(she/her)

Sheltering in Chochenyo Ohlone Territory (San Leandro) 

Freelance news writer, Raquel Navarro, uses her skills and experiences to uplift the voices and actions of marginalized communities through justice-oriented journalism.  When not writing about labor, housing, and law enforcement legislation at the local and state level, you can find her doing legal observation with the National Lawyers Guild. She also helps operate an affordable housing cooperative and remains a proud member of the Solar Community Housing Association. Raquel also enjoys time spent roller skating, fixing bikes, growing food, and cooking and sharing meals with loved ones. 

This summer Raquel is engaging in legal research related to building community land trusts and worker-owned grocery cooperatives.  This entails researching examples of grassroots and primarily Black, Indigenous and People of Color led efforts to build community owned and shared resources and to honor and learn from those experiences.  She is also translating legal resource guides on updated employment law and forming limited liability companies for the Spanish-speaking community to access.  Raquel firmly believes that cooperative economics actually manifest the real community we want to be a part of and is drawn to this work because the lessons learned from organizers throughout history must inform present and future collective action if we really want to see our communities thrive. 

SOMETHING I LEARNED: One major takeaway for Raquel from the Collective Courage book clubs by Repaired Nations has been that some of the most resilient and rooted black cooperatives providing for themselves through housing, food and agriculture, and building generational wealth and land tenure began with consistent collective education and a commitment to discovering truth together, all the time.  She’s been super inspired by learning this history and admiring that the roots of cooperative economics are organic, intentional and beautiful while being genuinely revolutionary.