Brown Issues Is Cultivating the Next Generation of Brown Leaders

Brown Issues develops innovative, culturally relevant campaigns to politicize the Brown community. Photo by Brown Issues.

Brown Issues is a statewide youth-led advocacy organization that utilizes healing, civic engagement, and narrative change to help young people find their agency and create systematic change within their communities. We are honored to support their visionary work as a grantee in our Leading for Power and Change portfolio.

We spoke to Executive Director Kimberly Gudino to learn how Brown Issues is cultivating the next generation of Brown leaders, advocates, storytellers and innovators in California. We learned why they engage youth as early as middle school and why they stay with them throughout high school and college, helping them find their voice, confidence and power. We also learned about their innovative and culturally relevant campaigns to mobilize, organize and engage Brown youth.

Our conversation with Kimberly Gudino has been edited and condensed for clarity.

There is a lot of potential in young people. We just need to tap into it and give them opportunities to imagine and explore beyond what they've been exposed to.
Kimberly Gudino

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the personal journey that led you to Brown Issues?

Kimberly Gudino: To tell you about myself, I need to tell you about my community.

I’m from South Sacramento. My community is referred to as South Sac Iraq. The name became popularized by Sacramento News when they reported on 52 shootings that took place within the span of just one week. If you were to Google South Sacramento, what you'd see is a lot of mugshots and crime scene tape.

Growing up I saw very little positive representation of people who look like me, especially brown mujeres. I grew up in an environment where my mom relied on Section 8 housing to put a roof over our heads and on welfare to put food on our table.

As a young person, I felt broken. When I was in middle school, I disliked my skin color. I disliked being brown. I've often reflected on this experience, because I don't want any other young person to grow up disliking their skin, disliking being brown. I would Google how to bleach my skin and make it lighter. It got so bad that I ended up walking into my restroom, I grabbed Clorox and put a little bit on my skin to see if it would lighten it.

In high school, I became deeply engaged in Brown Issues and I continued my engagement throughout college. While in college, we established the very first Brown Issues middle school chapter. To this day, I facilitate the meetings in South Sacramento, the same middle school that I attended.

I think that reaching young people in middle school is essential because that’s when they are forming their identities. They are finding themselves, figuring out who they are, deciding what clique they belong to. At the high school level, they've already made those decisions.

Currently, I have a leadership role within the organization, and am blessed to be in this space. It’s a space of privilege because this role is giving me an opportunity to reach my younger self.

You have been a part of Brown Issues for a long time. What have you learned in your many roles?

Kimberly Gudino: Being part of Brown Issues in so many different capacities over the years, I’ve learned first hand that representation matters. It's important to see people that look like you doing positive things, taking on important issues, and having transformative conversations. As opposed to living life day by day, keeping everything in, living with your traumas.

I’ve also learned that we have to take control of the narratives that are told about our communities and our people. These stories are always negative, always dominated by violence. For example, my mother's story is a story of love and hope. My mom has been a street vendor for more than 20 years. In her struggle, I see the beauty of what it looks like to work hard for your family.

We have to do much more than what we're doing to help and save a young person, to help them become something greater than what they currently see themselves as. There is a lot of potential in young people. We just need to tap into it and give them opportunities to imagine and explore beyond what they've been exposed to.

What is the origin story of Brown Issues?

Kimberly Gudino: Brown Issues began around 2008. Our origins are rooted in Sacramento City College and its Cultural Awareness Center. This is where a group of community college students gathered to discuss the topics that were not being discussed enough in the classroom.

They talked about gang violence and mass incarceration, alcoholism, education reform, healthcare and immigration rights, and so many other topics that impact the Brown, Latino, Chicano community.

Eventually those spontaneous conversations became discussions, discussions became structured circles, and those circles became an organization.

Ultimately, the community college students wanted to do something more than just have conversations. They wanted to take action. They ended up volunteering their time at Luther Burbank High School in South Sacramento mentoring young people. This was at a time when gang and gun violence in South Sacramento was at its peak. Brown Issues founders wanted to expose young people to something different from what they saw in their communities. They wanted to facilitate real conversations that were not being had anywhere else and give youth opportunities to see beyond their current reality. They organized college tours, took students to conferences. I was one of those youth because I went to Luther Burbank High School.

Today Brown Issues has a statewide advocacy presence, a middle school-to-college educational leadership pipeline and a digital organizing platform with over a quarter of a million followers. We facilitate weekly meetings with young people and engage them on and off campus.

In the below clip, Gudino talks about their "Warrior Wednesday" social media campaign. Every Wednesday, Brown Issues amplifies the work of one Brown community leader or nonprofit organization.

Data about California's Latinos

29
is the median age for Latinos, compared to 36 for Californians overall.
13%
of Latinos are uninsured, compared to 8% of Californians overall.
60%
of Latinos are registered to vote, compared to 69.4% of Californians overall.

Your mission is to cultivate the next generation of Brown leaders. What strategies are you using to achieve your mission?

Kimberly Gudino: When it comes to Brown Issues, our goal is to cultivate the next generation of Brown leaders. We do that by helping young people find their voice. We give young people leadership opportunities so that they can cultivate and exercise their voice. Speaking their truth to power is important in order to change our culture, policies and systems.

One thing we know as an organization is that no single social justice campaign can beat back 500-plus years of colonization. When it comes to our neighborhoods, schools, and government institutions, they are in part a byproduct of racist, white, patriarchal, supremacist, capitalistic colonization.

Too many of our young people feel disempowered and believe that the obstacles before them are insurmountable. That is, until youth find their agency.

We've been able to use these three strategies—civic engagement, narrative change, and healing—to empower our young people and let them know that if they are exposed to and take advantage of the opportunities that they are provided with, they have the opportunity to be agents of change for their community and dictate what their future looks like. They have power.

We've been able to organize beside and with our young people at many events we hold throughout the year. It's been a beautiful experience to see young people find their voice. It's a game-changer when you have a young person who finally feels confident in who they are. That changes how they walk into spaces, how they show up in schools, in their neighborhoods, and beyond.

How does finding one's voice look like for a young person? Can you give us an example?

Kimberly Gudino: The first story that comes to mind is of Stephanie Lopez and Edith Williams.

For many years, Luther Burbank High School had three to four officers who patrolled the halls of the school. We held space with our students, and many shared their negative encounters with law enforcement on campus, but then they went beyond sharing their stories. They said, "Let's change this. We should have more counselors on campus. We should have social workers because we need people that can help us out."

Stephanie Lopez and Edith Williams were two of the young people that led this effort throughout this fight. They actively spoke against investing in school resource officers on campus. All the while, they painted the picture of what they believed the solution was—investing in more empowering educational opportunities for young people to grow up.

In 2020, Brown Issues successfully led the Counselors Not Cops campaign that resulted in the termination of a $3M contract between Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) and the Sacramento Police Department.

 So, I've seen it. When youth find their agency, they are unstoppable.

The way Brown Issues approaches civic engagement is both innovative and culturally relevant. Can you tell us about one of your campaigns?

The purpose of our "Voter" campaign is to change the narrative of what a voter looks like. Over the past six years, we've learned that one of the best ways to show someone that they belong in the process, is to show them people who look like them deeply engaged within the process. Because identity matters.

This is why in 2016, we designed and spread widely a t-shirt that said something very simple, but powerful: VOTER. We did this because we wanted Latinos, especially young Latinos, to embrace their roles as voters, as people who can help shape their own and our collective future.

In the below clip, Gudino discusses Brown Issues' voting pop-ups in low-income communities around the state and the get-out-the-vote event they did in partnership with the low-rider community.

In 2020, Gudino created this video to raise awareness about the experiences and struggles of street vendors like her mother.

What is something you are excited about in 2023 and beyond?

Kimberly Gudino: I'm very excited about the street vendor bill, SB 972, which was recently passed. This bill was authored by Senator Lena Gonzalez.

Essentially, the street vendor bill does four different things. It decriminalizes sidewalk food vending. It creates a feasible process for getting a health permit. It simplifies the process for obtaining permitted carts. And it helps build out commissary spaces.

Brown Issues is heavily invested in this campaign, and so am I. My mom has been a street vendor for almost 20 years in my community in South Sacramento. Street vendors go through a lot. Growing up, my mom was harassed, she was given fake bills. It's a very vulnerable community. Many people take advantage because they know that when it comes to street vendors, many are undocumented and many carry cash.

In 2020, during COVID, many videos went viral on social media showing street vendors getting harassed and attacked. And no one said anything about it. I decided to create a blog around my story as a daughter of a street vendor and the struggles that street vendors like my mom face, and why we need to support and show up for street vendors.

While the attacks were going viral, Brown Issues organized events in honor of street vendors. We partnered up with the low-rider community and invited the community to come out and do street vendor buyouts. As a community, we wanted to show our people that we have their back.

Our very first event in honor of street vendors was Raza Day in Southside Park in Sacramento. We were told by the street vendors that they earned a total of $20,000 because that many people came out to support them and buy out their products. That was a very beautiful way to show up for them. They felt safe. They were surrounded by a community that respected them. They were surrounded by their favorite music. We brought the mariachi and they serenaded them. It was beautiful.

We saw SB 972 as our opportunity to show the community that we can show up for them through policy, too.  

With this campaign, Brown Issues is supporting the community while simultaneously strengthening our policy arm. We are part of California Street Vendor Coalition and working with other organizations, including Western Center on Law and Poverty. This is a big win and we are excited for this. I am excited for this.

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