This week, I find myself wrapping up my second year at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and next year will be my last year of undergrad. For me, this month means a lot as it marks a consecutive year organizing with the Minnesota Youth Collective. I’ve done a lot of introspective reflection about how much MNYC means to me and how much it has provided me—a political home to grow, learn, and organize my community, empowering young folks just like me.
During one of the welcome week days in Fall of 2018, I attended an on-campus training module on civic engagement and voting. My organizing journey started during the 2016 Presidential election, when I volunteered for some local campaigns, but was not as active as I wanted to be. At the time, I was coming into the university as an Ecology, Evolution and Behavior major with a minor in Political Science, determined to go into environmental protection and conservation work.
This module I attended happened to be hosted by staff from the Minnesota Youth Collective, and this was the first time I had heard of the non-profit. I was inspired to hear that this organization was solely dedicated to building the political power of young people. Upon learning they were looking for students to help implement this important work on our massive campus ahead of the next election, I immediately applied to be a campus organizer.
Working with an amazing and diverse team of UMN students, we immediately got to work registering students in classrooms through class raps and across campus with voter registration drives and tabling. As a result of our tireless work through election night, during the 2018 midterms our organization was able to increase UMN campus turnout (especially in youth-dense precincts like Dinkytown) to historically unprecedented levels. With every conversation and voter engaged, we were providing students with the tools and knowledge they needed to participate in our democracy. This included first-time voters and those who would otherwise have never gotten involved in the political process.
This completely changed my outlook about what grassroots organizing can be. I began to see organizing as an invaluable tool to bring together our communities for change and fight for the issues that we’re passionate about. For the first time, I felt I belonged in grassroots organizing, that I had the ability to make change and help have an impact on whose voices were heard in politics. This is rare in a space that far too often has excluded or disregarded youth and POC. How are young people supposed to get their foot in the door or establish a foothold if the system doesn’t create opportunities for high schoolers and college students, and in some cases even excludes us? MNYC actively breaks down these barriers, opening the door and providing opportunities by hiring passionate young people from across the state with a wide array of community, electoral, and political organizing experience. Not only that, we’re paid a just wage for the important work we do.
These two years have been filled with immense growth and self-realization for me. MNYC has fundamentally shaped my identity as an organizer and my commitment to mobilizing Minnesotans for the state we know we deserve. Returning to MNYC this past summer after a hiatus during spring semester, I had the chance to weave art into an issue campaign aimed at raising awareness about the need to break down barriers trans folx have in the name change process.
I’ve watched this organization grow and have grown along with it—from a couple of folks in a tight office room to a comprehensive, coordinated, statewide operation spanning 11 college campuses and four large cities throughout the state. In the sun, rain, snow, and freezing cold, we’ve gone from home to home across the Twin Cities to knock every single door because every voter matters. We’ve canvassed and tabled at farmer’s markets, the 4th of July, concert venues, on public transit, and in parks. We’ve lobbied at the State Capitol, the county commission, and city councils.
I’m immensely grateful to Maxyne, Aurora, Emily, Rahhel, Brian and so many others for their solidarity, advice, and mentorship these past two years. I can’t thank them enough for their support and the opportunities I have had to learn and grow as an organizer and as an individual alike. As a non-profit solely dedicated to training young people to become leaders in their own right...the holistic care and investment of time, resources, energy, and education that MNYC pours into young organizers is virtually unprecedented. It is an immensely beautiful and powerful thing to be enriched, cared for, and loved by friends in this fight.
Only through mass movements and coalition building can we tackle and dismantle the biggest of our problems. Our work is far from over; it’s only beginning. Under the status quo, electoralism will not fix all of the injustices faced by our communities or do away the longstanding systems of oppression, but our work makes a difference.
We will not be taken for granted. We won’t be pandered to then disregarded and ignored. We are quite literally the future of this state, country, and planet. There will come a day when decision-making tables and halls of power are lined with people who look like us and will fight for true socio-economic, racial, and environmental justice. Until then, we keep organizing. In tumultuous times such as these, we’re taking our organizing fully online. The cause is right, and the time is now. Heading into November, we’re going to need all the help we can get, so I hope you can join us in building a fairer, more representative Minnesota for all.
—Sean Lim, Lead Campus Organizer, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities