How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community - Paperback

by Mia Birdsong (Author)

A provocative, essential guide to cultivating community and solidarity, from an activist, community organizer, and thought leader whose viral TED talk has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
From Occupy to Black Lives Matter to the various marches and protests, we have had some powerful moments over the last decade that have galvanized and created new, but brief, feelings of community. Many of us, however, haven't figured out how to spark that feeling on our own, or how to build on or sustain those moments. We are longing for a kind of sugar-borrowing and stoop-sitting closeness we imagine existed in the 50s.
In How We Show Up, community visionary Mia Birdsong delivers a compelling, timely understanding of what true, authentic family and community can look like -- outside of the 2-parent, 2.5 kids norm we all have in our heads. Today we have more single parents, couples who raise children outside of marriage, and more people growing older alone. Tackling topics like creating safe spaces, creativity in community, raising children in community, and more, How We Show Up is the antidote to the social fractures we face in our nation today. By sharing stories and actionable advice, and taking cues from marginalized communities -- people of color, women, the LGBTQ movement -- Mia Birdsong offers us the blueprint we need to build true community wherever we are.

Author Biography

Mia Birdsong is an activist, facilitator, and storyteller. A Senior Fellow of the Economic Security Project, she was also an inaugural Ascend Fellow of The Aspen Institute and New American California Fellow. She was founding Co-Director of Family Story and Vice President of the Family Independence Initiative, Mia speaks widely at conferences and gatherings across the country. She lives with her loved ones on the occupied land of the Chochenyo Ohlone people (AKA Oakland, CA). Read more about her work at miabirdsong.com.