3
THE FAMILIA APPROACH

Whether you are eighteen or eighty years old, the parent or child in your family, or even if your closest family is made up of your best friends, you can be a force that nurtures group connection and inspires others to be their best. You can create positive changes for your family and friends, and even develop your own activist communities. To do this, your desire and commitment are essential, and knowledge of the Familia Approach will help get you there.

The Familia Approach is a way of living so as to teach love and activate the positive power of our families and communities. It includes various principles, tools, and commitments to strengthen our ability to create the change we desire, and to optimize the healing potential of our family and friends.

I call it the Familia Approach because it was developed out of my experience of being familia. Coming from a Chicano and healer tradition, my family life taught me the core lessons of how to be a social healer and a family activist. Family activism is about healing our society by being more familia, by caring for and being responsible for family and community. It is making our communities safe and healthy by being family with all our relations, including our loved ones, neighbors, the people down the street, the people at church, school, soccer, or work, and even the child care providers, bus drivers, and housekeepers. Being familia with others is treating them with respect and communicating with them to lift their self-esteem or promote their desire to do good for others. In so doing, we 44 prepare our relations to be more caring and possibly to act in more socially responsible ways as well. So the Familia Approach is for all people who want to increase health and healing within their family, community, and society.

The intent of this chapter is to present the five commitments that guide the Familia Approach, and then to illustrate their application from the story of my family as we sought to assist each other during my mother’s recovery from a stroke.

The Five Commitments that
Guide the Familia Approach

In the healing tradition of my people, we organize healing knowledge in principles of five, believing that the most powerful medicine involves the interplay of five healing elements or treatments. Given the manner in which our earth is being poisoned and ugly wars are fueling even greater hate, we need radical social healing and transformation. This is why the five commitments have been organized within our traditional medicine wheel, as illustrated on the next page. The more activists and people we can activate to live by these principles, the more we are advancing love, transformation, and the Great Turning.

COMMITMENTS THAT GUIDE THE FAMILIA APPROACH

1. Teach Love.
2. Be the Change.
3. Co-power Others.
4. Facilitate Connection.
5. Activate Transformation.

Each of the commitments involves a goal and a type of action. The goal of “Teach Love” is love, and the action is teaching. The goal of 45 “Be the Change” is change, and the action is “being” through all your thoughts and contacts. The goal of “Co-power Others” is for people to support the empowerment of each other, which is also the action. The goal of “Facilitate Connection” is to connect people with people, and the action is facilitating. The goal of “Activate Transformation” is change and transformation, and the action is the art of activating. Each of these commitments represents a powerful dimension of family activism, and together they comprise a force for radical change and healing needed by many of our families and our U.S. society as a whole.

These principles evolved out of the use of praxis and a community learning process called razalogia. As you know, praxis involves thoughtful reflection on one’s actions to improve one’s practice. For two years I have been involved in a focused praxis period, evaluating almost thirty years of activism toward developing this 46 explanation of family activism. In this effort, I have been using raza-logia and interviews. Razalogia means “knowledge of and for the people,” and involves participants dialoguing to clarify or develop relevant knowledge for community betterment.¹ I interviewed a cross-section of activists from different cultures, age groups, and regions of the country, asking them how they became activists, and whether or how they sought to nurture an activist outlook among their children.

I also reviewed years of documents and memories to identify the principles and tools I have used as a family activist. Once I had an in-depth feel for the multiple tools applied in family activism, I called and interviewed people I respected for their general activism or for their activism regarding family. I systematized this learning into about a dozen strategies which I then shared with various dialogue groups to identify the essential approaches that all family activists should know and develop. The outcome is the Familia Approach material that will be presented here. I am now using this model to inform and train community activists seeking to increase family and group power within their target communities.

Living the Familia Approach

During the past year, I made a major shift in my activism as Rebeca and I decided to move from our life in the greater San Francisco area to rural southern California to care for my mother. I came with the intention of becoming a companion to my mother, yet quickly discovered we had stepped into an opportunity to experience another dimension of family activism. We are caring for my mother and she for us as we support each other in our life, work, and activism. Because our new living arrangement is full of so many lessons about family activism, I draw examples from this life chapter to illustrate what being a family activist can look like when guided by the Familia Approach. First I’ll share some of our story.

Last year, Rebeca and I relocated 350 miles to live with my eighty-six-year-old mother, Mama Tita. Mom’s stroke left her with some loss of memory and a decrease in physical abilities, and our extended family made a commitment to support the quality of her life in any 47 way we could. Rather than moving her to live with any of us, my brother Marcos and his wife, Robin, initially moved in with her. After almost a year, Rebeca and I saw that Mama Tita needed more attention and that it was beginning to tax my brother’s family, which includes two small children. We also felt it was our turn to extend care; consequently, we moved in with her so she could continue to enjoy living in her hometown surrounded by her family and friends.

The idea of moving in with my mom felt adventurous, meaning rife with challenges. We were going to have to resolve the many differences and issues of change when mature adults come to live together. I will mention a few. Mom offered us most of her living area, yet we were accustomed to more space. While Mama Tita and Rebeca love each other, they have several different values and ways of living. Rebeca enjoys a glass of wine at dinner, while my mother feels drinking any alcohol disrespects her. My mother likes to feed others by preparing Mexican food, while Rebeca enjoys a wide variety of dishes.

Within a week of moving in, it was evident that our family meetings needed to start soon. When we finally had a morning to share, I proposed that we meet during breakfast. Everyone agreed. I suggested, “Let’s talk first about what we like about living together, what kind of environment we want to create, and then talk about any concerns, feelings, or problems that have been coming up.” Given our shared experience with family meetings and planning conversations, we all jumped into the discussion.

I expressed that I felt great that we were together and very grateful to Rebeca and my mom for all they had done to support each other during these changes. I looked forward to strengthening the trust between us so that if any of us had any concerns with each other we would raise them. I cited an example: I see my mother and Rebeca have different views about eating and food. Mother likes to be thrifty and prefers eating leftovers before making new meals, while Rebeca likes to prepare whatever she feels like eating on any particular evening. “I hope we can all talk to each other when we notice these differences.”

With the positive tone set, we were able to converse to successfully resolve various concerns. Our cohabitation energy improved 48 considerably during the next month as we continued to meet weekly to plan and develop ways to improve our communications.

Eight months later, the adventure continues, yet I feel I am living heaven on Earth. I have developed the routine of doing movement exercises first thing in the morning with my mother. I am teaching her and reminding myself how to stretch. We typically share breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, which often includes collective food preparation, prayer, and conversation. I grocery shop, she or we do the food preparation, and she insists on doing the cleanup. We also work together to maintain several colorful gardens that provide our daily strawberries, tomatoes, and assorted vegetables. In between, I devote as much time as I can to my consultant work, writing, and maintaining the household.

During this time, we have also enjoyed numerous conversations, sharing circles, and family meetings. My mother better understands my work, and decided to delay her hernia surgery to minimize stress for me as I complete this book. I support her regarding her telephone and prayer activism. Having lost her ability to drive and visit people who need support, her focus now is maintaining the church’s prayer network, which includes making telephone calls and devoting time to send prayers to those experiencing difficult times, especially those who have lost a loved one. Periodically, I participate in her prayer sessions or assist her in writing cards for those to whom she wants to send an inspirational message.

Meanwhile, Rebeca and I have been learning about dementia, patience, and more about love. The changes we are experiencing have not just been about improving communication with my mother and with each other, but also with my brothers. Now that we all live in the same vicinity, we are periodically meeting to coordinate support for our mother in a way that is fair to each of us given our multiple commitments, and we are exploring collaboration on several community projects.

While doing all of the above, I keep in mind the commitments of the Familia Approach. Over the years they have become so internalized that they are second nature for me. So as I interact with my mother, wife, brothers, their families, or my children from afar, I seek to model love, co-power, foster connection, and activate trans- 49 formation. Others in my family are doing similarly. So as to provide greater meaning to each of the five commitments, I will be mostly sharing examples of the approaches that Rebeca, Mama Tita, and I have been employing as we have been living together.

Explaining and Illustrating the Five Commitments

Teach Love

Love is core to the vision of the world we desire to see, and to our motivation to serve others and better our world. As family activists, our vision is a society and culture that intentionally seek to become more loving by supporting and respecting each other and our earth. The greatest resource we have to advance this vision is that part of our inherent human nature that is loving. Therefore, our role as activists is to nurture that caring instinct within ourselves and others. We can best do this by modeling caring and love.

Ask most activists to recall the path that led to their social commitment and they often will remember possessing a strong sense of caring, which was transformed into a dedication to justice by an experience that enraged or inspired them to desire change. Then ask them how they developed their caring nature, and most recall being touched and inspired by the loving actions of family members. These experiences shaped their caring spirit. Love is not taught by lecturing, but by modeling and demonstrating love in all that we do. This can be taking time to share conversation, providing assistance to each other, or working extra jobs to financially ensure that our family will have food, clothing, shelter, and the opportunity to grow.

Examples of family activism that model teaching love:

• I seek to make time for conversation with Mama Tita. I listen to her thoughts and encourage her to share feelings, explore her memory, and develop opinions. I do better on some occasions than others, yet I know that I am creating moments of happiness for her while personally learning more about love and patience.
• 50 Mama Tita seeks to relieve me of various household chores so that I have more time for my writing, which she believes will help make our families and world better. So she cuts up my morning fruit salad, makes me an afternoon sandwich, and during those times when I have my office room door closed, tries to buffer me from various visitors who arrive.
• When my young nieces visit, both my mom and I in our own ways seek to nurture them with love. My mother welcomes them with warmth, hugs, and usually their favorite dish, even though given her physical limitations this requires tremendous effort. Asking her about this, she said it’s love that gives her the energy to get up in the morning or to coordinate her tired body to make those favorite dishes. Love also helps her smile or do whatever chores she can so as not to burden us with more. My actions with the nieces tend to be more mindful, as I seek to engage these young ones in conversations or activities that teach them about themselves and their responsibility to the family.
• Mama Tita handles each of her telephone conversations in a way that makes the other person feel heard and that models love. Family and church friends call throughout the day, some to check on her and others for a little dose of her loving affection. They will share what is going on in their lives or work, and she will often provide a reflection that validates the good that person is or could be doing.
• Rebeca’s current activism includes her working to financially support the family and permit me to use these months to care for my mother and write this book. When she is at home, she prepares meals that are healthy and that she believes my mother and I will enjoy. She also spends a little quality conversation time with my mother while they watch my mother’s favorite evening soap opera. Later in this chapter, I will share about the activism Rebeca does at her work.

Be the Change

All the positive values we desire to see in the world, such as fairness, respect, and peace, need to be practiced in our everyday interactions among all our relations. Many activists learned to be caring, coura- 51

geous, and vocal because they saw these qualities modeled by close family or friends. Therefore family activists live and model the change we want to see through our one-to-one exchanges with others and in the family environment we maintain.

One of our objectives is to develop a family environment that is about peace, respect, and support. This type of family culture nurtures our spirit, supports our growth, and makes life joyful. It also teaches us about the community life we seek to create. The intent of the Familia Approach is to guide us in using mindfulness, communication, and group facilitation to create for our family, or any group, this type of atmosphere that encourages dialogue, growth, and development. We create the culture and society we desire by making it happen within our circles of family and friends. Also, in seeking to be fair or proactive within our family relationships, we learn to be the same within our work and public relationships.

Examples of family activism that model being change:

• Believing that our society should take care of our elders and children, Rebeca and I chose to live with my mother despite the challenges of selling our home, moving, and living on a reduced income. We followed my brother Marcos and his wife, who did the same.
• When possible, we have organized special family gatherings in which we have invited aunts, uncles, or cousins who could benefit from the family connection. This year’s Father’s Day was an example. We invited for dinner one uncle and aunt whose grown-up children live out of state, and another uncle and aunt we wanted to acknowledge for the support they have always shared with all of us. Then we facilitated our dinner conversation so that within the mix of shared stories and laughter there was a real honoring not only for the fathers at the table, but for everyone present, as we genuinely listened to and appreciated each other.

Co-power Others

We co-power when we consciously seek to encourage family and friends as individuals and as family networks to believe in their 52 power and develop the skills to achieve desired results. We want our family and friends to be successful and achieve good for themselves and our communities. This requires their developing self-confidence, social consciousness, and basic skills in problem-solving and critical thinking. Social consciousness involves the capacity to understand our society and world, particularly the forces that undermine our well-being and those that could be employed to improve our world.

Our responsibility to all our relations, young and old, is to strengthen their self-confidence, support their discovery of purpose, and develop their skills for life success, such as goal-setting and focused action. We want as many of our communications as possible to lift people up, to encourage them to actualize their potential to be caring and intelligent people able to affect change in their personal life and the world. Similarly, we encourage social consciousness by engaging family in conversations about what is occurring within our communities, our nation, and the larger world, and what we would like to see occur. We ask questions, tell stories, and listen in order to advance learning that will help us understand our society and ourselves, and support the progress of the Great Turning.

Examples of family activism that model co-powering:

• As I have sought for so many years to make my conversations with others co-powering, it has become a natural way of conversing. Part of my morning movement and prayer ritual includes empowering myself with this intention. Then during most of the day, as I interact with my mother, wife, children, or friends, I listen closely to their needs and challenges and seek to serve by asking questions and providing reflections that enable them to affirm their talents, fuel their positive attitude, and connect more with their power.
• During my morning breakfast conversations with Mama Tita, I scan the paper and then explain the events affecting our community in a way that she will understand. In conversing with her about such issues as the plight of the homeless or the impact of war spending on declining education and human 53 services, I am also teaching myself how to better explain these issues to others. This is helpful as I share similar conversations with family and friends who visit. At the same time, my mother’s commitment to family activism is to weigh my comments and to express her thoughts in return.
• For our recent Thanksgiving dinner, my brother Art and his daughter Andrea prepared a presentation for the family on changes we could make in our homes to become more energy and water efficient. The information shared and conversation that followed were co-powering for all of us, particularly for Art as he received considerable validation for his new business, designing home landscapes that optimize the conservation of water and green values.
• When my young (five and seven years old) nieces visit, I try to have at least five minutes of quality connection with each of them. This usually involves initiating a game or conversation in which I strengthen our bonds through fun, seek to understand their current thoughts or feelings, and leave seeds of ideas or questions for them to consider. All this is intended to help develop, over time, their self-confidence, positive values, and power.
• Meanwhile, Rebeca is very much engaged in similar activism at work. She calls it “positive professionalism.” Through her interactions with all her colleagues within the city government, she works to foster a positive feeling about themselves and the work they do. Among support staff, coworkers, and people from other departments, she validates their contributions and encourages their initiative. She does this through one-to-one conversations, and even e-mails, in which she builds relationships, expresses gratitude for assistance, and validates others for their contributions. To inspire the initiative of others she asks strategic questions like, “Ideally, what do you think would be best?” or “How could we make a difference?” Her intent is to co-power others to enjoy their work and contribute their best toward developing a positive work environment and serving the city. By the number of compliments she receives, it’s evident that she is making a difference.

Facilitate Connection

People need to be brought together to connect and to make good things happen. When people connect they establish the conditions that support meaningful conversations that can increase learning and power for all involved. Family activists do what is needed to make every family gathering an opportunity to deepen connection, express love, and teach skills for communication, organizing, and problem solving. This involves developing skills to facilitate or “to make easy” conversations or gatherings that bring family and friends together to have fun or to plan meaningful projects. Both activities can be facilitated so the end result increases caring and life-changing action. The Familia Approach utilizes such tools and traditions as doing conocimiento ²—sharing conversation with each other—councils, ceremonies, and unity circles for celebration, fun, planning, or transformative work.

Examples of family activism that model facilitating connection:

• After I facilitated the first family meetings around our new family arrangement, Rebeca or Mama Tita would call for family conversations whenever they felt necessary. Given our years of experience with meetings, we organically share the responsibilities of facilitating and making the conversations successful.
• Together, Rebeca, Mama Tita, and I have initiated, organized, or facilitated a series of semi-regular family events. These have mostly been Sunday gatherings where my brothers and their families join us for lunch. It takes all three of us to organize the house and coordinate the meal, yet it’s always worth it to enjoy being familia. My mother feels happy that the family is together, we genuinely enjoy being together, and there is always great potential for an interesting conversation or the development of a new plan. In these gatherings, everyone contributes in different ways. There are talkers, listeners, and facilitators, and everyone seems to do some of each. Periodically I informally serve as facilitator because the family trusts the way I manage conversations so everyone is heard and resolutions are 55 achieved, yet this has become less necessary given the skills everyone has developed for respectful communication.
• At times I have scheduled activist or work meetings at the house. With my mom’s help, we create a familia type environment for our guests (organizers or community educators) where we can deepen our connections and get into meaningful learning and planning conversations about our work. While my mother’s natural inclination would be to disappear, feeling intimidated by the “intelligent” people visiting her home, I try to have her accept that she is brilliant regarding families and communities, and that she has just as much to teach us as we might be able to offer her. Usually, on the principle of being a good host, she agrees to join us to offer a short welcome.
• Initiating conversations for connecting often leads to planning and collaboration. As we connect and hear each other’s challenges we often desire to find resolutions. In this way, connecting conversations have led to planning regarding necessary repairs to my mother’s home or ways to support my brother Art’s new business or wedding plans.

Activate Transformation

The goals of family activism include healthy families, good relationships, and transformative change. This involves providing ongoing support, inspiration, and education to develop more loving and responsible families, and then engaging our families in the work of creating social change.

Activating transformation is possibly the most advanced form of family activism, and I am still learning about it. In activating transformation, we are mindfully taking the sequential actions that can lead to or inspire others to participate in individual and social change. It’s supporting the development of others, so that an individual can move from being directionless to becoming purposeful, or a family can shift from focusing on material success to valuing community service. It can be getting neighbors to a political rally or working with family and friends to elect a progressive candidate.

Family activists have the long-term picture in mind. Consequently, they patiently work toward changing the prejudicial attitude of a 56 friend, developing the spirit of community service among the family youth, or fostering a sense of power among neighbors so they can act together to ensure a safer neighborhood or develop programs to support the success of their children. Family activists know that achieving these goals often involves a multiplicity of mutually supportive 57 actions, and they invest in many one-to-one conversations over time to nurture confidence, social awareness, and connection, trusting that ultimately they can lead to collaborative community actions.

Family activism nurtures confidence, social awareness, and connection. Marcos makes community demonstrations part of his children’s experience.

Examples of family activism that model activating or supporting transformation:

• As I worked on this book in my new community, I reached out to various people to talk over the ideas and tools presented here. My goals were: (1) to invite feedback to help strengthen the clarity of the ideas, (2) to begin developing my new community of support, and (3) to activate other people to consider a greater use of the tools of family activism. Some of these people have already become collaborators in applying these tools and strategies toward empowering their local communities. In turn, I have learned new lessons as their questions and feedback have identified areas that I still need to learn about.
• I have also begun my process of neighborhood community building. Whenever I see a neighbor and have a moment, I go over to introduce myself. I’m creating a telephone roster for my new neighborhood and developing the relationships that will make this street feel like home. At present, I have no strategic objectives in mind for our street, yet as we get to know each other, the objectives will evolve. Maybe we’ll organize street parties to strengthen our connection, become more available to support each other during emergencies, or maybe some of us will join together to address local concerns.
• As my brother Marcos is more directly involved in community empowerment and policy change, he calls to make certain we are aware of strategic public hearings or protests where our presence counts. Consequently, we have made several protest rallies an outing for family and friends.
• Recently, one of my daughters requested to live with us so she can save money for school, then so did one of her friends, and now also my nephew, who has secured a part-time position as a youth organizer. These young people are still in the formative years of developing a career that can sustain them, and they are all contributors to social change or community welfare. All of 58 us, including my mother, wife, brothers, and the young people, developed a plan to optimize our resources so that we can look after Mama Tita, financially support the young people in their evolving careers and activism, and support each other in achieving our goals.

The purpose of the five commitments is to focus our energies as family activists and provide a guiding structure for the Familia Approach. The next chapter offers a sense of the family transformation that can occur through applying this method.

PRAXIS

1. For each of the guiding commitments, identify at least two or three ways you are currently living this commitment or would like to be.
   • Teach love.
   • Be the change.
   • Co-power others.
   • Facilitate connection.
   • Activate transformation.
2. What idea in this chapter will most strongly support your activist practice?
3. Which commitment areas will require your greatest learning? In the area that most excites you, what might be your learning objectives for the coming year?