk to people who do. Talk to folks who know what those steps
are to get to where you want to be, and also be open to the possibilities
like I did. Truly did not know that I was going
to fall in love with public service. And it wasn't until I came back
from my masters and on a whim, put my hat in the ring to run for office. And here I am talking off
four years later. But I had no experience in government,
no idea I was in politics. But I trusted my gut. And you have to trust yours too. That what's gnawing inside of you
to do something? Listen to that. Trust it. Cultivate it, and then others around
you help you kind of fuel that fire. So that's my story. I was a little long of my little. Advice,
no words of advice to take on with them once they're done with high school
and go on throughout their lives. Right. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to try new things, because that's how you fall into things
like public service. But these young people in the room,
some of them may be too young to vote even. And so why does their voice matter? And what can they do to get involved
civically in their communities and engage in public service
at such a young age? So you all know how I one like real talk,
like I'm gonna give you the skinny on how I want. So first of all, there is seven people
running in my race, including myself. Three
all incumbents are running for reelection. I had no name recognition. I was this kid at 26 years old
coming from college. Right. And I won, first of all, anyone. And guess
how many votes I won by throw? A number six, six. Little higher. 20, 50, 50. 70 votes. I want you hear what I said? I won by 70 votes.
How many people are here? About 100. Right. So if half the room decided
not to vote for me, I wouldn't be here. Does that make sense? And also you can you can say to me, you. I couldn't vote at the time,
but I didn't finish. The reason I won
is because I sat my primos down, my cousins down,
and I told them, Adolfo, Issac, Renee. I said, hey,
I want you guys to help me run for office. And they're like, why no? I was like,
that's important. You, you know,
what's the vice President do? Right there? They were kind of like college. You were saying like, well,
what's in it for me type of thing? And I said, well,
I'll give you guys 30 bucks an hour. And they're like,
all right, bet sounds good now. But all jokes aside, when we started knocking on doors,
mind you, I was the only person I was. I just come back from college, right? And I would talk to people
from all walks of life. I even had I, we even walked into a house
that was pink and stucco and it was just Trump, all of it. It was just vote for Trump
all in these parts, which blew my mind and was just lovely, like old white lady
just being like, hello, how are you? And I, we started talking.
We started talking. Right. So all that national identities,
all these labels just melted. And it was two people
talking in her front porch. And you know who helped me win it? The three, five, six, seven teenagers, teenagers at your age,
they knocked on doors with me. Because let me tell you something. When people see young folks organized,
it could be a Girl Scouts. It could be about vaping. It could be about creating a pony
show on your street. They will listen to you because it sounds
like a freaking cliche, but it's true. You are the future. You hear what I did? You hear what I said? You guys are the future like you are
the reason people are fighting so hard for climate change, for making sure
that this place has businesses like we. This is this is your world and your state
and your Bay area. So claim it and I think that whether you can vote or not,
whether by age or immigration status, the fact that you're young and engaged,
I cannot stress this enough. Like, look, look, look what's happening
in the Middle East right now. And whether you side on whatever
part of the spectrum I'm seeing the young people speak at city council, speak on school board,
speak on campuses like Berkeley. It's inspiring. And at the end of the day, as a student,
when you're going to college, the institutions are built for you
like you are the primary customer and the primary person
that should be supported. So your voice matters just as much
as a trustee or a stockbroker. So what I want to underscore to
you guys today is that one, because you have tremendous super power
as a young person. And two, you're
the reason why people are fighting so hard because you're the future. And so I would say it doesn't matter. This is the kind of work
that doesn't require a CV like you don't show up to city council
and somebody says, well,
tell me where you went to school. No, it just by showing up
and show your beautiful face and being passionate
about what you care about. And I'm telling you, I swear to God, like,
it may not move all five people in the room,
but you're going to get 1 or 2 people. And that's where it starts. It starts with the change
happens on a local level person by person,
and you are changemakers. You just have to nurture it
and believe in it. And so I would say just go for it. Like just, you know, what's that Charlotte
Buff like just do it like it's true. You just got to go for it. It's just it's never a perfect time. We just got to get involved. You know? I mean, there's a lot of misconceptions
I feel about whether or not youth can get involved in public service
at such a young age. But the reality is,
your guys's voices do matter. And you guys are experiencing
the same issues, if not different issues from the older generations
that do regularly show up to give public comment at City Council,
or we'll help campaigns. But those are the same things
that you guys can do. And conveniently enough,
one of the main topics of these field trips
is civil dialog and discussion. And so why do you think it's important
to talk, work and engage
with people who you disagree with? Do you have examples from your time
as mayor where you had to do this? Yeah, I mean, one, one, we have to do it
because it's the only tool we have. I mean, this is the oldest democracy in
the Western world, like the United States. And we can talk about the issues
it has of gerrymandering, the Supreme Court,
the Electoral College, like there are fundamental problems of this system,
no question about it. And the fact that it's so expensive
to run a campaign finance, like there's a litany of a laundry list of reasons
why we need to make it better. And yet this is the vehicle we have and the part of what makes this country
so beautiful. It is one of the only multi-ethnic
democracies in the world. Do you understand? Like if you go to Europe or Scandinavia,
their countries are founded upon ethnicities, right? But we're a multicultural fabric. And so we believe in this experiment
of like people from all across the world and immigrants, right?
They come together and make a better life. And how do we all share this space? Right? How do we build upon this legacy of, you know, even if we were founded
on slavery and all these different racist structures,
how can we still create a sense of home and how can we make it work
or make it better? And so how do we do that? We do it through a dialog,
like we do it by exchanging ideas about being brave enough
to speak to the moment. And so I would say, you know, recently
what's happening with Palestine and Israel, like the fact that we have
a tremendous community, Jewish community that is feeling a sense of fear,
a sense of a sense of, you know, all this rhetoric like how do we feel safe
right at the wake of the Holocaust. But you also have a Palestinian community
that has felt unheard and occupied. And so how do you bridge that gap? How do you tell people
that we are here to affirm life? We are here to move the needle forward. How do you, break down
stereotypes or misconceptions? One issue we have in the East Palo
Alto is gentrification, right? Someone in public comments, straight up
an older African-American woman said, well, I don't want this place
to become a little Saigon, right? In other words,
saying that the Asian American community that's coming in
somehow does not have as much of a right as black and brown people do. And so we have to remind each other
that we all share this space. We have to remind each other
that we're going to disagree. We have to remind each other
that it's tough and it's emotional and it's sensitive, and it's hard to talk
like it is difficult. But we have to. We have to lead with love and we have to. One example I guess I'll share with you
is, you know, when we're talking about these resolutions,
whether it's for the ceasefire, whether it's for gentrification,
or whether it's for coming together. One example I have is, you know,
just being able to listen to people in public comment
and being able to incorporate their dialog and say, like, honestly, nine times
out of ten people are angry at me or angry at politicians or angry at so-and-so
because they don't feel listened to. So at the end of the day, wherever we fall
on the political spectrum, the most fundamental thing
is just making people know that you care
and how do you demonstrate care? It's about showing up. It's about being authentic. It's about being vulnerable,
putting your cards on the table. I think that's something that
that that for me, I found most successful. It's it's
coming to a room and saying, hey, I don't have all the ideas,
I have all the solutions, but I'm willing to work with you
to figure them out. And I want to exemplify the political
courage to speak to a moment, even when it's inconvenient, even even when it's difficult,
especially when it's difficult. That's what makes this country so amazing, is that we're able to talk through issues
and not everybody agrees with that method. But you have to lead by example. You have to be the example you want to see
in the world that you can't wait for, for grown ups to do the right thing,
you got to do it yourself. So I would say those recent examples,
what's happening in Middle East, but also this ongoing anxiety
about displacement in East Palo Alto. People are afraid of change. Whether you're white,
whether you're black, whether you're poor, when you're used to something
some different, it's like, whoa, so how do you,
how do you broker a sense of, that your home is still your home
and it's just changing? I think that's sort of really
the sweet spot that I'm really, as mayor, focusing on in my term. I really appreciate that
because I feel like we are living in such a polarized society,
specifically politically. And yeah, we may have always
been politically polarized, but right now it seems like
we're more polarized than ever. And so when we're trying to work
on such difficult issues like this, the only way to do it is if we're having these difficult conversations with people
we may not always agree with. Otherwise we're never going
to get any compromise or any progress towards
alleviating the impacts of these issues. And so, building off of my last question
this afternoon, the students will be asked to discuss different topics and scenarios
related to freedom of speech. So as a poet and writer yourself,
why do you think that freedom of speech and freedom of expression
are so important? Because I cannot police what constitutes wrong things to say
and write things to say. Like, you know,
you look at a historic case like Skokie, which is you had these neo-Nazis
write burning American flags. And in a small suburb in Illinois,
a Jewish enclave in Illinois. And you know who defended these folks? I mean, these are reprehensible ideas. People who believe in white supremacy,
people believing against Jews. The ACLU, which is which was headed
by many Jewish American lawyers. So think about that, that
there is an an era in American history where Jewish lawyers and people
who said, yeah, like ideologically, you hate me, but I'm
going to represent your right to speak. Think of how beautiful that is. Think about that example of like,
you don't think I should be here, but I'm going to give you the right to say
what you want because that's your right. And that to me, the freedom of speech
clause is built precisely for a tough moment. It's not for the easy
cookie cutter stuff, Girl Scout stuff. It's for things that are hard and no one has a I don't have a right
to tell you to not speak. No one gets to arbitrate what constitutes
the right, the right thing to say. So we have to protect everyone's
right to speak even. And especially when that that those ideas
are reprehensible. Right? So when a president is coming down and saying these people are rapists
and criminals, yeah. It's horrible. And how do you
how do you fight back about it? You in the marketplace of ideas
and speaking out and saying your piece and proving people wrong and that's
really all it is, ladies and gentlemen. Like that, that, that is,
that is one of the cornerstones of this country,
the ability to speak your mind. And the minute we start to say, well,
you can't, that we can't talk about this issue or that group can't speak
because it's not in our values. We have to. That's a slippery slope, and
we have to be consistent with our values. So I think that that's
the kind of nation and model I want to have, that ACLU model
where we're defending the I was speaking to a Palestinian,
after we passed the resolution yesterday. There is a group of, of activists
that spoke to me and said to me, well, how come you added the October 7th clause
and, you know, it undermines how we feel? And I started talking
about the nut buying the history. And I said to them very gently, like, sister,
like you have to humanize other people, even as other other states or governments
or forces try to dehumanize you. Does that make sense? Like
look at the civil rights movement. You look at every single movement
in American history. Like you have to be bigger
than the things that are keeping us down. And that to me goes back
to freedom of speech. Like you have to work within. Well, we have you have to be brave enough to speak out and you have to preserve
the right of others to speak out. And I firmly believe that
with the right people in place, that was going to win
at the end of the day. And it's really easy
when we're so polarized like this to forget that
we need to continue humanizing everyone that's involved in these issues
and everyone being affected by the issues. And if I can just follow up,
you know, what really concerns me too, is the fact that, you know,
now y'all grew up with the smartphones. You know, I grew up in like, that kind of
Nokia era where it wasn't that fancy. Like,
I just play snake like, y'all got it. I don't say good because phones are tough. Having it like five, six, seven years old. But the point is, you all have
an international virtual audience. And so, I put this very poetically. It's easier to talk over a keyboard,
right? It's easy
to, like, be mean to each other virtually. And what I'm worried about
sometimes is as we have these technologies that are evolving, like,
how does that make it more difficult to cut to B, show up at the same table
and actually have tough conversations? You know, and so I think
when it comes to freedom of speech, that's what makes this question even more complicated is
how do you actually connect? How do you win hearts and minds?
How do you connect people? How do you get everybody on the same page when not even in the same room,
when they're not even in the same time zone
where they're not even, you know, maybe not even there
because it might not be a true account. So these are things that we really got
to be mindful of that we have to monitor. but ultimately the values are the same. It's about being able to speak your mind
and protecting the rights of others to speak their mind. And in that marketplace of ideas,
the ones that have the most truth, the ones that have
the most resonance, will win the day. and I want to come back to how your constituents have been expressing
concerns over gentrification. And in East Palo Alto,
like much of the Bay area, it has undergone a huge shift in the last
30 years like you've been discussing. And a lot has been reported
on the drop in violent crime in East Palo Alto specifically. But being in the middle of Silicon Valley,
the city's demographics have changed as well. And so how do you feel, as mayor about balancing those two things
gentrification and a drop in crime? Yeah, it's an amazing question is
and it's a very pointed talking point, because when we last year,
we had a historic milestone of having zero homicides in East Palo
Alto, zero. And I'm incredibly proud of the work
that the churches have done. Nonprofits are police department. It was a village that made this happen,
but there are many people on social media that said, well, it's
because all the bad people. I mean, I'll be very blunt with you. When I was on the campaign trail there,
even people saying to me, well, it's because a lot of the African-Americans
left, right, like blatantly racist things. And, you know, to me
that it's it breaks my heart. And that's when you have to intervene
and say, I'm sorry. Actually, that's not that's not the case. And educating people,
you know, making it a teaching moment. And so how do I feel about it? I, you know, it's
about showing people again that this community,
all communities change over time. They evolve. The question is how they how they and how they evolve
and who's part of that change. And so I think one of two things happened
with this gentrification conversation. I think there's one group of people
who fight back and sort of put their their feet in the sand and say,
we're not going to we're not going to change anything of East
Palo Alto. We're going to fight
against justification. And then there are folks who leave
and they say, you know what? It's too expensive. I'm going to move to Los Banos,
move together. I'm going to move to other areas.
I'm going to sell the house. And in both scenarios,
I think there's a flawed way of thinking as opposed to
how do you work within the process like this gentrification
question is a macro regional issue, right? Like East Palo Alto cannot solve it alone. In the past ten years, for every unit of housing that was made
in the Silicon Valley, in the Bay area, according to the 2019
San Jose Business Silicon Valley Index magazine, for every one
unit of housing, six jobs ever made. So it's a basic question
of supply and demand. We haven't built
in of housing as a region. And so then it puts a pressure
on small cities like East Palo Alto. At the same time, as a mayor,
I'm looking at our budget. We're looking at the barrel of a $7 million deficit
in about 6 or 7 fiscal years. So like, let's say this front row,
they want housing for their kids. You're a single dad.
You got to worry about your kids. You're a single mother. Low income families
spend 14% of their income on diapers. two thirds of my city are renters. A third of those, a half of those renters
are economically challenged, meaning they spend 30%
or more of their income on rent. So you have a tenant community that is only there for four years,
that is low income. You have a city that's facing a deficit. You have a region that does
want to build housing and they have his. So again, as a mayor,
how do I balance these competing forces? How do I let people know
that we are continue to build housing, but we also have a crisis in the horizon
that you may not care about. And that's okay, I understand, but it's my job to care about it
because at the end of the day, if no one is,
if when I'm looking at the budget, if when not looking at fiscal health
as a city where no one is. So it's my job to sort of again, bring it all together. So how do I feel about it? I invite people to speak there
to, to come to make comment, to tell us what we want,
what kind of community benefits we want. You're talking to somebody who's never
who didn't have we did not have a supermarket in East Palo
Alto for my child. Did you hear what I said?
We now have a supermarket. You know, we had to do. Me and my mom, my sister,
we had to walk 45 minutes to go to the Lucky Albertson's in Palo
Alto, right. The two of the most longstanding
institutions in East Palo Alto that have existed are the McDonald's,
the two McDonald's you've had and a mortuary. We as residents deserve to have amenities and we don't. And to have resources. Nightlife, a downtown restaurants. So, you know, on the one
hand, issues of displacement are an issue. And I remind people that we incorporated 40 years ago because we wanted
to be politically independent and economically independent,
and those two go hand in hand. And it's my job to help
build the resiliency of a city, and that involves
some form of development. So I think my answer to this question is,
I think it's about having those complex conversations about
how do we build capacity for our city, how do we build a dynamic city
that everyone deserves to live in, and how can we stop this crisis of people
having to leave East Paul to to do everything to shop, dine, get,
except they just sleep in these parts. So how do we make a community dynamic? Part of it is that, sorry development
and there is going to be some gentrification
that comes as a result of it. But in many respects, because it's a macro
regional issue, it's inevitable. So it's a bit like climate change,
I guess, like you can deny it exists. You can try to say
what's not going to affect me, but it's, it's, it's it's happened in the past
30 years already. It's coming.
So we have to be a part of that solution. Otherwise if we don't,
we're going to let people with the money, you know,
we're going to let the same class that got us here,
to keep calling the shots. So I think it's it's it's a it's
a call to action to get people involved and to be part of the sausage making of
politics, which is finding that compromise of what's a city that we can all
live in, that we're proud of. Yeah. And you've been speaking very eloquently
about all these issues going on in your community,
but you actually said in an interview that you once lacked the vocabulary to speak out about the issues
in your community when you were younger. And so how do you recommend that young
people, like the students in this room, go about learning how to advocate for
themselves and their community members? Well, you know, I'm speaking next
to an amazing, fantastic moderator who's in his interning as intern in DC and
has been involved in government herself. So I think we have examples in this room
of just getting involved, like guys like there's so much
I mean, I'm sure you feel this way, like when you got in your job,
like there was so much of it. We were like,
I don't know what that means. I know what that form is. But you learn and you adapt. And again, being a child of immigrants,
we all we know is how to adapt. All we know is how to pivot. And so wherever your family's from,
wherever you're from, taking that spirit of like pivoting, of learning on the go, embracing the adversity,
embracing the chaos. And I mean, that's kind of hard. Maybe not quite, but embracing the challenge
because that challenge is making you grow. If you're not being challenged on a daily
basis, you're not growing, y'all. So I'm not asking you to put yourself
through hell and high water, but I am inviting you to reconsider
something that may seem daunting, that fear you got. Like, I show up to meeting sometimes
and I'm just like, I don't know how we're going
to get through it. I'm a little nervous, but at the end of it,
I'm going to change as a person. I'm not the same person four years ago. No one is. And part of what's made me change
is putting myself in the fire of politics, learning the vocabulary, learning
what you know in an environmental impact report is learning about what if. I want to see three is learning
about how policy is made a public hearing, you know, notice of funding like there's
so many acronyms that government has. It's nauseating. But that's how things are run in politics. And you have to learn the language of whatever industry
you going to fall in love with. There's going to be parts that you love,
I mean, parts that you hate. That's just part of the business. And so I would say, you know,
if you feel like you don't, you lack the vocabulary, you know, don't I guess it's a bit like having a kid,
you know, I don't know what that's like or like getting married,
even though I almost like, like either. But people tell me
there's never a perfect time. You just got to go for it.
You got to go with your gut. So what I'm saying to you is
if there is that, like, thing you want to apply for, or that teacher
that's doing that event or interning in DC or going to G town
like you just go for it. You're never going to feel like 100%,
I'm ready. I got my suit.
I'm ready to go out the door. I'm like, man,
no, we're we're human beings. We're worried about things. But if we're not a little bit
afraid of something, we're not growing. And we don't let that. We don't let our courage kind of rise
to the surface and impress not only the people in the room,
but more importantly, impress yourself. And that's how change is made, changes and made by voting a resolution
or voting a policy. It's about that inner mechanism, that
inner machine that changes when you become when you finally say the right thing
or you finally show up like that, but you have to change who you are
first in the process. And that's the real change. I mean, in my opinion, what do I know? Well, we've talked a lot
about the challenges that you faced in your role as mayor,
but I want to know about what challenges you face being the youngest person
to ever hold that position. Have you experienced imposter syndrome,
and if so, how did you overcome it? Because as these students
get ready to enter this new chapter of their lives, it's
very easy to experience imposter syndrome. Yeah, I think you can imagine I'm
the youngest person in a lot of the rooms I walk into, and I'm
speaking of people who can no respect anyone could be my grandparents
or my great uncles. And but we're at the end of the day
we're equals and we're colleagues. And on a day to day basis, you know,
there are questions of, well, not as much anymore. But early on into my tenure
as council member, I would refer to myself as the young buck,
the new kid on the block. There was a sense of,
you know, I'm working with colleagues. We've done this for 12, 18, 20 years. One colleague has been there
since the city was a city, 1983. So he's been there 40 years. He's an encyclopedia of knowledge,
a ribbon, a brick, and have grand oration for who he is. But when you have that delta of like
someone has been there since the beginning and you're over here
kind of just got here, there's a sense of like, well,
do I have to have the rights? The same space? Should I even be here? Should I even speak?
Should I let him speak? so I think part of it is recognizing
and this happens in East Palo Alto a lot. I represent a different generations
way of thinking. let me give you a local,
let me localize, and then I'll expand it. You know, in East Palo Alto,
we were a city that had no tax base. We're a former murder
capital. The United States. I think there are many people, old heads in my community
or elders in my community, who sometimes sees part as just a place
that's been a victim, as a victim of systemic
poverty, of gentrification. And that's true,
and I don't take away anything of that. But what I try to remind people
is that even in the same breath as we have oppression and systemic inequities,
we have amazing people and communities that have always punched
above their weight. And it is a disservice to characterize
a city as just the former and not the latter. In other words,
the very fact that I'm here and the very fact that I tell these,
I tell kids in a frozen Redwood City, I eat the same tacos. Refrigeration firm
reduced lunch as they did. And yet I'm here representing my city. So the notion that we're just a glass
ceiling and that we can't have mobility and that we can't punch above
our weight is simply ludicrous. And if you look at the history
of our young city, there have been amazing individuals,
whether in athletics, in arts, in education,
that have succeed and become successful. But the question is, like you said
so eloquently, how do we encourage them to come back to bring their talents
and improve the city? So it's not just a small
handful of people like myself. And so I would say to people,
as far as in pass syndrome, you have an attitude and way of thinking
and a way of seeing the world that is fundamentally different
than your generation, perhaps your peers and that is an asset, because so much of the thinking
that has dominated East Palo Alto has been us versus
them, has been a zero sum game, has been those people want to change our community,
and yet we forget we became a city
because all other areas in the peninsula were redlined, had blockbusting,
had racial restrictive covenants which said that no members of the house
walk yuppie if they're Negro Oriental. Right. This was in our deeds
in the 50s in the Silicon Valley. So we were a city literally made
because no one else wanted us. And yet here we are telling people,
you can be here. Do you see the irony in that? Historically,
if the Asian community, the Japanese that I live in these parts, in the 20s
who don't live there because guess what? We interned them as a country
in World War two. So what I remind people about are,
you know, being young is that you have an edge because, you see,
you're at the cutting edge of what's going on this world,
AI, technology, culture, like you're in the thick of like,
what's going to be the future. And so many of our politicians
and people in government lack that. People get comfortable, people get jaded,
people become more career driven, and they forget why the heck
we're even here in the first place. And so I encourage you
to just really lean in on your youth, lean in on your energy,
lean in on your perspective. Because as I said at the top, it's you do
imposter syndrome is going to happen, and I still do with it. But think of it as an asset. Think of it as a strength. Think of it as an opportunity
to educate the people around you about what perspective and lens
they're missing, and that is going to be a tremendous
change. game changer in any room you walk into. Well, similar to experiencing imposter
syndrome for a lot of people of color and people from underrepresented
communities working towards social, systemic or even institutional change
can feel like a responsibility. We tend to feel that sense
of responsibility to create that change, and that often results in things
like burnout, stress, anxiety and more. And so what has been your experience
balancing your dedication to serving your community
and with your well-being? Is there anything that you wish
you had done differently? Sleep more? well, let me, let me let me think about that second part
and then I'll get to it. and repeat me the first part again. Yes. Well, it's easy for us to feel
that sense of responsibility, which makes it difficult
for us to balance our dedication to serving our communities
and our well-being. Yeah. I mean, I mean, so much of it,
so much of it is just about okay, so this question of burnout,
so as so in addition to being the mayor of East Palo
Alto, I'm also a so I'm also a student at Stanford. So in the middle of me coming back
from overseas to get my masters, I was starting my Stanford. The whole reason
why I came back to the Bay area to start my degree at Stanford, and that's when I, the George Floyd protests happened
and my parents were splitting up, and I wanted to get out of the house
and I was starting my degree. And so all this confluence of forces
kind of came to a crescendo and said,
get out of the house and start running. But I'm in a position, I'm in a business
where I don't really punch out of my job like, you know, like being a mayor like you yourself
are the job, like I am the actual. Does that make sense? Like, I don't punch out to my position
like I'm representing the city 24/7. It's not like,
all right, Isabel, you take that, you take 5 to 10, and I take 9 to 5,
and then we'll we'll switch being like, no, like I'm the person of the city. And then my colleagues share that, that
workload and so it is it becomes very easy to just not put any guardrails or not
put any time and say, I'm open any time. And I think early on in my career, I just let people talk to me
any time of day. And now for my own mental health, it's been important for me to put guardrails
not just for myself, but for my family. Like being in public service is a sacrifice, not just for me,
but like my mom, my brother, my siblings. You know, I'm
not in the house as often anymore. I have to make time for my my loved ones. Like yesterday
I saw this film called Monkey Man. It's like the Indian John Wick. It was great, but also the theaters
and my little brother, we went to the theaters
on a Wednesday night because that's the time I have,
because this weekend I have to be in Santa Rosa
for a Chamber of Commerce conference. So it's like,
now I have to be have to plan in advance. Like those fun dates of my family
are with my partner. Like, it's like I think that's what's changed
is I have to be much more insistent upon. Sorry, I can't do that. I'd love to be part of your Arbor Day,
a tree planting ceremony or fundraiser, a gala. And I have to say no more. And that's hard for me because as a child,
especially when the people I'm saying no to the people who look like me, people,
you know, it's hard not to have this kind of like Crusader
hero complex. It's like, I got to save everybody. It's like, no,
like you got to also help yourself. And you have to also keep yourself,
you know, sustain. And I think that, that's part of the, the thing I'm learning about is
how do I protect my time? How do I, you know, find time
for the things that I love and enjoy, how do I stay authentic? And all this stuff, like, it's easy
to get lost in the sauce, as it were. But how do I maintain my integrity
and remind myself why I did it? Well, it's
by connecting with the people that I love and remembering
what I did in the first place. And so I think it's it's unlearning this
sort of like insane work ethic that I saw my dad have as a waiter for two,
working for 30 plus years at Sheraton. It's like he had to break his back
for us to get fed and I don't have to have like, that constant
crazy capitalist hustle all the time. You know,
I can also take time to help myself heal the there's a lot of trauma that I think that I'm still living with as someone
who grew up in these parts, but I think so many of us
and so much of my has my experience. I've just been running,
running, running, running, running because I didn't want to come to terms
with some of the things that I've faced as a kid. And so I think it's so important,
for your health, for your sanity, for your truth to just stop every now
and then and reflect on how you've changed and give yourself
time to grow and give yourself permission to,
you know, put your feet up a little bit. It's not a weakness. It's a strength, and it's a recognition
that that you're human, too. And I think that part of my own political career
or story has been reminding myself that I'm not just an image on a screen
or a poster, like I'm a person. And I have to remember that
that's part of the change, too. So just, you know, don't forget to sleep
and don't forget to do things that you enjoy from time to time. That's I think that's the only advice
I'll give on that. No, definitely. I really resonate that with that,
especially because we come from cultures not just as children of immigrants,
but as members of American society, where we're taught to just keep working,
keep pushing through to get the job done. But the reality is, you know, even
as a college student, not as the mayor, but as just a regular college student,
you feel that pressure to keep doing more, to keep adding to your plate
and making sure you're getting everything you signed up for done, but
then you forgot to take care of yourself. And that's when saying no comes into play
is so important. You have to be able to draw boundaries
and know when you need to take care of yourself. Otherwise, the work that you're doing is probably not going to be
as strong as I could. But you're not going to make
as much change as he could because you're not taking care of yourself first. And so I appreciate your insights
on that especially. But what adversity have you faced
as a Latino and son of immigrants in your path and completing a bachelor's
degree, a master's degree, and now working towards your PhD,
how did you overcome this adversity, and what advice do you have for students
who are considering entering higher education? So I don't mean to break your heart here,
but actually, I remember I, one of the schools I got
into was Georgetown. This is like in December of,
like whenever I got into college,
like 2011 or something like that. So, I'm showing my, my year and I so
I remember, like, getting the envelope. I got early action
and I told my mom, like, I'm on, like,
I got into Georgetown, right? Imagine how excited I was first of my family to go to college
like no one knows my family. You know, like kind of that process. And then like my mom straight up. And I'm not. She says I deserve it. I'm not. It's with love. Right? And she says to me, Michael, what's that? What's your son? Right. So it's it's like. As I move up, whatever that means, the sense of accomplishment becomes
more and more legible to my community and to my family. Right. Being mayor is more obvious,
I think, than most accolades I've had or accomplishments because, you know, it's
they have that in Mexico as well. But I think the higher education
space in general is very obscure. It's a black box
for a lot of our community. You know, they know that we take classes, but the challenges, the sense
of like imposter syndrome, microaggressions, how important it is
to make social, make community. I think many of, I think
a lot of my parents mentality was like, you just go to school,
you're not there to make friends. You're there, you know,
you're there to just, you know, give it your all and also just,
frankly, like coming from communities that higher education wasn't necessarily
an expectation. I mean, and again,
I'm trying really hard to not try to perpetuate any sense of stereotypes
about my culture and my background. But I also just want to be honest about, you know, because of how I grew
up, many poor to like for many of our family members,
like I had neighbors where it's like, as long as my kids not in a gang
or doesn't, there's not a parent at 10 or 18, 19, 20, like, I'm happy
with whatever they I'm, I'm happy as long as they're happy,
you know, like it's because we're first generation
and because we were lower income, we didn't have examples of necessarily
people going to these higher spaces. So when you kind of break that glass
ceiling, yeah, it's amazing. And Univision and Telemundo were like, shout out to the heavens
and you got into college. But then what happens
when the fanfare stops? What happens when the celebration stops
and you're in college? You know, when I went to Duke,
and also to Georgetown, you know, I was like,
I loved both, but, you know, I don't know, something about the South
got me over, funny enough. And, I remember, like, first of all, my college counselor
helped pay for my ticket, okay? Because we have that relationship,
and he knew that and have as much money. So I had to take like two flights. I had to take a flight from like SFO to like LAX and LAX to Atlanta,
then Atlanta to North Carolina. So I finally get there
after like 13, 14 hours by myself. My family didn't come with me. I'm carrying two suitcases. Uber was just happening, so I didn't know
what the heck how to get to campus. I took two busses, got the wrong one, got to campus,
went to the wrong side of campus. I went from the green house
on the West campus. Not yeah, West campus to East Campus
and so on. Walking there, my back is sweating. I'm carrying two suitcases. I'm. I'm having slept. And I remember
seeing all these lovely families. Right. And it's, you know, a lot of suburban
moms, white moms, you know, kissing their kids, saying
goodbye with their with the minivans and a lot of the workers, African-American
helping pull the furniture into the, you know, I'm just I'm just painting
a picture and it's this beautiful lawn, and all these kids are, like, getting kiss
goodbye. And here I am, like, by myself. Like,
trying to figure out where's my dorm? Like, where do I. I had $3,000 that I owed and fees, like,
I couldn't even do laundry the first couple days. Like I ran out of money
like a few months in, and yeah, I mean, part of
it was just the sense of being alone, like, feeling like I did so well. For what? Like. Like I was able to accomplish
all these amazing things. Like, I came from a school that people
didn't expect us to, to do great things. And here I was,
getting to this amazing college that I that I just heard
about like ten months ago and that recruited me basically. And I don't know where to start
and where's my how do I get help? Should I ask for help? Who do I turn to? so I think part of it
being Latino is two things. I mean, certainly there were people in high school
and sometimes who made comments that were, racist or at the very least,
like kind of knows that stereotypes, like people would say to me, oh, you just got in because you're Latino
or oh, like you took their students, you took Spanish is easy
because you speak Spanish. It's like, well,
you had tutors in five years old. So, you know, like I just so I just think that there's that and that's
a, that's a small minority of people. But most of the struggle was just like,
you're trying to make sense of a whole new world that no one in your family knows,
then no, you have no peer support. And eventually I did find people
who were going to help me out with it. But it took time
and I had to get out of my comfort zone. And I eventually joined the frat
that was historically Latino. And I got involved on campus,
and I started to actually advocate not just for myself, but for other kids,
so that when future Latino students never feel that sense of solitude
that I felt when I first came into campus. so I think those are the struggles. The struggles are that
how do I first believe that I belong here? How do I who
what tools do I use to belong there? And how do I pay for that
three step process? And that's something that I felt
whether I was at Duke or when I was in New York getting my
master's, I went to Oxford for two years. And that's a whole nother Hogwarts
Harry Potter world that I can talk about, you know, being from these parts. So I got this big scholarship to study
there, and I was rubbing shoulders with Rhodes
Scholars, and I mean, just people
of a whole different world. And I'm back. and, and every and every milestone
I've had to sort of face how I've changed the environment
that I'm in and fake it till I make it. In other words, I just show at least
that I'm confident enough to be present and be part of the conversations. But that's I've had to really challenge
myself, like because of who I am
and where I came from. Well, I think that's a great note to start our transition
to student questions for you. So there is a microphone in the aisle
right over here. And if you have questions for Mayor Lopez,
please start lining up at the microphone
and we will take your questions. All right. So earlier in the when you were talking,
you talked about the deficit, what's coming up the next couple of years? I lost 7 million. I don't really. Know. Yeah. 7 million. Yeah. So has that, has is that concerned you. And it kind of. Has it affected the policy
you've tried to implement and I guess is it was there kind of a level of,
okay, I'm just the mayor. There are a lot of issues that I wasn't
exactly. Were there issues
you weren't aware of that you kind of didn't
really have an idea how to cover? It's a
good question, man, I appreciate it. I mean, I think that when I came into this mayoral term
and when I became a councilmember in general, in even growing up in East
Porto, you have this sense of the man that we're here because of racism,
we're here because of systemic inequality. Like, you have this us versus them
mentality, especially growing up next to Palo Alto, like, dude,
like you grow up, you know, seeing that society
give you the short end of the stick that teachers were there
for like three months and they left that there were school fights. And here you have a stone's throw away, one of the most affluent districts
in the country. You're gonna feel
some type of frustration of, why is it that
you're commuting to get that? And when I got into government, you start to appreciate the fact that it's
a two way street and that since 1983, we've had some ability to make decisions
to determine own destiny. Now, you may argue
we don't have as many chances to mess up. We don't have much of a safety.
We're not as much of a cushion. Nevertheless,
we've also been part of the problem as much as being part of the solution. So I think that's number one. So number two, when you talk about when you talk about,
you know, did I anticipate those issues? I didn't because I came,
you know, grew up in EPA. They having that sense of like I mean
I need y'all to understand something like I did not have a single white friend
when I was in school. Most white people that I knew
were teachers. Most of the kids I interacted with, like
it was an incredibly segregated area, and it still is. And best believe like that informs
how you look at people. It took me a long time
to unlearn some of that biases. So it answers your question,
because when I look at the deficit, it's a reminder
that we've also made mistakes, bro. Like we as a people,
as these false residents have made decisions
that weren't necessarily in our interests. So when we talk about gentrification,
we talk about the rising cost and values. We also got to talk about the the failures for us to buy properties
when they were cheaper. As a city. We also got to talk about the fact
that we've had this area on Bay Rowan University that has been vacant
for 20 freaking year is mind there? There are there are vacant lots
that have been vacant my entire life as a kid. Right? Yeah. And you think that's better than developing it like there's
a barren plot of land benefit? Anyone? Does any person benefit
from not developing that now? And so for me, I've learned to embrace the
complexity that even in the same breath as we've had an enormous tidal wave of economic pressures,
of political pressures that have stuck and that have,
stacked the odds against us, we also have agency as a people. We also have the ability to push back
and to also be part of the solution. And historically,
we have not in some cases we haven't. And I think that's
that's sort of the nuance, that's the arc that I've really embraced and learned
to articulate in these past four years. being such a young mayor,
like at your age, do you feel as though people ever dismiss you or your ideas
because of your age? Yes or no? Yes. yes. Because I'm young, but no,
because I'm young. So it kind of goes back to what
I'm saying about Hmhm. Some people will say to you again,
when I ran like, you're too green, you're too young,
you're too inexperienced, and people will always give you
that excuse. Bro, you're too young or too
all your too a woman. You're too query too fat.
You have too many tattoos. You're too. And you. Your hair's too big. Your hair's to read your hair,
your shirt's too green. People will just make all these excuses. But you know, it happens. You prove them wrong. And suddenly the criteria changes. And suddenly someone like Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez can be called from a bartender to be our congresswoman. Someone from Maxwell Frost can be a first
gen Z congressmember at 27 years old. So it's like our historic
for the civil rights movement. You just got to break
that psychological barrier. And I think, you know, I had a
I had a resident, Miss Jen Steffens, African-American woman, has been
in the community for as long as I know. Her family's been part of that community.
Again. The black community has been part
of our every part of the since the 50s, even earlier. And she told me, and I'm not trying to gas
myself up or sitting in her dining room, dining room table. And she looks at me
and says, Antonio, I think you've made more change in your four years. And I've seen in a long time
as an elected. And I think part of the change, honestly,
isn't just the policy making, it's breaking that us versus them mentality
of like somehow I win and you lose. You lose and I win because I'm a product
of both the East part of community, but also all these other spaces
that have been formed. Like I don't look at things
as zero sum game. I also don't look at like gentrification
versus preservation. These things are complicated and you have to work
within the messiness of them. And so I think by being young, I demonstrate to people, yeah. I don't have the same perspective
as you do, but I also and this being very I'm not trying to flex here,
but I bring the future with me. And so do you. And people are gonna have
to appreciate that, liking it or not, because I'm not going anywhere. And nor is the groundswell of activists
and young people and youth that I want to have a seat at the table. And so I think, you know, it's it's
biblical. It's a classic push and pull. There's an older guard that is going to want to keep things
the way they are, and the newer generation is going to say, actually,
we want things to change a little bit. You know, I want to be able to take my girl
on a date in East Palo Alto and not have to go to Palazzo
all the time. Is that too much to ask? I don't want to keep eating Swedish
Swedish meatballs at Ikea now I'm serious. I don't want to go to the same
three brothers again. What do we have? Tacos.
Oh, that was very creative. You know, I want something different.
We live in the California. Yeah, man,
we got all this amazing cuisine. So I think it's just insisting that we deserve better
and that you can't just argue the same. I'm an outsider, and I grew up here, bro. One school down the street. And these parts are just as you are. And I think it's that example
that's going to make the change. as the mayor, how do you balance, like doing poetry and having to say no to activities? Yeah, it's a great question, I like that. What's your name, bro? Vincent. Thank you,
thank you Vincent I appreciate you mean I forget him a poet sometimes,
but you know what I remember? Because poetry, at the end of the day, what separates a poem from a song from,
from from an article. From a political track, from a manifesto. Poetry is an emotional object. It has to move you. Right? But remember what I said earlier. You can't make a change
unless you move yourself first. There have been times in my tenure
as council member, dude, I've been to funerals like I've had to. I've had to see mothers
bury their sons. Man. I've had to help people move their belongings from cars
that have been totaled because of floods. I've had to console. I mean,
and that traumatizes you like that? That's hard for that not to stay with you. It's hard for things have to get personal. So how do I how do I stay sane? How do I remind myself
that I'm human to poetry? So a lot of my poems that have been
written in these past four years, it's not it's not that I've, like woken up
and said, I'm going to write 9 to 10. It's there have been moments in these past
four years that have forced me to come to the desk
and figure out how I feel about this. There's a shooting in Half Moon Bay
last year where seven farm workers were killed,
five Asian American, two Hispanic, and I was part of the delegation that went to Walker, México,
to bury Marciano, one of the farm workers. And the family asked me
to help me bury this man that I did not even know,
but his family at the altar at Alta, I should say, asked me
if I could be part of the burial process. So, like imagine
is how emotionally intense that feels. Crying for like four hours and realizing
I'm not even crying about this brother. I'm crying about the fact
that people can't mourn. I'm crying about Covid. I'm
crying about growing up. I'm crying about the fact
that his sister has to be FaceTime because she can't go to Mexico
because she's undocumented. My dear. When my grandmother passed last year,
we were trying to get a humanitarian visa for like six, eight months,
paid 400 bucks. They didn't even give it to her. Right
when my grandfather died. So like. I'm trying to hear your question
like this. That the enormous injustice
things are just wrong, dude. Like, I don't know what else. Things are just wrong in this country. Like, just blatantly wrong. And as a poet, I, you know, your whole job is to create
this thing that can wake people up and like, get people emotionally aware
and remember that we're human beings and what we're seeing, even as we're used to gun violence
or used to sexual assaults on campus or used to people in poverty, like it is still wrong
and you still have to have some some emotional connection to it
and you have to be uncomfortable with it. And so, like, you know, for me,
there have been moments and I should say, episodes in my career
that have forced me to address that for myself and hopefully that is a vessel
or a vehicle or a way in which other people, regardless of their race or
background, can feel part of the solution. And that's the beauty of, you know,
I have a book of poetry and people ask me, what's the book about? And I try not to tell them that it's
about a first generation Latino immigrant. It's about you. It's about being an American. This this book is for you. And I think that's the theme of the day
where I'm coming from. It's like, yeah, I represent a small hood
and like the heart of Silicon Valley. But many of the issues that we're
addressing, education, inequality, you know, these are issues
that the entire country is facing. And so it's just using a poem
as an invitation for people
to become part of the conversation when they feel that maybe by zip code
or by race or by gender or whatever, they may not feel like it's
their thing to talk about. Does that make sense? Thank you. Vincent. Thank you. Ferguson. Yes, sir. hello. My name is, Jamal. And I guess my question for you today is,
what would you say is, like, the toughest thing
you face as being mayor? Well, I'm still in it, so I talk to me, like, eight months
when I finish it, but, well, I mean. I think a lot of it is just time
management. You know, there's so many things
that I want to support. There's so many things that I want to do. Like, for example, you know,
I was just thinking about it this morning. We had one of the first, we had we had a, one of the first Afrocentric colleges
in the country called Nairobi College. And I want to work to make it
a historical landmark in this part two. And I think part of
the hardest part is like, as I want to endeavor to do this part,
like think about my legacy as someone who wants to bring solidarity
and bring people together. Also recognizing that kind of
to the previous brother's question,
the gentleman with the with the ANC man. Yeah. You're asking
somebody was asking about the deficit. Right. And it was. And at the end of the day it's like
I got to learn how to say no to people, to even and things that I care about,
even in things like, you know, again,
going back to African-American community, you know, there's a woman who said that every city council and our her comment
is, we're still here and you can't forget about us,
and we're the reason this city was built. And I to
I a tremendous extent, agree with her. And I also think that part of our job as the city's gentrifying
is preserving that history and letting people know
who come into this community that you should learn
about East part of the struggle that we did, the fact
that we're unincorporated, that we had a landfill for 30 years,
that the county put in our city. Right,
because we don't have political power. And so reminding them who who are the groups that took the lion's
share of activism to make a difference? I think the hardest part of my job
is to like letting people know that I'm not just here for one group
or another group, I'm here for the city. You know, people. When I got elected, it was one of the first times
that we became majority Latino Council. And I think a lot of people
in the community, just by virtue of me
being Latino, had a sense that maybe I was going to advocate for them,
maybe I wasn't going to be their leader. And I think it's my job as a young person
to say, as someone who grew up in these parts of,
I'm for everybody who grew up in the soil, and I'm going to govern and advocate
in a way that shows that not in a kumbaya our way, because we have problems,
there's tensions. But to to lead by example and to put in place
those policies or ideas that are going to demonstrate
that we all are part of this land. So going back to the Tongan
sister city initiative, going back to this historical landmark
for some of our historically black colleges or some of our
historically black in institutions that helped build the city,
I think that's tremendously important. Even as our community
becomes more brown or more, I don't know, whatever Facebook and tech
is going to kind of impinge on us. But I think it's about showing people
that I'm really I'm about bringing balance to the community
and about just and I'm honestly, I'm just trying to break
this whole stereotype of an outsider, an insider of Gentrifiers
and Native resident. It's like, what's a native?
What's a native resident? Unless you're alone? If you're not native, respectfully,
respectfully, like I oh, my family's been in this 1952 great and homeboy
guy here last week or ten years ago. Does that mean your voice is somehow
more important? That's not how this works. Like we don't take it
like we don't take percentages of votes where your votes 80%
because you grew up here along with it. Now we have to be we have to be brave
enough to actually live in the world. We want to see. And it's hard. So I'm trying to just exemplify that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Well,
while we transition to the next question, I also want to go back to what you said
previously about how you use poetry in the mix of your work
with public service, with education. And I'm curious to hear about
how you use it as a form of resiliency, because at least as a researcher,
previously researcher, the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley,
we learned a lot about resiliency training. You know, we're seeing all of these traumatic events unfold right in
front of us, that it can take a toll on us when we're consuming
so much media of these events. So do you feel like you've ever used
poetry to practice resiliency in your work, and make sure
that you're taking care of your well-being while seeing all of these crazy issues
right in front of you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I need poetry the same way
a flower needs water, you know? And I think that, you know, I'm
just speaking as a as a young Latino man, you know,
just if I can if I may for a moment. I think so much of our survival as a community
has been to not lean in on the hurt because East Porto has been
just a series of griefs, public griefs, private griefs,
losing loved ones, losing homes. I think many of our residents are haunted by some of the things they've experienced. So we're a young city, and because have been such
a quick succession of devastating things that happened,
I mean, like April 27th in my calendar, I'm going to be starting that day
doing a training. And then at 4:00, I'm
going to be presenting a proclamation to a mother who lost her son
because he had a heart attack. and he's a college student,
and he wasn't gunned down by gun violence. So it's a different reason. But nevertheless, she lost her baby. And then I'll be going to a person's
birthday party. And then. So it's like. I'll give you another one. Juneteenth 2022. So this is like late June. There were two homicides that happened
in the span of two, three weeks. One was a 34 year
old black man named Ralph Fields, who was gunned down at 6 p.m. at a park in broad daylight. And the video went viral of young girls,
like in the shaky cell phone screaming, mom! Like,
there's these gunshots, right? This is this is 2022. Three weeks later, a young 15 year
old kid gets shot and killed in front of his mom's house
in the apartment. I donate a pretty good
I donate some money for the for the, go fund me right. And that same day. And so then the family invited me to kind
of like a, like, potluck to commemorate his, you know, celebrate his life
or whatever life a 15 year old can have. And that day was a Juneteenth. So we have this place
called the Four Seasons. It's like the area
that's like the most that's developed. And we developed it
and we knocked down a lot of our black and brown businesses because we needed
the money as a city. Right. And so I walk from the
the Four Seasons Juneteenth celebration, literally like five minute
walk to the back of those hotel hotel where the west side, at the west
side is a part of the city. The city is divided by one on one freeway,
the U.S. one and one. That's
where most of our housing is. So, multifamily housing. So it's very dense, very packed. And in this narrow courtyard, there's an there's like an altar of all these candles
and these women lighting it up, and there's these guys burning donuts
and these girls drinking shots about candles and these this couple that's fighting for some because it's baby
mama, like, all this chaos, right? And here I am. And here's the mother kind of,
you know, looking sullen. And the senator comes in. He's my boss. He's paying his respects. He doesn't speak Spanish. She doesn't speak English. So I decide to translate for him. So she translates to him in life time,
how her son got shot and killed, play by play. And I'm hearing this for the first time,
and so I'm translating it, even if it even as that
grief is passing through me. Is that make sense? So it's like I'm hearing how
he's getting killed for the first time, telling my boss,
and then I'm telling them, and then I'm telling her
what she's saying about his condolences. And I'm over here like in the edges. I just presented a presentation
celebrating the liberation of black people from slavery
200 years ago. Does that make sense? Like like, you know, how do I use poetry? Like poetry forces me to slow down, like poetry for me to say like, yo,
like this stuff is true. Like, like this stuff hurts. Like, this stuff is painful. Like, this stuff is devastating. And it's still it still hits me like
I still think about it and I, I don't I, I start to really get emotional about it
because, like, that's why we're here, you know? I mean, so yeah, poetry allows me to like, stay rooted, you know, and it's not all
it's not all bad stuff. Like I want to emphasize that like it's not all grief,
but you can't heal what you don't reveal. You know, like that's it. And for me, so much of my life has been
just refusing to slow down. And so poetry just is that outlet. It's that pressure valve to just exhale. A lot of those things
that have been pent up that I've conveniently buried for a lot
of my life, and so much of my success. I'll be very blunt with you
previous to this moment, I'm 30. I just turned 30. Right? So much of my 20s has been about
like running, running, running and bearing what bothers me. And that's just not a sustainable model. And I invite you all
to think about with me how you can acknowledge devastating things
that happened in your life and also move forward and let those things inform you and invite people
to have that conversation. But also don't be afraid to address
how it's hurting you. I think it's just the vulnerability thing
and leading. Having leadership
that's able to be vulnerable, I think is so important to we're not just
strong men in suits are strong women in suits like we're feeling these things
just as anyone else is. And so I think poetry at the at bottom
allows me to be authentic and be genuine. I cannot be anyone else but who I am, and the things that have made me
for better and for worse. And so it's those moments that I turn to,
to humble me, even as I'm experiencing all these amazing
things or bad things in my life. I'm like,
this is where we started as a community. And this is where we still are, and
there's still tremendous work to be done. And I'm part of that. So I just wanted to. So first of all, like,
I love your stories. Incredible story. inspirational. So thanks for coming
and talking and sharing about that. I had a question. You kind of touched on this a little bit,
just from, like a lot of us coming from communities that are, like,
distrustful of, like government politicians and,
and then now you like being a major mayor, like you're the man, you know,
you're part of the establishment. So I'm just wondering, like, do you feel
like that's a conflict, first of all? And then like, just how do you keep
trust in the community, like when you have to make those hard decisions, say,
no, some people get the money and people just right, like,
how do you handle that? Yeah, I think that's like,
I appreciate your question. And it's true. Like, you know, my girlfriend,
I have a mutual buddy of mine right. And I met this brother at Stanford,
and he's he's a good dude. But, you know,
this is the the zoom world, mind you. And we're both Latino
and we're both in the space. And he knew I was a council member,
and he's like, I'm not going to lie, bro. When I first met you, I thought you were
just some sleazy politician. I'm like, how? Like, I'm on zoom.
Like I'm in class. Like how to what part of me looks
sleazy or politician? But you're right, like I was, I was joking
around with the group backstage that like being being an elected official
is kind of like dating somebody who's been in a series of really,
really, really bad relationships. And so there's all this baggage
where it's like, I don't trust you. You guys always say this. I'm like,
who's the guy's like, who else is here? Like who? Who are these people? You know, and but but you're right. Like, we come from communities
that are distrustful of government, that don't trust their politicians. And why should they? I like to keep it up for being like
there are things, by the way, that are saying for being.
And I just make that up. Give it a been. There's no one. I'll say this. All right. Maybe my girls right. It's not
I don't know where I heard it from, but to keep it of being like
keep it a hundred. Like, yeah, people have every reason
to be distrust our government. I mean, I got elected during Covid, okay, that's
the other thing I have to remind myself. Okay. So much.
I got elected in December of 2020. Right. So the government was just distributing
vaccines. And in the middle of a pandemic,
I had no political experience. I got to figure out how to get lifesaving
vaccinations to my community. In a community
that doesn't trust government, sometimes. Right. So this, this the history of vaccinations
towards African Americans, the risky institute,
Latinos in terms of like there's all these WhatsApp,
there is so much misinformation. And so I got my first taste
of that question. When you know how, how do I handle it? Well, first of all, it's
about having connectors. People
who speak the language of the community, both figuratively and literally. So we had people at work with Stanford doctors doing zoom sessions
debunking all these stereotypes. I mean, I'm telling you, people had videos of like saying,
oh, there's microchips in the vaccines. You know, all the government. I mean, it sounds funny,
but like people believe that or, you know, there's issues of heart
pressures or all that stuff. And then most recently, gentrification. I remember like when I got elected,
like some people said, oh, he's in the pocket of developer.
So he's this, he's that. People are going to put all these narratives about you, and you're
not going to be able to shake them off. Maybe, perhaps. But that that's why it makes it so much
more important for you to lead by example and being able to have those conversations
people and saying, hey, like, it's not that I want to gentrify my community,
it's that we have this enormous delta of economic loss
and and reminding people like that a city, not just houses, people,
it should have dynamic parks, it should have an economic center,
it should have roads. And don't we want sidewalks? Don't we want water that is clean. And to do that,
that requires putting in money. So I think it's
I think a lot of it is just about like getting the right people in the room. I think it's also about being brave enough
to keep showing up to the meetings and, and, and and again, just being
the example, I can't stress that enough. Like a lot of this stuff
isn't articulated. It's just you doing the thing and showing people, okay, maybe
we can bring this community together. Maybe we can develop,
but also not lose people. How do we
how do we come up with a solution? Because activists and people
who are going to be in the meetings, it's an ecosystem. It's people's job to advocate
for something, for something specific. That's what makes this system awesome. But it's your job to bring it together. So I think part of the
the thing that I've learned to appreciate is that even when someone's coming at me
edgewise and like shouting at me, it's not personal. It really is. And it's about a systemic failure
of addressing needs and their perception
that you're feeding into that machine even as you know that you're not,
that that's not what you're there. And it's just about being patient
and being loving and meeting people were there at and keep biting at the apple
and getting it right and getting it right, and figuring out what the benefits are. Housing,
where you can like getting it right, but showing up again and again and again. And eventually we do get progress.
We do make change. We do make the sausage,
but we can't get personal. We can't be petty. We can't be divisive.
You have to remember, people are passionate
because they love their community. And we just have different perspectives
about how that goes about. Well, what really stuck with me,
about what you said is that you need to speak
the language of the community, because that's why important,
why representation is so important at all levels of government. You know, we often overlook
local government as critical to the change that we want to see
in our immediate communities, but in reality, being involved in
local government, speaking for yourself, but also the communities
that you represent is so important because you need to be able to speak the language of the communities
to actively work with them. So we're closing in on our time
with Mayor Lopez. A few last words before we wrap up. Thank you so much, everyone,
for your wonderful participation. For those of you watching online, please
check out the Creating Citizen's Web page for more information about student
and educator civics education projects. And before we sign off,
let's please give East Palo Alto Mayor Antonio Lopez
one more big round of applause.
