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Library

Maija Reed

Location:

Hudson, NY

Recorded by

Anna Levy

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Summary:

This interview with Maija Reed was recorded on September 5, 2021 via Zoom. Maija is a caregiver and early childhood educator and the Hudson City Youth Commissioner in Hudson, New York. In this interview, Maija expresses that she aims to have a positive outlook on ways to leverage the changes that have been underway. She names several Hudson area partnerships to expand and talks at length about how resources can or might be used differently moving forward. Maija speaks about the politicization of masks and the act of wearing them now becoming a sort of political statement. During the interview, she mentions that society is in a moment of surprises without reference, between climate change, far right legal shifts, and COVID-19 changes, and she reflects a lot personally on uncertainty at the moment. She speaks during the interview about youth and education resourcing, making her case to Department of Education and the new governor of New York to take different approaches. Maija shares her concerns about whether early childhood education, as the only age not publicly funded, will be able to bounce back given that competition for labor is hard and wages in other sectors more directly related to COVID went up.

Themes:
Leadership
,
Problem solving
,
Teachers
,
DOE (Department of Education)
,
News
,
Mental health
,
Interviewer Bio:

Anna Levy is a researcher, strategic analyst, educator and oral historian. Most of her work is at the intersection of accountability politics, structural inequality, historical and collective memory, and the role of civilian movements in economic and political transitions. She uses mixed research methods to map out the pressures and incentives guiding complex systems--including the political economy of organizations or cities in crisis, militarized border bureaucracies, or the shifting legal and digital frontlines of collective civic action, among others. Anna uses oral history to bring out the multiple, intersecting experiences that make up the day-to-day of those systems in order to help inform advocacy, policy and power shifts. She teaches on emergency and disaster politics at Fordham University and is an avid capoeirista. Her website is | Jafsadi.works.

Additional Info:
Interview language(s):
English
Audio quality:
Medium

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