Waiting4Lefty !Si se puede!, War Stories and Wisdom

Born Citizens, Denied Power: A Law Day Reflection from a Tejana Lawyer

By: Rebekah D. Mason
Justice Through Joy | Law Day 2025

My mother was born in 1951.
My father, in 1953.
Both born in Texas.
Both Mexican American.
Both born U.S. citizens.
Yet neither was born into a country that recognized their humanity without conditions.

We are Tejanos — the people the border crossed.
And yet, still, we were denied.
Stripped of voice.
Taxed to vote.
Tested for literacy in a language forced upon us.

Poll taxes.
Literacy tests.
Language discrimination.
Legal exclusions designed to keep Mexican Americans and Black Americans from the ballot box.
From power.
From belonging.

They were born into a nation where their citizenship came with asterisks.
And shockingly, I’m just now — truly — coming to terms with it.
Not in college.
Not in law school.
Not even when I passed the bar.

But during the last election, I felt it — in my breath, in my bones — a knowing deeper than words.

The realization that I am not just an advocate.
I am a direct descendant of disenfranchisement and survival. And joy. And systemic oppression.
I’ve been fighting systems my family had to survive.
And now I’m asking different questions.
Not because my family never told me the truth —
but because they never really recognized the systems as fundamentally opposed to their betterment, their empowerment.

It was only a few years ago that I learned my grandmother had picked cotton. Cotton and fruit.
Somehow, I had never been told that story.

I had always known she was different from the grandmothers some of my classmates had —
she couldn’t read or write.
Not in English.
Or Spanish.

She didn’t go to school past the second grade.
I had always heard she’d been pulled out by her daddy for “embarrassing the family” —
they said she had been flirting with boys.
And if a second grader can flirt with boys, maybe my grandmother was the silly one to do just that.
But now I really get it.
She was probably acting too silly.
And for her, it was time to leave childhood behind.
She was ready for work.

And work she did.
Her entire life.

She never learned to read or write.
But she could go to Walmart, sign a blank check, and trustingly hand it to the cashier who would fill out the correct amount.
She wasn’t scammed — not in her Walmart, not on her Island.

That’s the kind of power she built — not with diplomas, but with presence.

She worked in the hospital cafeteria, where her son-in-law — my uncle — was the chef.

She bossed him and everyone else around.
Sometimes, his boss would ask him to remind her she wasn’t actually in charge.
But she was. Everyone knew it.

They called her Supervisor–my grandmother–the woman who had picked cotton and fruit as a young girl and who had raised her kids the best way she knew how, the one who bussed tables in that hospital cafeteria and ran a tight ship.

Her sister, my Tía Mona, had not picked.
Last summer she told me and my partner — with a certain pride — that she never picked.
Not cotton. Not fruit. She never had to.

That was new to me.
I had never understood that anyone in my family had labored in the fields —
and now I was learning that my Tía Mona was one of the few in her generation who hadn’t picked.
She’s 95.

But it turns out my grandmother wasn’t the only one who picked.

While it was just a few years ago that I learned that my Grandmother had worked the fields with her older siblings and her father — picking cotton and fruit, it was only recently as in today, April 30, 2025, that I learned that many of my mother’s older siblings — the generation after my Grandma— had also picked.

My mother had labored there too. And she had never even mentioned it.

As I was writing this reflection, I shared an early version with my mother. Somehow the conversation uncovered a memory of her own: that one summer, when she was in the second grade, she went with her older siblings and her daddy to the fields.

She was too young to work that day, but she wanted to help.

So she carried the water jug to them — to her siblings and to her father — as they worked to earn money for school clothes.

My mom’s older sister, one of my aunts, remembers their father, my grandfather, making tacos early in the morning for them before they were picked up by the large truck that transported them to the fields.

My mom says there’s even a faint memory — maybe a little family rumor — that Grandma might’ve been a little jealous.

Not of the work, but of the moments.

Maybe it stung a little because her husband, my grandfather, was making tacos for the kids. And not for her.

Or maybe she was a bit hurt because she was left behind to care for the youngest ones, no chance to earn a wage outside of the home at that time, no chance for the sun to shine on her face that day.

These stories surface quietly, almost accidentally, when the right question is asked.

And I wonder how much could be lost if I don’t keep asking the right questions.

It was during the first summer of COVID — the summer we lost Grandma —that I had first learned that she had picked cotton. And now, a little more than five years later, I’m uncovering hidden pieces of our past.

It was also in the year that Grandma died that I came to understand that she had been denied the vote because she could never have passed the literacy test.

So even if my family could have saved enough money for both her and my Grandpa Joe to pay both of their poll taxes to vote for Kennedy, her voice would have still remained unheard.

That was the point of those laws: to ensure that women like my grandmother would never have the chance to be fully heard.

I remember the pride in my mother’s voice and the sparkle in her eyes as the memory washed over her and she described that red coffee can in the kitchen window, where her daddy had proudly and over time, saved up his money so that he could cast his vote for Kennedy.

I also remember, vividly the moment of long-delayed mutual realization, where we both paused, her memory softened, I saw it wash over her face: a quiet devastation.

It was after I had said the words aloud, — poll taxes, literacy tests, Jim Crow— we both saw what that memory had held, transform before us and fly away.

My mother had grown up in a system that normalized her exclusion, normalized my entire community’s exclusion.

So much so that decades later — even after we had both earned multiple degrees, after she studied systems of oppression and I studied history and the law —neither of us had ever connected the dots.

Not from Jim Crow. Not from Juan Crow. Not to voter suppression. Not to our own family.

Not to what it meant to be intentionally, systemically, erased.

That day on my couch, when I called it what it was: intentional systemic oppression, erasure, designed by law, it hurt.

And so we grieved that red coffee can together.

Years earlier, when I had graduated from law school, my family had been so proud.

When I passed the Texas bar, they were proud again.

And when marriage equality became the law of the land,

I cheered from my tiny Legal Aid office in Washington, D.C., for my cousin who could finally marry her love in Galveston, Texas.

At the time, I hadn’t yet come out to myself as queer. But now I have, and I’m happily engaged to the love of my queer life.

What a difference a court decision can make.

I speak not just for me, but for every ancestor who could not be heard.

I advocate not only as a lawyer, but as the granddaughter of a cotton picker,

and as the daughter of a woman who was told college wasn’t for her — because she was going to get married, and start a family—who later earned her master’s degree in social work.

I stand with and for all the fiercely loving, silly, and steadfast Mexican American women in my family.

I am the first generation in my family born with the unencumbered right to vote.

And I do not take it for granted.

This May 1

This May 1 is a national day of action where we expect thousands of lawyers, judges, and advocates across the country to gather on courthouse steps and in public squares to say that we stand for the rule of law. I stand in solidarity with others across this imperfect and deeply flawed experiment we call democracy —

this system founded through the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples, built on the backs of enslaved Black people, and sustained through the systemic and intentional oppression of Mexican Americans and Black people and Indigenous people and countless other communities whose lives have been relegated to the margins of this nation’s promises.

To the others — including the lawyers who still believe in the rule of law —to the paralegals, social workers, judges, teachers, admin associates, to the students and the workers, and the artists and the nurses and all those who work tirelessly for U. S. legal system that holds itself accountable to equitable access to justice for all— I stand with you.

I will stand in my body, with the support of my rollator, and with my voice.

I will not remain silent while the rule of law, fought hard for by those who came before me, crumbles around us.

Because the Rule of Law Still Matters

I believe in the rule of law — not as an abstract ideal, but as a living promise.

A commitment that no one — especially not those in power — is above the law.

I believe that justice is not a privilege; it’s a right.

It is supposed to protect not just the marginalized and vulnerable,

but to hold the powerful, the oppressive, and the abusive accountable.

It should stand against those who claim to uphold justice while standing on our necks.

The rule of law should ensure that this democratic experiment — the United States — serves all of us.

Not just the wealthy. Not just the white, the straight, or the able-bodied.

Because the world is supposed to be for all of us.

And so, I will stand for a liberatory rule of law–alongside the rest of you who believe in a just legal system —
this May 1 and beyond.

Will you? Will you defend the liberatory rule of law, the protections democracy has promised but has yet to fully deliver — before it is too late?

P.S. Standing for the rule of law — especially a liberatory rule of law — won’t look the same for everyone. Do right by yourself. Stand how and where you can, safely.

Walk with me — toward justice, joy, and liberation.

Subscribe to Waiting For Lefty for more of my reflections.

Subscribe

Leave a Reply

Endnotes

Texas implemented a poll tax in 1902, which remained in effect until the 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964. Despite that federal change, enforcement continued in states like Texas and Louisiana until the Supreme Court ruled such taxes unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966). Both states were among the last to dismantle literacy and poll taxes — policies designed to disenfranchise Mexican American and Black voters. Literacy tests and English-only provisions were widely used across the U.S. Southwest to suppress the votes of Mexican Americans. Though often informal or extralegal, these tests were part of broader Jim Crow-style tactics, upheld through cultural intimidation and institutional neglect.

Thousands of Mexican American and migrant children labored in cotton and fruit fields across the U.S. South and Southwest through the mid-20th century. Child labor in agriculture, particularly among Latinx/o communities, remains underreported and ongoing. The trauma of systemic disenfranchisement — from field labor to voter suppression — reverberates generationally. The stories of cotton-picking grandmothers, coffee cans filled with saved poll tax money, and families denied education or civic voice are not only personal: they are legal histories. As historian Natalia Molina and legal scholar Ian Haney López have shown, these are the living legacies of exclusion by design.

About the Author

Rebekah D. Mason is a Chicana storyteller, legal advocate, and playwright whose work centers joy as a form of resistance. A former legal aid lawyer and veterans advocate, she has dedicated her career to uplifting marginalized voices and challenging systemic injustices. Through her blog, Waiting for Lefty, Rebekah shares narratives that intertwine identity, advocacy, and imagination, creating a digital space for healing and sacred resistance. Her one-woman show, They Don’t Leave Veterans Behind, Do They?, premiered at Joe’s Movement Emporium. A proud Tejana, later-in-life queer, and disability justice advocate, Rebekah continues to inspire through her commitment to equity, storytelling, and community empowerment.

Waiting4Lefty War Stories and Wisdom

Who gets to tell the story of the people of the United States, of the Americas?

Originally written in May 2024. I’m sharing these thoughts now just as they were written—raw, searching, and unresolved. In the months since, my thinking has continued to deepen, and I plan to share an update soon. For now, here’s where I was, sitting in the tension of identity, belonging, and voice.

Who gets to tell the story of the people of the United States, of the Americas?

For far too long, it’s been the colonizers, the white supremacists, the slave owners, the Jim Crow defenders, to the victor belongs the spoils, they say. Historiography is important but money and power and whiteness have for far too long defined how the global majority can live, free, or not free, to identify. How many of us have had our identities decided or defined by the people in power or in charge of our towns, communities, localities, regions or countries? One drop rules, and census groups matter for this conversation. Language matters, as it always does.

A few years ago, I came across a call for submissions to a playwrighting opportunity with Native Voices which read: “The Autry brings together the stories of all peoples of the American West, connecting the past with the present to inspire our shared future. Through Generation Now, a partnership with four other theatre companies – Children’s Theatre Company, Latino Theater Company, Ma-Yi, and Penumbra…” The call further described that they would co-commission Native playwrights to write pieces which would serve multigenerational audiences.

The ideas rolled around in my mind, repeatedly and kept me distracted while I tried in vain to think about other things, tried to be a productive member of society. Why was this keeping me up at night? Days later, I re-read it to my friends and opened up about the roller coaster of emotions that had erupted inside of me as I continued returning to the call.

My best friends suggested I could be struggling with feelings of being othered as a person of color. Yes, I was. And also I was struggling to get ahold of or to hold onto or to let go of these arbitrary, tattered lines of one, or two or more of my identities. These identities of mine are all confused: Tejano. Tejana. Mexican. Mexicana. Mexican American. Chicana. Latina. (Hispanic.) white. (Latinx.) These words which have evolved before me, around me, and have been used by others to define me or label me or my ancestors. These labels, markers, identities, identifiers, have evolved throughout history in society and in language and meaning, over time, have often been defined and redefined by outside forces with more money and power than that of me or my ancestors. And yes, it has all gotten me thinking.

I was frustrated with ‘the man’, ‘society’ but most of all, I hated myself for not knowing. I had come out as queer to myself (and eventually my family and friends and my community just one year ago) and I had apparently naively believed that I was finally getting to the most authentic version of who I am. Yet at 41 years old I remained unable to even begin to articulate how I did or did not fit into this opportunity based upon how this group of theatre groups chose to define Native American.

I think some Indigenous tribes and communities require a certain percentage of proven blood lineage to qualify for tribal membership. But how do I even find or begin to find the people, the group, that I might be a part of? Where could I, where could my family, fall in that world of community garage sales and signup sheets? In my daydreams I’ve created another reality where I go adventuring. I get to travel the world asking different indigenous communities and tribes across the so called Americas—in the same spirit of the newborn bird in P.D. Eastman’s “Are you my mother?” I could set out to find my place in the world. In my adventure, I could move beyond googling, to writing, then calling and later to driving or flying…and then to knocking and finally to inviting people from diverse groups across the Gulf Coast states, the Southwest, the West Coast, all of Latin America..to answer me, hopefully over a coffee or a tea: “Are you my People? Are YOU my PEOPLE? Are you MY People?”

But if what I had always believed or at the very least, what I have always said proves to be true, hadn’t the border of these so called United States of America, barely been created by people, likely people other than my people, basically immediately before it crossed right over us? Yeah, just like Selena’s dad said, my people, my ancestors, that border crossed us. And we gotta be the best of both worlds to each world.

Aren’t the Americas then mine to claim in at least one sense of the word? Who does the land belong to, in terms of telling its story? When people, myself included, when we use Native American to refer to the Indigenous people native to the lands later stolen and labeled as ‘America’ a tribute to an infamous colonizer who took by force this very land from them, are we not continuing to center any stories we try to tell around the very colonizing oppressors who caused upon us and our ancestors the various traumas which we have inherited from the generations before us, the very same traumas which remain inside our bodies, keeping the score and which we endure to this very day?

I remain highly suspicious about everything, each of these ideas. They buzz around the hive inside my mind, and they die every day battling alongside my heart and soul admirably, with honor. But none of them have produced a conclusion that feels just. Does Mestizo ‘count’ as Native American? Who decides? Not a dreamy, longing, Mexican American playwright, right? Authors of sociology texts with theories or Historians? Historians from which side?

In the end, I did not apply for the opportunity. I struggled too much with the idea of stealing an opportunity away from an actual Native American or First Nations artist. Yet, why on Earth was the Latino Theatre Collective collaborating in that call for Native playwrights? What did they know that I didn’t???

Weeks later, my partner Hadlee and I and my brother, were at Thanksgiving dinner with my cousin Sammy and his family. I described wavering between anxiety and turmoil as I grappled with these issues of identity. My mom and Sammy’s mom are sisters. And Sammy and I, along with our siblings and other cousins and extended family, had grown up close. If I remember correctly, we both grew up identifying as Mexican in the small towns of Galveston and Texas City which served as our little pond-stomping grounds.

“Do you think we’re Native American, I mean do you think that call for submissions was for someone like me, someone like us?” I was genuinely curious to know what he thought because we have always had great debates and political and philosophical conversations when we get together as adults; he’s a writer, too. He’s traveled the world as a Marine for more than 20 years and I was curious to hear him answer—and I had no idea where he would land. Like me, Sammy had also learned to speak Spanish fluently as an adult; him graduating from Spanglish to professional fluency on the military’s dime and me, graduating from Spanglish to professional fluency, while caring undocumented and detained Latino children detained by Immigration (“Homeland Security”).

“Are you kidding, prima!!? Of course, we’re NATIVE AMERICAN, that’s what Mestizo means. We are Indigenous. We’re…everything!” And in response to my question about which boxes he checks to represent his identity on government forms, he laughed aloud, took another drink from the bottle of beer in his hand, grabbed a bite from the charcuterie board, popped it in his mouth and said:  “Check all the boxes!!!” he had said. And he meant it.

It took my breath away. Even after my primo’s lovely wife Liz, his kids Chente and Quique, my family, too— they all agreed, and yet, with my brother nodding at me, clearly convinced and my partner smiling hopefully at me, I remained unresolved.

I still longed for a better resolution. Deep inside, I was curiously reluctant to accept this answer, the one which my cousin Sammy felt so entitled to.

Who gets to tell the story of the United States/America’s history? Let’s talk about that, please.

Waiting4Lefty War Stories and Wisdom

Grief Is a Policy Issue: #ASA 2025 Musings, My Grandmother, and the Stories That Stay

By Rebekah D. Mason

I brought more than a suitcase, a laptop, and a stack of business cards to the American Society on Aging’s 2025 conference.

I carried the weight of being a fat, disabled, queer woman entering a state where I wasn’t sure I’d be safe.

I carried the ache of knowing my grandmother, Manuela Barrera, died alone in her nursing home.

My mother, her sisters—my aunts—and our whole family weren’t allowed in to say goodbye.

Even though federal guidance permitted compassionate care visits, the facility didn’t follow through.

She died alone. And we were kept apart.

That ache doesn’t go away.

It lives in my chest, just beneath every policy I write and every room I enter.

It reminds me that grief is not a side story—it’s the proof that the system failed.

In the final year of her life, my grandmother’s dementia worsened.

Her Spanish—which, like her broken English, was never advanced—became filled with harsh, aggressive swear words. Words my mother and aunts had never heard from her before. Words they didn’t even fully understand. They had to call older, more bilingual relatives to translate what she was shouting.

It was heartbreaking. Not just because of what she said, but because we knew:

That wasn’t her.

She left school after third grade to work in the fields. She never learned to read or write—not in Spanish, not in English. The only thing she ever wrote was her name.

And still, for years, she could walk into the Walmart on Galveston Island, sign a blank check, and hand it to the cashier—because they knew her. Because she belonged.

That’s how trust worked for her. That’s how community worked.

But in the nursing home system, she was reduced to a risk. A behavior. A liability.

She was labeled a “behavioral case.”

She was avoided. Pushed aside.

People crossed the hallway to get away from her.

My mother and my aunt—both licensed social workers—advocated fiercely. I visited Texas during that time and was able to be present at the nursing home. We had lawyers. We had each other. She wasn’t discharged that day.

But she still died alone.

Even with all our love, even with our knowledge, even with the right paperwork, the system failed her.

My grandmother had fierce advocates in her family—including me, as a lawyer; several social workers; teachers; teacher aides; and a resilient network of Mexican American women caregivers who were tired of being left out. Despite our relentless efforts, the system still failed her.

Yesterday in conference session conversation, at ASA, I said something like “We can’t fix it in the next hour, but we can try.”

And that is what we did. We discussed what’s working in MA, what’s not working in CO and Hawaii. What is the industry doing right? What are they doing wrong? How can we support the direct care workforce with dignified #livingwages and ensure workforce retention and recruitment go beyond numbers. To the heart of the person.

So I’m naming it.

Not just to grieve—but to organize.

Not just to share a memory—but to spark a reckoning.

Because storytelling isn’t the prelude to the work—it is the work.

Storytelling reminds us that policy is personal. That data has a heartbeat. That care systems either affirm our humanity—or erase it in the name of compliance and convenience.

I carry my grandmother’s story into every table where long-term care is discussed.

I carry her into every equity framework that forgets language, culture, fatness, aging, disability, or grief.

I carry her not to center my own sorrow—but to remind the field what’s at stake.

Because the work—and the outcomes—are only as strong as the most vulnerable person who can actually receive their intended promise.

I’m not giving up.

I’m showing up.

And I believe in care systems where no one dies alone. Where the immigrant women who are our loved ones and those who care for our loved ones are also safe and cared for and receive the same promise we want for ourselves.

If you’re doing this work, I see you.

If you’ve lost someone in this system, I’m with you.

If you wonder how storytelling fits into justice—this is how.

In the naming.

In the remembering.

In the refusal to look away.

ASA2025 long-term care health equity dementia care caregiving Latinx elder care grief and policy disability justice storytelling as advocacy.

#ASA2025 #JusticeThroughJoy #LongTermCare #HealthEquity #DementiaCare #Caregiving #LatinxElderCare #GriefAndPolicy #DisabilityJustice #StorytellingAsAdvocacy

Waiting4Lefty !Si se puede!, War Stories and Wisdom

Justice Through Klatch: A Reflection on Voice, Vision, and Becoming

By Rebekah D. Mason

This week, I gathered in a virtual circle with four other brilliant women and our coach, Kari Ginsburg, for the opening session of Klatch.

Kari defines Klatch as “a small group gathered for conversation and support during times of transition or transformation.” That’s exactly what it was — and exactly what I needed.

In just ninety minutes, something shifted. I felt clarity. I felt resonance. I felt less alone.

This reflection captures what surfaced in me — what I claimed, what I released, and what I’m choosing to carry forward.

On Being in the Room

There was something powerful about simply being there.

Side by side with women navigating career pivots, creative awakenings, identity shifts, and deep personal questioning. Entrepreneurs. Public servants. Community builders. And me.

We had all filled out the pre-session forms with similar language, circling questions about purpose, voice, and direction. Kari brought us together not to fix or force anything — but to hold space, reflect, and invite possibility.

It felt intimate. Grounded. Brave. It felt like home.

Telling the Truth Aloud

I spoke about the tension I’ve been carrying — the push and pull between playing it safe and choosing what brings me joy.

I’ve spent years pouring myself into storytelling, advocacy, and recovery. But it’s taken time to trust that those things are enough. That they are the work.

In that circle, I shared the fear: What if the space is too crowded? What if my voice doesn’t matter?

But the group didn’t flinch. They listened. Reflected. Told me:

“Your voice is rare. Your fire is real. You’re not replicable.”

And for a moment, I believed them.
And sometimes, that’s all it takes to begin again.

Echoes and Mirrors

Another woman shared her story — one layered with legacy, responsibility, and exhaustion. Her words cracked something open in me.

I shared that as a Mexican American, I’m often grouped into immigrant narratives, even though my family has been here for generations — before there was a border to cross.

We are not newcomers. We are survivors of erasure.
And still, we are seen as risk.

I asked her what lessons she might find in her parents’ bravery — what it meant for them to leave behind what they knew for something uncertain but necessary.

She saw it.
And I saw her.
And in that moment, I was reminded: we don’t need matching stories to carry each other’s truth.

Seeds I Didn’t Expect

I didn’t expect to feel so seen, so quickly. I didn’t expect to feel ready. But I am.

Ready to bring my full voice into the light.
Ready to stop doubting my website — rebekahdmason.com — for being “too raw” or “too much.”
It holds all of me: my recovery, my advocacy, my performance work, my story.
That’s the point. It’s me.

And maybe — just maybe — I’m not just a participant in this work.
Maybe I’m meant to hold space for others too.
To invite them in.
To help them name their truth.
To remind them they’re not alone.

Maybe I don’t need permission.
Maybe I’ve already begun.

Justice Through Joy Was There Too

When I mentioned Justice Through Joy, people leaned in. They wanted to hear more — not just for themselves, but for the women in their lives who need it.

It reminded me: this project I’ve been building in small circles, on quiet pages, in whispered dreams — it matters.

We talked about the future of theater. About what it means to let go of outdated institutions. One woman asked: What if we let institutional theater die?

I shared about Sensible, a devised piece I worked on with Dog & Pony DC, inspired by the groundbreaking work of artists striving to make theater more accessible — especially for DeafBlind audiences.

The piece had no dialogue. No traditional stage. Just movement, scent, sound, texture — and one audience member at a time.
At first, I thought: This isn’t theater — it’s performance art. It’s movement. It’s ritual.
But once the audience arrived — once breath met breath — I knew: This is theater. In one of its most sacred forms.

I also spoke about Mexodus — a performance that cracked open the bones of legacy, escape, and survival. It reminded me that storytelling isn’t just what happened — it’s what continues. It’s how we resist erasure. How we honor breath, rhythm, and cultural memory.

And then I found myself talking about front porch parties — community-rooted gatherings created for homebound individuals, where community comes to them.
What can artists learn from that?
What would it mean to stop asking people to come to the stage — and instead, bring the stage to their doors?
To craft joy where people already are?
To reimagine care as choreography?

And what if we wove this into something larger? What if storytelling could be part of time banking?
A system where we exchange time, care, stories, skills — not for money, but for mutual restoration?

Justice Through Joy lives in these questions.
It is theater.
It is advocacy.
It is sacred.
It is creative resistance rooted in community aid.
It is a porch performance, a Zoom ritual, a handwritten zine, a warm meal, a shared grief, a danced prayer.

And it’s already happening.

Where I Go From Here

Today, I want to remember that choosing myself — and choosing community — is not selfish. It’s sacred.

I’m not looking to abandon anything. I’m looking to invest in what nourishes me and the people around me.
I want to keep building spaces where storytelling, community, and healing walk hand in hand.
Where people feel witnessed, not judged. Held, not fixed.

This isn’t about reluctance to lead.
It’s about leading in a different way — with joy. With purpose. With care.

That’s what Justice Through Joy is.
That’s what Klatch reminded me I already know how to do.

There’s no next Klatch until fall.
But I’m not waiting.
The stories are already rising.
The work is already here.

I feel seen.
I feel stirred.
I feel ready.

Not for everything.
But for something bold.

And that’s more than enough to begin.

Learn more about my work at: rebekahdmason.com | Learn more about Kari Ginsburg at: uproarcoaching.com

Come walk with me. Subscribe to Waiting for Lefty for reflections on healing, advocacy, Chicana identity, recovery, and the sacred practice of storytelling. We carry the hard things—and we keep going.

klatch community, storytelling as resistance, justice through joy, care work, women’s leadership, healing through art, performance and identity, creative reflection, community storytelling, coaching journey, radical joy, ensemble creation, vulnerability and power, queer storytelling, legacy and healing, , , , , ,