How do you create a real revolution?

The beliefs that I have been able to construct through this major and other courses that I have taken have made me better understand what it means to create social change and be a social change agent. I am very glad that I was able to gain this knowledge and that I truly enjoyed most of the courses that I have taken throughout my time here. The only problem is that what I have learned is telling me to abandon the institution and to not go into grad school. My heart is telling me to form my own Zapatista community and reject all systems of oppression in order to create a movement that is truly focused on everything being local, sustainable, ethical and equitable. But how realistic is this and how is my privilege allowing me to romanticize this idea of social change? The Zapatista movement was formed by rural indigenous Mayans who were always living in the margins. Their decision was very much dictated by the conditions that they were living in that someone like me can never truly understand. It was very much one of the few options that they had to progress. Had they been in the same situation as me the outcomes would have been very different.

Based on this what is next for me as a “social change agent”? I think that I still have a very long way to go. Currently I just have a surface level understanding of how social change is possible. I also have personal issues that I need to overcome when it comes to social interactions that have limited my ability to engage with my classmates as well as community groups. Your ability to create change is very much rooted on the limitations that you place on yourself as an individual.

Through the service learning project I was able to expand my understanding of what it means to be a social change agent. It has opened my eyes to the world of non-profit which is something completely different than what I have experienced as someone who has been involved with grass roots organizing. Through this I have gained an appreciation of the importance of the nonprofit sector and how hard they work to keep their organizations running through writing grants. I am glad that I was able to have a positive experience with my service learning project and be able to work with someone who is genuinely interested in the social aspects of environmental problems. I think that it is important to understand that social justice and environmental issues are not separate.

What I enjoyed the most about this experience was people telling me that the work I was doing is important and that they are glad that I was helping to develop the bilingual outdoor education program. I also enjoyed visiting the preserve and actually knowing and seeing where the program would take place. I was able to gain a lot of knowledge from Emily, the manager. I think visiting the preserve and taking a long walk was the best way that I could have ended my service learning project. I was able to learn about the struggles that she had to go through as a women as well as the struggles of trying to restore the reserve back to its natural state. There were restrictions that she had because the restoration project would affect other lands that were near the preserve that are not owned by them and so she is not able to restore the area back to what is actually best for the ecosystem and what she thought was best. She also struggled with having to hold back what she wanted to tell people she worked with for fear of the seeming unprofessional and having negative consequences.

My conflict right now reminds me of a conversation at a panel that I had with some former M.E.Ch.A members at the M.E.Ch.A National Conference. I was at a panel titled Life After M.E.Ch.A. where part of the conversation was about their struggles with going into the workforce and having to hold themselves back from doing and saying things they believed in. I mentioned how uncomfortable I was in classroom settings when we talked about our visions of the future but it was all being done within the classroom environment and none of seemed to do the radical things they really wanted to. If I was really down for the causa I would have dropped out of school a long time ago. What I found the most interesting was their reaction. What I read and maybe I am wrong was “oh shit she's right, I have constantly been thinking about it and someone finally said it”. It was such a strange experience. I told them that if you are an academic talking about oppression that if you do it within that setting you are upholding the very system that you denounce. It's very interesting and it renders people helpless because it's a trap. Yes you are able to spread knowledge but you are still being restricted.

Maybe it's time for a Revolution. But what even is a Revolution? If you look into the history of Revolutions it's shows a cycle of people who are considered to be oppressed finally making it to the top only to realize that they became the oppressors and that it was just a different variation of the very system that they had previously dennoced. How are you able to move away from this cycle?