Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host, Rams, this job.
He is Rams' job. I am q Ward and you are tuned into Civic Cipher.
This you are, and we would like for you to stick around for both halves of today's show because we are going to have a conversation that we feel is necessary, a conversation that represents a push that we've seen kind of forming in spaces, in online spaces, on social media, and something that we feel can be effective if you have if you feel like there's work to do since the last election. The conversation we're going to have today is with a dear friend of ours and a dear
friend of the show. She goes by the name of Anna Hernandez. She was elected State Senator Senator for the Arizona Legislative District twenty four and is currently the city councilwoman for District seven in Phoenix, Arizona. We're going to have a conversation about local politics, local politicians and their roles and how you can become a leader in your community by engaging in the democratic process and what all
that entails. We're also going to learn about her because she is a phenomenal human being that we're all incredibly proud of here and in this city. And you know, you can replicate that success in whatever city you live in, because you know, the template is very similar. And then for the second half of the show, we're going to have a conversation about how we can be effective in accomplishing what it is that we feel we need to accomplish on a local level in what Q has implored
me to call Trump's America. You know, these are some interesting times ahead, and this is one way that we can push back so all that so much more. But before we get there, it is time for some ebony excellence, shall we?
You want to take this, sure, then you chot today's abny Excellence sponsored by Actively Black. There is greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com. This is from the Black Information Network. Representative Jasmine Crockett highlighted the stunning hypocrisy of Republicans criticizing DEI while President elect Donald Trump uses his good old boy system to feel his cabinet positions.
On Wednesday, November thirteenth, Crockett broke down the hypocrisy during an appearance on CNN, which came after Trump announced he was nominating former Florida Rep. Matt Gates for Attorney General. I mean, she said in a quote, we are just an uncharted territory. But if anybody is surprised, then I say, you haven't been paying attention because the reality is that we have someone that is not qualified morally or otherwise
to be president of the United States. So why would we expect so why would his appointments be qualified?
I'm sorry. Quote.
These are people that have rallied against diversity, equity inclusion, trying to say that diverse candidates are somehow not qualified, she continued, But the reality is that what they want to do is more of this, put people that are not qualified in and say, well, you know what, because he's my homeboy, he is qualified. That's not good enough. That is what the good old boys system has always been about. And it's why we have not ever reached our maximum potential end quote. Not think by we, she
means our country. Conservatives have tried to use DEI as an insult to label qualified black people as undeserving of their accomplishments. Republicans previously criticized Vice President Kamala Harris as a DEI higher. Trump's cabinet picks have come under fire
for their lack of experience in roles. Thus far, Trump tapped Fox News hosts Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense and former Rep. Tosy Gabbert, who lacks formal intelligence experience, as Director of National Intelligence Matt Gates as Attorney General.
So shout out to Jasmine Crockett for holding it down for us and being the great warrior that she is, because that is indeed have any excellence that we need right about now. So and Hernandez, yes, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
That was a mouthful to kind of step through.
No, No, that's great. I love Jasmine Crocketts.
Yeah, she's good people. So do us a favor. Yeah, tell us a little bit about your story, like your your background story. Yeah, we just touched on what it is you do right now and that we love you. But you know, tell us a little about you know, growing up, schooling.
Just so people, I mean, my life prior to twenty nineteen was pretty boring. Born and raised here in Phoenix, the first generation daughter of Mexican born immigrants. So came from a very hard working family where we pitched in and help each.
Other out our entire lives.
And and it's funny because growing up, I didn't realize we grew up poor. I don't think I realized we were poor until I was in high school, and because it was just normal, right, it was what everybody around us, That's how we lived. But we made things happen, and so, you know, went to public public education, went to count Back High School, and really got into the workforce.
So I didn't go to college.
Got straight into the workforce and just climbed my way up there. Spent about eighteen years in corporate America and the finance world, so mortgage. Last three years of my career there was in commercial lending. Twenty nineteen, really got politically active after my little brother was killed by Phoenix PD in the middle of a mental health crisis. And so, you know, we grew up, as so many of us, believing and being told that police is there to help us.
So we relied on that called for help in the middle of his crisis, and you know, he ended up being shot and killed, And that was really my entry way into being politically active to the level I'm at now. You know, faced a lot of hurdles in that, getting reports, getting his personal belongings. I would show up to Phoenix City council meetings to advocate for my family, and that just that's the trajection that I took to get where
I'm at now. It would really start as a fight for my family and became a fight for the entire community and now really at the city and state level, and I think beyond that for so many communities that look like ours, right, that are people that come from where we come from, that experience the things that we experience.
And so now here we are about eighteen months, about nineteen months after my brother was killed, we lost my dad to COVID, right, just another example of how the inequities and healthcare and in our communities we don't have the resources we need. He was forced to go back to work because he could you know, he just couldn't be home because they got bills to pay, as we all do.
So those two it's really moved us to do I sit there and do I just like these losses can't be just for nothing.
There has to be something that comes out of this, and so that's the entryway. So in twenty twenty two where I ran for the Arizona State Senate and won decisively. I beat a six year incumbent. It was technically an open seat, but I was going against someone that has been at the legislature for six years, has heavy name recognition in politics, has the money behind it, right, all the connections, and very high level name Zame cess Our Javis, no relation to the cess Our Javis, and beat him
by fifteen points. Went to the Senate and did really really great work. Quickly kind of set myself apart because I was so in tune with the community and willing to work with anybody and have the conversations, but do it in a way where I'm pushing back on the hateful rhetoric that we hear in all the political spaces, but found the path to make some things happen. I want some people that probably would not I would never align with, but there was one area where we could work on.
So picked on.
Those things and led on some housing solutions at the state level, led on repeating the eighteen sixty four abortion band here in Arizona, led on starting the conversations at the state level about what police violence and ending state violence looks like. And now you know, made the jump
to the city council. So I'm finishing up my term at the state Senate at the end of the year, and now I'm the councilwoman elect for the City of Phoenix for so many of the same reasons, and one very decisively in this last election.
By fifty three percent of the vote. So yeah, now here, we are.
Extremely proud of you.
Thank you.
Yeah, just hearing your story and your why leading you to doing the work that you're doing for us. Now transitioning from one role to the other, listeners are finally wanting to know more.
About how politics work.
Yeah, I'm electing this person to do this job, but what does this person actually do in that role?
So give us a.
Little bit of background on the type of work a state senator does and the type of work that the city council woman does.
Yeah.
So at the state level, it's really interesting because the state level really controls how much money goes into our K twelve education, to our public education. A lot of the think of it. I think about this way. At
the state level, we create the laws. At the city level, a lot of times we implement the laws, but we are tasked with also the two things that legally we do at the state level is pass a budget for the state of Arizona, which ours about sixteen sixteen billion dollars last year, and with that comes where is the money invested into? So we do that and pass laws that affect us every day. So think of back in the day s P. Ten seventy that was pasted at
the state level. Currently, Proposition three fourteen was something that came out of the legislature that went to the voters. That is another version of show me your papers law, right, that's going to be used against communities of color here.
So that's really at the state level.
At the city level we have the most immediate impacted on our communities, from when your trash gets picked up to the parks. Do we have parks? Is there benches in the parks or public libraries? Your utilities, so your water, your power, that also gets that's within the purview of the city city council. Bus stops, is there bus stops at the bus stops? How many bus stops do we have?
Public transportation? Pretty much everything that affects your daily life is handled at the city council level, and we have you know, because I was the same way. I didn't understand the impact that a city council has, right and for Phoenix, the city council oversees the Phoenix Police Department, which has been one of the deadliest forces in the country. We know, yeah, we all know, right, like because of an action of the city council to hold individuals accountable
is where we're at now. So there's a lot that happens at the city council level, which for me made sense.
Why make this jump now with the open seat the previous council member running for Congress and it became an open seat, and it was a trajectory I thought about in the long term, but you know, the moment, the window was here to do it now, and I think it's very timely for what is happening in the entire political landscape that you know, I made that jump and now we want and are going into the council.
So you know, we don't get to have these types of conversations because you know, the moon and the stars need to align in order for it to be as really nag as it is now. But also, you know, we don't find ourselves talking to two people like you, and I suppose we could have the whole time, but now's the time. Yeah, And now's the time, and it's more important than ever. You've run two successful campaigns. Let's
say that there's a listener who's in Tupelo, Mississippi. Sorry to below, we always pick on you, but we love you, we appreciate you airing the show. But say there's a listener in Tupelo, Mississippi, and this listener says, you know what, I I don't like what's happening in the political arena. I don't know what to do, but I can't do nothing,
so I'm gonna do what I can. And they say, I'm gonna run for some local something in my own community and try to help shape outcomes for the people that I'm able to, yeah, to see and interact with. Talk to us about everything that goes into a campaign from that point to the point where you are.
Oh a lot. Yeah, So it's a lot.
You you know, there's gonna be a lot of sacrifices that are going to be made because your family and friends aren't going to see you during the campaign because you have to be on the doors. But I think the number one thing on the doors, yeah, knocking on doors, talking to your neighbors. I think the number one thing is that it's going to take a lot of hard work and you have to be willing to put in
that work as the person that wants to run. Nobody should be telling you, hey, you need to get out there and go do the work, like we have to want to do this. And then it's about going out there and connecting with the community. So either going to community events that are being held in wherever whatever are you live in, talking to your neighbors, literally going out and knocking on strangers doors that you you probably didn't know, and going to make the case of why they should
give you a chance. And that is really at the center of it. Is connecting with the community, talking to the voters in the community and connecting with them so they get to know you.
And that has been what has been successful. But with that.
Goes fundraising, right, we have to unfortunately fundraise money to run.
So how does that look.
It looks different for a lot of different people.
I've gotten pretty creative because, as I said, I don't come from the Democratic Establishment Party, right. I didn't come in through this into politics through the typical way that a lot.
Of people do.
So I had to create my own grassroots, a pull of donors, hard working people, working class people that are willing to give me fifty dollars, twenty dollars, one hundred dollars, whatever they can to help make this happen. So I meant, you know, making phone calls, making phone calls to people that you know, people that you don't know, giving them your reason why, and then making the ask of will
they invest into this vision. I got pretty creative where I would my family like sports, so if there was a boxing match, or if there was some big gaming event, usually my mom would be down to host it and I would make tacos and my family would come over and be like, Okay, here's you know, thirty forty bucks. And so got really creative that way. We can do fundraisers different way, but it's really about connecting with the folks that are gonna believe in your vision to invest into it.
I want to I want to back up just a bit, give me a second cue, because I know you got something. But you said something about the coming into politics via the democratic established process. So this is something that I'm not intimately familiar with, and maybe a lot of our listeners aren't intimately familiar with as well. So what does that mean? So that we know what you did to circumvent that.
So typically a lot of candidates will be plugged in with you know, I am a registered Democrat. I caucused with the Democratic Party. I'm part of the Democratic Party. But I didn't come in through the traditional route, So I didn't go to the party at different levels and you know, train with them become a candidate that they are going to uplift. I really came through the door through a grassroots movement, through my what I consider my
movement home, which is bullet in action. They had already been organizing in the community, and so I came that route.
But a lot of candidates rely.
Every state and every city has a different makeup of how their Democratic Party functions. It's really hard to come in the door and be successful if you don't have the backing of the establishment. But we knew through our you know, years of organizing that if you go and talk to the people, that's where the real power lies. And so that's why I say, I didn't come through the establishment door, really came in through the community door.
But Poe, their in action kind of gave you a little oh yeah absolutely, so yeah, absolutely.
I mean if it wasn't for ball ed like, I wouldn't be here. They showed up, they were willing to throw down and do the work. I'm a member of one of their groups, the Family Justice Collective, and so that's how we built that.
I want to say something to real quick right here. Hey, so back in twenty twenty when we were out protesting and all that sort of stuff, and then in the years that followed, Podir in Action They're always going to hold a special place in my heart. So shout out to poterir in Action. I tried to get them on the show a few times, but they're busy doing the actual work.
Yeah, well you got me through extents.
Yeah yeah, so that's what makes me happy. But they they've they really showed up in a really meaningful way at a time when I was taking you know, mental notes of people who were allies to black people and you know this this most recent election. Forgive me, I know I'm hogging up all the time here, but it's most recent election, I've seen some some reactions of people to the exit polls, the numbers of Latino men and all that sort of stuff in there that's created some
some harsh reactions. I will never forget Ramses, will never forget that I saw on the street who showed up for us in pote air reaction, which is like a hispanic I suppose that's how I would describe it. Led social justice push organization initiative something like that. You know, I'm I'm not person that that appreciates division or anything like that, but if I can take a moment to just shout them out, i't want to do that, Thank you, my bad.
A lot of people are justifiably frustrated with what often feels like apathy from the political infrastructure, lack of activity. People feel disconnected and ignored.
And not seen.
I imagine when you made the decision that you were going to become a part of the system, that that was part of the reason why talk to us about why it's so important to become a part of the system the way that you did. Instead of just kind of seemingly being frustrated by the lack of action on your behalf and on the behalf of your community.
Well, I think we have to be real that this is not for everybody. Not everybody's going to function well inside the system, but when there are some of us that make sense and can handle that because the realities we're going to we're walking into very violent, work, very toxic environments where we deal with all the isms.
Right, like all of them, but.
We believe that who better to lead and have those positions of power than those directly impacted by the system, right, and by barriers that have been created through the system. I think for me, it's really important because we've never had at the state legislature a senator or House representative that has been directly impacted by police violence. So that completely changed the game as legislation would move forward. I was able to speak from a different point of view.
I was able to share my story and move other legislators to really think about, hey, oh, this is really the impact. There was a piece of legislation my very first session, right, I'm brand new, have never run for office, like learning how to do this job, and there was a bill that came that would create these drug free neighborhood zones under the guise of trying to attack the Fentonel crisis. But when I read the piece of legislation, I knew how it was going to be used, and
so I raised a flag. And this is a bill that would have moved forward. And this was a law that was going to be on the books that was going to be used to criminalize black and brown people, right, because that's another pathway to introduce policing into our communities or expand the scope of policing. And I raised a flag and just went really hard within my own cockets
and was able to get that bill held. And that bill never moved forward, and so things like that, that's why it's important to be in these spaces because through our experience and sharing our stories and as hard as it is, as emotionally draining as it is, it's a responsibility. And so it was my responsibility to share my story to move people, to move my colleagues to support opposition
or you know, in support of certain legislation. So for me, that's the biggest why why it's so important to be inside the system while we are also working outside of the system.
You know, one of the things that I'll never really understand is how this country treats drugs like it's a criminal issue and not a health issue, and they will dedicate endless resources to criminalizing something that hasn't gone away. And you know, we say it jokingly that drugs won the War on drugs. Yeah, and it's certainly certain types of drugs that affect black and brown people are more
heavily criminalized than drugs that affect non black communities. But you know, it's I think having a voice like yours, having a seat at the table, having someone with some perspective who can offer some insight because a lot of people I think that they don't think that they're being racist or ignorant or whatever. Yes, but their behavior and
their action is just it. It literally is ignorant. And so you know, I applaud you, and I applaud the work that you're doing because folks like us know how necessary it is.