Marlon Bailey Isn’t About to Slow Down

Marlon Bailey doesn’t plan to retire. Ever.

“I’ve got too many things to do,” he said. “I just plan on evolving and seeing where the journey takes me.”

Marlon grew up in Jamaica and says he caught the political bug from his mom, Ruby. “She was what you call here a district leader, for the Jamaica Labor Party. She believed that the government must protect and make conditions better for its citizens, she was very outspoken about it. Our family was complicated, some supported the opposition People’s National Party, so there were some pretty lively conversations. But politics never interfered with our family relationships. Love and loyalty always came first.” Continue reading Marlon Bailey Isn’t About to Slow Down →

Marius Marinescu Finds a Vision—and His Voice—at SLU

Marius Marinescu is living the American dream. “Whatever that is,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Marius was born in Brasov, Romania, in the historic region of Transylvania. There, he said, “I grew up in a totalitarian regime where I was inducted into the Youth Communist party at a young age, without my consent. The Communist party was trying to brainwash us, telling us we were living in a perfect society where everyone was equal. In actuality, we were powerless.”

He went on, “I grew up with minimal TV in Romania, and all it showed was Communist propaganda. So I became an avid reader. I liked history best, especially the fantastic books printed before the second World War. We had to hide them so the government wouldn’t confiscate them. They were beautiful, prized, secret cultural gems, the only way we could secure factual knowledge of the past.” Continue reading Marius Marinescu Finds a Vision—and His Voice—at SLU →

Miriam Uribe Martinez has already come a long way. And she has no intention of stopping now.

Born in Mexico, Miriam’s parents brought her to the U.S. when she was seven. She grew up in California, undocumented, like her parents. “My parents worked in factories, in people’s homes, places where they couldn’t complain about unpaid overtime or unsafe working conditions,” Miriam said. They got exploited time and time again. They wanted me to go to college, but my undocumented status and lack of funds made that very difficult.”

“Then lucky for me, just when I finished high school the California DREAM Act passed. I applied for DACA and was able to get grant money from the state to apply to college. I got accepted by the University of San Francisco but the scholarship wasn’t enough to cover my expenses—they hadn’t accounted for room and board, just tuition. I was just about to drop out because, being undocumented, I couldn’t apply for federal aid and USF didn’t provide much financial support for undocumented students. First I got upset and then I got angry, because California was providing undocumented students with the opportunity for higher education, but the university wasn’t providing them with the necessary support. So in my freshman year I wrote an op-ed for the student newspaper, ‘Undocumented and Unafraid.’ Fortunately, I got a tremendous amount of support from faculty and friends at USF, who literally helped me survive. I spent the next four years organizing on behalf of students like me and I learned that there are protections out there but most undocumented people are unaware of them. But change comes awfully slowly and in my senior year I wrote another op-ed, ‘Still Undocumented, Still Unafraid, Still Need Housing Funds’ to try to hold USF accountable.”

Continue reading Miriam Uribe Martinez Is Going the Distance →

Jimmy Bosco is from the working class and he is damn proud of it.

“I always want to be a member of the working class,” he said. “That’s who I am.

I’m rank and file, and I like working and being with the rank and file. I don’t feel like I necessarily need to be a leader of a union or something like that. I can do that right on the floor. I like that I can bring my anarchist/libertarian/socialist views to work and share them with my fellow workers. I can tell them that the problem in our country isn’t Democratic or Republican politics—it’s our capitalist society. I give them reading suggestions and websites. During the pandemic, I read about Cuomo’s policies on nursing homes and told my co-workers that there would be trouble, and when it all came down the pike a year later, they were impressed.”

“I’m working in a restaurant right now, and I’ve been doing some agitating there. I’m not afraid of talking to workers in front of the owner. One hostess worked 40 hours one week and 36 the next but she didn’t get overtime for the 6 hours over 70.  The owner told her she had to work more than 80 hours to get overtime. That’s illegal in New York State. I told her to use the group chat to ask if anyone else was having issues with overtime. They all started chatting together about asking for overtime, getting promoted to waitress. They all wanted to help each other get what is their due. So I got them to ask for a raise collectively. When the restaurant reopened for dine-in, I told them that was the most leverage they would ever have. So they all signed a letter and went right up to the owner and gave it to him. And they got a dollar per hour raise.”

Continue reading Raising Cain (and Baby) with Jimmy Bosco →

Yasmina Moore is doing it for herself. But she’ll be helping a lot of other people in the process.

A candidate for the Master’s degree in Urban Studies, Yasmina says she enrolled at SLU “because I wanted to learn something. I love my job and I’m successful at it but I felt like my learning process had plateaued.” She laughed and added, “I was all gung-ho at first but then I suddenly remembered that I’m over 40, I have a full-time job and I’m a mom. So I had second thoughts. But finally I decided to just go for it.”

Continue reading Yasmina Moore Goes For It! →