Four Cabrini University students shared their political perspectives and faith-based insights on critical issues in the 2020 election as part of the “Faithful Activism 2020: Catholic Millennials & Justice” virtual panel on April 24.
Held in partnership with Faith in Public Life, a national faith-based network that advocates for justice and equality, the event was part of the Wolfington Center’s ongoing Living Justice in the American Catholic Church series. Faith in Public Life’s Catholic program director, John Gehring, moderated the panel along with Wolfington Center Director Ray Ward, PhD, and Chioma Ugochukwu, PhD, Cabrini’s Provost and Vice President, Academic Affairs. Cabrini alumna Mackenzie Harris (’16), who serves as a communications associate at Faith in Public Life, collaborated with Gehring to facilitate the panel at Cabrini.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented the panel from taking place on Cabrini’s campus, influenced the scope of the discussion.
“We are all in this storm together, but it’s clear we’re not all in the same boat,” Ward said. “There are lots of questions around the future of politics in America, and where faith fits in.”
Leading the panel, Cabrini seniors Guadalupe Mendez, Daisy Rodriguez, and Chardanay White, along with junior Samar Dahleh, discussed what faithful activism looks like today, including their views on key 2020 election issues such as immigration, climate change, youth voter turnout and the “common good” in a time of pandemic crisis. “This pandemic underscores existing inequalities, racial and economic,” said Gehring, who is also a national columnist. “We see that good leadership and governance really matters, and that this will be the most important election of our lifetimes.
Generational Divides
Rodriguez, a Criminology and Black Studies double major who served as the Wolfington Center’s civic engagement intern, says she has been politically minded since age 10, when her family immigrated to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico in search of a better, more civically engaged life in America. Rodriguez coordinated voter registration efforts at Cabrini and represented the University at Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s roundtable discussion on food insecurity in fall 2019. Despite her example, the resounding political narrative around the majority of young adults is that they are not politically involved and do not vote.
“There’s a psychological effect involved with being told you’re not going to vote,” Rodriguez said. “The current voting system is made for an older generation. We talk about how this generation isn’t voting enough, but we’re not doing the work needed to make it easier.”
Rodriguez also said certain voting rules are often difficult to follow for students, such as stringent photo identification laws that may prove confusing for a student away from home.
“We need to show young people what it looks like to go vote,” she said
A similar generational disconnect has defined our societal understanding of climate change and environmental crises, said White, who is double majoring in History and Political Science. She expressed disappointment in the lack of public discourse about how climate change affects individuals.
At Cabrini, White has worked with the Wolfington Center to bring sustainable materials to the campus dining hall and helped jumpstart the Green Team. In her coursework, she discovered a passion for studying how minority groups in certain geographic areas are more likely to suffer long-term health issues from their local environments—otherwise known as environmental racism.
“People are dying because of where they were born,” White said. “Pennsylvania and other states in the region are in the asthma belt. It’s worse for people of color because they are usually closer to toxic waste sites and areas that are not as regulated.”
This phenomenon underscores just how intertwined many of America’s most pressing inequalities are, White said. Each of the four student panelists emphasized this web of intersectionality that connects issues like racism and poverty.
Quoting Pope Francis, Gehring said, “The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are connected.”
Reform, Representation, and Respect
Mendez, a Political Science major, said her own activism was inspired by the unfair treatment she saw her parents endure as immigrants in America.
“Advocating for other people is what pushed me to get involved,” said Mendez, who lobbied for immigration reform on Capitol Hill with the Philadelphia-based Aquinas Center’s Immigration Legal Services team in April 2019. “I want to see immigration law reform, because it’s never been properly reformed.”
By the end of June, the Supreme Court is expected to declare its ruling on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) law, which had granted deferred action to those whose parents illegally brought them to the United States as children. With the coronavirus quarantine still in effect, this ruling could have complex implications for the 700,000 DACA-protected individuals who could face deportation, said Mendez, an aspiring immigration attorney.
“There are a lot of DACA students who are essential workers in the medical and food services industries,” Mendez said. “If the Supreme Court decides that DACA will be rescinded, all of these people will be threatened with deportation. Some are going to hide or leave. Taking away these essential workers from the population will be problematic.”
Swelling behind this momentous court decision is a more general “othering” of certain communities of color, Gehring said. “We live in a time when the politics of fear is back,” he said.
According to Dahleh, a Political Science and Philosophy double major, much of that othering comes from a lack of public education around foreign cultures, which ultimately creates less representation in politics and media for people of color.
“[Women of color] are starting to get the representation in politics,” Dahleh said, mentioning New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “but not the respect.”
Dahleh, who was recently named a 2020 Newman Civic Fellow, cofounded the Muslim Student Association at Cabrini to celebrate her Muslim and Palestinian upbringing, and to encourage non-Muslims to be comfortable asking questions about the Islamic community.
“Sometimes I’m the first Muslim that people meet,” she said. “Many people are not learning about other cultures and faiths. My high school in Pennsylvania did not have a mandated world history course.”
Carrying the Torch
Activists have long strove for more holistic, civic-minded public education. Cabrini’s four student-activists agreed that they are carrying on the legacies of faithful activists of previous generations, while infusing new ideas and technology to reach broader audiences.
“With technology, we have a different weapon,” Mendez said. “Social media can be good and bad but it brings people closer to a solution. We can easily share ideas across borders and barriers, and teach each other better.”
Dahleh and White said the growing body of research around intersectionality and progress in LGBTQ+ issues have added new layers to modern activism. While our understanding of the “common good” has become more nuanced, the student panelists said that the tradition of faithful activism remains alive and well.
“Before coming to Cabrini, I didn’t know this path I wanted to take with politics,” White said. “Our Education of the Heart has geared me in a way that makes me want to dedicate my life to it.”