This week’s advocacy day at the State House was a beautiful thing. Be sure you follow MassCreative, find your rep, and help support the 2025-26 Creative Sector Agenda. Here’s my small contribution to the event…
How many of you are at Creative Sector Day for the first time? Every year, it grows more and more into some combination of a pep rally and a family reunion. And I feel like love and solidarity are the only ways we’re going to get through this mess that we’re in. So I appreciate that you decided to ride the T or get on the Pike, or ride one of the buses to be here today. It matters quite a lot.
You’ve heard from a lot of amazing people already. And you yourselves have stories to tell. I’ve been asked to help send you off into the hallways and offices. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more I can say.
You already heard from our poet laureate, Regie Gibson. We don’t have a poet laureate if Governor Healey doesn’t make it a priority. We have in Governor Healey a partner who cares about this sector. You heard that Chair Garballey and Chair Mark have your back. You’ve heard from Emily and Lizzie about the legislation. The legislation includes $27.3 million for Mass Cultural Council, and the ACE act is extremely important to being the people we want to be.
So you’ve already heard all those things. I don’t think there’s a whole lot that I can say, but they allotted me some time, so I’ll say a couple things.
I will start by paraphrasing the great American philosopher and artist and activist, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, who told us a couple of weeks ago, “Si estoy, aquí, ahoy, es porque nunca, nunca, deje de creer en mi.”
We are all here because we never, ever gave up in believing in us and in this sector. You felt it that the first time as you put a camera in your hand, or you put on dance shoes, or you wrote a rhyme. You know why you do this work. And you know that there’s a long story behind it. Whether your people have been in this place for a thousand years, or came on a boat from Italy to Ellis Island, like my people. Or crossed the border just trying to do the right thing by their people and their family to become Americans.
And you know that right now is different. Chair Garballey and Chair Mark spoke to it. We have a federal government that is immoral and unhinged. They’re looking to do anything they can to stop the work that you do. A lot of people spend a lot of time scrolling and posting and scrolling and posting, worrying about what’s going to happen to our democracy. Or, they decide to step back completely from it.
You made a different decision today. You decided to do democracy. John Lewis said, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.” You are taking action today. Big up yourself for that.
You’re going to go out now to meet with your representatives and senators and their amazing staff members. When you do that, I want you to remember four things, including your contact information.
(1) Tell them who your audience is.
(2) Tell them what your budget is.
(3) Tell them who you work with specifically in their district, because the chances are they’re going to know the same people as you or they’re going to know someone you may know or might need to know. And importantly, you’re going to know other people that they should be helping out in the district.
Because this democracy was meant to be a collaboration. You are not knocking on doors begging. You are showing up to represent the creative sector and to the people you serve. That’s how it is supposed to work.
(4) The last thing you can tell them is why. And you already know why.
You know what it’s like to walk into that classroom and what it feels like to walk back out after those kids all learn that song.
You know what it’s like when that mural finally goes up.
You know why you do that.
You know when it began you did it because you thought it would change things. And that is what you have done day after day after day, whether that’s being on stage or taking out the trash at the end and locking up the doors. You know why you do it, and you have the power in your hands today to come and talk about why you do it.
Is the staff of Mass Cultural Council on Mass Humanities here? Raise your hands. One more time. Every day these people connect the power you generate, the power supply we are generating today, they connect those cables and run them all over the state. They run them out to the microphone that you put that child on to sing. They run them out to that speaker so that the abuela gets to hear her favorite song. They run it to the lights in the archives, so you could crack it open and finally tell the truth about the place that you live.
You do that. We are here to make that connection today, and that’s what you are starting when you go into these offices. Light it up and spark that energy and that power. We will bring it out to you all. Today we connect the cable. I believe you all know how to rock a microphone.
Do that in these offices. Let’s get started. Thank you all so much.
