What The Hell America!

A longtime organizer reflects on Texas as both a battleground and blueprint—where the fight for economic justice, reproductive freedom and inclusive democracy is being waged by a rising, people-powered movement.

This essay is part of an ongoing Gender & Democracy series, presented in partnership with Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund, highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy. You’ll find stories, reflections and accomplishments—told in their own words—by grassroots leaders, women of color, Indigenous women, and trans and gender-expansive people supported by Groundswell. By amplifying these voices—their solutions, communities, challenges, and victories—our shared goal is to show how intersectional organizing strengthens democracy.

“I can feel the oppression.” Those were the words I muttered while taking a deep breath as I arrived at the Austin airport one year ago. The state’s restrictive laws on individual freedoms felt heavy in the air—an affront to what I always upheld as true Texas values. 

Texas is the state where the nation’s most suppressive laws have become normalized. Abortion bans, voter suppression, proof of citizenship and anti-LGBTQ laws are among those passed in the last decade.

It is also a state with preemption restrictions that stymie local laws to increase minimum wages, expand paid leave, ensure access to full-time hours or institute heat standards that could protect millions of workers.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott often brags that Texas is a blueprint for the rest of the country. Indeed. So goes Texas, so goes democracy. 

And yet, in 2024, I made a decision to move back to my home state knowing that the presidential election would result in chaos and crisis for my loved ones and community. More than anyone else and anywhere else, I wanted to be in the foxhole with them. 

We are now far closer to the people-powered fight for an economy that works for everyone—and a democracy that works for everyone.

Over a decade ago, I was focused on winning political campaigns in Texas—no easy feat given its heavily gerrymandered districts. My proudest moment: leading the campaign to reeelect state Sen. Wendy Davis ahead of her famous 13-hour filibuster for reproductive rights that catapulted her into the national spotlight and eventually led to her run for governor.

The hope for change was short-lived after a devastating loss in that election. But more than that, it made clear that Texas didn’t yet have an infrastructure in place ready to elect a candidate that was willing to put economic and gender justice issues at the forefront of conversation. 

However, her viral filibuster did launch a new generation of brave and creative activism that is intrinsic today to the fabric of Texas organizing. It was a moment that brought together a diverse coalition—multiracial, intergenerational, young and queer people—who occupied the statehouse and yelled so loud that Texas Senate Republicans could not pass their restrictive antiabortion bill (SB 5) before the midnight deadline. That night, the people won. And not because one woman by herself stood for 13 hours, but because thousands stood alongside her. (In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled part of the law unconstitutional.)

I remember this time period not as a Texas tall tale of Davis versus Goliath, but a real-life lesson of winning and losing. Without turning that moment into a sustainable movement, no matter how well financed, how popular, or how much political savvy a candidate has, winning is not possible without a people-powered movement. 

Texas didn’t yet have an infrastructure in place ready to elect a candidate that was willing to put economic and gender justice issues at the forefront of conversation. 

After SB 5 and another similar bill passed, the immediate impact was the closure of clinics that offered preventative and lifesaving services in low socio-economic and rural areas, like my own border community of the Rio Grande Valley. I saw this as not strictly a reproductive rights issue, but an economic justice fight. Which is why I turned my attention to organizing working people with a multiracial, economic perspective—in hopes of better understanding a model that could help my home state turn a corner.

I joined United for Respect, a national labor advocacy organization fighting for dignity and respect on the job. In my seven years there, I have seen firsthand how people working in low wage jobs can organize across race, generation and communities to build the infrastructure needed to win against the billionaire class running corporations like Walmart and Amazon.

People working at Walmart and Amazon—two of the largest private employers in the country and in Texas—are often paid so little that many rely on public assistance, need access to Medicaid to afford care and medication, and frequent food pantries just to get by. Women, especially women of color, are disproportionately trapped in the lowest-paid positions, facing unsafe working conditions and systemic discrimination, while billionaire executives thrive.

I often think of my own mother, working two part-time retail jobs to make ends meet, but even then, it wasn’t enough—we still had to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and WIC to get by. Those in the lowest paid jobs in our country make daily decisions of survival, all while watching their communities and neighbors increasingly disregarded and left behind in decisions made by elected leaders and employers. 

But it is a multiracial, people-powered movement that knows how to win. When working people leverage their collective power with creative activism they have secured better wages, safer work conditions, and more humane hours and policies.

It was workers’ ‘activism that led to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) taking over and shutting down a Walmart shareholder meeting in 2019 to demand higher wages; it was their bravery that won access to paid family leave and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act; and it was their relentless organizing that amassed a powerful force that stood toe to toe with billionaire Wall Street executives winning millions of dollars in severance pay for tens of thousands of working families impacted by mass layoffs. 

… which brings me back to Texas. Replicating a multiracial infrastructure is necessary to win long term in Texas. Even as we have weathered authoritarian state politics, unlike a decade ago, we are now far closer to the people-powered fight for an economy that works for everyone—and a democracy that works for everyone.

As for me, count me in as one committed to fight for that future here in Texas.