Each episode is a dynamic blend of interviews, storytelling, and practical takeaways, showcasing the power of multidisciplinary collaboration to address systemic racism and improve health outcomes. From the methodology behind successful team projects to the nuanced process of engaging communities, we illuminate how shared leadership, restorative practices, and intentional planning can create sustainable, impactful change. Whether you’re seeking inspiration, tools, or evidence to amplify your own efforts, this podcast offers a space to learn, reflect, and act.

What to Expect in Each Episode?

• Engaging conversations with health equity leaders and community partners
• Insightful stories that connect personal experiences with broader data and research
• Practical tools and resources to implement promising practices
• Honest reflections on challenges, lessons learned, and the transformative power of shared leadership

StoryJAM Part 1 (recorded live from the 2025 IRL MN Leadership Meeting)

Season 3, Episode 5 | March 12, 2026

Speakers: J. Robin Moon, Speaker 5, Speaker 6, Kwame Owusu Daaku, Bruce Reilly, Speaker 4, Krystal Lee, Speaker 1, Speaker 3, Speaker 7, Speaker 2, Mandy LeBreche

Mandy LeBreche  00:04

This is the promising practices for Health Equity podcast brought to you by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, a national leadership program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Krystal Lee  00:20

Welcome back to promising practices for health equity, a podcast created by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, or IRL, a national program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I’m your host, Crystal Lee,

J. Robin Moon 00:34

and I’m your co host, Jay Robin moon, this is season three, Episode Five, where the river bends.

Krystal Lee  00:41

In this season, we have been exploring our visions of the future, and today, we invite you into a very special gathering, our final annual IRL Minnesota leadership meeting, where our IRL community across the seven cohorts came together to reflect on our journeys and imagine the future through the metaphor of

J. Robin Moon 01:02

our river. Rivers begin at headwaters, gather strength at confluences and wind through gentle meanders and sometimes rush forward in sudden rapids. Sometimes the river bends. We know it continues, but we can’t see what lies ahead in our final IRL convening, we pause together at that end to reflect on our journeys and imagine what comes next.

Krystal Lee  01:30

Each person created their own river story responding to one of three prompts about the future. First, a dreaming prompt, tell us about a time you glimpsed a future that felt just joyful or free. Second, a designing prompt, share a moment when you sensed something meaningful, beginning to take shape through your work. And third, an envisioning prompt recall a memory that reminds you of the future you’re working towards.

J. Robin Moon 02:01

What you’ll hear in this episode and the next are those reverse stories at our story jam. They are extremely personal, reflective and profoundly connected. They are not just about where we’ve been. It is also about where the current is carrying us into the future. I want to make a note here the story jam that we hosted in 2025 the second one after the first one in 2024 is one of our signature dissemination products of this grant program. Unlike every other grant Impact Report, I will air quote that on what the grant money was able to accomplish during that grant period that sit weightily on a bookshelf collecting dust, or they can serve as a nice doorstops. This is an impact report in 3d if you will, on not only what has been accomplished in the past, but what it means to the recipients and the communities now and in the future? After all, shouldn’t any sizable grant program aim for that lasting change into the future?

Krystal Lee  03:14

This is part one of our two part story jam series, which features stories told by our IRL fellows and alumni, which we weave into a collective vision of the future beyond the meaningful significance we’ve mentioned here. It’s just really fun and funny, and you might even shed a tear. Today we will meet where the river bends. Let’s take a listen.

Speaker 1  03:39

And now it’s time for story, jam. All right, thank you, and welcome to story jam.

Speaker 2  03:49

So my name is Antonio Tovar, cohort three from Florida, and I think that something that have resonated through all these these couple days, is the journey that we embrace. It has been a long time like I think that something that also was shared many times is how we grow together as teams. There was a lot of, well, not in all the teams, but in some teams, there was a lot of tension. There was some even broke out on some teams, and also was mentioned, like, I’m a community partner, so we have to be dealing with two academics. So there was always that negotiation in terms of, we were the middle, say, hey, like, this kind of science is good, this other kind of science is also good. We can mix them. It’s okay. So that was something that probably even the program was learning in terms of how they have to deal with these dynamics that we has come. Unity members were in the minority twice, and like also, some of the academics have to learn about how be equal in this relationship, not just equal in terms of the the knowledge, but also in terms of accessing data, in terms of finances, in terms of funds, that was always that, that fight with the academics, that, Oh, the institution, because many times the institutions like we hold the funding for the communities that we have to like, well, we don’t, we don’t have a lot of fun on our organization, so we really need the support to keep moving. So all said that because there is a lot of communalities. There is also the journey. And that’s what I did my car, because there’s there’s a journey we doing field work. You spend a lot of time in the car or in other anyways, how you need to move to one place to another? My story is about one time that the team was driving between one community to another community in Florida, we have a rental car. It was the middle of the night, and one of the pieces of the car start to fall off, so start to make a lot of noise in the in the path. So let’s say what we are going to do, like we need to. We stop. We call the agency. The Agency say, Oh, well, you, either you, we can change you the car. It’s okay, but you need to bring the car here, or you can wait tomorrow morning that we send someone to trade the car. So it was like, what we are going to do? Like, we don’t have any ways to fix this. So I don’t chew gum, but my other co workers were chewing gum. So I say, why don’t we try the gum like we don’t have glue, we don’t have tape, we don’t have anything, but we have gum. I even start chewing gum, and that’s why I put my gum in this other side, because, like, we all put our little pieces of gum in the in the size of the car we we there’s just 3040 miles more to go. So we put the we put the gum in the car, and we dry the rest of the 3040 miles to get to a town where we have our tail so we can wait for the next car the next day. So we improvise and we we we have a commitment, we have a goal. So that’s what many times I inspired to say, we have seen all the kind of challenges we are going to face, all the challenges. So we need to be creative work as a team and keep moving forward. And that’s my story.

Bruce Reilly  08:13

Hello. Bruce Riley with Team New Orleans cohort four, give it up. So I read the prompt dreaming. Tell us a story about a time you glimpsed a future that felt just joyful or free, and something came to mind immediately. And I was like, Nah, there’s got to be more. I racked my brain. I tried to think of more moments, more times that I thought of I saw the future being just joyful or free, but I couldn’t come up with anything else. So I had to settle on on that prompt for my story. And so it was, I’m sitting there in my room, and they called for volunteers, and my cellmate was like, I’m not getting up. I’m not volunteering for these people. I’m not giving them free labor or whatever. It’s nighttime. It’s snowing out. Hell’s No but I thought, wow, I haven’t been outside at night in 11 years. This sounds like an interesting opportunity to try something different, and I didn’t have a door on my cell at the time, but there’s a door at the end of the hall that was locked. So I’d made it all the way down to medium security to minimum security, from medium from Max. So I had various experiences, but I always knew what was going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. I was working on people’s cases. I was doing portrait art, and I’d listen to my music at night. I’d even dance in my cell. I had no idea what lie in the future, and so I took every day to try to prepare for anything little Bruce Lee style, like be able to fight on all sides. I read 1000 books or more, you know, I tried to study everything I could possibly study, because I had no idea. What the future held for me, because I never really had a future before I went to prison. I didn’t have a home to go back to. There was nothing waiting for me outside. Everything was just going to be me trying to figure it out. And I got out there into the snow with my shovel. And I was pretty fit back then, so I was ready to shovel up a storm, give them my free labor, because it was an exchange. I was getting something back, and this wave of emotion was just pulsing through me, and I was like, Holy shit, I’m getting out. I’m gonna get out of this place. And I knew people that were never gonna get out. Some of my best friends were ticketed to die in there. Some are still in there, and I had no idea that I was going to be able to fight to go through college and drop out, but then go to law school and get a law degree. I had no idea that I was ever going to have a kid. I had no idea that anybody might love me enough to hang out with me longer than a conversation. And that is the moment, the transformative moment for all of us to have a moment, you know, to feel the emotion that makes us think that anything is possible, you know, and to not limit ourselves to a set future. You know, and I know people that have had a set timeline for themselves, you know, from birth or from high school or from college or after college, like I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that, and that’s going to happen. And you know, whether it be marriage or kids or professions. And I just always had this sense of wonder, this sense of be ready make the next right choice, and then after that, make the next right choice, make the next right choice, and in that moment, the right choice was to give my free labor to an institution that I hate dearly with every ounce of my soul so that I could have something in exchange I could have a little piece of freedom. Thank you very much.

Kwame Owusu Daaku  12:00

Cohort seven. Yeah. So this never goes how I plan in my head. Where do I begin? So a year ago, when we, you know, had the privilege of having Lewis for the first time and learning about telling stories. I remember Crystal’s sort of one of her opening speeches. She wrote a love letter to IRL, and for the first time, she kept on using the word IRL. And I was like, oh, isn’t that like Gen Z for in real life, you know? And I’m like, why haven’t we ever made that a thing in IRL? And I was just thinking about it a lot more. And I had the privilege to sit by Taylor on the bus back after graduation, and I was sharing my thoughts with her about it that like, yeah, iRL is in real life, and this is real life, like we think that we’re coming in and taking off our masks and putting down our backpacks, but no, this is the vision of what life should be like this space, what we feel here, what we experience here, this is real life, and we’re not like out there, the matrix. And so we’re now coming in to like, experience what life should be like, you know, and you like the prompt is like, who was with you when this happened? You were all with me when this happened, even people from courts before who paved the way. And I just like, it’s amazing, and it’s what the initial thing I wanted to share was how over the pandemic, I learned from a colleague at another institution, like everyone was teaching over zoom so he would play beats, you know, just like as the students were joining the calls, I was like, Oh, that’s really cool. And I started doing the same thing, but then i i also like to sing. I think I just like music, I like to dance, I like to sing, you know. And so I was like, oh, instead of just the beats, I should do a song for them, you know. And the first time I did it, like, my camera was off, like, everything, but the students were wild and crazy. And I was like, This is what learning should be. Like, you know, where, like, we’re really, really excited and like, we can bring all of ourselves to bed. So that’s becoming like a regular thing, where, at the beginning of a course and at the end of a course, I will open up with the song, end of the song. So it was like, I can’t tell you about this experience and not demonstrate it for you, so I’m gonna hopefully this works out, and hopefully there’s no like, crazy feedback. Echo, so yeah, and I usually will take some popular Disney or show tune and then, like, change up some of the words a bit, so hopefully this works out.

Kwame Owusu Daaku  14:56

What I love most about rivers is you can’t step in the same river to. Eyes, the water is always changing, always flowing. And people, I guess, can live like that, but we all must pay a price to be safe. We lose our chance of ever knowing what’s around the river band, waiting just around the river band, please look once more, just around the Riverbend beyond the shore. Our dreams are reality. What do we hope for when we thought our fears won’t end. It’s just around the Riverbend for us, waiting for us. Can you feel it there beyond these trees or right behind these waterfalls? Can you ignore the sound of my bad singing? Don’t be a leader who only manages the realities of this time and never dreams that something might be coming just around the Riverbend, coming just around the Riverbend. Please look once more just around the Riverbend beyond the shore. Our dreams are reality. What do we hope for when we thought our fears won’t end. It’s just around the Riverbend. Just around the riverband. Will you stay your well run course steady as the beating drum. Will you keep things ho hum? Is all my singing to no end? Ian, our dreams will not wait for us forever, just around the river.

Speaker 3  17:01

Bear. Hi,

Speaker 4  17:12

I sure did pick the wrong act to follow. So I am Jess Owens, young, a part of cohort 17 DC, and this is a story of both designing and envisioning, dear search committee members. I am excited to submit my application for an Associate Professor position in the School of Community Health and policy at Morgan State University. My name is Jessica Owens Young and I’m currently a tenure track Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Studies at American University. Since joining the AU faculty in 2016 I have taught undergraduate and graduate students completed internally and externally and externally funded research projects and engaged in diverse service activities, from the department to the field. I am a creative scholar, teacher with extensive experience in research, teaching and mentoring on and off campus, a strategic thinker and a collaborative colleague who can support the mission and goals of s chip and MSU. Overall, my backgrounds and philanthropy and public health provide a unique lens to my teaching and scholarship, which I am excited to bring to MSU. You might be thinking that this is the letter that landed me my new role at Morgan State University. This letter was written a year and a half before I hit submit on the application. This letter, which is still in my Google Drive, was a seed that bloomed into where I am now. I sense the change coming in late 2022 and early 2023 I had already submitted my tenure packet at American and was waiting for it to make its way through the process. While I trusted that administrative process, I was also trusting my own emergence as a scholar, educator and as a person. I could see a glimpse of who I was becoming, and my angst turned into amazement. I didn’t know at that time that I was writing my own possibilities. That letter was the beginning of seeing myself in a different space, in a different role, serving a different community. I had forgotten about that letter until I opened a new document in my Google Drive. It was listed as a suggested file. I opened it and heard my past self guiding me into my future. This moment taught me the meaning of writing your future. I didn’t know it at that time, but. It taught me that my words are powerful. Trust the seeds you planted, let the roots ground you in fertile soil, like this letter, that actually wasn’t what I submitted. I wrote a completely other letter, but this letter helped me bloom through the cracks of possibilities. So I wish the same for you. Let your seeds bloom and lift you to the future that you create. Thank you. Good

Speaker 5  20:35

morning, everyone. I chose prompt I’m responding to prompt three I’m telling a story about a future that I am working towards. I went to four high schools in the three countries. I was perpetually new and bad at it, often awkward, seriously unpopular. I don’t know why I was very smart, good looking and incredibly humble.

21:05

Why didn’t people like me? And so I never really belonged. I never felt like I belonged.

21:13

But the fourth High School started something new, and it all started with a smile and a wave

Speaker 5  21:21

the very first time I rode the bus to go to Belize Christian Academy in belmopan, I was nervous before getting on the bus. We’ve all had that idea of getting on the bus and people shifting over to block the seats and wondering, where am I going to sit? Who’s going to accept me? Well, those fairs were silly and short lived, because as soon as I stepped onto the bus down at the back, Patrick chin, big wave, goofy smile. Come sit here. Never seen him before a day in my life. And just like that, all of my suspicions about people not liking me, and people you know talking about me, all the whispers were about me, and all the laughter was at my expense. All of that melted away, and I grew into a community that I loved. I did everything that you would do with your friends in high school. We watched movies together, we did excursions to the river, to the sea, we went camping. We played basketball, volleyball, tennis, but by far my favorite activity was circling. Belmopan is the administrative capital of Belize. And I specify administrative capital because it was not the original capital. The original capital was Belize City, and it’s the financial capital, but it gets hit by hurricanes too often. And so in Bel Ian, they were able to build capital intentionally, and they built something beautiful. Most of the residences are connected by a ring road. And after school, when we were done with ignoring our homework, someone would start up and walk to the nearest friend’s house, and they’d say, Hey, you want a circle? Yeah, of course, that friend would come out, and you’d walk to the next friend’s house, so on and so forth, until you picked up a host of friends, and then you dropped off the first person, and then they dropped off the second person, I’m sorry, and so on and so forth. I loved it. I loved it so much after Belize, I missed circling about 10 years ago, Crystal and I adopted Sydney, a Lassa, Apso, Shih Tzu Queen mix, she demands long walks at first, the long walks were difficult for me. I wasn’t in the best of shape. My back would hurt all that kind of stuff. But, you know, we circled because Sydney, type a crystal has a Notes app on her phone that helped turn our nods and waves into conversations, because she had descriptors of the doggos and the doggo parents, and that’s how we became friends with people in our neighborhood. It’s not quite the same as I was in as when I was in high school, but now our friends stop by our front yard, and it feels like my circle is completing and now, as you know, part of a family on the on the block in our neighborhood that is seen as popular in the neighborhood, everybody knows is every everyone has said, some has something nice to say about us. Now it’s my turn to give the big wave and the goofy smile when I see someone new, or I see a new dog that I like and welcome someone new into my circle. Thank you.

Speaker 6  24:52

Hello, David, Craig, Team Indiana, cohort seven. Fight the power, baby. It’s. This is a response to either prop one or three, I’m not sure. Last Saturday, I was back in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church North Indianapolis, where my friend and colleague, Dr Ivan Douglas Hicks, presides, surrounded by light and wood and purple, I was reminded of the first time I was there. I was there to introduce our community based participatory research project on Indiana Medicaid. I was there to feel my way into the community, become a known presence, and introduce our project. I had many feelings, my usual anxiety at being in new spaces, my recognition that I am a white man from the university asking people to participate in research, but I had purpose in being there, and I leaned into the details of our study, probably ad nauseum. Then came the altar call. I had more feelings this time as a lapsed liberal Protestant, happily married into a Jewish family, what would be asked of me? Little did I know what would be asked. We were invited to stand in circles and hold hands with each other and look each other in the eye and say, I love you. I want you to live. I want you to be well. As I heard these words and shared them, I felt welcomed, loved, accepted. I felt entrusted with a history of people struggling to survive, I felt entrusted with the precarity of daily life under white supremacy, and above all, I felt entrusted with joy and care in this community. I believe that everyone in this room in our IRL community wants the same. We yearn to eliminate structural racism so that people can live and be well, and we can only turn these abstract goals into life with love and through love. I have learned so much from all of you here at IRL, especially about relationship and connection, I’ve learned to answer the question, what does it mean to become a known presence? I thought at the time, showing up and being seen and keep coming back was enough to show my commitment, but Kimberly Nicole Smith taught us at our first dc meeting, it’s important to say who you be. I cannot simply arrive to listen and learn. I need to show up and speak my story, own my passion, and share the depth and the risk of my commitment, I have learned to continue to lead with feelings. I’m still anxious, but I always try to be open to the good that will come, and I try to hear the words that Dr Hicks once shared with me, lean into the mystery. I invite us all, as we move forward, to lean into the mystery.

Speaker 1  28:32

Hi everyone. I’m Victor Rubin. It’s been a privilege to be part of the National Advisory Committee for IRL for all 10 years. And so while I haven’t had the depth of experience that you who are fellows, have had, I have seen and walked with that evolution the whole way. So I want to tell you a story about something that occurred to me yesterday when the prompt went out, the time is September 1998 the scene is a riverboat in the Mississippi River. It’s a casino riverboat parked next to East St Louis, Illinois. And the occasion is the fourth annual meeting of the grantees of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Outreach Partnership Center Program. The first time the federal government funded this kind of work or something like it, university community engagement. I was one of the original grantees in 1994 so our work was just wrapping up. I knew, but it wasn’t general knowledge that I was about to become the next national director of the program at HUD in Washington in a few months. My co chair for the meeting was a. A brilliant, wild and crazy planning professor from the University of Illinois at Champaign who had co founded the East St Louis action research project and was doing all kinds of good trouble with grassroots community groups in East St Louis fighting corruption and and inequity in all kinds of issues of housing and transportation and education. So the first night of the meeting, all the grantees and all the feds are assembled on the boat, and we started off by getting up there. And I have no idea what he’s going to say. And what he says is he’s Lenin. I’m Trotsky. Let’s get this revolution started. And two things occur to me right away. One, I didn’t really want to be a federal bureaucrat anyway. And the second is, is the revolution really going to begin in a casino? The headline by the way, in the local paper the next day, paper that was very hostile to progressive groups in East St Louis said federal grantees hold junket on gambling boat. The meeting went off without further incident. We were there because of the work I was doing in Oakland, California with the University of California, Berkeley. And it was an early example. It had started back in 86 of how to do useful work. But that was it. The motto might have been, get shit done. Work with high capacity. Community based organizations. Be transactional. Find a need and fill it. Keep your mouth shut when you whenever you can, you’re there to make the university’s reputation rehabilitated by practice, not by what you talk about, not by what degrees are after your name, not by what faculty member you bring to bear. But can you do something useful? And we did. I learned how to use graduate students effectively. I used learned how to manipulate faculty members so they could even be useful. I learned how to raise money from foundations with one set of goals and Feds with another set of goals. I learned how to negotiate between the local power structure and the community based organizations, but it was all transactional. It was all about me and the faculty member who was the director of it all, who was a major player in the city, and a number of other of us getting stuff done but not paying attention. And Regina knows this history, and it’s so good to reconnect with you. It wasn’t about the things that IRL has come to prize, and that’s why it came to mind yesterday. It wasn’t about the humanity of the endeavor. It wasn’t about the feelings and understanding and growth and evolutionary path of the people who are involved. It wasn’t about the equity in the relationship between the community partners and the university partners. It wasn’t about rethinking the very business of research from the ground up so that you could create something more consistent with the values that were behind the work. It was just about getting shit done. And in the 20 years or so since then, I’ve had any number of opportunities to both participate and evaluate and fund and write about this world that we’re all in and that you’re in for life, whether you realize it or not, of the relationship between universities and communities, and there has been nothing like IRL, anywhere at any time that I’ve ever seen and the values that this program and you all place on the relationship side of things, on the way in which we think feel and work, is going to be a legacy that far exceeds any of the technical work that we all do. So that’s what came to mind. And as the NAC held its final meeting yesterday and we talked about how the message is going to go forward, that’s part of the message. I know I’m moving forward. Thank you.

Speaker 7  34:42

Applause. Hello, everyone. Robert Salcedo, Cohort Two, Team San Antonio. Shout out to all the queers. I did not feel this love in Cohort Two, so I’m just like, whoo. Yes. Yeah, so this kind of goes in line with the first prompt, but it’s a letter of gratitude to IRL, to my beloved IRL family. I came into this program hoping to gain knowledge tools and maybe a line or two to add to my resume. What I walked away with was so much more, and yes, that includes a few gray hairs. I gained relationships that will last a lifetime. Sorry. I also learned the quiet art of knowing exactly who to avoid in the buffet line. Y’all do it, don’t I leaned into issues of inequity, not just as an abstract problem, but as a real opportunity to seek solutions, and being part of the EDI task force for the last eight years has added to my purpose in this continue to work as a queer, brown person. I didn’t always feel a sense of belonging in every space that we were in, but it was a strong black women like Miss Bobby zinzi, Michelle Regina, Dawn and Bania, who wrapped their arms in love around me, they were the ones who created space for me just to be me, from late night bonfires with drinks in hand to convenings across the country to thoughtful gifts and well wishes when I got married, they were there. They showed up when my heart was broken, with a huge spray of flowers at my brother’s funeral. They showed up when my health was in question, with calls from zinzi When I was diagnosed with cancer, with Miss Bobby praying over me on the phone sorry, and with random texts filled with scripture, prayer and love, and I’m not religious, but they were there. Yes, IRL gave me research models, dissemination strategies and the skills to pin an academic article, but more importantly, it reminded me that it’s okay to open my mind, my heart and my soul to strangers who, in time, became family. Together, we shared a common goal, making the world a better place. And while the work isn’t finished, I carry forward everything I learned here, knowledge, courage, resilience and love, and in every future space I step into to pursue the feeling of just joy and a spirit of being free. So thank you, IRL, for the gray hairs, the tools, the relationships, the memories, and most of all, for changing me in ways no syllabus or curriculum could have ever prepared me for with love. Robert, you Ian,

Krystal Lee  37:49

thank you for listening and imagining with us. If this episode resonated with you, I have two things to ask of you. First, share this episode on social media with friends, family or anyone who you think will enjoy the podcast. If you feel like going above and beyond, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or give us five stars on Spotify. This helps us reach other listeners who are working towards health equity. Learn more about the fellows and the projects behind these stories by visiting our website, ir leaders.org, we also encourage you to watch the full story jam video series on our YouTube channel. The link will be in the show notes A special thank you to Chris Whitman for bringing our collective vision to life. Watching Chris work in real time was a remarkable experience. She listened so intently, capturing the essence of each story and synthesizing the diverse narratives into a single cohesive visual. She made the intangible tangible, and in doing so, created an anchor point for our continued work, a reminder of what is possible to see the visual representation of our stories created by Chris Whitman of Whitman studios, check out our show notes. Thanks again for being with us on this journey where every step we take together brings us closer to a healthier, more just world, until next time take care.

Mandy LeBreche  39:16

Promising practices for health equity is produced by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, a national leadership program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A special thanks to our guests, our production team at Studio Americana, and to you, our listeners, for being a part of this important conversation. You Ian.

StoryJAM Part 2 (recorded live from the 2025 IRL MN Leadership Meeting)

Season 3, Episode 6 | March 12, 2026

Speakers: J. Robin Moon, Krystal Lee, Speaker 4, Luis Ortega, Speaker 7, Mandy LeBreche, Speaker 5, Speaker 2, Speaker 6, Speaker 3, Speaker 1, Speaker 8

Mandy LeBreche  00:04

This is the promising practices for Health Equity podcast brought to you by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, a national leadership program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Krystal Lee  00:20

Welcome back to promising practices for health equity. I’m your host, Crystal Lee,

J. Robin Moon 00:25

and I’m Jay Robin moon. If you listened to our last episode, you met us at the bend in the river where our IRL community paused to reflect and imagine the future through the metaphor of a river. Today, we present to you the part two of our story jam series where the river bends, where participants were offered up to five minutes to share their visions in any form, a story, a poem, a movement, a reflection, all of which you will see rooted In future possibilities. The prompts remained the same, and stories were offered to the whole community to be witnessed, braided together and felt as one collective current.

Krystal Lee  01:11

And this is where something magical happened. As one of our team members reflected, we were trying to create something using the pieces to create something bigger, a larger whole. Individual stories about social justice, food sovereignty, Healing Justice, community building, were placed in proximity to each other, and suddenly we could see the world. They were building together while the community spoke. Artist Chris Whitman sketched in real time, creating a shared visual map, a collective vision board of the future being dreamed in that room.

J. Robin Moon 01:46

Normally, a 10 Year program produces a culminating Impact Report, a doorstep of a document rarely does it talk about transformative capacity building at the individual and community level that must accompany any true change or the reimagined future as impact these stories. The story jam is our impact report.

Krystal Lee  02:10

What you’ll hear in these stories is exactly that evidence of a profound capacity to envision and narrate a more just world, that ability to reimagine the future is the impact, and it’s an impact that’s accessible, emotional and alive. So listen not just to the stories, but to the world they are building together. This is part two of our story. Jam.

Speaker 1  02:39

Hey, y’all shout out to our folks joining online. I see some coho two folks there. Glad you all are here. My mom had me when she was about 22 years old. She was married, but my biological father wasn’t really available for parenthood, so she decided that I should live with my grandmother, her mom so my mother could get herself together. My grandmother lived in Camden, New Jersey, and those are my first memories of my childhood. Shout out, Camden. We spent a lot of time in church, and grandma made big Sunday dinners of chicken and string beans and cat eye biscuits. And it was wonderful. One day she told me, You’re going to have a new father and your mother, and you know, her fiance are coming here, and they’re going to get married here. So I was super excited. In my mind, we were going to become fast friends. He was going to absolutely love me, and it would be wonderful. So on the day of their arrival, you know, we’re already we’ve got on our Sunday best, and they come in the door, and everybody’s greeting them with hugs and kisses, and it’s beautiful. And I’m standing there in a state of shock. I was so disappointed. I was confused. I looked at him with extreme suspicion. I did not like him, but my grandmother was also a disciplinarian, and I knew not to be disrespectful, so I made small talk, and I smiled and all those things, until later on, somebody asked, Shelly, what do you think about your new dad? And I had so much anxiety inside and so much anger and confusion that I was just waiting for somebody to ask me. And I said, I can’t believe she’s going to marry that white man. My aunt laughed. He’s not white. He is white. And I knew at that age. I was about five, that white people were the enemy because a white man had killed reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, and that was my first crush, and I knew that they couldn’t be trusted. I was not appeased, until my soon to be father told me himself, I am not white girl, Ian. He was Franklin’s complexion. He was just a light skinned black guy, and I believed him, and we did. Develop a remarkable friendship and relationship. And this could be a long story about trust and the other and all of that, but that’s not what this story is about. This story is about my dad, Kenneth Irvin Jordan, who taught me how to make my bed with hospital corners and who introduced me to broccoli and mushrooms, which is the most fascinating food on the planet. We had long conversations. He’s a Sagittarius. He also was not big on the touchy feely and granola stuff, but he had enough patience to endure a precocious five year old little girl who had a whole lot of questions. One day, still in those early years, I was in a conversation with him, and I was just overcome with emotion, and I said, Will you marry me? Will you marry me? He said, No, I’m already married to your mother. And while I can appreciate his candidness, you know, at this age, my therapist, we had to do a lot of work and unpacking that because she’s like, that really was not a good response, right? But what I was really asking was, will you be here? Will you not abandon me? Will you not leave me? Will you teach me things? Will you protect me? Will you love me? Will you tell me that I’m beautiful and I’m worthy and special, and will we play together and talk together? Will you be as honorable as Dr King and as funny as James as Jerry Lewis, and he was not quite as funny as Jerry Lewis, but he turned out to be really wonderful. He taught me how to ride a bike. He wouldn’t let me hang out with the fast girls in the neighborhood, but I snuck and did it anyway. He made me fall in love with learning in the Smithsonian Museum where he worked, we took long walks to the safe way and people’s drugstore, which is now CVS, and he calls me Shelly too. My dad turned 75 years old a few years ago, and I reflected on our life together. He was only 20 years old when he married my mom. He was a traumatized Vietnam vet who decided to step up and become a dad to a little black girl who really, really needed one. And so to all the dads, the granddads, the uncles, the Pops and all of you who Father, thank you.

Speaker 2  07:11

Your work is so important. We love you. We need you. We value you. Thanks. You.

Speaker 3  07:24

I’m going to read from our panoply until my time runs out. Somebody say, Fight on, fight on. There’s pages 12 and 13. It talks about our friend of the court brief. It’s in a US Court of Appeals case right now, research that David Craig and I did in 2019 that’s going up to the Supreme Court one way or the other. Somebody say fight on by all means available, the battle for Medicaid is part of a modern day civil war not being fought with muskets, but with policy clashing with poverty and a war started by design of the greedy 1% of the powerful. We knew that to defend Medicaid, we had to bring our voices and our research into the heart of the legal process. That opportunity came in 2025 when we joined an amicus cure ie brief in the case rose versus Kennedy, currently being heard the United States appeals court in the District of Columbia, an amused brief allows those who are not direct parties to a case to offer insights that may inform the court’s decision. In this moment, silence was not an option. We were called to be friends of the people. Our journey toward that brief began with our fifth faith community consultation, a coordinated effort to uplift the voices of those most impacted by Medicaid changes, neither policy enacted in ignorance or with deliberate disregard for the facts can be deadly. Our contention was that new policy and law surrounding Medicaid in 2025 are not just unjust, but they are presented and enacted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. They lack data support, ignore the community, have intended consequences, and they are not just harmful, but they are, in fact, lethal. In 2019 a health equity study, health equity urban congregations and hip served as a foundational source document for. For this brief, our current Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded study expands on that work, incorporating insights from residents, professionals and advocates across the cities. In our study in Indiana, the Community Leadership Board guided every phase, from research question design to community education and findings dissemination, because our research is both institutional review board approved and rooted in community valued research, its inclusion in this friend of the court brief represents a double affirmation that our work is both academically sound and morally imperative. Being named amakai is not simply an academic gesture. It is an act of scholar activism. We stand as friend of the court, offering advice from the authentic voice of the people asserting the moral urgency of equitable health policy, our participation is not a legal formality. It is a call for consciousness provided by the respected and Clarion instruction of the community. The phrase right on rose from the front lines of the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s it was more than a slogan. It was a spiritual affirmation, a rhythmic nod of shared struggle and shared resistance spoken by Freedom Fighters, mothers, preachers, teachers, artists and youth on the front lines of protest and possibility, it marks a moment of recognition that dignity had not been stripped, that courage still bloomed and that hope was not lost. It echoed across pulpits and street corners. It blared from radios. It acknowledged humanity and even served as a final blessing shared by friends. Right on was a spoken embrace, a cultural drumbeat affirming worth agency and Divine Presence amid socio political storms, personal vulnerability and collective strife. It was language woven from resistance, pride and transcendent black agapeism and genuine joy. In the midst of it all, it was a short hymn of identity, a collective determination. I’ll keep your attention today. We say fight on. Everybody. Say fight on. Fight on, not in place of right on, but as its descendant, this new charge emerges from the same ancestral well shaped by the terrain of our time we speak it in the face of legislative callousness, Economic abandonment and medical neglect, where the earlier call affirmed our presence. This call ignites our purpose. It declares that despite the apparent greed and evil driven wickedness we witness and endure, Our response must be real and righteous resistance. This modern call from the passion and power of the old Freedom song, from the wisdom of our elders, from the blood memory of ancestors and from the fierce moral urgency of our time, is a cry. It is a cry drawn from the marrow of the movement forged in fire and carried forward in profound faith to those original dreamers who coined right on in the face of dogs and hoses, who dared to believe that black lives mattered before hashtags came and went, we seek to honor you. Your affirmation fuels our resolve. Your language has become our liturgy. Your courage strengthens our stance, bolstering our commitment and courage to faithfully Fight on, right on, all,

Speaker 4  14:49

right, everyone. So some of you may know that cohort five. Where are we? No, no one left. Okay, I’ll compliment all of us. Ian. All right, cohort five. I want to begin by thanking a cohort member, Rafael Perez Figueroa, who reached out to me and said, I want you there. Let’s go and let’s represent our cohort and also share our story. So thank him, and also thank him for always encouraging me to do this right, to be make myself more visible, and to a new friend, John Chase, who also came up to me yesterday, following Luis’s call to say, hug someone or tell them you got this. And because I shared the story that I have in mind that I want to share with you, but I want to begin with what I grew up and where my story is going and where it started. So let’s see if this works. Will this if I put something on, will it capture you? Think I

Speaker 4  15:56

so this is what Luis mentioned yesterday, dancing cumbia. Cumbia is traditional music from South America. My family, my family is from Ecuador, and that’s what I grew up hearing, right? My parents were immigrant factory workers. My father was undocumented for many years, and in the factory he worked on, this is why I have my tissues here too. But I saw the box. But in the factory he worked in, he showed that he only had six years of schooling my mother too, but he was a dedicated worker, and when there was a raid by ice that came and swept him out and deported him, the supervisor that worked in that factory said, you will come back. You hold on, and I will bring you and your family back. And that’s how I’m here, the daughter of immigrant factory workers who dared to dream big, who also resisted, because that music was what I heard almost every week, and I had no idea how my parents said that they worked, four kids, uncle, grandma, living with us, and they still found moments of Joy, sharing in community. My father was an organizer. Um, he founded the first Ecuadorian club. I’m from Patterson, New Jersey, that’s where we grew up. Um, they found moments for joy. They found moments to build community. And so for me, that has, I didn’t realize that that was what founded my connection to public health work, right? It has given me that inspiration to say, I too can do this. They were building a life for themselves and for us beyond what they ever could have imagined. And so the radical thought I have now is I live now in the state of North Carolina and and seeing firsthand and witnessing the devastation that’s happening with ICE raids, is to work with community groups to say we need to actually not I respect that some people are genuinely afraid and genuinely finding space to protect themselves, and I understand that. But I think for those of us who can my radical thought is we need to make ourselves even more visible. We need to highlight the work, the contributions that immigrant people have always and will continue to make in this country. And that is my commitment to do in North Carolina with colleagues and community groups that are doing this. There’s an immigrant Solidarity Network that I’m working with so that we can just lift up all of those voices for the people that can’t and to continue dancing, to continue hoping and to continue resisting. Thank you, everyone.

Speaker 5  18:37

Hello again, everyone. So to refresh anyone that’s online, I’m Joanna Greer McEachin, cohort three, Team WNC, so happy to be here in another way. So my story, I wrote it down because I can talk a lot, but I want to constrain myself so I don’t get the sign too many times. I vividly remember riding with my team members Amina and Jill, on one of our trips far west on research adventures, the windy roads, the surrounding mountains and the towering trees. I shared how I really wanted abipa to have a research arm that would train community members to do our own research that was not extractive, academically and financially, a space that could create local economic opportunities to pay local people instead of outside firms. Seven years later, Amina, our research reimagined lead for a BIPA R has been the driving force for our lunch. Okay, Legacy moment, my daughter’s personality and practice respectively. J essence, quantitative. Jair, qualitative, our researchers on our first officially funded. It two year project with Blue Cross, Blue Shield foundation of North Carolina. The moment Jay essence gave her update on the lit reviews, and it took my breath away as a colleague, not just as a mother, IRL invested in a BIPA, Jay Essen started her Master’s journey at the University of Alabama, but transferred to UNC system and ended up in a class with who Amina and graduated from UNC Gilling school with her MPH ma IRL provided the seed Amina helped to toil and water the soil. There are still storms of organizational funding deficits, but a rainbow arches over my personal flowers that are blooming in the research reimagined garden that give me hope for the legacy of next

Speaker 6  21:02

you. Right, I’m going to try to repeat this. Mike, so So as Michelle mentioned, I’m a father, and shout out to all the fathers in the house. Can you hear me? All right, sorry. I’m so focused on the music. So my children of a 17 year old and a nine year old, and they would be super embarrassed and probably run out the room for what I’m about to do, but they thank you. They know that I do something in the house called vocalese, which is basically putting lyrics to jazz songs right. A lot of times they’re with their names in it. So I have all these songs right, but what they don’t know is that some of the songs are kind of self deprecating, and my prophets around envisioning, and that is envisioning, and Kwame had talked about mask, and ironically, that was what mine is based off of actually have a playlist called mask, and This motivated me to talk about how there have been two influential groups that have helped me take off my mask. But part of what I want to do is really just share my journey as I get through this. All right, claiming I’m mediocre, and this is Bud Powell’s mediocre, claiming I’m mediocre, claiming I’m mediocre, claiming I’m mediocre, but I don’t want to be mediocre. No more. All right, so part of this next miles Davis’s mask, and part of what my experience has been is the cacophony of different sounds, having to put a mask on, having to take a mask off, putting it on, taking it off, taking it off, putting it on, taking it off, that cacophony was so debilitating because I couldn’t be who I wanted to be. But then I learned, as Miles Davis captures it here, whoops, I learned how to have a groove with the mask, how to walk with the mask, how to have soul with the mask, even though I wasn’t really quite being who I knew I would be. And then as Scarface and Ghostface killer taught me, there were also mass superstars, right? People that I knew, that were in the work and in the effort, that also knew how to rock it with mask on, how to swing with flavor, with mask on. But when I’m empowered by Tyler, The Creator is that he taught us how to take our mask off. And I’m going to go a little bit faster, because I want to do a little censoring on some words. Real quick. Me take my mask off as I sat in a black and brown gun violence prevention collective mentoring Workshop led by very young shiny bugs give it up for shiny y’all, I was reminded I could actually take my mask off, and IRL and the Black and Brown gun violence prevention collective both intersected in my life, in 2021 and it was then that I realized that I wasn’t an imposter. I felt that my 20 years of experience in the field, that now it actually did matter, that I mattered. It was in fact, the conditions that the space and my peers helped me understand to take my mask off, got that sensor by not buying into the false narratives by walking a certain path eye to eye to taught me. That there is a community. IRL, you are my community. Give it up for yourselves. And Shawna, you representing the collective here, please. Thank you. You are my community. You helped me take my mask off. It taught me that the system was designed to make me feel this way, and that I hope we all are able to take our mask off. Thank you very much.

Speaker 7  25:30

All right, thank you. I want to thank you all for empowering me to share my story and forgive me, because it was a very last minute decision. Ian, am an author, I’m a coach, I’m a researcher, and above all, I’m a servant leader. I didn’t get there alone. In July, my dad turned 90. He was my love and my light, and still is. While he was in the Marine Corps, he was faced with a circumstance. He was trying to leave to go on weekend liberty, and there was a line of black men who were saying, Help us. Please help us in the mess hall. They lost some money, and so they have said we can’t go on weekend Liberty until it’s found. Dad thought that was pretty unfair. He was a major, had a little bit of power. Turns out, he had a mentor as a commandant, who basically said, not only figure this out, but we need you to figure some some other stuff out. What it ended up being was that he created the first human relations commission for the Marine Corps and investigated sexual and racial discrimination and harassment. The program was later adopted by the entire United States Armed Forces. This was a precursor to EEO, which was a precursor to Dei. As I grew up watching that example, and then taking over the East oak Ian Youth Development Center, I began to create a culture of character based leadership that was both youth led and mentoring focused. You know, swapping baby carriages for backpacks and education for everyone. I was a servant leader again over the years, we had some research opportunities. I gave them to the kids. Our eight to 12 year olds became authors and researchers, but I never had an opportunity to do the work myself until IRL This is a space for everyone to find a place to be the best version of themselves, not for themselves, but on behalf of the world, not just The United States. I got a call one day, and I was being interviewed to receive a presidential service award from President Biden. And I said, you know, this is a wonderful compliment, but I know someone that’s more deserving my dad. They invited me to share the information, and I did. Turns out, they decided to give us both the Presidential Award. Thank you. My point is, is that as a servant leader, and granted, it was part of my DNA, and my mother was no joke, too, but the story is about Dad. I made friends inside IRL, first in Cohort Two, and now amongst many of you all my life continues to change and evolve. Where am I going? I just recently wrote a best seller called unleashed potential, which focuses on the character and mentoring culture that we had in place at the OIDC, one of my own kids worked for President, Biden as a director of community engagement, a 35 year old. And what I want you all to understand is that whatever dream you dream can happen because this little girl who just wanted to work hard to give my app promise kids a chance to live a life they never imagined it can come true. So thank you very much.

Mandy LeBreche  29:38

Oh, I’m so nervous. Okay, I’m doing a song, and I’m not a singer or a dancer. I’m not a singer like Sandra or Kwame or mapuana or all the rest of you that have really nice voices. Any rent fans season’s a love. Up in here. I like that. Okay, well, I adapted the lyrics to seasons of love for IRL, so maybe just like pay attention to the words and not the acoustics of my voice, if that’s a thing. All right. 5,256,000

Speaker 8  30:23

minutes. 5,256,000 moments, so dear. 5,256,000 minutes. Do you get it? How do you measure 10 years of IRL in research, in check, Ins and emails and more, emails, collaboration agreements, thanks, Kathleen in walk up songs and swag. 5,256,000 minutes. How do you measure 10 years of IRL, my request in webinars, in meetings and leadership changes and more leadership changes in stipends, no cost, extensions and papers in our beds. 5,256,000 minutes. How do you measure 10 years of IRL? How about health equity? That’s kind of good. How about restorative justice? How about re imagining? Measure and love. A Decade of building our Be Love and community, a decade of building our beloved community. 5,000,250 5,256,000 minutes. 5,256,000 stories to share. Thanks, Louise, 5,256,000 racist systems to dismantle. How do you measure the life of a fellow in IRL in truth that we’ve learned or in moments we’ve cried, in the bridges we built or the dreams we’ve revived. It’s time now to sing out. Though the program has to end, let’s celebrate remember a decade of 300 new friends. Remember the

32:48

love you can all join in. Remember the love. Remember the love. Measure and love. Seasons of love. Love you. IRL, oh. Cut

33:22

off. Oh, thank you.

Luis Ortega  33:37

One more round of applause for everyone that joined us on stage,

Luis Ortega  33:48

and my wholehearted gratitude, because I know there are many in this room who are not here. There are also many in this room who I know played a role in giving you that encouragement that brought you to this stage. Thank you to everyone in the space, for holding, for witnessing. It is not lost on me that my poetic provocation to open up this story, Ian meditated on the question of undocumented time, and we close with a song about what it means to measure time.

Luis Ortega  34:29

Poetry is everywhere. So to close, I want to invoke the concept of Ian lakesh. Imagine concept it means you are my other me. And when I say Ian lakesh, I will ask you to say you are my other me. So thank you to everyone that came up here to tell us about their journey in lakesh. Thank you to. Everyone that came up here to share with us their stories about what it means to bloom in LA cache. Thank you to everyone that came up here to sing and to share with us what it means to be at that place where the river bends in LA cache. Thank you to everyone that came up here to dance, to share their music, to remind us that in these times, that is perhaps one of the most radical things that we can do, to join and move together in rhythm in lakesh, thank you to Cohort One, to cohort 23456, and seven, seven generations in lakesh, thank you for making yourself visible and naming how difficult it is at times to feel invisible. Thank you for showing up in lakesh, thank you for naming your identities, your indigeneity, your queerness, your reality, your blackness, your beauty. Thank you for speaking those words that we are being told they are banned. No, they are not. We exist in lakesh, thank you for giving boys to sisters, to siblings, to our children, to our ancestors, to our fathers, to our mothers in lakesh, thank you for your stories about loss and grief in lakesh, thank you for your amicus brief in lakesh, thank you for the reminder that we are here to fight On in lakesh, thank you for last minute decisions to come up on stage to share your story, your voice. Thank you for noticing that even though that story jam was already filled, you found a crack and said, No, my name will go in there. Ian lakesh, and thank you to all the beautiful people that make this possible. Thank you to everyone that made this gathering possible. Thank you to the facilitators. Thank you to my dear friend, Cody, that I will now be inviting to come up on stage. One of the first things that happened to me at this gathering, I was having a moment to connect with Robin, and Cody just came up to me and we hugged, and I’ve been feeling that hug the whole time. So thank you for holding me. Thank you for holding each other in LA cash.

Krystal Lee  37:34

Thank you for listening and imagining with us. If this episode resonated with you, I have two things to ask of you first share this episode on social media with friends, family or anyone who you think will enjoy the podcast. If you feel like going above and beyond, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or give us five stars on Spotify. This helps us reach other listeners who are working towards health equity. Learn more about the fellows and the projects behind these stories by visiting our website, iar leaders.org, we also encourage you to watch the full story jam video series on our YouTube channel. The link will be in the show notes, a special thank you to Chris Whitman for bringing our collective vision to life. Watching Chris work in real time was a remarkable experience. She listened so intently, capturing the essence of each story and synthesizing the diverse narratives into a single cohesive visual, she made the intangible tangible, and in doing so, created an anchor point for our continued work, a reminder of what is possible to see the visual representation of our stories created by Chris Whitman of Whitman studios. Check out our show notes. Thanks again for being with us on this journey where every step we take together brings us closer to a healthier, more just world, until next time take care,

Mandy LeBreche  39:01

promising practices for health equity is produced by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, a national leadership program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A special thanks to our guests, our production team at Studio Americana, and to you, our listeners, for being a part of this important conversation.

StoryJAM Bonus Episode – Luis Ortega’s Story: Undocumented Time (recorded live from the 2025 IRL MN Leadership Meeting)

Season 3, Episode 7 | March 12, 2026

Speakers: Mandy LeBreche, Krystal Lee, Luis Ortega

Mandy LeBreche  00:04

This is the promising practices for Health Equity podcast brought to you by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, a national leadership program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Krystal Lee  00:19

Welcome back to promising practices for health equity, a podcast created by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, affectionately known as IRL, a national program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I’m your host. Crystal Lee. Our last two episodes featured our story jam, where we shared the stories that were told by several of our IRL fellows and alumni at the final IRL Minnesota leadership meeting in 2025 the story jam was expertly facilitated by our friend and colleague, Luis Ortega, of storytellers for change, and today, we are excited to share a special bonus episode from the event. It’s a live, unfiltered story that is real, raw and offered with courageous vulnerability. Luis tell us about undocumented time community.

Luis Ortega  01:13

Let me begin by setting the stage. A few months ago at our IRL closing gathering in Minneapolis, I had the honor of facilitating and hosting a narrative workshop and story jam, an invitation for members of this community to share their stories, witness each other and practice presencing. It is my belief that presencing, the practice of being fully present while sensing the highest possible future that is trying to emerge requires us to slow down with care, to listen beneath urgency, to notice what is forming before it has language, to hold that possibility, to give it life through story and then to embody it. So to prepare to host our story jam, just as I invited the IRL community to reflect and craft their stories. I, too, began writing. I titled my narrative undocumented time, and I am here today to tell you more about it. Take a deep breath with me. Breathe in. Hold it and breathe out. Since the age of 14, I have lived as an undocumented immigrant in this country, and have so much more. And yet this aspect of my life experience has shaped so much of my life, my art, my facilitation, my community organizing, my research, my family, my friendships, and yes, my writing over the last few years, and especially during the IRL gathering, and again, these last few days, my writing has turned towards an exploration of what it means to undo, to place an on that is the letters U and N before award that is not simply to negate a word, but to loosen its grip. Afraid becomes unafraid. Bound becomes unbound. Timely becomes untimely. The world does not disappear. It opens. And though these pairs may seem opposed, they belong to each other. We cannot understand fear without understanding what it means to release it. We cannot understand structure without understanding what it means to spill beyond it. The same is true for time, identity, freedom, belonging, and so much more. So what does it mean then, to exist between documentation and undocumentation? So what does it do to a person, a neighbor, a family, a community, to be marked as undocumented? What does it mean to undo a person undocumented? I spent so much time, 24 years, three months and five days, to be precise, as of the moment of this recording, trying to make sense of this work, trying to give it meaning, trying to resist it. I’ve done this through poetry, research, essays, scars, workshops, diplomas, conversations, protests, public testimony, letters, tech applications, story circles and more. My undocumentedness is very well documented, and yet presencing in this moment as something else of me this moment is asking me to let go, to let go of this binary documentation and undocumentation, to dream beyond it, to say, I have never been undocumented. There is no such thing as undocumented people. We exist. We are here, we belong. So how do I respond to this moment, to this as to let go, take a deep breath with me. Breathe in. So let us return to presencing. When I speak of presencing, I mean the practice of feeling and witnessing, witnessing myself and witnessing you, witnessing our present reality and witnessing our histories and allowing myself to feel tired, hopeful, afraid, angry and free. I’m capable of imagining and giving my full self to build a just and caring future. And so much of my capacity to do this, to witness and to feel, has been shaped through my undocumented experience. So letting go of that lens, it’s so hard. It’s hard precisely because it has also been a site of humanity and of becoming I learned to love my queerness while being undocumented. I learned to heal in the margins. I learned to organize in the shadows. I learned to dance where I was told not to exist, and I learned to speak myself into light. And yet, if I dive deep into history, into policy, into structure, into the machinery required to undocument entire peoples and emerge still gripping that label, am I not replicating the very say systems I recessed systems that disappear bodies, take bodies, kidnap bodies, erase bodies, deport bodies. This is not new. This is history. It’s our history. This country, in its nearly 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and its longer art since colonization arrived on Turtle Island, has mastered these practices had to erase while extracting. And communities have resisted How to Disappear people harm land and weaponize narrative and communities have resisted how to take bodies and labor while denying humanity. And communities have resisted to abolitionist movements, Freedom dreaming and indigenous resistance and flourishing through sanctuary networks and black liberation, through queer justice and joyful gatherings, through labor organizing and mutual aid. Again and again in every generation, communities have resisted this too is our history. Take a deep breath with me. Breathe in. Hold time, breathe out. And that resistance is not behind us. It is alive in this moment. It is alive in this moment, in the very place where I wrote these words, undocumented time and to be confronted with the terror of now, we must reckon with the histories and systems that have learned how to call life illegal and protect that violence through law and force. So let us pause here then allowed us to confront this word illegal, when I am called and illegal, and I carry this word like a marked edge into my body. I peel it back, layer by layer until I reach its source. And what I find is not truth. What I find is trauma, not only a trauma that I carry and seek to heal, but also a mirror I hold back to reflect the trauma of those who place this war upon my body, inherited harm dressed up as law on grief history disguised as order. What I find is an ill legal system. Let me slow this down, Ill as in, sick as in, wounded as in fracture, legal as in, justified as in, normalized, as in, enforce system as Ian pattern, rehearse an institution, as in, a choreography of harm, socialized across generations, as in, a machine addicted to pain, profit and patriotic pride. And is it any wonder then than an ill legal system carrying centuries of unresolved trauma in its political and social body would enact cruelty as governance and terror as law? And it isn’t any wonder why this ill legal system hides behind masks and narratives of security, order and safety, while justifying public executions, violating civil rights, inciting terror and sacrificing the principles of a true democracy in the name of power. These last few nights, I have gone to bed praying, saying the names of kit Porter and Renee good and Alex pratney. I think of Mahmoud khilal and remexa ott. I think of Leah madrian, Conejo Ramos and his father taken by ice. I think of the families and children who just a couple days ago, staged a protest inside a Texas Detention Center holding handmade signs, their voices shouting, let us out. Let us out. Let us out. And I feel the weight of a much altered grief of names unrecorded and communities unmade, of ancestors, songs and traditions buried beneath industries and borders, and I hear them too, their stories scaring our whole humanity, their voices pressing against this moment, also telling us. Let us out. Let us out. Let us out. Take a deep breath with me. Breathe in. Hold and breathe out. Community.

Luis Ortega  10:16

The longer I hear these voices echoing across time while I sit with this word undocumented, the more I realize what is truly undocumented in this country is our collective capacity to affirm one another’s humanity. What remains unrecorded is reconciliation, repair, healing and justice. If undocumentation is the machinery of disappearance, then perhaps our work is the unwavering act of caring presence, to say the names, to carry the stories, to witness each other, to refuse the lie that any life is illegal, to organize and resist in loving solidarity and perhaps most importantly, to be untimely undocumentedness has taught me a lot about time, how it stretches and contracts, how it disciplines and confines, how it moves and withholds. We’re taught that Justice must be efficient. We’re disciplined by urgency, deadlines, appointments, court dates, filings, what rush when obedience is required, when compliance is demanded, when extraction is at stake, and yet we’re also told to wait, to be patient, to accept delay, worse low when liberation is at stake. Our time is managed, meter regulated, so time becomes another border, another wound, another name for control. Waiting becomes a condition of living, a posture the body learns in this way, undocumented life is governed by a contradiction constant urgency paired with endless postponement. We are rushed and stalled at once. So undocumentedness has taught me that liberation requires us to be untimely. Untimeliness is a refusal to follow the rhythm of a well rehearsed system that relies on compliance. To become untimely is to break the temporal grammar of hierarchical and supremacist structures and ideologies. Untimeliness means to slow down when we’re commanded to rush, to rest, when we’re told to perform, to love, when we’re trying to harden, to care for with and for each other when we are pushed to survive alone. On timelessness is how futures are born in pauses, in deep breaths, in moments of reciprocity, where we acknowledge our freedoms are intertwined. Untimeliness is to become the unexpected ripple that shifts our timelines, so let us practice the unexpected, unexpected solidarity, unexpected tenderness, unexpected rest, unexpected joy, unexpected love. Let us go of our own doing. Let us commit to be the healing. Let us become untimely together because we exist. We are here, and all of us, all of us belong. Take a deep breath with me, breathe in and breathe out. So let’s respond to story. Ian, I’m standing on the stage and a microphone is trembling slightly in my hand. My chest feels tight, much like it feels tight right now, and my breath is shallow, and I’m nervous. And beneath that nervousness, I sense something else moving, a longing to release, to loosen the grip of all I have been caring, to let go of what has lived in my body for 24 years. I begin to speak. I begin to give language to the weight, to the memory, to the love, to the grief, to the becoming of an unbecoming of living an undocumented life. This piece is called undocumented time. Thank you for listening. Thank you for holding this time with me. Love and care, community. Love and care, so in the spirit of solidarity, in the spirit of leaning in with all of you, I’ll read to you what emerged for me yesterday, as I did emotionally, as I meditated on this undoing practice that I’ve been committing myself to, and what I ended up meditating on was in response to, well, the prompt that I chose I should, I should say, was dreaming, and I began to read the prompt to myself, and I said, tell us a story about a time. Tell us a story about a time. And I so wanted to get to the end of that prompt, but I got stuck there. I got. Talk on the word time. So here’s my reflection on what is undocumented time. So what is undocumented time? Time hoping, time hiding, time in school, time holding, time being held. Time doing your best, time laboring to not stand out, time spent working and getting paid under the table, time avoiding sickness, time figuring out how to access health care, times being told something is not for you, time keeping your hopes up that the DREAM Act will pass. This time, time spent researching how to open a bank account without a social security number that’s you are told, as a dreamer, you came here through no fault of your own. Times being told your mom is a criminal, times feeling depressed, time feeling lost. Time spent searching apartments, explaining to landlord why you don’t have a credit history and paying extra fees as part of your lease. Time Being called illegal, time forgiving. Time committed to our collective liberation, time hearing others saying that you don’t pay taxes as your paycheck goes to pay taxes. Time counting times you don’t meet the requirements for funding, times you are told we use verified. Times you are profiled and they are right about you, but still obsess you that your brownness and accent have been weaponized against you. Times you are questioned and threaten us, and other times you are asked, Where are you from? Times you are asked, no, but really, where are you from? Times you have to lie. Times you are asked, When is the last time you were in Mexico? Do you visit. Oftentimes you have to defer a question about traveling and work. Times you have to decline invitations to visit Canada or at Ian friends wedding taking place abroad. Time celebrating birthdays, time writing letters, time running out. Time when your grandmother passes away and you can see her one last time, times you couldn’t, times you counted the days until the implementation of the REAL ID Act. Time protesting, time driving, speeches, time organizing, time teaching, time envisioning, time theorizing, time Illuminati, time reframing my undocumentedness, time avoiding being disappeared. Time articulating pain. Time in therapy, time counting time months, years, decades away from Tenochtitlan, away from my homeland, away from my dad, away from my sisters. Time wondering what and where it’s home. Time protecting our collective humanity. Time dancing cumbia, moving to the beat of ancestral redones. Time with friends, time flourishing, time thriving, time witnessing, time experiencing the weaponization of your resilience. Times you are celebrated, times you celebrate the postponing of the REAL ID. Act time to adjust your life to the REAL ID. Act time you are now spending planning elaborate trips across the country to avoid air travel to see your mom and continue doing the work you love. Time you have to Spain away from your partner during the strips. Time you have to be in a train. Time you have to be in a car. Time dreaming, time nightmare in time to write, time to think, time to remember, time to fear, time to heal, time to pray, time to slow down, time to feel, time to breathe, time to imagine, time to undo, time, time to rebel, time to be critically hopeful. Time to object to the temporal grammar meant to constrain us. Time to sing, even if I’m off tune, I am a terrible singer, by the way. Time for poetry, time to let go, time for the new to emerge, time to scream, time to proclaim, I’m not undocumented. I’ve never been undocumented, Ian says, I am whole time to be the unexpected ripple that disrupts the ill legal systems that harm us. Time to be loving and caring and joyful and boundless and visionary and restful and unapologetically. So if you ask me what it means to be an undocumented time, it means to be untimely. Thank you.

Krystal Lee  18:38

Thank you. Luis, thank you for sharing. For me being in the room as you shared your narrative undocumented time, it was a truly immersive experience. I’m an immigrant myself, but it really helped me to feel the weight of the reality that so many people carry in silence, it really highlighted, to me, the extreme diversity in the immigrant experience. And so thank you again for sharing. Listeners, if you enjoyed today’s episode. If you learned something, if it touched you in any way and you’d like to help support the podcast, please be sure to share it with a friend and post about it on social media. If you feel like going above and beyond, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or give us five stars on Spotify. This helps us reach other listeners who are working towards health equity. You can also watch the video version of Luis’s story on our YouTube channel. The link is in the show notes. Thanks again for being with us on this journey where every step we take brings us closer to a healthier, more just world. Until next time, take care. Ian

Mandy LeBreche  20:05

promising practices for health equity is produced by the interdisciplinary research Leaders Program, a national leadership program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A special thanks to our guests, our production team at Studio Americana, and to you our listeners for being a part of this important conversation.