[00:00:00] Speaker A: So I am back at my family, like in my family's home, my parents home and so. And my brother who's like the baby but is in his mid-20s, is there right now still and he has a new boyfriend.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: So there's a lot of adults in the house.
Hold on. And there's two babies and there's four cats.
It is the most chaotic home I've ever lived in.
And there's cat hair everywhere.
And my mom just, poor thing just runs like a lint roller every day and. And everything. Yeah, there's just shit everywhere. There's just like toys and Jenga blocks and like it's chaos. Like, I actually pay my mom to be. Matilda's a caregiver because it's a job.
She's a grandmother, but she's works around the clock. So she takes care of our baby. And she cooks almost every day. If I were to ask her for coffee, I'd have coffee outside. Sometimes she'll do our laundry. Oh, and I have to tell her like, be careful.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I will. I'll live with four cats for that.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: So it's been a lot in like, you know, my husband and I, like, she has to live with his crazy mother in law and his crazy, like, brother in law and now the boyfriend and four cats and which are all like crazy everything. And we're crazy. Like that's why we found each other. Like, we still are crazy. And like, I've never loved my mom more. I've never loved my husband more, really. And it's like the most stable I've ever felt in the middle of chaos.
Foreign.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Hello. Welcome back, collective table listeners. My name is Janelle Coker and I'm excited to be your host today. This season, we've been exploring the case for empathy, especially at a moment when some political and Christian leaders are openly questioning its value. In our last couple of episodes, Jason discussed different ways we feel empathy. How the balance of cognitive and affective empathy is vitally important in order to not become hyper fixated on yourself or your own tribe. Today's story is all about that balance, and it intersects with the last two stories we have covered this season. Today's guest, just like Victoria in episode four, is the daughter of immigrant parents who fled their home in Central America in part because of the unrest caused by the banana wars we discussed in Chris's story in episode five. This story certainly stands on its own, but if you haven't listened to the others, please check them out. This is Dinora's story.
Well, hello, donora Hi Rev. Janelle. It is good to have you here.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: So can you tell me just a little bit about who you are right now, what you do? Tell us about yourself?
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Sure.
Well, I'm the. I'm executive director of a faith based community organizing network of congregations and I've been doing this now for about 11 years, almost 12.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: I'm the mom of two kiddos and I am 36 years old and am the first generation Latinx citizen of my family.
And I'm the oldest daughter and the only daughter. The only woman in my oldest and only. Oldest and only, yes.
So I think I was born into leadership, I suppose, or in some way like the role of leading people within my family and navigating the world and the country through their eyes.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Denora's mom was young when Denora was born.
She fled a civil war in El Salvador and didn't have the opportunity to even finish elementary school.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: My mom actually was pregnant with me when she crossed the, I think a mountain. El Cerro she calls it. I don't know if that's a mountain or something, but hill.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Denora's mom, pregnant, went up the mountain to the United States looking for a safe life for her child. And as Denora grew, she. She became the first English speaker. As the oldest daughter in this new place, Denora became the designated problem solver.
Very early in her life, she learned to handle the hard things, the responsibilities of navigating things like the healthcare system, the school system, and in one instance, the justice system.
As I listened to Denorah's story, I imagined what a strange place it must have been for her to be the American culture translator in her home, being able to understand a language her parents didn't understand.
She heard how others perceived her parents as she guided them through life in this land very different from their own.
Denora learned early what happens when poverty, prejudice and misconceptions about immigrants collide.
One of her first big lessons came when she was in first grade and did something many of us have done at that age.
She took something from the store that she didn't pay for.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: I stole dry erase markers from the market one time.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Okay. Stole dry erase markers.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: I wanted to be a teacher and I thought markers were really cool. I still do. I love pens and markers. Drag race for some reason, still my favorite. And I stuffed them in my pocket and it was in Albertsons. And we got stopped at the exit and it was, you know, just one of those security officers and we were basically accused of my mom teaching me to steal and shoplift and that, you know, there was this whole thing and so my mom was actually arrested for this and I must have been like 7 years old or 6 or 7. And I remember my mom just telling me like, you know, can you let him know that I don't have papers and what's going to, like, what will happen to me?
And I mean, this is still, this was still like in my mom's record when she became a legal resident and. But it was, you know, I just remember being so scared because I was going to get in trouble for stealing and having to translate that to the security officer. And I think back to that.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: So she was solely Spanish speaking. So you're the translator for our listeners.
Being the oldest daughter, you are translating for your family at this point? At the age of six or seven.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: And I did something bad and now my mom's, you know, so translating that but, you know, now understanding and knowing like the situation I put her through. But then like at 6 or 7, translating just kind of words because I didn't know what they meant back then.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Friends, as we record this podcast, I'm remembering a time when I too had a situation with law enforcement. When I was 6 or 7, I was with a family member and a trusted caregiver who assaulted a woman in a Jack in the box.
I too was questioned by the police and there I had to explain that I felt safe in the presence of this family member. I was so scared that he would be taken away by the police that quite frankly, I would have said anything to keep him from going to jail.
I remember myself in my red shirt with Scooby Doo on the front.
I had pigtails with red bows and my knees were knocking together in fear.
I can remember every bit of the terror I felt in that moment.
Dinora's experience brings this memory forward and I can feel throughout my very being how scared Dinora must have been.
Unlike Dinora's mom, my family member was let go with just a warning.
I am very aware how our whiteness provided a very different outcome for a much more aggravated offense.
Seen through my non immigrant eyes. Denorah's family was subject to to the harsh reality of structural biases in a way that I never was.
Sadly, I don't see this bias going away.
We live in a time when the highest ranking officials in our country shout that immigrants are taking jobs from hardworking Americans, that they are eating people's pets.
They bring disease and are hardened criminals.
In an August 2024 X post Elon Musk, an immigrant himself, stated that empathy towards immigrants could lead to civilizational suicide.
Watching his chainsaw behavior on our national.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Stage, this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: I kind of wonder if he was talking about himself.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: Hey everyone, it's cj. We hope you're enjoying the collective table and finding something meaningful here, something that connects with your heart and your journey. If you are, we'd love for you to help others find it too.
The best way to do that is simple. Rate and follow the collective table wherever you listen to podcasts. When you follow, you'll never miss a new episode. And when you leave a rating or a short review, it helps more people discover this community of love, liberation and faith in action.
And while you're at it, share an episode with a friend, someone you think might find encouragement, hope or inspiration in these conversations.
It only takes a moment, but it makes a big difference. So go ahead, tap that follow button, leave us a quick review and share the collective table with someone who could use it today.
Thanks for listening and for being a part of the collective table.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: That early balancing act of navigating systems and working toward a better life for the future generations of her family led Denora toward her current work as the executive director for the San Diego Organizing Project, an affiliate of Pico California.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: I actually stumbled into faith based organizing. I was raised Catholic and learned about just community organizing during my time in San Francisco right after grad school and I wrestled with wanting to change conditions and things like systems but didn't know how to say it or what it was.
And I met a I was actually an intern with a group of parents that did like school district organizing, parent organizing. And so it's began like I realized like oh there's an actual like model historically in our country around community organizing that exists and is used everywhere in the country.
However, in San Diego there was this faith based organization, San Diego Organizing Project, that's part of a state network that was created and founded by a Jesuit priest in the late 70s right after the civil rights movement. And my understanding and how I've learned the history of this is post civil rights movement. There was a gap in like mediating institutions.
So there was a gap between like a movement of typically led by specific leaders and like systems that were kind of left alone for a while and trying to bridge that birthed community organizing that essentially places power, decision making power onto like regular people and neighborhoods. So Pico was established in the late 70s and first started off as a kind of neighborhood based model and PICO stands for. Yes, PICO stands for People Improving Communities through Organizing. I think back in the day, it was like the Pacific institution for community organizing. And so, and this notion, you know, came from very politicized people in the Midwest and Chicago specifically, who started to study, like, really the conditions of society and the way that people were able to impact change and developed principles and a model that move people through, like, deep listening and building relationships to challenge and question systems and people in power and then move them through public action or public accountability.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Unlike organizing models based on secular theories, which sometimes identify motivation with self interest and power with force and wealth, faith rooted organizing is completely shaped by faith. It recognizes that sacrificial love can lead to victory and that people of faith can hope for much more than we can see with our natural eyes.
Dinora found a place in organizing others within this powerful framework.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: So in San Diego and SDOP, San Diego Organizing Project, we have a network of 24 congregations that would say, are affiliated with SDOP.
We work with now two major diocese or institutions, which is the Catholic and the Episcopal diocese.
So we build power, people power across our region. And we, I think, altogether represent maybe like 50,000 families, if we count these institutions.
And we do this through, like, leader development.
So one by one, like, conversations and vision moments with pastors like you, and then building from that vision to really create power within your faith institution that then can grow beyond your own neighborhood, across the county, sometimes across the state, to change policies that can benefit our people.
So that's the long winded answer because my mom would say my daughter helps.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: People for our church. Faith based organizing is how we move our empathy and compassion from individual care to systemic change for our church. Faith based organizing is how we move our empathy and compassion from individual care to systematic change.
I asked Anora how empathy can be a broader agent for change.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: I think that empathy and especially like agencies and in different areas like food security and building out those systems for people are safety nets. I was looking for safety nets. The level of empathy that goes from like the one to one person, so the pastor to the individual, but even like departments and if our infrastructures were built on like, centering people's needs, there is really like a value system that is missing in so many of our. The levels of government that we have. So it's almost like this tension of, like, if the most vulnerable person doesn't have enough, then, you know, can the rest of us just look away?
So I think it's deeply rooted in like, the value of humans and ensuring that there's equity and like empathy and putting ourselves in the situation of the one that is struggling the most. Like if that were kind of the standard that I will have enough until everyone has enough could really change systems.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:17:33] Speaker C: Hello Collective Table listeners, It's CJ Again. A lot of people out there might not realize that this podcast is part of a real life faith community. The Collective Table podcast is a production of the Oceanside Sanctuary, a progressive Christian community whose mission is to foster collective expressions of inclusive, inspiring and impactful Christian spirituality wherever it is needed. And as a 501c3 nonprofit organization, that mission is only possible because of the generosity of people just like you. So if you believe in what we are doing, if you benefit from this mission, please Visit
[email protected] Give to become a supporter Today. Together we can keep building communities of love and liberation.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: All this work in organizing doesn't come with ease.
Dunor's job requires her to build coalitions across differences, and that work can be fraught with internal conflict and historical tension.
Coalition is tricky.
Sometimes the very people she is working with on one issue are the same people who are working against her on another.
Bernice Johnson Reagan, a black singer, scholar and activist, Wrote in her work titled Coalition Politics Turning the Century, that the work of coalition is not like being home.
Her point reminds us when we come together across race, gender, class and faith, it isn't supposed to feel comfortable.
Home is where we are surrounded by people who speak our language, who understand us without explanation.
But coalition is different.
Coalition is where we stand next to people whose worldview might unsettle us, and still we find a way to stay in the room.
Reagan said that if you feel safe all the time in coalition, you probably aren't doing it right, because real coalition requires us to give something up.
Your certainty, your comfort, sometimes even your sense of control.
And that's what makes it so hard.
It asks us to expand beyond the communities that feel familiar, to be changed by relationships that test us.
But Reagan also believed it's the only way forward.
She said we have to build coalitions that are broad enough to hold all of us because we cannot survive otherwise.
The work of faith based organizing demands a leader to build relationships across profound differences.
Denora finds herself at a crossroads for her own personal identity as a queer Latinx Catholic woman sometimes clashes with the institutions she is called to work besides and where the urgent needs in the immigrant community also must be balanced and continue to center the deep foundational pain of black Americans.
A decade into this work. I asked Denora how she finds her own faith within all of this.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I'm still trying to figure it out if I'm going to be honest. There are a lot of contradictions in so many of the faith traditions that are that exist, but really the ones that I work in.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: This tension extended beyond theology and into her very identity, creating an untenable balancing act. In her professional life, she shared how a mentor once advised her to hide defining aspects of herself just to be accepted as a leader.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: And I remember one of my previous director once said, you kind of have to put these cards in your back pocket, put the race card in your back pocket, the queer card behind in the back pocket, like all of these pieces of identity. And I tried that for a really long time and it broke me. It would break my heart.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: The pain of hiding herself led to broken relationships and fueled a constant questioning of where she truly belonged.
She felt rejected from conservative face spaces as an openly queer woman. Yet she was called back to those spaces to lead as an organizer because she was a powerful Latina taking on immigration.
This created the ultimate organizational question that cuts right to the heart of her role.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Can a Latina Catholic queer woman lead a multiracial organization? And why aren't black issues at the forefront?
Which honestly I think to this day as an organization, but also I think as a movement is still a question.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Denora admits figuring out how to balance the needs of so many is a heavy weight that sometimes keeps her up at night.
There is only so much time in the day.
What issues does an organizer like Dinora focus on?
[00:23:32] Speaker A: But at the end of the day, like, I'm also so clear that the pain and the blood and the lives of black people that really established so much that my parents even were able to come to, cannot be erased.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: On the forefront of coalition, Denora is naming a long standing warning from activist Elizabeth Batita Martinez, who coined the phrase the Oppression Olympics in a 1993 conversation with Angela Davis.
Martinez argued that movements collapse when we start ranking whose suffering matters most. Davis agreed, noting that real solidarity requires flexibility across differences.
Years later, Martinez expanded the idea, insisting that competing over pain only distracts from confronting the intertwined systems, racism, patriarchy, homophobia and economic exploitation that bears down on all of us. Understanding this concept doesn't make it any easier for Donora to lead amongst so much need.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: To be honest, like, feeling like I failed that, that I was a failure that, that even questioning like, can I be a leader?
Knowing that this pains and hurts me so much and I still don't know what to do about feels like it's our mission and our work is a bit incomplete.
So I think I'm constantly stretched.
It's forced me to like look inside and notice that I have an ego as well and that partly, like I don't like to not know things or like to not know how to fix things. Like I said, I'm a problem solver. Like I know how to crisis manage. Like that's my, that's how I've been brought up.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: As I listened to denora share the struggle of work that is never done and by the way, totally get it, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share just a few things SDOP has Under Donora's leadership, SDOP led the advocacy efforts and successfully convinced the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to create a $5 million immigrant legal defense Program fund.
SDOP organized faith leaders statewide and moved the Homelessness Prevention act of 2023 forward and ultimately secured its passage.
SDOP designed the youth Leadership Initiative, secured the grant funding, and launched a county wide program to train black and Latino youth in community organizing.
And finally, SCOP worked with us, the Oceanside Sanctuary, one of our other favorite churches, St. John's and other local churches to pressure the Oceanside Police Department to adopt a mandatory de escalation policy.
After more than 200 people showed up at a community action right here at osc, the Oceanside Police Department agreed to change its use of force rules so officers shall use de escalation whenever possible.
When I step back and look at Dinora's story, I see a woman who has spent her entire life standing in the space between between cultures, between languages, between systems.
And somehow that in between became Denorah's place of profound empathy.
Her place of influence, Dinora, is the bridge between.
She is the one who knows her own ability isn't the answer, but the power of many sowing seeds of justice together in coalition is.
Well friends, thank you so much for joining us for the Collective Table. We hope you've enjoyed season 11 the case for Empathy so far. We'll be back in two weeks with another story.
Please subscribe so you don't miss it.
Also, Please share this episode with friends through text, email and reviews.
The Collective Table is produced by the Oceanside Sanctuary and is written by myself and Jason Coker.
Nico Butler is the director and and editor.
Nico Butler is the director, Editor and All things Sound May the peace of God be with you.
