Sarah Marquez Berestecky

As an adult,  Marquez Berestecky devotes herself to activism. Her commitment stems from something deeply personal. “Motherhood is what radicalized me, and really, I think stirred that deeper journey of processing  my own upbringing.” Raising multi-ethnic children forced her to ask questions and reflect on her own childhood. She grew up without a place to fit into and did not want that for her children. “Where did they fit in this world where we are socialized by race? Where do my kids fit in that?” She reflects on the challenges of motherhood, “It’s hard to give your kids what you don’t know or haven’t learned— it’s why it is so important as a parent to continue to learn things because you can’t pass something onto your kids that you don’t know, and that you’re not learning yourself.”

She reflects on growing up Latina, noting that within her own community, there is a lot of colorism. “As Latinos, we have a lot of colorism, which is basically like you put value on people’s worth [based on] how dark or light they are.” Growing up, she heard comments in Spanish that were normalized. A darker-skinned person might be labeled as “moreneo” or hear the phrase “you have indian in you”,  which she explains is a call back to latin-indigenous roots.  “[Having darker skin] was looked down on. If you had a child that was lighter-skinned or had lighter eyes, you’d praise that. You know the lighter colored-child is gonna have an easier life than the dark-colored one.” To her, having children with an Afro-Latino man was a visualization of the biases that she was socialized around, which instilled mindfulness around uprooting anti-blackness within her own community. She notes the importance of providing a diverse learning environment for her children. ¨I was really intentional about giving representation to my kids of all colors so that my kids could interact with people of all different backgrounds and cultures… I made a lot of intentional effort to put them in spaces like that.”

When raising activist children, ¨You really have to think when you talk to your kids about race and oppression… developmentally, what we can understand at different ages is important.” Keeping her kids involved while still protecting them from a harsh world wasn’t easy. She kept in mind the question, "What is their age and what can they understand?” in order not to instill fear in them while still nurturing a sense of right and wrong. ¨Children have a very natural sense of justice,¨ she says, ¨we’re born with that, through seeing each other’s humanity.”

“If you could, how would you change the world in the interest of the youth?”

“Man, so much right now, gosh… I think about power a lot. I think about who’s in charge and who holds power. And I think it’s oftentimes people that are probably too old and too white and too rich. Probably too many men.” Marquez Berestecky explains that she thinks a lot about what would happen if youth were given more power. “Power’s not a bad word. A lot of the time, we experience power negatively because power can be corrupted. But I would love to see our youth in spaces of building power, of building collective, and decision-making. I think our youth have a sense of what’s right.” Where the youth don’t have answers, she feels they have what’s in them to figure it out. “You’re the next generation, and I hate that you’ve inherited all the [crap] that adults have done… but even on sad, terrible days, the youth really give me hope.”

“ Why do you feel community is so important?”

“We need each other. Community is power.”  The power in community lies within shared experience, “I think when you’re in a community being able to commit to one another, commit to struggling together, there’s so much power in that. I think that it really flips the capitalistic, individualist world and economy that we live in— and not just money economy, but the way that we frame and understand life here in America. You know,  where we’re like, ‘let me take care of myself, protect myself only, only protect me and my family, and make decisions just for us, and not the collective.” Nurturing community comes with its struggles: “Capitalism does not reward you for trying to be in a collective. Capitalism rewards you for being individualistic— for thinking about yourself only— what can you gain?” 

On manufactured division amongst the working class: The Rainbow Coalition, established in June of 1969,  was led by revolutionary Fred Hampton. The coalition was multi-ethnic and made up of the working class. Their mission was to unite the fellow man across diverse racial, religious, and economic backgrounds in order to support poor and oppressed communities. “It was terrifying to the people in power,” she says, “they know that what working class people struggle with, what poor black people struggle with, what Latino people struggle with is so much more similar than what the working class has in common with a billionaire.” Fred Hampton was later assassinated in December of 1969 by members of the Chicago Police Department because the department and the FBI viewed him as a threat due to his ability to unite marginalized communities . “[Those in power] absolutely manufacture division so we’re against certain races, so we’re against the immigrant.”

Marquez Berestecky has been watering “a little seed”---- one that she keeps coming back to. “I’m still trying to figure out what it looks like to run for office.” She says. She represents part of the heart and soul of Chattanooga, “I think being able to have someone [in a position of power] in Chattanooga that is of Mexican descent is huge. You just don’t see that in Tennessee.” Somewhere out there, there is a girl much like young Sarah Marquez Berestecky who feels that same disconnect from community as if she, too, is living between two worlds. Like young Marquez Berestecky, she might not see herself or culture in those who hold power. Something as simple as seeing Latina representation in office could be that push of encouragement that gives her the confidence to  put herself out there. “One of the positions that has been encouraged is county commissioner. And that has been an old, white-man’s game for a very long time. By my very presence, it would be a disruption of how power flows there.”  As for the changes our community can expect to see, funding and support for public schools are among her top priorities.