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Y O U T H - L E D C O M M U N I T Y O R G A N I Z I N G

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Youth-Led Community Organizing

Theory and Action

MELVIN DELGADO

LEE STAPLES

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Delgado, Melvin.

Youth-led community organizing: theory and

action / Melvin Delgado and Lee Staples.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-19-518276-7

1. Youth movement. 2. Youth in development. 3. Youth development.

4. Community organization. 5. Young volunteers in community development.

6. Social action. I. Staples, Lee. II. Title.

HN19. D35 2008

361. 20835—dc22 2006100993

Epigraph extracted from Andrew Malekoff’s want to make waves Reprinted with permission from Families in Society (www. familiesinsociety. org), published by the Alliance for Children and Families.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

This book is dedicated to Denise, Laura, and Barbara (Melvin Delgado) Louise, Josh, and Becca (Lee Staples)

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want to make waves

want to jump in

want to make some waves want to make waves

want to make waves

want to get wet

want to make some waves

want to make waves.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Sara Perks, Patricia Soung, Alison Conway, Rebekah Gowler, Suzanne Hogan, Yi-Chin Chen and Youth 1st in Jackson Square, Boston (with particular thanks to Gian Gonzalez and Leo Peguero), and the following external reviewers of the initial book draft: Barry Checkoway (University of Michigan), Ben Kirshner (University of Color-ado), Laurie Ross (Clark University), and Carmen Sirianni (Brandeis Uni-versity).

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Contents

Part I Setting the Context
	Overview of Youth-Led Community Organizing
	Social and Economic Justice Foundation

3 Overview of Community Organizing,

	Youth-Led Field, and Youth-Led Organizing
Part II Conceptual Foundation for Youth-Led
	Community Organizing
	Guiding Principles and Analytical Framework
	Participatory Democracy
	Leadership Development

7 Recruitment, Screening, Preparation, and Support

	of Youth-Led Community Organizers
	Crosscutting Theoretical and Practice Themes
Part III A View and Lessons from the Field
	Youth First in Jackson Square!
	(¡ Jovenes Primero! )
	Challenges Inherent in Youth-Led Organizing
11 Epilogue
	References
	Index

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Part I

Setting the Context

Today’s youth are coming of age in a complex world im-pacted by global forces. However, they generally feel disenfranchised from socio-political processes. . . . Youths may turn to social action to speak out and effect change in relation to issues touching their lives.

—Lombardo, Zakus, and Skinner, Youth Social Action (2002)

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Overview of Youth-Led

Community Organizing

Youth organizing gives young people the po-tential to exercise power to affect key policy decisions and create proactive new realities. —YouthAction, Why Youth Organizing?

(1998)

There is no nation on earth that can afford to neglect its youth and still hope to play a viable role in a global economy and meet the social and educa-tional needs of its citizens. However, there also is no nation that will pub-licly acknowledge that it systematically and purposefully marginalizes its youth. Rhetoric must be separated from reality and actions, as in the case of the United States. A review of any standard statistic on child/youth well-being would find the United States far from being a world leader in its treatment of this population group (Males 2004). A nation that systemati-cally neglects its youth must be prepared to invest considerable sums of money in remedial services and correctional supervision, both now and in the future. These resources, in turn, can better be spent as social capital investment, helping to prepare youth to assume contributing roles in society (Tienda and Wilson 2002a, b).

The price that a nation pays for not constructively engaging and sup-porting its youth is ultimately far greater than what any natural disaster or armed conflict can possibly extract from its coffers (Jenkins 2001; Rizzini, Barker, and Cassaniga 2002). But the true cost cannot be measured simply in monetary standards, as some governments are prone to do. The social and political consequences far exceed any financial costs (Mangum and Waldeck 1997). Such nations must be prepared to have youth rebel under

4 SETTING THE CONTEXT

dire circumstances or organize to change existing conditions (Anderson, Bernaldo, and David 2004; Welton and Wolf 2001). Both outcomes have tremendous implications for current and future generations. Further, dis-investments in young people effectively serve to divide a nation along age groups, which can compound other social relations based upon ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, class, and religion.

To say that the world around us is changing dramatically would be a serious understatement. There are few, if any, countries in the world where this statement does not apply, including our own. The United States has experienced significant demographic, technological, economic, and political changes in the past decade that have tied it more closely to the rest of the world. For example, a remarkable increase in the number of newcomers has fundamentally altered the composition of the nation’s population (Levitt 2001). These new Americans have had a propensity to settle in cities, par-ticularly on both coasts, essentially reshaping these geographic areas by making them much more diverse in character (Delgado, Jones, and Rohani 2005). This dramatic increase in newcomers, particularly those who are undocumented, has become a major political issue that threatens to further divide a nation that is already fractured along a variety of focal social, economic, and political lines.

The United States has also witnessed significant structural changes in its economy, reflecting growth in the service sector, increased prominence of communication and information technology, and the decline of manufac-turing. Employment in the industrial sector, or in ‘‘skilled trades’’ that historically enabled members of immigrant groups and low-income youth of color lacking college degrees to achieve relatively swift economic success, is increasingly much more limited. The remaining service-sector jobs that are available usually offer few opportunities for career advancement, often trapping newcomers and other members of groups of color in low-paid, ‘‘dead-end’’ positions (Bartik 2001; Moss and Tilly 2001; Newman 1999). Consequently, youth sharing a particular socio-demographic profile are increasingly marginalized in this society.

At the same time as these demographic shifts have been occurring, the number of youth in American society, particularly adolescents, has grown at a rapid pace. This phenomenon also has played a prominent role in helping to shape day-to-day life as well as social policies (Damon and Gregory 2003; Delgado 2000, 2002; Tienda and Wilson 2002a). The number of youth aged 10 to 19 years increased dramatically between 1995 (37 mil-lion) and 2000 (almost 40 million). According to the U. S. Census Bureau (2000), it is projected that youth under the age of 18 will increase an addi-tional 7 million to 77. 6 million by the year 2020. The population under the age of 18 has increased from 62. 9 percent in 1978 to 72. 4 percent in 2000 (Lopez 2002).

Overall, there is nearly an even split along gender lines, with males accounting for 51 percent and females for 49 percent of that age cohort (U. S.

OVERVIEW OF YOUTH-LED COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Department of Health and Services, 2002). However, when gender is broken down into ethnic categories, the discrepancy between males and females is greater and has a history of greater fluctuation. African-American/blacks’ gender breakdown is approximately 54 percent female and 46 percent male, with the Latino youth population being approximately 47 percent female and 53 percent male; nonwhite Latinos, in turn, are nearly evenly split at 50 percent for each gender (Lopez 2002).

Diversity among youth becomes a factor to consider alongside numerical increases, particularly in urban areas. In 2000, it was estimated that 1. 3 million immigrants entered the United States (Immigration Update 2002). Over the past ten years, 43 percent of the nation’s population growth was attributed to immigration (Bayer and Bonilla 2001). Currently, the break-down of youth under the age of 18 by race is 64 percent white, 16 percent Latino, 15 percent African-American/black, 4 percent Asian/Pacific Is-lander, and 1 percent Native American (ChildStats. gov 2001).

The amount of all children under the age of 18 living in poverty is 16 per-cent with great variation by race and ethnicity: 9 percent of white children, 33 percent of African-American/black children, and 30 percent of Latino children were living below the poverty level in 1999 (ChildStats. gov 2001). According to O’Hare and Mather (2003), the number of children living in severely distressed urban neighborhoods increased by 18 percent between 1990 and 2000:

Of the 5. 6 million children growing up in severely distressed neighbor-hoods, 55 percent are black, and 29 percent are Hispanic. Over a quarter (28 percent) of all black children live in severely distressed neighbor-hoods, and more than one in 10 Hispanic children (13 percent) live in se-verely distressed neighborhoods, compared with 1 percent non-Hispanic children. (5)

The changing socio-demographic profile of this nation’s youth has had a major impact on how youth-led community organizing is conceptualized and implemented across the country and has effectively brought a new face and language to social justice work. Thus, this social and economic justice context shapes youth perceptions of issues of oppression related to socioeconomic class, ethnicity and race, gender, and legal status (Kim et al. 2002). Examples of youth-led community organizing reflecting these themes will be found throughout this book.

Despite the declining social conditions in which many youth live, recent studies show positive increases in certain behaviors. For example, the Urban Institute, in their study Teen Risk-Taking: A Statistical Portrait, found that 92 percent of youth were engaged in at least one positive behavior, such as earning good grades (54 percent), participating in school sports or oth-er activities (53 percent), being involved with a religious institution (60 percent), or spending time with parents (76 percent; Lindberg, et al. 2000). Unfortunately, relatively few studies have focused on developing an

6 SETTING THE CONTEXT

understanding of positive youth behavior, values, and attitudes, particu-larly when compared to the large body of research highlighting deficits or the potential of young people as a market for consumer goods!

The field of youth services has experienced tremendous growth and change in the latter part of the twentieth and early years of the twenty-first centuries. A youth-development or youth-led paradigm has emerged, ef-fectively transforming young people from their traditional roles as con-sumers, victims, perpetrators, and needy clients to positive assets who are quite capable of being major contributors within their respective commu-nities (Eccles and Gootman 2002; Why Youth Development 2001; Kirshner, O’Donoghue, and McLaughlin 2003; Lerner, Taylor, and von Eye 2002; Villarruel et al. 2003a).

While this new paradigm has been widely embraced by professionals, society in general typically has been unwilling to view youth from such a positive perspective (Flay 2002). Aitken (2001) argues that our culture must be willing to reexamine the notion of what it means to be a youth before there is a significant shift in social perspectives on this age group. The so-called politics of growing up has changed, and this perspective takes on even greater meaning when marginalized youth of color, particularly those residing in the nation’s cities, are the focus of attention (Garbarino et al. 1992; Kim et al. 2002; McNamara 1999; Roberts 2002). This focus invari-ably emphasizes a view of these youth as ‘‘dangerous’’ and ‘‘predators’’ (Breggin and Breggin 1998; May and Pitts 2000).

The scholarly literature helping to shape potential social policy has begun to address questions about which community actions most effectively pro-mote positive development in young people (Booth and Crouter 2001; Ca-mino 2000; Lerner 2003). The belief that youth must play an active and meaningful role (decision making) in shaping their own destiny has been very influential in grounding these policy interventions in a set of values that are participatory and empowering in nature (Barich 1998; Earls and Carlson 2002; Checkoway, Figueroa, and Richards-Schuster 2003; Villarruel et al. 2003a).

Checkoway (1998, 783) advocates for youth action, another term for youth organizing, as a means of helping youth politically mobilize their constit-uency to act on their own behalf:

Youth action is based on a belief that organizing is central for people seeking to participate in the community. In pluralist political theory, it is assumed that each interest is free to organize a group and influence decisions. In practice, however, some interests mobilize more political resources, and thus have more influence, than others do. As an example, adults mobilize more political resources, both on their own behalf and that of youth, than do youth themselves. In the absence of special cir-cumstances, adults thus produce the most powerful political inputs and, hence, dominate community decisions. It is only when youth organize that they can hope to have much influence, in this view.

OVERVIEW OF YOUTH-LED COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Checkoway’s (1998) views on youth action are predicated on the fun-damental belief that youth ultimately are their own best advocates and are in the most favorable position to assess their issues and needs. Conse-quently, they are their own group’s most effective spokespersons. Adults can be supportive or even allies in a youth-led social and economic change agenda; however, youth must play central and decision-making roles in shaping these initiatives and social-change campaigns, and they are in the best position to share their interpretations of why these actions have been undertaken (Zeldin et al. 2001).

The extensive number of books, as well as government and foundation reports, attesting to the importance of this paradigmatic shift speaks well to the popularity and future of youth development and youth-led movements. Youth participation or youth-led interventions can occur in a variety of ways, including but not limited to youth-led research (Checkoway and Richards-Schuster 2002, 2004; Delgado 2006; Sabo 2003; Suleiman, Soleimanpour, and London 2006), social enterprises (Delgado 2004), health education campaigns (McCall and Shannon 1999), philanthropy (Bjorhovde 2002), planning and program development (Delgado 2002; Mullahey, Susskind, and Checkoway 1999), and school reform (Scheie 2003; Sonenshein 1998).

There is no arena where young people cannot assume a participatory and leadership role in helping to shape their own destinies (Jarrett, Sullivan, and Watkins 2004). For example, the California Fund for Youth Organizing (2004) advocates youth-led organizing as a means of mobilizing a new generation of marginalized youth to challenge social and economic justice issues in institutions and communities: ‘‘This burgeoning youth movement draws upon the successes and lessons learned from community organiz-ing and youth development, and weaves together the best of both theories. The resulting strategy is explicitly committed to individual development through civic engagement, as well as community change through political and collective action’’ (2). Age, according to the California Fund for Youth Organizing, is not a hindering factor in the development of social change campaigns.

YouthAction (1998, 13) defines youth organizing as involving ‘‘young people in a membership that does direct action against defined targets on issues that are important to young people and to the community at large. Youth organizing seeks to alter power relations, creates meaningful insti-tutional change, and develops leaders. ’’ This YouthAction definition places an emphasis on social change and the development of leaders. Although short, it still conveys the immense potential of youth-led organizers to im-pact their environment while simultaneously achieving a transformative personal experience. Altering power relations cannot help but be a pro-found experience for any age group. However, it takes on added signifi-cance in the case of young people because of their almost total subjugation to adults and the opportunity that stands before them to practice the new lessons learned.

8 SETTING THE CONTEXT

An article by LISTEN, Inc. expanded on YouthAction’s conception of youth organizing, linking it to youth development and social justice as a strategy to reshape unequal power relationships with adults:

Youth organizing itself escapes comfortable universal definitions. The definition offered above, derived from a standard description of com-munity organizing practice in the United States, captures the approach of many of the organizers interviewed for this project, who focus on policy and institutional change. Others conceptualize youth organizing more broadly, prioritizing the forging of new political identities and challeng-ing the wider forces of social and cultural exclusion faced by many young people. Others heavily emphasize the provision of direct services to youth as an entry point to engaging in individual advocacy or collective action. Many integrate an array of youth development functions with their or-ganizing work. (2003, 9)

LISTEN’s (2003) delineation of the various ways that youth can alter power relationships and bring about social change typifies the flexibility associated with youth-centered projects and activities. This creativity in constructing youth-led organizing campaigns takes on great significance for this age group. It allows young people to craft their organizing efforts to take into account local circumstances, which invariably are neighborhood based. Further, there is an acknowledgment that the personal needs of youth must be recognized and addressed in the course of community or-ganizing. As noted in chapters 2 and 4, and other parts of this book, youth-led organizing takes a multifaceted approach, with young people often playing different roles as organizers, leaders, and consumers of services. Age limits the opportunities available for youth, separating them from adult organizers, who have more options for meeting their own needs.

In the course of reading this book, the reader will be exposed to countless numbers of frameworks, guides, and taxonomies pertaining to youth par-ticipation. This information is presented with the explicit goal of providing the reader with a wide range of perspectives on the subject matter, although it can certainly lead to confusion. These perspectives differ along a variety of dimensions; however, central to their differences is how they view youth in their relationship to adult allies. Hart (1992), for example, typifies the per-spective of youth eventually working their way up a ladder of participation and sharing power with adults as the ultimate goal. Checkoway (1998), in turn, typifies the position taken in this book that youth can lead social in-terventions with adults as allies.

We, like countless others in the field and academia, are not arguing that ‘‘successful’’ youth organizing is predicated on the degree of ‘‘absence’’ of adults. Rather, adults can be present and active in aiding youth organizers (Young Wisdom Project 2004). However, their role and function are dictated by youth rather than the other way around. Terms such as collaborators, mentors, and apprenticeship, to list but three, often appear in the literature as

OVERVIEW OF YOUTH-LED COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

an attempt to define youth roles when viewed from an adult-organizer perspective.

Young people are quite capable of achieving much more than they are usually given credit for by adults. Conversely, it would be irresponsible for us to ignore that youth may have less experience, knowledge, or expertise in community organizing when compared to adults. Our position is that youth are well aware of this situation, and that adult veteran organizers have much to offer them and the field. Nevertheless, this transfer of knowledge has the capacity of disempowering youth. Thus, in order to increase the empower-ment of young people, youth must eventually assume positions of leadership in their own social action campaigns. This, however, does not mean that youth-adult relationships are not complex or that they do not bring inherent conceptual and political tensions to the field of youth-led community or-ganizing.

Some practitioners may advocate for a more fluid relationship between young people and adult organizers. We recognize the advantages of this stance. Nevertheless, we hold that the field of youth-led community orga-nizing is legitimate and advocate a goal that adult community organizing organizations should embrace and plan for whenever youth are involved in social action campaigns. It is important to note that youth-led community organizing has emerged for very good reason—namely, that young people’s voices have not found quality air time in the adult world and that their issues, although overlapping with adult-determined issues, bring a distinct youth flavor to the field.

There is general agreement, however, regardless of the perspective on the degree and importance of adult participation, that young peoples’ signifi-cant participation in designing social change interventions has the potential of addressing and enriching a wide range of aspects in the lives of youth (Community Unity Matters 2000, 3):

Current research shows that if young people are to become competent, caring and responsible contributors to their communities, they need meaningful opportunities to participate, to lead, to contribute, both side-by-side with adults and on their own. Why? Because such ‘‘stakeholder’’ opportunities satisfy their very deep-seated developmental needs for belonging, recognition and power, and help them develop the skills and values they need to succeed in school, work, and life.

Prevailing stereotypes of disengaged, apathetic young people do not reflect research results that show youth playing active roles in community life (Gauthier 2003; Weiss 2003; YouthAction 1998). And the benefits of the youth-led movement are both immediate and future oriented, stretching the imagination and its potential for personal and community transformation. This movement’s goals are ambitious and of great consequence—and rightly so, focusing on changing power dynamics between those with a voice in shaping this nation’s policies and those who lack a say.

10 SETTING THE CONTEXT

Adults often must play catch-up to understand and appreciate this movement. They no longer can speak for or represent youth within this new paradigm; young people need to play a central role, with adults assisting them as needed. This shift in power brings with it an increased recognition that youth have ability, rights, and corresponding responsibilities. Young people as community assets become the organizing core of youth-led ac-tivities, placing youth in positions of leadership within their own commu-nities with a mutual set of expectations that they can effect positive change (Delgado 2006). However, adults do not ‘‘disappear’’ from the lives of the young during these activities. Instead, they assume supportive/consulta-tive roles based upon how youth view their own needs and the role that those youth wish adults to play.

Since successful youth work does not mean that young people are not actively involved in meaningful interactions with adults (Camino 2000), several frameworks have been developed to describe and prescribe youth-adult relationships for interventions. Advocates of youth-led movements have argued that these efforts are primarily about collaboration between youth and adults and not exclusively youth-led. The ability to foster these relationships helps to ensure the success of joint projects, but also equips both youth and adults with experiences and tools to draw upon in future undertakings. Adult–youth relationships based upon mutual trust and re-spect can be quite powerful and transformative in changing institutions, communities, and eventually society (Harper and Carver 1999).

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