Don’t Mess with Olivia

Barragán’s Guest a Reflection of Tomorrow’s Leaders

By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor and Melina Paris, Assistant Editor

Rep. Nanette Barragán invited reproductive rights activist Olivia Julianna to the State of the Union on Feb. 7 as a representative of the next generation of leaders at the forefront of progressive issues.

The 20-year-old turned 15 minutes of fame, off of returning a Twitter jab from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), into a fundraiser that has raised more than $1.3 million for women seeking abortions — after taking just 72 hours to hit the $1 million mark.

The donations raised by Olivia Julianna, a political strategist for the nonprofit Gen Z for Change, happily surprised abortion rights advocates. The $1.3 million raised by the group by early Friday is more than 10% of what the National Network of Abortion Funds — which includes about 90 abortion funds in the United States and Mexico — distributed in an entire year. It is also enough to fund thousands of abortions, which cost on average $550 per service.

The congresswoman said that as chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, she invited Julianna to highlight young Latino and Latina leaders who are doing the work of protecting progressive values, from women’s decision-making on reproductive rights to LGBTQ+ issues and climate change.

“[Julianna] is the type of person that we need [to] highlight day-to-day and continue to support, not just for their activism, but for elected office. You have to have those voices at the table, everywhere,” Barragán said.

Julianna noted that the benchmark used to measure success in Texas can’t be limited to abortion access but access to reproductive healthcare, period. She noted that Texas ranks 50th in maternal and perinatal healthcare access and that there is a severe gap in access to basic healthcare services between rich and poor, and white Texans and Texans of color.

The Gen Z activist explained that a huge measure of success would be if the state of Texas would allow Texans to make healthcare decisions about their own body and not have to drive two hours for necessary care.

The 20-year-old said she is prioritizing all levels of government in terms of advocating for people’s rights and supporting elected officials who have the same agenda and mission as her this year.

“I’ll be working heavily in the city of Houston to get local representatives in office, who care, not just about people’s reproductive freedom, but about affordable housing, about healthcare access about public education, and continuing to remind Texans that their government officials are not just here in the halls of Congress, but they’re also in the cities and neighborhoods that they live in and that they should remember, they have a voice on all levels of government,” Julianna said.

Barragán co-signed with Julianna’s thoughts.

“It starts at all levels of government, making sure there are people who share our progressive values at all levels,” Barragán said. “There’s a bench to have state legislators and governors and even the AG [attorney general] right here, enforce those rules.”

Julianna highlighted the work of Texas judge Mina Hidalgo, who launched an $84 million initiative to fund childhood education using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, which provided additional financial relief in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Julianna admitted that as far as public school books and education go, that is an ongoing battle within the state to ensure that school boards have people who believe in comprehensive education.

“I’ve been meeting with several different people to talk about how we can work with school boards to ensure that children have the right to read books that they choose,” Julianna said. “There is censorship in school, but the reality is, that is an ongoing fight that I think will be happening for the next few years.”

Julianna said she hopes people on all levels of government and in every community in the country recognize the importance of immigrants and Latinos and their value to this country and that that narrative spreads far and wide.

President Joe Biden promised to veto any national abortion ban passed by Congress and urged passage of the bipartisan Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit and the jury system.