Alumni Profiles Carolyn Laub (Stanford, '95) Mid-Peninsula YWCA (now with Bay Area Gay-Straight Alliance) profile by Cathy Rion Involvements with community organizing: Rape Education project here--dorm outreach focusing on the language around sex (names for sexually active or inactive women and men, using that as a vehicle to talk about rape, violence, sex, objectification, etc.). This was more community education than organizing, however. Multi-cultural centers were threatened (before the hunger strike, grape issue, etc.). Carolyn didn't think of herself as an activist but believed in the issues and her friends participated, so she got involved too. Organized FloMo residents with a petition to ban grapes at FloMo after an incident at Flicks in which the short was a movie about the farmworkers and some people shouted "Beaners go home." HIV/AIDS prevention education job at the mid-peninsula YWCA. Based on a framework that in order for youth to have safe sex they must both have the factual knowledge and resistance to cultural pressures to use protection. This too is more education than organizing, but Carolyn's attitude is that of an organizer (trying to eventually eliminate the need for such education) than a service provider/educator.  What was your initial motivation? "It's where my heart is." Carolyn spoke of a passion for justice and a sense of justice and injustice. "Where does it come from?" she wondered. "It's not fair," she said as a child, which partially stemmed from her dad, a mathematician, who tries to get more women and minorities into math and sciences. Now Carolyn is more explicit about wanting to make change in the world, and she says she couldn't do anything else, "It's just who I am." What about role models? Some women leaders in Queerland and the LGBCC were real role models for Carolyn, particularly when the gay liberation statue was vandalized and the community organized against it. Queerland was a diverse group of cool people and she was a part of it, though she didn't organize it. "How do they know what to do?" she wondered, and at that point found queer issues too close to home to organize around. Nadinne Cruz was also a role model for Carolyn, though she only knew her through a visit to Synergy and through other friends in Public Service Scholars. What has sustained you? Relationships. Friendships, her chosen family, and a 2 1/2 year long relationship are where Carolyn gets her strength. Carolyn also never brings work home to do, though she will do volunteering and of course talk about work and other issues at home. What do you call your work? Carolyn sees traditional CO as organizing people around campaigns and direct actions. Her work now is more community education. Carolyn is also an activist in the HIV prevention field in that she is constantly urging her peers to look at the cultural pressures that create the problems and drawing connections between different kinds of knowledge in the field (scientific, cultural, experiential). Even in her current job, she sees CO as a framework that values changing the world as a priority, though services and education may be a means to this end. many in her field do not have this broader outlook, and Carolyn wishes that they all strive for the day when their jobs are unnecessary. How do you theorize about your work? Feminist theory and a cultural view from anthropology are guiding aspects of Carolyn's actions. She sees problems as cultural rather than behavioral, in that individual problems stem from cultural pressures, and addressing the individual's behavior alone will not be effective unless you help them understand the cultural pressures that cause it. Carolyn also has the unusual opportunity to theorize about her work at work. She is part of a project in which funders are encouraging researchers and community based organizations to share knowledge with each other. As a Stanford graduate working with a CBO, Carolyn is comfortable with the scientific jargon and she has practical knowledge about people's experiences with HIV/AIDS prevention. She's excited by this project because it gives CBOs access to scientific researchers, who then have access to communities in which they can do research that will benefit the CBOs. Why did you choose organizing for your work? Carolyn didn't explicitly choose organizing, but somewhere along the way she decided on HIV/AIDS prevention work and found the job at the YWCA. She does what she does "because it's unjust who is affected by this disease." (Youth and people of color are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, partly because of access to information and resources and partly because of the scripts that society programs into us.) Carolyn also does what she does because it's where her heart is, and she can't see herself doing anything else. What barriers have you faced? Money. Making enough to pay the rent, car, and food is a challenge. Her family doesn't understand why she does what she does and perhaps are afraid to really understand, and her parents are not themselves involved in social change. Initially she thought it would be hard to find a job, but after a couple years' experience she is totally confident that she can do whatever she wants, although funding for projects is always hard to find. Working in suburbia is a challenge because her classes all dealt with urban organizing, and it's difficult to justify to herself working with privileged youth What concerns do you have about CO as it is now practiced? YWCA's mission is "to empower women and eliminate racism." While it's great that racism is very central to the organization, homophobia and other -isms are not as readily addressed. In general, women's organizations need to take other isms into account, low-income groups to examine not only race and class but sexuality, etc.