Waiting4Lefty !Si se puede!, War Stories and Wisdom

Due Process Is Not Theoretical.

I’m a lawyer licensed in DC and Texas. And even if I was hired to do so, I wouldn’t be able to secure a bond hearing for a man detained by ICE without due process because a recent federal court ruling stripped access to bond hearings for many detained people.

It has been 43 days since my friend’s brother-in-law, Eduardo Uriel Velasco, was detained by ICE in Frederick, Maryland — the state where he and his family live.

The same state where my wife and I live.

Eduardo Uriel Velasco was later transferred to a facility in Pearsall, Texas. Hundreds of miles from his children.

Earlier this week, his family learned that, even though his bond hearing was previously postponed several times, the new ruling is being interpreted to mean he no longer has a right to a bond hearing. Uriel is now expected to remain detained until late March with no present opportunity for release on bond. These tragedies continue happening, quietly and without adequate attention being paid to the people who are being targeted, harmed.

Uriel’s wife, children, and his family, and his larger community are devastated. They are emotionally exhausted. His three children are disabled. His wife is their full-time caregiver. They miss him in ways that are impossible to describe.

As a woman whose identity was shaped in Texas, the state where Uriel is currently being held, without the right to a hearing, it stings in a way I cannot ignore.

Identity Is Not Abstract

I have spent my life moving between identities:

I am a Mexican American woman. My identity was formed in Texas. It was in Texas, where my Mexican identity became my Mexican American identity in grade school. It was later, also in Texas, during college, that my Mexican American identity emerged as my Chicana identity. This happened over time as I learned more about our people´s history at the University of Houston.

I also navigated the struggle between being seen as and referred to as Hispanic and ultimately came to terms with my identity as a Latina when I navigated the professional working world in both Texas and Michigan where I attended law school.

Even when I began practicing law in our capital city, D.C., while I worked with older Latino adults in my functional, imperfect Spanish, they recognized me and called me a Mexicana.

I am a lawyer who has at times believed in due process.

The undocumented children I once cared for when they were detained by the Department of Homeland Security back in the early 2000s —the kids who stole my heart, begged me to adopt them, called me mama, and pushed me to become better, for them and for myself, — better in my Spanish, better in my advocacy. It is because of those kids that I finally took a risk on myself and went to law school. They made me the advocate I am today. They were children in search of safety, shelter, food, and love. They deserved a chance. It was their humanity that moved me forward.

Our elected leaders in this country, and around the world, must stand up for the humanity of all who are in this land. Elected leaders must begin to fully recognize our humanity. Uriel should be able to safely return to Maryland immediately. He should be given the opportunity for a bond hearing. This is not a partisan issue. It is a constitutional one. And more than just relying on the Constitution — a document that has often failed to protect the global majority and those not in power — due process is a moral imperative.

Uriel’s future is tied to all of ours

Incarceration, detention, imprisonment without meaningful due process is not just a paper failing. It’s families like Uriel’s waiting at the dinner table. It’s mothers caring for their children without support, while juggling the costs of life while fending off questions from her children about when their father is coming home.

Whatever they call us — immigrant, Mexican, Latina, Chicana — we are still here.

And This Is Where Art Enters The Story.

Mexodus, Selena, Benito, and the Work We’re Being Called to Do

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mexodus lately, the revolutionary live-looped hip-hop musical by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson which tells the lesser known but powerful story of thousands of formerly enslaved Black people who escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad that went south toward freedom through Mexico.

In the summer of 2025 when I first experienced Mexodus, the play cracked something wide open inside of me, something that neither my advocacy work nor my own creative endeavors had ever done. The creative geniuses who brought Mexodus to life, Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, used live-looping, hip-hop, and memorable music, movement, and memory to tell this much-needed story. Mexodus showed me a piece of myself I hadn’t yet fully grasped, let alone seen reflected on a stage. And once I saw it, I couldn’t stop seeing the throughline.

It was a piece of my story that I saw on stage, and maybe it is a piece of yours. It is a story of Black and Brown people, who have rallied together against all odds, to form some of the most impactful and united fronts against mutual oppressors.

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My brother, me, Nygel D. Robinson, Brian Quijada and my wife, after a show during Mexodus’s world premier run at DC’s Atlas Theater. Co-produced by Baltimore Center Stage and the Mosaic Theatre Company.

At the heart of Mexodus was both a warning and a comfort, todos estamos juntos en esto; we are all in this together. Because whether or not folks are ready to admit it, we are all in this together. This is what art does as it’s telling the truth: it reveals what history has tried to bury. It restores to us what oppressors and colonizers have tried to hide, what man-made borders tried to erase. Art connects us back to our authentic selves.

I was reminded of this truth again recently. It could not have come at a better time. Last month when I showed up to the Latino AI Summit, a national gathering of Latino technologists, founders, and storytellers, I was a bit anxious. When I first entered the virtual waiting room for a session I was co-presenting, I felt the anxiety throughout my body. I wasn’t anxious about the content—I knew the work. I was ready to share.

I was worried that a technical failure could prevent me from connecting with the community that showed up. I was nervous about potentially missing this opportunity for connection because of something small and human.

But the Latino AI Summit Founders and organizers took so much care—and the technical support and resources offered before and during—made me feel safe in a way no national conference ever has. When I showed up with questions right before we began, my concerns were handled and all I had to do was speak truth to a room of folks who wanted to hear it and receive it.

It was an emotional experience co-presenting with Jessica Barrera Sorley for Cosmic Justice: AI + Soul for Community Healing. We dove into new ways of creating with technology that honors the spirit of our communities. Jessica shared an intuitive and energetic framework behind her Cosmic Companion creation. I introduced Justice Through Joy and my model for community transformation through storytelling, connection, and community.

Later when women told me how excited they were to hear me share my story, I felt restored. One woman expressed an interest in inviting me to visit her hometown to host a storytelling workshop. She’s eager to connect with me in my Justice Through Joy work.

Another woman shared with me that the work about I spoke inspired her to better connect with telling her own story. People said when I spoke about my Mexican American experience, it resonated with them and their stories or in how they relate to loved ones.

People were interested and asked about when my Justice Through Joy podcast will be launching. No specific date yet, but for what it is worth, I am planning to launch my Front Porch Sippin and Storytellin podcast this May 2026.

These shared moments of solidarity in community have reconnected me with an important truth I’ve been moving toward for the last several years of my own recovery and my own creative, writing and storytelling work journey. My work is not about a single story I want to tell.

It’s also not about a specific angle I’m hoping to uncover or expose in my Justice Through Joy work.

It’s about a shared recognition that we all need this. It’s about that collective calling toward caring for ourselves and one another, uncovering our own truths and our stories, celebrating our wins, and mourning in community. It’s about finding whatever value we can connect to in determining whether or not, or where, why, and how, we will share our stories, when and if we feel safe enough to do so.

We are all looking for that safe space to do this work for ourselves, for our communities. I have been as intentional as possible throughout this journey of mine, but it has not been linear or easy. And finding a safe space and navigating how to do this work has required deliberate, incremental steps — especially complicated because there was not always been a clearly defined path, or any path at all.

All of this has come together beautifully most recently during a universally connective moment of truth-telling through art, when Bad Bunny won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Oh—and that gift he gave us with his half-time show filled with love and storytelling, that was the icing on that delicious cake.

As all of the worthy global recognition was directed at Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s historic Grammy win, Puerto Rico was placed back at the center of many cultural conversations. And watching all eyes turn toward Puerto Rico combined with the nearly universal collective celebration that so many of us experienced while one of our own has been rightfully and globally recognized and celebrated, brought up the type of joy that art and creative endeavors can do to connect cultures. And his win reflects our shared resilience, and it reminded me of something older, something deeper.

I was reminded of Selena. I remember when I was a young girl how Selena Quintanilla Pérez, and Selena y los Dinos, at first they were ours. It felt like she at first, she was our Tejana icon. We called her La Princesa de la Onda. La Reyna.

But ultimately, she was not just for us. Not just for Tejanos. Not just for Mexican Americans. Not just for Chicanos. Selena crossed and connected cultures through her music.

Selena was for all of us.

And so is Benito.

Safety isn’t incidental. It’s what allows our authentic selves and our truths to come alive. That’s why watching Benito show up as his authentic self — representing and calling on his Puerto Rican home and New York — and calling in so many people, communities and nations felt so intimately, and vitally important. When colonizers disconnect us from language, land, and community, reclaiming joy becomes our act of resistance.

As he called in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brasil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Islas Antillas, United States, Canada and Puerto Rico — he was bringing all of our communities together by name and for Belize— not by name but by flag— and by having so many flags flown together, as representative of the true Americas. It was overwhelming in the best way.

Joy and discontent both live together in our lives, but Benito’s half-timeshow, our half-time show, was about love and connection. I’d previously wondered whether he would use the platform to call out ICE again. But he did much more.

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The only thing more powerful than hate is love.

None of the noise was there. Nothing about how the government may categorize us, try to hold us back. Nothing about how the oppressors continue coming after us without reason or rhyme. It was not about how those who would deny us our full humanity have harmed us or tried to contain us. None of that mattered in that moment. It was just music. Connection. Culture. Belonging. Joy. And it was everything we needed.

He embodied love, self-love and community love. Because The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate Is Love. And I keep returning to this truth: art shows us what policy refuses to name. Mexodus does that. Selena did that. Benito is doing that now.

And Uriel’s story reminds us of what happens when policy refuses to protect what art continues to reveal. And the work I’m doing—with Justice Through Joy, through leading in AI spaces, and in my writing, performing, and in my storytelling—it is about holding that thread steady.

Uriel’s family needs your support.

Please share his story. Please support his family in any way you can. Any contributions will support both legal advocacy and family stability while he is detained away from his family as they continue pursuing legal remedies. Your support, your time, your prayers — they are not in vain. We are determined to see Uriel return home safely. The support link will be at the end of this writing.

Support Uriel. Support Due Process. Support Storytelling That Keeps Us Visible. Seguimos Aquí. And we’re not done telling the story yet. Todos estamos juntos en esto.

In Solidarity,

Rebekah D. Mason Barrera

https://www.supportnow.org/the-velasco-family

This piece first appeared in my LinkedIn Newsletter and latern on my Justice Through Joy Substack, where I shared this post with audio..

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.

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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 !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, , , , , ,
Waiting4Lefty !Si se puede!

🌿 Justice Through Joy: What Our First Community Conversation Taught Me 🌿

By Rebekah D. Mason

When I first envisioned Justice Through Joy, I saw it as a space for women of color and gender queer people of color navigating the oppressive U.S. legal system and racist legal structures to explore mental health and community supports, to celebrate our joy and to connect in shared community. But our first Justice Through Joy Community Conversation gathering was so much more than that.

This Saturday morning our first Justice Through Joy Community Conversation taught me something profound: that gathering and uplifting our stories need not be forced primarily through the lens of the oppression we face, or the oppression that our ancestors faced—our stories are important and powerful and will flow organically as we center connection, celebrate joy, and honor our autonomy and choice.

This session wasn’t just a conversation—it was an act of collective healing.

Rooting Ourselves in Wisdom

Before we began, I grounded myself in the wisdom of those who have come before us by reviewing stories from activists and advocates and writers and thinkers. With the help of Justice AI, developed by Christian Ortiz, I brainstormed and reflected in advance of our conversation to guide the flow of our session—ensuring that the space felt intentional, open, and centered in justice.

I opened our conversation with a meditation honoring Grace Lee Boggs, Barbara Smith, and Dolores Huerta—activists whose work reminds us that justice is built in community, through imagination, intersectionality, and labor organizing.

Their words framed our gathering, calling us to hold space for both our struggles and our joy. We then listened to India Arie’s “I Am Light”, reflecting on her powerful words:

“I am not the things my family did / I am not the voices in my head / I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside.”

This became an invitation: to shed the weight of external expectations and step into our own light, our own power.

A Circle of Connection

What moved me the most was witnessing Black, Afro-Latina, and Latina lawyers—my friends, my sisters in justice—connect in ways that made us all feel less alone. Though we each came from different points in our journeys—some of us meeting through law school, legal aid work, mentorship, or professional spaces—we all carried shared experiences of navigating systems not built for us.

In this gathering, we didn’t just reflect on our struggles—we celebrated the ways we’ve supported each other across time, whether through personal growth, career transitions, or simply showing up when it mattered most. Seeing these incredible women share their voices reminded me that justice work isn’t just about fighting systems—it’s about finding each other, holding space, and building something stronger together.

We came into this space as individuals with our own stories, our own wounds, our own victories—but we left with something more. A reminder that we are never as alone as we think we are.

Storytelling as Liberation

I introduced five questions, allowing each person to choose which one spoke to them. Three of us spoke about powerlessness, one about building a better legal system—but the conversation was never just about the challenges. It was about witnessing, supporting, and holding space for both struggle and joy.

As India Arie reminds us:

“I am not the mistakes that I have made / Or any of the things that caused me pain.”

This is what Justice Through Joy is about: liberation through storytelling, connection through community, and healing through joy.

A Closing of Power and Purpose

We ended with breathwork, grounding ourselves in the affirmation: “I carry joy as resistance. I create justice with love. I am here, and I belong.” I left the session knowing this: ✨ Justice Through Joy isn’t just about surviving broken systems—it’s about reclaiming our stories, together.

Call to Action


This is just the beginning. If you’d like to be part of future gatherings, learn more about Justice Through Joy, or explore how storytelling can be a tool for healing and justice, please subscribe and consider reaching out.

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📩 Contact Me: justicethroughjoy.laboroflove@gmail.com
🌍 Learn More About Justice Through Joy: rebekahdmason.com/justicethroughjoy
🌍 Learn More About Justice AI & Christian Ortiz: justiceai.co
📋 Share Your Experience! Take the Survey: Justice Through Joy Experience Survey
🎶 Listen to “I Am Light” by India Arie: India Arie – I Am Light
💜✨ Let’s keep building, connecting, and holding space for joy.

Waiting4Lefty !Si se puede!

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

By Rebekah D. Mason

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.

I immediately tried to talk myself out of considering whether to submit for the opportunity which I worried wasn’t for me as a Mexican American. But for whatever reason, I continued to return to the call for Native American playwright submissions. I read it while I waited for the coffee to brew. I read it on the toilet. In bed. I kept re-reading it. I read the call on a weekly video chat with two of my best friends. I read the call aloud to my sister.

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 were all confused: Tejano. Tejana. Mexican. Mexicana. Mexican American. Chicana. Latina. (Hispanic.) white. (Latinx.)

These words, some of which were created before me, others which formed around me, have been used since the beginning of time, and continue to be used, by others to define me or label me or my ancestors. These labels, markers, identities, identifiers, which evolved throughout history within society and in language and meaning over time, have often been defined and redefined by oppressive outside forces with more money and power than that of me or my ancestors. And yes, it had 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 myself . Yet at 41 years old, I was unable to even begin to articulate whether I did or did not fit into this playwrighting opportunity, based upon how this group of theatre groups have “decided” 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’ ( an undeserved tribute to an infamous colonizer who took by force this very land from the first peoples) are we not unjustly continuing to center any stories we aim to tell around these 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 remained highly suspicious about everything, each of these ideas. They buzzed around the hive inside my mind, and they died every day battling alongside my heart and soul admirably, with honor. But none of them have produced a conclusion that felt 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 for undocumented Latino children who had been 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 in his mouth and said: “Check all the boxes!!!“. 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 !Si se puede!, War Stories and Wisdom

The world is supposed to be for all of us

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Waiting4Lefty !Si se puede!

The world is supposed to be for all of us

Immigrant rights are human rights. Labor rights are human rights. Civil rights are human rights.  No human being is illegal.

The sun was shining in our nation’s capitol today and across your land and mine.  We gathered in different places, with one goal.  To speak for and about the desperate need for comprehensive immigration reform that can reunite families, send lovers and children and grandmothers back to their beloveds, to their mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.  We were not asking for much, just the promise of these United States to be extended to all.

Some were proudly waving United States flags, the red, the white and the blue as we heard advocates crying out in Spanish and English, for the truths that we all hold so dear, the right to be a whole person. The right to be paid for the work you do.  The right to aspire toward and obtain an education, to be free of fear.

We were there, crying out that this country should be for us all. We are one nation, with many people–the more diverse we are, the stronger we are.  !Si se puede!

“I know this – your boss is making suckers outa you boys every minute. Yes, and suckers out of all the wives and the poor innocent kids who’ll grow up with crooked spines and sick bones. Sure, I see it in the papers, how good orange juice is for kids. But damnit our kids get colds one on top of the other. They look like little ghosts. Betty never saw a grapefruit. I took her to the store last week and she pointed to a stack of grapefruits. “What’s that!” she said. My God, Joe – the world is supposed to be for all of us.”

–Edna to Joe in Waiting for Lefty, by Clifford Odets