These are remarks I delivered at the New York City Council's Diwali celebration, where I received a proclamation for service to NYC.

There’s some irony in receiving this honor from a politician. 

As you might have heard, journalists and politicians don't have the best of relationships. Together, we share an optics problem —  we are among the least trusted members of society.

And we share the distinction of having to rethink ourselves in these most disruptive of times. Both of our institutions - that of government and of media - are being rethought like never before. 

What I am proudest of at Epicenter is how we are meeting this moment. The day before the election – and our efforts to give voters information about ballot questions, covid boosters, flu shots – is pretty much where our strategy remains a week later. After 30 years in mainstream media, and you heard from of the household names I worked at and the very big jobs I had -- the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal -- we twisted ourselves asking why audiences didn’t trust us. It took me much less time through my work at Epicenter to answer: How do you gain trust with communities? What I discovered is something those of you here who work in service already know. You help people once and sure enough, they call you again - and again and again.

I wanted to give you a taste of how our neighbors have turned to us in recent days. A sampling of the questions we are receiving:

Should I renew my passport?

I am on DACA, TPS, awaiting papers. What happens to me?

I run a small business. How liquid do I need to be?

My child is 23 and on my health plan. What if the Affordable Care Act is overturned?

We applied for Section 8 housing in NYC, which hasn't opened up in 15 years. What happens if vouchers are abandoned?

We don't have a lot of answers but we do vow to keep trying to be there for our communities. I'm so proud of the commitment our team has. I co-founded Epicenter with my husband Nitin Mukul and I'd like to acknowledge how his lens on the world as an artist -- and seeing or making beauty -- affects our work. For example, during the pandemic, he looked at outdoor dining and worked with youth to paint murals on them. He doesn't want our neighborhood to look like a gentrified place so there's thought to diversify the art and the types of spaces we want to feel like us.

We had 160 volunteers during the peak of Covid and many have stuck with us. Today we employ six people full time. We are a majority female and BIPOC team -- and this chamber knows that diversity makes all the difference.
I intentionally use the word BIPOC because I know people are feeling a certain way about umbrella terms right now. People of color. Black Indigenous People of Color. I beg us to remember that coalition and community are our only way forward. Council member Shekar Krishnan and my home of Jackson Heights is perhaps the best blueprint of this. And we both have branded ourselves los indus que habla espanol. I hope we hang onto this intersectionality and overlap.

At Epicenter, we are trusted messengers in our communities. This brings me to where media and politicians find themselves right now. We are indeed holding each other accountable. There also is -- in my industry -- the proverbial two sides of a story we seek to represent. Except the danger of this shorthand puts someone like Donald Trump on one side and everybody else on the other. It comes up often in journalism beyond partisan politics too; a story on homelessness might prompt a well-meaning editor to ask what’s the other side. Quickly, we devolve into journalism of false equivalency and one devoid of compassion. There's your side and my side and his side and their side and basically no side ever wins. And in the process, we confuse the public over what we are trying to even say in the first place. 

Absent in this discussion and largely academic delivery of the news is the role of communities and constituents . What I appreciate about my relationship with many of you in this council - again, no coincidence the most diverse in its history – is that we tend to look at issues through the lens of our communities. If journalists are not to be advocates for issues, I ask if we can at least be advocates for our communities? I imagine most of us in this room have that in common. 

I would be lying if I did not acknowledge that a pall hangs over us tonight. As I watch these dances and the joy we exude, I marvel at what has shifted from a way of life for us that often took place only at home -- we were different people at work, school and public -- and now the assertion of ourselves in spaces like these. I teared up watching those little girls dancing under the portrait of George Washington, for example. We are seizing our power in redefining spaces, dancing, running for office, launching our own media empires...

These celebration must continue in the years to come. I want to thank Council member Krishnan for this honor and what it means. My father’s first job in America in 1971 was pushing a file cart for the Manhattan District Attorney -- just a few blocks from here. When my mother arrived, their first apartment was carved into a rowhouse in Jackson Heights, just a block from Elmhurst Hospital and a few blocks from where I live today.

We are, as the saying goes, our ancestors’ wildest dreams. To be bestowed this honor within the progress of just one generation is a miracle for me and those whose shoulders like me and Shekar and the other award winners tonight so many of us stand upon. Our road ahead is tough and scary and uncertain but I hope we vow that such progress cannot be undone, nor the dreams for our generations and the new arrivals who keep defining this beautiful city. Thank you.

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