Building the Future of Home
EP. 04: Building the Future of Home
In this episode, we talk with Nagela Dales, Founder of OPENHOUSE, about how different cultures create physical spaces specifically designed to bring people together. From the layout of traditional homes to gathering places, there’s so much wisdom in how our ancestors designed for connection. We discuss what it looks like to build the future of home and community right now.
Listen to the full episode:
About the guest:
Nagela Dales is the founder of OPENHOUSE, a business designer, researcher, and speaker who shows daily that business can drive meaningful change.
Her work spans boundaries and sectors, from co-ideating products like an indigenous-centered DNA platform centered around data sovereignty, to creating inclusive design strategies for tech companies, leading service design for healthcare nonprofits, helping activists build operating models for their organizations, and facilitating workshops for global brands like Nike, ServiceNow, and more.
She is proudest of her role as a designer and agitator, using tools like human-centered design and design justice to help leaders unlearn limiting beliefs, activate the imagination to move beyond extractive business models, and unlock their inner changemakers.
She also draws from her own business journey as a first-generation entrepreneur to bring strategic tools to those traditionally excluded from innovation spaces, changing who gets the title of innovator.
In her hands, business design becomes an opportunity to reduce harm, build better business cultures, and build power.
Links referenced in the show:
Transcript:
00:00:42.85
Marjorie Anderson
Hello everyone and welcome back to the fourth now episode of the Connecting Across the Diaspora podcast. Yes, we are on episode four and as we carefully curate the conversations we bring to you, it really feels more important than ever to highlight voices that bring truth and hope to a world where it feels harder and harder to find. So we appreciate your patience as we are really intentional about the voices that we invite to the table um because we want to be able to foster conversations that make you think that foster additional conversations outside of this space and that hopefully spur you to action in some way, shape or form.
So thank
00:01:27.51
Carol Martinez
Yeah, it's awesome to be back. So super excited um and as Marjorie just stated, we are very careful about what does this sound like and what does this feel like?
We do understand that there's so many other podcasts out there that are celebrating the diaspora and we're happy to know. that these topics are being spoken about. But again, in our space, we want the genuine conversations that come from humans that are making movements out there in the world and just really sharing those stories of belonging and community and you know how do they represent themselves as well. So this is super exciting.
00:02:09.62
Marjorie Anderson
Absolutely, absolutely. And even even more exciting is the fact that I have one of my, we became very, very fast friends, our first meeting, and we were like, are we best friends now? And we were like, yes, we're best friends now. So, um, really, really excited to have Nagela Dales on our podcast today. So just to give you a little bit of information about who she is and the impact that she's making in the world, Nagela Dales is the founder of Open House.
She's a business designer, researcher, and speaker who shows daily that business can drive meaningful change. Her work spans boundaries and sectors from co-ideating products like an indigenous-centered DNA platform centered around data sovereignty to creating inclusive design strategies for tech companies, leading service design for healthcare care nonprofits, helping activists build operating models for their organizations, and facilitating workshops for global brands like Nike, ServiceNow, and more.
She is proudest of her role as a designer and agitator using tools like human centered design and design justice to help leaders unlearn limiting beliefs, activate the imagination to move beyond extractive business models and unlock their inner change makers.
She also draws from her own business journey as a first generation entrepreneur to bring strategic tools to those traditionally excluded from innovation spaces, changing who gets the title of innovator.
In her hands, business design becomes an opportunity to reduce harm, build better business cultures, and build power. Woo, girl, Nagela, welcome to the Connecting Across the Diaspora podcast.
00:04:04.64
Nagela
Thank you, thank you. I'm excited to be here and I'm gonna need you to read my bio everywhere. It’s Intonation, that's what it was.
00:04:14.39
Carol Martinez
I mean, she articulated that and intimated that in such a way, like, want to know her. Can I hug her?
00:04:23.00
Nagela
i was like, ooh, good stuff.
00:04:23.20
Carol Martinez
Right, right, right, right.
00:04:27.45
Marjorie Anderson
I both have a face and a voice for radio. So there we are. It's really good to have you as part of the podcast. There are so many conversations that you and I have had that just felt like this was, it would be a miss not to have you come on and talk about all of the work that you're doing. So I'm really excited to dig in and learn a little bit more about the things that you're thinking about, the problems that you're solving, um and just the mark that you're making on this world.
So um let's go ahead and dig in.
00:04:57.57
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:04:59.77
Marjorie Anderson
So talk to us, um you know, this, this particular episode is really about building the future of home. So talk to us a little bit about how you came to think about building the future of home.
And what was it that lit that spark for you?
00:05:14.03
Nagela
Yeah, I mean, you know, whenever i meet people and, you know, you do the networking thing and you try to explain your work and oftentimes people ask me like, how did you get here?
And for me, that's, that has been such a difficult question to answer because I don't think in a linear fashion, I really think in convergence points. And, you know, I think very much oftentimes, like science, like a lot of things are happening at once in order to create the conditions or something. And so y'all have to give me some some grace if I'm a little bit of a trying to map the constellations of something for me.
So I have to say this at the top. Born raised from Brooklyn. I can't even to put it in my bio what am I doing with my life?
So yeah, yeah, yeah. Your girl is from Brooklyn. I'm a first gen, Haitian American. I'm deeply connected to my culture.
So i think I've observed what home has meant from so many places and so many angles. Um, one of my favorite movies is actually The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Have y'all ever seen that movie?
00:06:31.65
Marjorie Anderson
No, it's on my watch list though.
00:06:33.51
Nagela
Oh my gosh. I hate people are like, this is a black version of this, right? But for for the audience, it's If like Wes Anderson and Spike Lee came together to make a movie, this is what this movie would be and the idea is there's these two young men, one of them is Jonathan Majors - we don't got to talk about that right now - but he's great he is great in this movie.
And San Francisco used to be a predominantly Black city, a Black town, right? A lot people don't know that. They just think of it as a place of like tech and all that. San Francisco was incredibly Black for a really long time. And he keeps breaking into this house that his family used to own to fix it up. And so you're watching this movie that is like this whimsical fairy tale about this, you know, guy who can't stop breaking into this home and thinking one day he's going to reclaim this home for himself and for his family.
And we kind of know that it'll never happen. and then you hear how the how he lost this home and what it meant to his family. And so I bring this movie up because there's so many whimsical movies that have ah white faces where the fairy tale is, it could it could be love, it could be romance, but in this movie, the fairy tale is home. To have a home, right? That was the thing that their inner child was rejoicing in, this idea of the kind of home that I can have and be and belong and create.
And so i i feel like fairy tale is kind of how I think about our pursuit of home, specifically in America right now, is that we keep hoping for this happy ever after and we're not quite getting it.
And so growing up in you know in Brooklyn, seeing the impact of gentrification, um seeing my parents you know struggle and my mom's a home health aide and be called you know racist, I mean encounter racism, my father encountering racism, and seeing how their hearts and their souls in some ways have been so broken um by their pursuit of building a home for themselves and building a home for their children.
And even now, as we're watching just horrific ICE raids, right, of people trying to build a better life for themselves here, right? To establish homes, to establish communities. And we're just ripping them away from it. And so I think being part of the diaspora is trying to understand what home means.
And yeah, I'm very fascinated by this. I've read books my entire life. I'm a big fantasy science fiction person. um And so everything from, I'm a Star Trek person over Star Wars person, right? This exploration of, Star Trek was better. There's more diversity. Star Wars was, Star Wars was so depressing.
00:09:35.62
Carol Martinez
So much better.
00:09:38.37
Nagela
I'm like, oh, and they lost again.
00:09:40.49
Carol Martinez
Oh, my God.
00:09:40.87
Nagela
oh my gosh.
00:09:41.71
Carol Martinez
Star Trek.
00:09:41.97
Nagela
Now it's Darth Vader Jr. Like, who is this man?
00:09:47.80
Carol Martinez
Star Trek was, I mean, it took you beyond, but it was diverse. I love that.
00:09:53.69
Nagela
100% 100% so yeah so so I'm really impacted by again being from Brooklyn being from a place like New York where people make movies about what it what it means to live in New York you go on social media you go on TikTok and people are like a day in my life in New York and so many so much of that is unattainable to so many people
00:09:55.66
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:10:06.31
Carol Martinez
yeah yeah
00:10:14.06
Nagela
And that breaks my heart. But I don't I don't only want to talk about the negative side, but the positive side is I've what homemaking looks like for us, right? Especially from the diaspora. I've seen us bring things with us from across, you know, generations and across some land to build things that are beautiful and meaningful under really difficult conditions.
And I want to continue making sure that we can thrive and build our own our own version of home.
00:10:48.40
Carol Martinez
yeah Yeah. Loving everything that you're saying. And I am such a big Star Trek fan. I mean, I watch all of them um over and over again, but I don't know.
00:10:57.58
Nagela
yeah
00:10:58.69
Carol Martinez
It's just hearing you hit my heart in so many ways, because as an immigrant, right? Just watching the current situation that's going on, it tears my heart in so many ways.
And I know growing up in New York as well, the Haitian community, to me, it represented what home looked like for me as an Afro-Latina from Honduras. So i am I'm curious to welcome your view, your perspective, your feeling about being Haitian from the sense of being that Haitian that was born in the US, but also like your family, your parents being the Haitian that were born in their mother country.
And now they're trying to figure out what home looks like in the America.
00:11:47.01
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:11:47.39
Carol Martinez
Talk about that.
00:11:49.07
Nagela
Yeah, I, you know, first one of the New Yorker, shout out, shout out.
Anything that, listen, no diaspora wars with anything that I said. If you have a problem, send it to, like, www.iceisaproblem.com. Like, I'm not here for that. please.
Nagela
I'm not here for that so I often say being Haitian is as unlike anything else in the world, especially in the Western Hemisphere, just because of our place in history with becoming the first um free Black um nation in Western Hemisphere.
So the sacrifice and the ramifications of that is still so present in our history. country right now.
And so as somebody who's worked in the Baham, and in in the Caribbean, in places like the Bahamas, um other islands working around innovation, I've seen how Haitians are treated in different places. and there is a hierarchy system in a lot of ways.
As a Haitian person who has, you know, my family's dealt with a lot, I still have family in Haiti, a lot of oppression, ah law of anti-blackness, just from even sharing the islands, you know what I mean?
So people don't understand the history of Haiti. Haiti, after we got our independence, for the next 200 years, we helped others do it.
We helped. We were a safe place for a lot of Polish people fleeing. We were a safe place for a lot of Greek people seeing. We invited a lot of AAs, African-Americans, to come to Haiti.
So we invited a lot of people to say, hey we we have something here. You are safe here, right? There are old archival footage and old archival posters and ads that um that Haitians have put out to say, hey, you can come here.
We were a big part of South America gaining some of its independence as well. And people don't know that history.
And so that's why i say being Haitian is very difficult. paying France $18 billion dollars in reparations. Well, sorry, not reparations, but in consequences for getting our freedom.
We were occupied by the United States from for 20 years, between like 1910 and over. We were occupied by the U.S. military. um So yeah, i just I just say all of that to kind of give people the history of Haiti and where we are kind of right now.
And so being Haitian American is a constant experience of grieving.
It's pride and it's grieving. It's hurting and not knowing all the ways that you are hurting. It's trying to piece together your story, trying to build your racial self-esteem, um trying to understand how people see you.
It's things like growing up in the 90s and you would call it like a Haitian Buddhist grader. or, you know, being asked if I had HBO and me being really excited because we had just gotten cable vision and me being like, yeah, and I watch Rugrats too.
And they're like, haha, it says HBO, Haitian body odor. And I'm like, oh, thought it was the home box office.
Oh, you know what I mean? And it wasn't until the Fugees came out that we got a little break. I was like, oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you, Wyclef.
Right? You know, it was, oh, they do voodoo, they eat chicken feet, they are, right?
It was movies of like, you know, we're ooga booga-ing somewhere, right?
And so for a long time, i was always proud to be Haitian, but i my racial self-esteem, my ethnic self-esteem was really impacted in ways that I couldn't find language for ah up until I went to Haiti actually for a tech conference.
And just seeing my people be people, just like we were at like a really nice resort and I was eating fried pork because that's what we do every day at the buffet. And I was like, I have not seen one pig. Where is all this pork coming from? there...
Where is this poor... Oh, anyways. And not realizing how much self-esteem that gave me back, how much dignity that gave me back, right? ah You don't know that you're lacking that with such a deep lack of representation.
Yeah, it's that's how I'm kind of thinking about being Haitian American is this idea of grieving, of my parents grieving, my parents constantly being like, I'll never get my country back. I'll never be able to go back. They've ruined Haiti. Haiti's not what it used to be, right? Trying to show people that we are more than what media has said about us. We are more than the violence that has impacted us. Even now in the last year, this current administration, Haitians have been a target as so many other groups, but Haitians has been a target. And I don't know if people have seen on a national level what it looks like to also be racially Black and be a target for immigration. Because know it can get really complex when it comes to you know, oh this person, you know, immigrated from, like, Nigeria, and they actually are well off, and, you know, so I know it gets complex, but i don't think people have seen what it looks like, you know, for Black bodies to be deemed and as interlopers, right? I remember in the last his last administration, seeing a photo of a, you know, white man on a horse chasing a Haitian at the border, right?
Like, those those images stay with you. So I am so proud to be Haitian. I want us to know more than suffering. and want us to be known more of not like as like, oh, we're so resilient, so're so resilient, right?
We're so we're so many other things. We're artists, we're craftsmen, um we're carvers, we're storytellers, right? There's so much more to to being Haitian. And I feel like, I don't know what it looks like to build our national identity right now with so much pain and and such a lack of control and agency over our stories.
00:18:30.34
Carol Martinez
Correct. And I love, and sorry, Marjorie, and I and i love the the, there's a piece in there. There's so much that you said, but there's a piece in there where you say they have ruined our country, right?
And and I have conversations with Haitians, Afro people that look like myself that come from South America, because I think there's a lack of understanding when we say they have ruined our country, because there's always that they, from the American perspective, thinking that we have ruined our own country, but it's not we by ourselves, right?
Like we didn't ruin our country by ourselves.
There's so many layers to the, how our country's got to be this. And then even living in the United States, how our mind, you know, got kind of twisted or but you know, changed and then we take it back to our country.
So just a, just a very deep part there for me personally too.
Nagela
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:19:27.59
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah, and I think there's something really poignant poignant and interesting that you said in how your parents think about, i will never we'll never have the Haiti of old back. We'll never get our country back. Like it will never be the same.
And I remember in our pre-show prep conversation, you mentioned um like the weaponization of nostalgia and what it means to let things be a part of our present identity versus a place of remembering the past.
And so when I think about how you mentioned the struggle of being able to really find identity for yourself as a Haitian and Haitians, you know, largely finding who we are and how do we identify ourselves now and how we define who we are now.
Like talk to me a little bit about how maybe that plays into utilizing nostalgia as a ah letting things being a part of the present identity versus trying to call back to onces was what once was.
00:20:32.47
This is a great question. Also, i was like, I said that? Okay, girl.
00:20:44.52
Marjorie Anderson
Yes, you did.
00:20:44.82
Nagela
Oh i started talking about the weaponization of nostalgia because i do quite a bit of inclusion and innovation work, right? um So what is...what is worthy of, what problems are worthy of solving. And I think watching this whole make America Great Again is such a prime example of weapon weaponization of nostalgia, ah make it great again.
What's the again? When was it great? Who was it great for, right? We've had these conversations about a million times.
And so the other part of the nostalgia is you know, it's almost kind of like, I think of like how schools talk about Black History Month, right?
And this idea of, hey, we're going to take a moment to look at the past and somehow make you feel like the past and the present are not interconnected in any real powerful way. And they also don't help you build a future. I don't know if school has ever had a Black History Month that helps me be forward-facing, to the world.
00:21:50.10
Marjorie Anderson
No. It's always like, this was slavery. And by the way, somebody in your culture invented peanut butter, like, go Black people.
00:21:53.85
Nagela
Right. 100%.
00:22:00.65
Carol Martinez
Yeah. Yeah. And then there's also the piece too, where like even experiencing that with my niece, where they make the kids dress up like somebody from that black history, but it's just like a showing and it doesn't go any deeper than that.
00:22:01.99
Nagela
Right.
00:22:09.16
Nagela
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah, yeah. I had the privilege of going to a real, I'll call it a real Black day camp. Like Marcus Garvey was like painted on the outside. Aand our Halloween was Black History Month and I was Whoopi Goldberg. So for 15 years, i had this complex that i look like Wobby Goldberg. And I saw the color purple.
00:22:32.41
Marjorie Anderson
But Whoopi's beautiful. let's not Let's not get it twisted.
00:22:34.72
Nagela
Listen.
00:22:34.89
Carol Martinez
She is awesome.
00:22:35.21
Marjorie Anderson
Whoopi is beautiful.
00:22:35.88
Carol Martinez
Love me some Whoopi. Like, all the way.
00:22:37.90
Nagela
Whoopi is beautiful, but at 11 years old, there's no, I'm sorry, there's no other kid around you being like, I think Whoopi Goldberg is a charming and beautiful woman.
00:22:43.82
Carol Martinez
True.
00:22:45.16
Marjorie Anderson
Right.
00:22:46.41
Nagela
Like nobody's doing that.
00:22:46.63
Marjorie Anderson
Right.
00:22:46.77
Carol Martinez
True. True.
00:22:48.27
Nagela
And it was also the time, what like we were all watching The Color Purple on Sundays on WB11, right?
And, you know, for purposes, you know, she wasn't doing what she needed to do in that movie. You know what I'm saying?
I mean, you know, let's go, you know, after such a features, but like, you know, there's a whole scene I couldn't get out of my head where it's like, Suge was like, you sure is ugly. And I was like, am I ugly?
You know, but that's, we can talk about that of our after our therapy session.
You know, at most what they'll do is like, Serena Williams was the greatest tennis player. And they won't mention, you know, the racism that she faces still to this day, the misogynoir that she faces still to this day. And so the nostalgia is always kind of like, A, it's ah it's permission to remember a certain type of Black history.
It is to make you feel unaware that every day that you are living is Black history, right? And And if they can kind of complementalize what Black history is, um then they can make sure that you don't feel like you are owning it. Right? Like on a day-to-day basis, you're not owning it.
And so when I talk about nostalgia... A lot of it actually comes from ah how I see lifestyle and home brands right now and what it means to live in cities in New York.
And this idea as somebody who works, again, you know, into innovation and you know products and stuff like that. Seeing certain brands come into New York and become this like, this, you know, the brands that are sponsoring podcasts.
If you want to sponsor their podcast, go ahead. You know what I'm saying? But, you know, the Casper, the Brooklinen, this is very much out of home advertising that happens a lot.
Like, what do you see outside your window? What do you see around you? And what I was realizing was they were building this idea of home in New York that was very much ah white center. And the way they the way they center the whiteness is not necessarily just through the people in the advertisements.
It was through a almost a nothingness. It was almost an um absence of a culture.
And that is oftentimes what whiteness does. It just like deculturizes things. I don't know if that's ah if that's a word.
00:25:14.90
Carol Martinez
That is a word.
That is a word.
00:25:16.58
Nagela
So okay. And so I was realizing that you know, we were building, i was watching my friends, millennials build these homes that were very deculturized.
And maybe for a friend, if there was like Haitian flag day, if there's a first of July, first of January, we'll make like soup jumou, right? It was a soup that we make for our independence, to celebrate the independence of of Haiti.
And so it was very much like this event specific, moments that we would activate our culture and it didn't feel like we were always reaching to the past but we weren't bringing the past with us right i'm not i don't need to just make you know trader joe's ready meals no shade no tea right trader jose trader mings know what I'm saying and you know what i'm saying listen i love a ready meal like ever any other girl right.
But I realized that, you know, living on my own, I want to make sure my culture is embedded in my everyday life. I don't want to visit my culture, right? I don't want to to do that. I want it to be a part of my everyday life. And when I do this thing of engaging in my culture from a place of nostalgia, it's oftentimes from a place of lost or bittersweetness.
And it's almost like I'm bisecting time. I'm making it then and now. And I don't want any of us to do that. In fact, there's more for us to do. There's more ways we can incorporate our culture, um are our ways of thinking.
And I found, I found a really great indigenous professor. And one of the things he talked about was, When conversation happens in America and they shut down, oftentimes you speak in a different language, right? Your your native language.
That language creates cognitive function. So language is not just culture. Language is how you think. It's cognitive function.
And so when we shut down culture, we're literally reshaping our brains. We're reshaping our nervous systems. We're reshaping our bodies, right? There's so many so much that we're getting that we're losing. like There's some cultures that…entering a doorway activates something very specific for them, right? Or going to a certain space is actually something very specific for them. And so, and it it changes our behaviors, it changes the way that we think, changes our conversations, changes how we relate to one another, right? And so if they can just make it nostalgic and they can make it something that is almost kind of a, uh, compartmentalized and in a commodity and a place that you visit and a tool that have to take off a shelf versus you embodying it, they win.
00:27:59.65
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah, and I think that there's something really important there um around the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural um appreciation, right?
00:28:09.87
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:28:09.85
Marjorie Anderson
One breeds awareness, the other one breeds erasure.
00:28:13.48
Nagela
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:28:14.98
Marjorie Anderson
Recently, there was ah conversation that had popped up on TikTok where ah everybody was going, I won't say everybody, but a certain demographic was going nuts about the fact that Kendall Jenner had on, the new Kendall Jenner tank top, ma'am,
00:28:22.30
Nagela
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:28.56
Nagela
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:28.83
Marjorie Anderson
That's a Hanes t-shirt. That we have been wearing the those forever, right?
00:28:31.71
Nagela
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:34.54
Marjorie Anderson
And we saw it with the “boxer braids.” We saw it with, we see it with everything where um specifically white people want to say, well, it's why can't why why can't everyone just partake?
00:28:37.14
Nagela
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:48.01
Marjorie Anderson
Because it's not for everyone.
00:28:48.63
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:28:50.07
Marjorie Anderson
Right.
00:28:50.21
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:28:50.18
Carol Martinez
It's not.
00:28:50.35
Marjorie Anderson
Like if you want to appreciate it, that is one thing. But it is a totally different thing to rename it in the name of erasing culture.
00:28:54.26
Nagela
Yeah.
00:28:59.76
Marjorie Anderson
And that comes with anything from any diaspora.
00:28:59.90
Nagela
Yeah.
00:29:03.48
Marjorie Anderson
Right. And so we saw it really early on in the 90s where everybody was started with Gwen Stefani wearing bindis like, hey, ma'am.
00:29:10.80
Nagela
Yeah. 100%. Yeah.
00:29:12.44
Marjorie Anderson
you're not Indian. Why are you wearing that?
00:29:14.01
Nagela
yeah
00:29:14.79
Marjorie Anderson
So, you know, and even that then transformed into appropriating Asian culture.
00:29:14.97
Nagela
ah hundred um
00:29:21.34
Nagela
yeah
00:29:23.29
Marjorie Anderson
Right. And so but in the name of like, oh, well, why can't everyone just partake?
00:29:23.71
Nagela
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:23.89
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:29:27.87
Marjorie Anderson
Because you're not partaking in it for its appreciation. You're partaking in it to erase it and adopt it as your own.
00:29:30.89
Nagela
Yeah.
00:29:33.31
Marjorie Anderson
So.
00:29:33.98
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:29:34.29
Nagela
Yes, 100% and especially if you're appreciating the thing and not appreciating the people,
00:29:35.54
Carol Martinez
Yep.
00:29:43.14
Nagela
Right. And that's that's yeah, it's exploitive.
00:29:43.53
Marjorie Anderson
It's exploitative.
00:29:45.65
Nagela
It's it's extractive. Right.
00:29:47.05
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:29:47.17
Nagela
There's no reciprocity in it. There's no curiosity in it. ah This is one of my pulpits. I have many pulpits. Like I can just like pull them up and I'm like, time to like, you know, go off ah for two hours.
00:30:00.02
Carol Martinez
Amen, sister.
00:30:01.38
Nagela
Right. Go take the girl out of the Baptist church. But you get to, you know. um
00:30:06.32
Carol Martinez
Amen.
00:30:13.08
Nagela
I wish I had um the full language to describe the cannibalization that whiteness does to culture. Like this is how I view it. I view it as cannibal. It is they cannibalizing.
00:30:26.30
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:26.72
Nagela
Capitalism is cannibalizing. Okay. Capitalism is cannibalizing. Period. It eats. It has a voracious appetite. It's so hungry and it does not stop.
00:30:38.28
Marjorie Anderson
yeah
00:30:38.42
Nagela
It'll consume and consume and consume and consume. So nothing is recognizable. Right.
00:30:42.21
Carol Martinez
Yep, yep. yeah
00:30:43.15
Nagela
And I have a blog post. I have an article on my site that basically proposes the question, we have to commercialize our culture in order to gatekeep it? Right because it's very interesting how money is a natural gatekeeper of culture right um and i think what's as somebody who is haitian american guess it's very complex feeling black american in being black american and understanding there's like nuances there but also feeling like we're having similar experiences but I'll say for aa culture it is so easily cannibalized because a it's very hard for people to ah like actually build wealth from from their Black culture that doesn't get cannibalized into something bigger, right?
00:31:29.24
Carol Martinez
Yep.
00:31:31.95
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:31:32.75
Nagela
Like music. Also, we don't have some some of the natural barriers that other cultures have. For example, language is a very, ah very simple boundary for cannibalizing culture, for culture of appropriation, right?
It's really hard to appropriate something you you don't speak the language. So ah being AA, right? Being African-American in America is you have like lost your mother tongue, right? And there's stuff like the Gullah people have ah have a certain ah certain dialect and we have, you know, there might be AAV and all of these different things, but still it's it's still the still same letter system.
00:32:07.55
Carol Martinez
Nah.
00:32:10.66
Nagela
And so it gets cannibalized because there isn't that natural barrier. And then also we're living amongst the dominant culture so presently. It's really hard for that to not happen. And so there's so much of what it means to be Black. and I've been trying to figure out like some kind of data model that I can build around Black culture to show its economic impact, not to prove anything to anybody, but just so people can see and understand. Of what it of what it looks like right if black culture is like gold currency it doesn't matter how what converts from it gold is always going to be kind of chief so trying to try to figure that out but it's really hard to do
00:32:57.18
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:32:57.15
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah, I mean, like a good example in case study you can start with is the millions of dollars that Target has lost over the past six months.
00:32:57.71
Carol Martinez
and
00:33:05.22
Nagela
yeah a hundred percent
00:33:05.84
Marjorie Anderson
Start there.
00:33:07.80
Nagela
ah hundred percent
00:33:09.12
Carol Martinez
Yeah. and
00:33:09.47
Nagela
ah
00:33:09.97
Carol Martinez
And also, too, to add to that is um because I'm a language lover. So throw language at me and i I absorb it. I embrace it because it's such a connector, right?
00:33:18.00
Nagela
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:33:20.40
Carol Martinez
It's a connector to whatever the blank is.
00:33:20.94
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:33:23.41
Carol Martinez
But I am seeing this hypeness around technology.
00:33:29.18
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:33:29.49
Carol Martinez
adapting those languages so that it can transcend or trespass the barriers that some of us from the indigenous cultures have put forward.
00:33:31.32
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:33:34.76
Nagela
he
00:33:38.93
Carol Martinez
Right. The one thing I love about the indigenous culture is technology is not welcome into the indigenous culture because it never had a place.
00:33:39.26
Nagela
the
00:33:44.70
Nagela
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:33:47.79
Carol Martinez
But now technology is starting to be welcomed and those gates are starting to go away.
00:33:50.37
Nagela
Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:55.45
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:33:55.43
Carol Martinez
And that's a concern.
00:33:57.26
Nagela
yeah yeah
00:33:58.05
Marjorie Anderson
it's persa It's pervasive. You can't really get much done these days without it ah from a from modern standards, right? When you think about modern standards, but many of us don't also need it.
00:34:05.71
Nagela
yeah
00:34:10.42
Marjorie Anderson
If you are rooted and steeped in heritages and ancestral knowledge and those things and recipes that were passed down from your grandma and her grandma, like the end of the day, technology enhances and is more of an enabler, but it is not necessarily needed.
00:34:16.40
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:34:19.04
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:34:20.82
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:34:21.28
Nagela
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm two minds about this. i know some of the... I know what you're talking about, Carol, and some of the work. I think the first thing is um Language without culture does not, it's not quite the same, right?
00:34:46.59
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:34:46.95
Nagela
um And I think that's my first concern is language is a way of thinking. It's not just a way of communicating. And how do we
00:34:57.43
Carol Martinez
I don't
00:35:01.12
Nagela
how would we use technology? How might we, it's a very designer thing, but how might we use technology to make sure, how do we do this in a way that that both are happening? So for example, when i um was learning French, right, which again, very complex, France colonized Haiti,
00:35:21.61
Nagela
um When i was learning French, one of the key things they show you is to make a lot of thinking noises. um So you'll go, oh, oh you know, um like these sounds are a part of that, right?
00:35:31.38
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:35:34.53
Nagela
It's to show that you are thinking and it's a way of being expressive. And all cultures have a little bit of that. So that's one my first thing is... And there's just language is so steeped in um relationality, how they how people connect to their place, how they connect, you know what I'm saying? So that's my first thing. The second thing that concerns me with that is no matter what you think about religion, i think indigeneity is deeply spiritual. i I think we have moved into a place in society where spirituality is deemed as not important.
00:36:10.95
Carol Martinez
yeah
00:36:11.34
Nagela
um And again, this has nothing to do with like this specific paradigm, this specific paradigm, right? And i often think it's interesting that the most... ah I don't know, the most Western places are the most, in some ways, ah they are pro-intellectualism and they speak really poorly about what spirit and belief is. And so to capture language without the complexity of spirit that's embedded in a lot of Indigenous thinking, I think is also problematic.
00:36:41.47
Nagela
um um And then I always say at Open House that ownership is inclusion. Well, before I say that, i when I used the word technology, I want people to understand technology does not mean computers and data.
00:36:53.91
Nagela
right Technology is anything that has been invented and created. i think it's really important for our culture to understand that we have been creating technological advances for thousands of years.
00:36:59.40
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:37:03.82
Nagela
right It's not just, you know,
00:37:03.83
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm. AI.
00:37:06.61
Nagela
you know to
00:37:06.65
Marjorie Anderson
ai
00:37:07.30
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:37:07.57
Nagela
it's not just ai right?
00:37:08.71
Carol Martinez
Or cell phones.
00:37:08.80
Nagela
It's not just, right? Electricity is is technology, right?
00:37:10.64
Carol Martinez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:12.56
Nagela
Like the wheel was considered technology. So I think that's kind of the first thing. And I and i bring that up to say I'm very curious about the path that we would have taken and um without colonization, without imperialism, without feudalism, right?
00:37:27.81
Nagela
And maybe that pass that path could have included technology You know what i'm saying? Like, I don't want to live in a world to think that, you know, only white people would have been like, only we think about technology. Nobody else has access to this. Right. And so I would, I would like to think that had we had more agency and ownership,
00:37:50.15
Nagela
we would have found ways to create technology that had our thinking inside of it. When I when i work with data sets, I try to embed a lot of Indigenous thinking into it because they build knowledge libraries.
00:37:59.85
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:38:02.06
Nagela
And so the way they view data, the way they display data is very interesting when you think of knowledge libraries and oral storytelling and how can I incorporate that in my research. um And that is, you know, ah a way for me to engage with technology from ah place that has more indigeneity. And something that we talked about, ah you and I, Marjorie, is that to be Black is to be Indigenous.
00:38:26.54
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm.
00:38:26.66
Nagela
And that's another thing as well.
00:38:28.00
Carol Martinez
right
00:38:28.68
Nagela
um In Africa, they were very sophisticated geometric systems for how they built their cities. This whole block grid, block grid thing was a very Western thing that happened.
00:38:40.16
Nagela
The amount of math and geometry that happened in how cities were built and flowed for thousands of years is really fascinating and really sophisticated.
00:38:50.32
Carol Martinez
Hmm. Hmm.
00:38:50.59
Nagela
so I know that we have the capabilities for a level of technology that would have been like sophisticated and beautiful and awesome and amazing. um And even now, if we were to say, let's build our own technology, the downsides of that is like we don't own our data centers.
00:39:08.07
Nagela
ah You know what i mean? We don't own our cloud servers. So again, it's it's it's a complex thing. But the point is like language is so much more than communication, right? It's culture. It's ways of thinking. It's behavior. It's mindset.
00:39:22.59
Nagela
And how do we do that just through an app, right? Like Duolingo just literally is kind of like, oh, we're going to mostly an AI company now. and it's firing mad people.
00:39:32.93
Nagela
And I'm like, you've been twerking as a bird on TikTok for three years. What are you doing?
00:39:37.50
Marjorie Anderson
right Facts. Facts. Like, wait, wait a second.
00:39:44.41
Marjorie Anderson
Wait a second.
00:39:45.23
Carol Martinez
Oh my god.
00:39:47.17
Marjorie Anderson
And no, that's that's real. i think I think that's also a really good um segue into... um something that you're working on called the Good Neighbor Project.
00:40:00.03
Marjorie Anderson
um For those listening, ah the Good Neighbor Project aims to reduce the harm that is created in neighborhoods from gentrification and cultural um micro displacement that happens in changing neighborhoods. And like this feels really fascinating and timely to me.
00:40:17.46
Marjorie Anderson
So can you talk to us a little bit more about this project and your hope for this work?
00:40:22.52
Nagela
Yeah, um at the top of the episode, you know when you're reading my bio, i it it says that I think business can be a force for for meaningful change. And we've seen business be a force for a lot of harm.
00:40:37.24
Nagela
And Open House, we attempt to de-center capitalism. So we de-center it as in there's more, there's more and there's more possibility for what can be at the core of economic activity. And in fact, the word and economic stands for home.
00:40:54.56
Nagela
So economics is the stewardship of the stewardship of home.
00:40:54.53
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:40:57.53
Nagela
Right. And that's how we think about it at Open House. And so um the Good Neighbor Project came out of what a lot of things I talked to you about, right, is being this Brooklyn kid, this Manny's kid, this Black Party fire hydrant kid, Sprinkler's kid, you know, like that woman who's passing by with the Italian Aces, the Missisofty kid, right?
00:41:20.24
Carol Martinez
My God. The hot dogs. Come on.
00:41:22.53
Nagela
the hot dog's kid, right?
00:41:23.95
Carol Martinez
saying
00:41:24.34
Nagela
And even as a girl with crippling social anxiety, deeply introverted, um i was, listen, testify, no.
00:41:32.28
Marjorie Anderson
Where?
00:41:35.43
Marjorie Anderson
Got it. Yeah.
00:41:37.42
Carol Martinez
She's an introverted New Yorker. I mean, that happens.
00:41:39.91
Marjorie Anderson
you
00:41:40.95
Nagela
I'm an introvert who loves people.
00:41:40.90
Carol Martinez
Right? Yeah.
00:41:42.27
Nagela
I'm introvert who loves people. And that's why I come off as extroverted, just because I love people.
00:41:45.43
Marjorie Anderson
got it yeah
00:41:46.96
Nagela
um I'm more of an ambivert now, but growing up, deeply, probably was the trauma, but that's not the other. um You know, and I was a nerdy kid on my block, right?
00:41:53.20
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:41:56.32
Nagela
Like, I was the kid that they were like, yo, why you talk so white for?
00:42:00.49
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:42:00.65
Nagela
And I was like, Doctor Who is amazing. I've been watching it, you know what I'm saying? yeah And even in all of those complications, even in the complexities of what it means to be Haitian and HBO, and I could listen to hip-hop, so I could not be down, right? And Ask my mom to buy me baby fat sneakers i can fit in with the girls, right?
00:42:23.02
Nagela
Even in all of that complexity, my neighborhood was this cradle for me. It was the safe space for connection and safety.
00:42:34.89
Nagela
And I think neighborhoods are so important. The cities are going to be, they're gonna continue expanding. People are gonna continue living in cities. More and more people are leaving every and ah all areas to move into a city, right?
00:42:47.76
Nagela
So what a city looks like, the future of cities is really important.
00:42:48.02
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:42:52.00
Nagela
And i know that there are people who are planning these cities, planning these buildings, right?
00:42:54.75
Marjorie Anderson
Thank you.
00:42:58.74
Nagela
Planning all of this stuff, who are not imagining a life where we are thriving thriving and vital. They're not imagining our personhood in these neighborhoods, in these cities, right?
00:43:07.14
Carol Martinez
No, they're not.
00:43:08.97
Nagela
They'll create dioramas where there's diversity, but that diorama is not building and saying my personhood, meaning my trauma, my economic status, my, you get what saying?
00:43:10.62
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:43:16.89
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:43:20.57
Carol Martinez
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:20.83
Nagela
um
00:43:21.41
Carol Martinez
There's more importance to what kind of tree is planted in that in that city than the essence of that person.
00:43:25.49
Nagela
Yes. Yes.
00:43:29.23
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:43:29.83
Nagela
A hundred percent. A hundred percent, right?
00:43:31.93
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:43:32.52
Nagela
And because they don't understand our our culture, they don't understand our values, they think they can recreate it very easily, right? They say, you know, if we put this African statue in this multi-million dollar luxury building, it's going to say,
00:43:42.82
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:43:47.72
Nagela
o whatever that means, right?
00:43:50.04
Carol Martinez
it
00:43:50.46
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm.
00:43:50.77
Nagela
oh And so ah somebody who had been followed in stores since she was like 12 years old, and again, i live in New York, right? The first time went to Fifth Avenue, as like oh and my i was like 19 or 20, the person in front of me beeped leaving the store, but I was one who was searched.
00:44:08.39
Nagela
um And so I'm very aware of how businesses impact neighborhoods and the ah culture that a neighborhood that neighborhood changes when a business comes into it
00:44:12.83
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:44:19.78
Nagela
I know what's going to happen when a Starbucks hits a neighborhood. I what's going to happen when a neighborhood gets like a trade Trader Joe's does not build a certain neighborhoods because they're like, we just don't think there are people.
00:44:29.84
Carol Martinez
And they will say that and they're open about expressing that.
00:44:32.41
Nagela
Right? and They'll give us an Aldi's, which I do love an Aldi's, but it's the Marshalls of Trader Joe's. You feel me?
00:44:37.69
Carol Martinez
Yeah, yeah, correct.
00:44:37.82
Marjorie Anderson
Right. Right.
00:44:38.27
Nagela
Like...
00:44:38.83
Marjorie Anderson
i
00:44:41.09
Nagela
Right? So... And so, as somebody who has... Who loves New York so much, it's like 200% of my personality.
00:44:51.86
Nagela
And I want to preserve what makes New York, New York. And I want to do that in ways that are... That create actual belonging And I think this is this is my my attempt to do that, is to build this assessment that'll help us to see, are you being a good neighbor?
00:45:08.35
Nagela
Because what I to be a good neighbor might change from neighborhood to neighborhood, from industry to industry, right?
00:45:11.28
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:45:13.32
Nagela
If you are a coffee shop, what are your what is your pricing model like, right? Yes, I buy a $10 matcha, but I can't live that life. It's not for me, right? You know what saying?
00:45:23.77
Nagela
I want the girl from the PJs, the projects, to be able to go to this new coffee shop in her neighborhood and feel like she is able to be there. and I want to help businesses with the how. I'm assuming you already have your why. You understand.
00:45:37.07
Nagela
We have a lot of data about why being a good neighbor is good for business. um you know There's things like there's more less theft and vandalism. There's 40% more times resilience. More zones during economic ah downturns, like recessions and stuff like that.
00:45:52.77
Nagela
So there's all leded a lot of good data why being a good good ah neighbor and good business is aligned. ah But I want to help businesses who don't know the how. How do I work and be here and decrease the harm that this business is having? You could be a design studio, right? Like a service-based business.
00:46:10.49
Carol Martinez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:11.02
Nagela
And there's still opportunities for you to be more place-based in the way that you approach but the true building your business. Might be an internship program. It might be, you know, and so there's five areas in the good neighbor assessment. And one is spatial justice.
00:46:24.84
Nagela
So what does it mean? Who has access to the space? Who can use the bathroom? Who can come and rest?
00:46:29.12
Carol Martinez
yeah
00:46:29.70
Nagela
Who can come and get water, right? It's so funny how I'll see shops, coffee shops in New York that will have special treats for dogs. But if you are unhoused, you cannot use the bathrooms.
00:46:40.09
Carol Martinez
Correct. I was about to say that. Yeah. yeah Because I saw it at i started at a Starbucks when I was in the Bronx, right?
00:46:43.81
Nagela
Make it...
00:46:47.55
Carol Martinez
Around Yankee Stadium. They have bowls for dogs, but the homeless neighborhood guy, it's like, no, you can't come in here.
00:46:58.51
Carol Martinez
And it's by force, too.
00:46:58.72
Nagela
100%. 100%. Mm-hmm.
00:47:01.25
Nagela
ah hundred percent
00:47:01.23
Marjorie Anderson
So, Najla, I think my question, you know, on the backside of that is how do you get, how do you get businesses to be aware of the fact that there is potential harm that they're causing when they go, right?
00:47:16.02
Marjorie Anderson
Cause like you can, you might have some businesses who are very aware and they're like, you know what, we don't want to come in and disrupt what's here. We just want to add two.
00:47:23.56
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:47:25.08
Marjorie Anderson
And they'd be happy to sit down and have that conversation. But then how do you foster awareness or, um, um,
00:47:28.21
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:47:31.01
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:47:33.84
Marjorie Anderson
kind of bolster awareness for those who may not think that they're just looking to make a buck and they don't care about the harm or they don't think that they are causing any harm, so they don't think there's a problem?
00:47:35.57
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:47:38.70
Nagela
know
00:47:38.88
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:47:40.67
Nagela
know
00:47:44.53
Marjorie Anderson
How do you get them to the point to say, if you don't address these things, here's, here's and and then make them care?
00:47:44.58
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
00:47:52.93
Nagela
Yeah, yeah. um I honestly, i'm going to be honest, post 2020, I'm not in the make them care business. I'm not. There's too much available. There's too much that's happening. 2025, you not caring is
00:48:08.34
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:48:08.68
Nagela
you not caring I can't work with that. Now, I can work with, I care a little bit. That sounds nice. I don't care enough to try because it seems hard.
00:48:20.45
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm.
00:48:20.57
Nagela
Or um I don't know how to do that. I can work with that. But straight up, I don't care.
00:48:25.78
Carol Martinez
Care.
00:48:25.89
Nagela
i cannot work but i cannot work with those people. Like, I'm not here to, I'm retiring from being the Jiminy Cricket, the racial Jiminy Cricket.
00:48:28.41
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:48:31.98
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:48:32.70
Nagela
I think I was doing that for a really long time.
00:48:35.68
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm.
00:48:36.23
Nagela
The one one area of the assessment that we're going using to build the Good Neighbor Index, right, um is culture cultural preservation. And so one of our big goals is to say, do you even know the cultural fabric of this neighborhood that you're moving into?
00:48:52.58
Marjorie Anderson
you
00:48:53.06
Carol Martinez
Yeah. yeah
00:48:54.13
Nagela
And to be able to first present them with that information. um Because a lot of them don't know what they're stepping into and that creates a lot of harm. And so the first thing is kind of like, hey, here's the cultural, right? And we want to invite community voices into that. We want to find the people who have been a big part of shaping the culture of this neighborhood and give it to them and and some insights and research.
00:49:15.54
Nagela
So that's going first thing of like, did you know this block used to be
00:49:19.47
Carol Martinez
Blah, blah.
00:49:19.87
Nagela
a bar that had like jazz musicians come to this?
00:49:20.47
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:49:23.31
Nagela
Did you know this was, here's ah here's something that you can move forward back to that nostalgia, right?
00:49:27.60
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:49:27.74
Nagela
Here's something that from the past that you can actually bring forward that will create a sense of connection and home for the people, you know? So that's, that's the first thing. The second thing is I'm going to ask who is here?
00:49:40.17
Nagela
Who's here, right? Like,
00:49:43.91
Carol Martinez
Demographic culture.
00:49:44.04
Nagela
it doesn't matter, right?
00:49:45.67
Carol Martinez
Yeah, yeah,
00:49:45.97
Nagela
Demographic, every every single aspect of identity, right?
00:49:48.95
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:49:49.46
Nagela
Even when I am in, you know, spaces that are might be more liberatory, I'm like, like There's nuance to this, right? There's something else as healthy exclusion. We don't always we we' always got to be so mixy, right?
00:50:01.43
Nagela
Healthy you exclusion is real, but in neighborhoods, it hits a little bit different because neighborhoods are micro ecosystems. You know what i mean?
00:50:07.87
Carol Martinez
Sure.
00:50:08.14
Nagela
So, you know, there isn't a ton of like, what what does exclusion mean in this neighborhood?
00:50:08.86
Carol Martinez
Sure.
00:50:13.97
Nagela
That's not going to ripple out. But I'm like, even like certain spaces, I'm like, okay, where the queer people at? you know i'm saying like or um I have a big heart for like intergenerational stuff.
00:50:20.25
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:50:25.11
Nagela
Even amongst Black people, what I'm seeing as be real cute going to, what is that, everyday party, going to all these day clubs.
00:50:32.70
Marjorie Anderson
Everyday people. Yeah.
00:50:33.82
Nagela
Everyday people, right?
00:50:33.76
Marjorie Anderson
Right.
00:50:35.02
Nagela
Man, I just sound 40 years old. oh Oh, everyday. We're building this. We're like, where's Black cultures black culture? Where's Black culture? You don't have an elder in your life.
00:50:47.90
Marjorie Anderson
right
00:50:48.88
Carol Martinez
and
00:50:49.00
Nagela
I can always tell politically and people don't have elders in their life because they say lot of dumb stuff. They say a lot of dumb stuff. You know what saying? I'm like, you have nobody in your life above who's 50 years old who's not your mom.
00:50:54.89
Carol Martinez
Very true. Yep.
00:50:59.49
Nagela
You say a lot of dumb stuff right now. um so So that's my thing is like, who is here and who do you want to be here?
00:51:01.04
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:51:05.34
Nagela
And like, have an honest conversation with yourself and then say, do you want to get them here? and that's part of my part of my job. Part of the work is saying, okay, do you want them here?
00:51:16.89
Nagela
but not not Not just because it looks good, but do you want do you want to actually build a business where people who are above six years old are able to access upper management?
00:51:16.84
Carol Martinez
That's so true.
00:51:26.91
Nagela
Do you want to build a business that has um some pastries that remind people of places back home? you want build a business where the young kids can feel comfortable here?
00:51:34.77
Carol Martinez
That's true.
00:51:38.40
Nagela
And we can talk about the risk. We can say, and don't have the staff to clean the bathroom. We can have that conversation. I can say, what would need to happen in your business model to hire a person just to clean the bathroom?
00:51:50.66
Nagela
Right? Like, I'm a how person. If you're willing to say yes, we can find a way.
00:51:52.59
Carol Martinez
who
00:51:56.71
Nagela
And it' and if it doesn't work out, we experimented and we tried and we tried something different. you know So that's what I say is, I'm like, how can you move to New York to these gentrifying neighborhoods And you moved here for a reason and not care.
00:52:11.81
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:52:11.97
Nagela
like how and if you don't care, please. please
00:52:16.15
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah, yeah.
00:52:17.03
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:52:17.30
Nagela
right like
00:52:17.26
Marjorie Anderson
And I think, and I think there's, was just going to say, and I think that not that this is work that you should be tasked with, but I think that there's like a layer under that for the people who move into these gentrified areas, because you see, you know, people come into these st gentrified areas, and then they're like, you know,
00:52:17.59
Carol Martinez
Yeah. yeah And, and Sorry, go ahead, Marjorie.
00:52:39.15
Marjorie Anderson
I really don't like the fact that those Puerto Ricans are playing music so loudly on a Saturday when that is what that neighborhood does, right?
00:52:43.49
Nagela
mm-hmm yeah mm-hmm yeah mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm
00:52:50.63
Marjorie Anderson
Like everyone is of the understanding, like this is what happens on a Saturday.
00:52:51.27
Carol Martinez
Correct. Correct.
00:52:54.67
Marjorie Anderson
And then people move in and complain about what happens on a Saturday.
00:52:55.07
Nagela
yeah
00:52:58.89
Marjorie Anderson
and then the like police get in like and all this stuff.
00:53:00.74
Nagela
you
00:53:00.85
Marjorie Anderson
So I think that there's a level of, like personal stuff that needs to happen for people who move into those spaces.
00:53:07.04
Nagela
who
00:53:08.17
Marjorie Anderson
But I think that the Good Neighbor Project will help set the tone largely because if the businesses are honoring what's happening in those neighborhoods and helping trying to preserve the cultural identity there without without harm, then like the people
00:53:08.27
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:53:13.50
Nagela
Yeah.
00:53:16.14
Nagela
Yeah.
00:53:17.44
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:53:20.08
Nagela
Yeah. 100%. yeah
00:53:24.55
Marjorie Anderson
hopefully follow suit. That doesn't always happen, but you know i just you know it just brings up that there's also some personal accountability for the people who choose to be in those spaces and then want to change them to be more like white suburbia.
00:53:26.10
Nagela
yeah
00:53:27.62
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:53:32.66
Nagela
yeah
00:53:37.25
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:53:37.53
Nagela
ah hundred percent
00:53:37.53
Carol Martinez
And also, and also too, like, I just feel like when I think of city and suburbia, right, and our neighborhoods or boroughs in the Bronx and the gentrification,
00:53:45.04
Nagela
Mm-hmm.
00:53:48.46
Carol Martinez
There is more of a trendy mindset. So talking the social media lingo, trendy in the sense that it should be young, it should be professional, it should be white most of the time.
00:53:51.16
Nagela
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:54:00.22
Carol Martinez
But then our neighborhoods, I mean, you think about Brooklyn, you think about the Bronx and any other, it's a multi-generational family that lives there. So now what happened to the abuela? What happened to the older seniors?
00:54:13.13
Carol Martinez
Where are they in this neighborhood creation model?
00:54:15.07
Nagela
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. One of our big goals at Good Neighbor is, man, if we can find some real estate agencies to partner with, one of the things I want to work with is I want to bring magazines.
00:54:31.66
Nagela
um And what would it be like to get a bunch of different voices and different people to create guides for neighborhoods that a real estate person gives a person who's moving into the neighborhood, right? Yeah.
00:54:42.50
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm.
00:54:43.19
Nagela
um what would it look like? What does a real estate person you know say to certain people to have like, hey, we're going to have an event of people are interested moving to this neighborhood to even get to know this neighborhood, right?
00:54:53.77
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:54:54.26
Nagela
um you know We would call it open doors. So I'm definitely thinking of the of the personal thing. And the thing about businesses and capitalism and the double-edged sword is that ah commerce is really compelling.
00:55:07.39
Nagela
And commerce has the bandwidth for marketing and storytelling. Right? Right. That's what that and and that that's the power of business. Right. Businesses already. That's why I'm tackling it from that perspective is because our economic activity gives us a little bit of bandwidth to financially figure these things out more than because it also benefits us.
00:55:25.40
Nagela
And so if businesses can do that thing, for example, how many times there's like a viral place on TikTok that all some people are going to this neighborhood that they've never been to before?
00:55:35.90
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
00:55:36.33
Carol Martinez
Yep.
00:55:36.54
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:55:37.28
Nagela
Right? um
00:55:38.09
Carol Martinez
Mm hmm.
00:55:38.83
Nagela
And so we have a lot of data around impact of gentrification. Like you said, the police calls. um When new businesses move into gentrifying areas, police calls go up by 70%. You know mean?
00:55:50.37
Nagela
And lot these calls are businesses, right? ah Bed, Vine, Brew just closed down in Bed-Stuy after like 20 years of activity because it was too loud. And so I'm looking for partners to help with the kind of policy side, to help with the local precincts in the neighborhood, because oftentimes they're the ones who are, um you know, being the tools of of gentrification and this economic war.
00:56:08.08
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:56:12.12
Carol Martinez
Correct.
00:56:13.62
Nagela
um So, but I don't, don't want to do so many things. You know, I'm just one girl with no fun.
00:56:17.72
Carol Martinez
With the voice.
00:56:17.89
Marjorie Anderson
Here's one person.
00:56:18.13
Nagela
You know like um just wondering what I'm just one person.
00:56:18.92
Carol Martinez
With the voice. with the voice
00:56:22.24
Nagela
So I want to build this ecosystem of helpers. i think of it as food forest. Food forest is, um, how indigenous people planted and farmed for a really long time. Our model of agriculture really came about during feudalism when people wanted to just be aware and count their crops.
00:56:38.00
Nagela
But food forest is kind of like, what needs to grow together in order for this whole ecosystem to thrive?
00:56:42.18
Carol Martinez
Correct, correct.
00:56:42.48
Nagela
And so I'm trying to figure out what the food forest is for good neighbors. There's so many voices that I um love and admire that is behind this work. Everything from Cooperative Economics by Dr. Jessica to Just City by Tony, forgot her last name, but it's Just City if you look it up, but Tony, you'll be able to find her. So people are doing incredible work.
00:57:02.16
Nagela
um In Detroit, there's so much play space. um activism in Detroit that I've been looking to. People like Allied Media Projects, when they have their conferences, they have all these ways that for you to be place-based, right?
00:57:14.79
Nagela
Looking at places like um Atlanta, you know, and so there's definitely models for this and what it looks like to build a food ah food system, the food forest in New York.
00:57:15.21
Carol Martinez
Oh.
00:57:26.26
Nagela
Again, it goes back to that kind of funding and real estate. And right now, as we're as we're talking, it is June fourteenth Everybody, if you're not registered, registered for the mayoral vote, the mayoral election, please.
00:57:40.20
Nagela
um but but Because the mayor of New York has so much power and we cannot rank a certain person Como. I'm just going to say it. Y'all can edit this out.
00:57:49.98
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
00:57:50.94
Nagela
Oh, yeah.
00:57:51.42
Marjorie Anderson
We won't name a specific person Como.
00:57:53.71
Nagela
oh yeah Oh, you know what I'm saying? um Small businesses, how do we make it easier for black and brown businesses to stay in their neighborhoods, right?
00:58:04.20
Nagela
That's the other part of the Good Neighbor Project is through cooperative economics, how can we help people business models thrive when they're under-resourced?
00:58:13.38
Carol Martinez
yeah
00:58:13.80
Nagela
through through cooperation. And so, you know, we were doing an experiment of collaborative inventory networks. So if you have similar supply chains, how can we get you all to buy stuff together um while you're navigating tariffs?
00:58:24.77
Carol Martinez
yeah
00:58:27.49
Nagela
um What does it mean for people to teach another person about permitting, right? Like, are you willing to be a mentor? So again, we're thinking about it from a couple of different angles. We're trying to raise funding for this because this is a lot of research work. It's a lot of field work. It's a lot of data work.
00:58:42.32
Nagela
And again, i'm just a girl. So...
00:58:44.55
Carol Martinez
Oh my God.
00:58:45.61
Marjorie Anderson
Well, I mean, not...
00:58:46.32
Carol Martinez
i know. I know. and and And also too, like just to add back to and just that piece about small businesses,
00:58:52.69
Nagela
Yeah.
00:58:54.43
Carol Martinez
Coming from a city that is super diverse, New York City, we need those small businesses because some of those small businesses are ran by Haitians, by Africans, by Hondurians.
00:59:04.29
Nagela
Yes. Yeah.
00:59:06.22
Carol Martinez
And therefore, it allows a voice for that culture, not from the Etsy mindset, but more like we are here to tell the story, walk in and engage with us.
00:59:09.34
Nagela
yeah
00:59:11.91
Nagela
yeah
00:59:18.36
Nagela
Yes. Yes. Yes. yeah but I love Etsy mindset. And just want to connect the through line of what we're talking about.
00:59:22.50
Carol Martinez
Hmm.
00:59:26.34
Nagela
In the storytelling for the good neighbor, I always say the economy is a neighborhood. And business has always been one pillar of how we practice belonging. Everything from barbershops that used to, that kind of, um they're like therapy sessions, right? To, you know, beauty salons to, you know, that coffee shop, right? Like economic activity has always kind of created well spaces for people to gather and to get what they need.
00:59:54.14
Nagela
And so I want to bring back that level of business that's been around for thousands of years from trade to bazaars to outdoor marketplaces um to artisans to you know business has always been economic activity has always been a way that we've related to one another sharing and creating and meeting our needs.
01:00:02.12
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
01:00:15.68
Nagela
And I think people only see business as this extractive force, this thing that needs to be scaled when it doesn't need to be scaled, right? And so I want to bring back that the homes that we've created have always had economic activity, whether that was, let me get a goat for these goats, right? Whether it's bartering,
01:00:38.09
Nagela
you know but it's always been part of our culture and so i want to keep that moving i don't want business to feel so global that we're not in touch with what our food comes from and who's serving us and who is helping us live our day-to-day lives right and i think part of building home is seeing the people who are helping you create home, seeing the people who are helping you get water, seeing the people that are helping you get your fruits and vegetables, seeing the people that are helping you, you know, have, you know, laundry detergent, right?
01:00:59.32
Carol Martinez
Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:05.79
Carol Martinez
Mm-hmm.
01:01:08.29
Nagela
Like, and not always being this huge conglomerate where the data is, you know, for every hundred dollars that are spent,
01:01:11.88
Carol Martinez
hu
01:01:17.56
Nagela
in a you know global chain, not more than $30 of that stays in the neighborhood. But if you buy local, um then more money stays in the neighborhood.
01:01:28.47
Nagela
That's more taxes for our schools. That's more taxes for for cleaning up, right?
01:01:31.02
Carol Martinez
Correct. Uh, yep.
01:01:33.55
Nagela
That's more donation. that's more So where we need more money to stay in the neighborhood, not just for the things that keep us going, but for the people that define that neighborhood.
01:01:45.52
Marjorie Anderson
For sure. For sure. Well, as we wrap up our conversation, i'm going to ask you the question that we ask all of our guests in the spirit of connection and belonging. What concerns you or excites you about the future of connection and belonging across diasporas or in general?
01:02:08.35
Nagela
and If I'm gonna be honest, I think that this current administration has a wicked gift, wicked, for finding cracks and exploiting them.
01:02:21.45
Marjorie Anderson
Mm-hmm.
01:02:22.02
Nagela
And i have seen then be able to find the cracks around and that's in the diaspora wars, right? These inter-ethnic conversations that we're having in our community.
01:02:39.48
Nagela
and i'm seeing a rise of that i'm seeing a rise of of xenophobia right um but i'm also seeing and also understand that it's very easy to to look at america and be like americans are this americans are that americans are this right so i i hold space for both but i am i have been part of conversations and spaces where um there's the CIA is winning a little bit, right? swear
01:03:10.00
Nagela
It's kind of like, well, the Haitians are stealing our jobs. They are stealing. Well, this is not my fight. This is not my fight, right? And so um I'm really concerned about it because there's so much nuance and the internet does not allow for nuance.
01:03:15.19
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
01:03:23.35
Nagela
And too many of our conversations are happening on the internet. Too many of our conversations are happening on the internet. Too many conversations are happening in comment sections.
01:03:29.45
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
01:03:32.58
Nagela
And... That scares me because it feels like doing the work when you're on the internet too much. And listen, I'm on TikTok too much. Majorana's like, well, you know what I'm saying?
01:03:42.98
Marjorie Anderson
same
01:03:44.85
Nagela
um
01:03:44.90
Marjorie Anderson
yeah
01:03:46.04
Nagela
I'm on TikTok and I'm like, you know, kicking kicking my feet.
01:03:47.94
Marjorie Anderson
right
01:03:49.86
Nagela
So I think that is what's happening. i think... um don't loneliness the the need for community is really real in New York right now. And what I'm seeing is people are turning community into a brand.
01:04:07.88
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
01:04:09.27
Nagela
um everybody got a social club, everybody got a separate club, everybody's like, how'd you know about that R&B party?
01:04:10.35
Marjorie Anderson
It's losing meaning.
01:04:11.41
Carol Martinez
Yes, yes, yes.
01:04:16.77
Nagela
There's nobody's hanging out the neighborhood spots anymore. Nobody, that's that's another thing. Like nobody has like, I'm in my neighborhood. I'm so money in my neighborhood, right? um You're like, what a party? You know what I'm saying?
01:04:27.05
Marjorie Anderson
o It's all for show.
01:04:29.15
Nagela
So that, it's all for show. And my last kind of fear across the diaspora is
01:04:40.16
Nagela
I don't know, we're really overwhelmed right now politically and um I don't know what it looks like for us to move through this moment with our bodies, right?
01:04:49.99
Marjorie Anderson
yeah
01:04:50.86
Nagela
um I think it's really easy to feel really overwhelmed and i think I think a lot of us are having an all or nothing politic right now that does not actually censor people.
01:05:03.94
Nagela
i think there's a lot of theorizing, I think there's a lot of
01:05:07.34
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
01:05:08.57
Nagela
um Purity politics, right?
01:05:08.57
Carol Martinez
Yeah.
01:05:11.27
Nagela
What works, what doesn't work. And I think as a person who's always trying to figure out what does harm reduction look like, I don't want to be judged for not being radical enough because i'm trying to reduce harm.
01:05:22.29
Nagela
as somebody who has family calling us and being like, we're running because the gangs are in this neighborhood, right?
01:05:27.21
Carol Martinez
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:05:27.59
Nagela
There's a lot happening over here. so We need to find a way to stop the purity politics and we need to get messy enough in our politic where it becomes about people again.
01:05:40.72
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah.
01:05:41.17
Nagela
And it's hard to do that when you're not but you don't have your people calluses is what I call it. I think the pandemic made us lose a lot of our people calluses.
01:05:48.16
Carol Martinez
huh
01:05:51.11
Nagela
So I am more sensitive in some areas. I am more intolerant in some areas. um And I want to sit with that. And I want to not say I have to be, I have to change everything, but I want to sit in the tension of the ways that I've become more insulated because I'm overwhelmed and I'm sad and I'm discouraged.
01:06:09.56
Nagela
And I want to figure out what the next step is and make peace with myself that taking the next step is good enough.
01:06:18.19
Marjorie Anderson
Yeah, I love that. That's beautifully said. um
01:06:20.75
Carol Martinez
Very.
01:06:22.44
Marjorie Anderson
Najla, it is my absolute honor to call you a friend. And having you on the podcast has been nothing short of exceptional. I just feel like we've just scratched the surface of things that we could uncover.
01:06:35.74
Marjorie Anderson
And please know that you have an open invitation to come back whenever you feel called. So if you're like, I thought of this one thing I think we should talk about. I'm like, OK, let me go ahead and set it up.
01:06:43.13
Carol Martinez
Part two.
01:06:45.40
Nagela
Right.
01:06:45.42
Marjorie Anderson
um So, um but in the meantime, please let know people please let people know where they can best connect with you.
01:06:53.94
Nagela
Yeah, you can just, you know, I like an email. So you can email me at Nadjela. I do! Nadjela at ouropenhouse.co. Nadjela N-A-G-E-L-A, but should be somewhere in the um episode description. If you want to see what Open House is doing, you can go to ouropenhouse.co. We're working on our Good Neighbor website. So once that's launched...
01:07:16.16
Nagela
um we'll we'll share that out as well and i just want to say again ah this week as i've been floating on my body and i'm so honored to sit and talk to y'all and feel so understood and feel so seen and one of the things i always say at open house is people um people are ah are also place right and um bit the awful like my people and i feel like i have place with y'all so thank you
01:07:35.44
Carol Martinez
Correct.
01:07:42.50
Carol Martinez
You do. You truly do. And I think that just echoes what the intention is around this podcast. And Marjorie will often say it. We want people to come in and feel like they they belong.
01:07:56.59
Nagela
Yeah.
01:07:56.60
Carol Martinez
So thank you for reiterating that.
01:07:58.97
Nagela
Yeah.
01:07:58.99
Marjorie Anderson
For sure.
01:07:59.17
Nagela
Next time we'll actually talk about home more because... Okay,
01:08:02.73
Marjorie Anderson
think, you know, I think we covered a good amount of, of stuff here.
01:08:05.75
Nagela
okay good.
01:08:07.29
Marjorie Anderson
Like this is, I think a conversation that could go on for hours and hours and we don't have hours and hours.
01:08:11.92
Carol Martinez
Correct.
01:08:13.62
Marjorie Anderson
So if we need a part two, three, four, then we will create a part two, three, four.
01:08:13.88
Carol Martinez
We
01:08:17.22
Marjorie Anderson
Don't you worry.
01:08:17.90
Carol Martinez
will.
01:08:18.48
Nagela
All right.
01:08:18.57
Marjorie Anderson
oh and So, but as always friend, a pleasure sitting in conversation with you today and you are appreciated more than you could ever know.
01:08:27.26
Nagela
Thank you for having me.
01:08:28.68
Marjorie Anderson
Of course, of course.
01:08:29.20
Carol Martinez
a
01:08:30.19
Marjorie Anderson
Thank you for joining us for Connecting Across the Diaspora. Show hosts are Marjorie Anderson and Carol Martinez. Listen to future episodes of the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at catdpodcast.com. If you have questions about the show, you can email us at catdpodcast at gmail.com.
01:08:49.12
Marjorie Anderson
And we'll see you next time.
01:08:51.01
Carol Martinez
Ciao.