Warm welcome everyone to Intersections, where our quest is to dissolve boundaries and to explore our full potential individually, but also collectively. What does it mean for us in groups and communities, as humanity and as individuals to shine through it with our full potential?

Today, I have with us, Ai-jen Poo. She is a next generation labor leader. She's an award winning organizer and a leading voice in the women's movement. She's the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which is a nonprofit organization that works to win respect, recognition and labor rights and protections for the nearly 2.5 million nannies, house cleaners and home care workers across America. She's also the executive director of Caring Across Generations, which is a national organization of family caregivers, care workers, disabled people and aging adults working to transform the way we care in this country. She's a nationally recognized expert on the care economy and has authored the celebrated book, "The Age of Dignity."

I also want to say personally, that it's a great joy to recognize that Ai-jen is a product of Columbia University, which, as many of you know, is one of my very sweet homes here in New York City.

Ai-jen, warm welcome to you and thank you for joining us for this conversation today.

So grateful! I tell you, there's so much about your work, which is so heartwarming and also so illuminating, necessary and critical for the kinds of time we live in today. I know that we will zoom in on things that you have so deeply invested in, with so much heart and spirit. And they relate to, among other things, the theme of caregiving. What really is so energizing for me as we start this conversation is both through the way you have approached it, and the principles and practices that you put into application. I see that your story is my story. Your story is everybody's story. That is, in fact, one of the principles that I've recognized from looking at some of the great noble movements and change makers in the world that they find a way to make their message very universal. It might be very focused on a moment in human history and for a particular community, but somehow underlying it is some kind of timeless and universal truth and reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci Code. He once said, "Study the art in science and study the science in art and then approach problems through the lens that everything connects with everything else", and you're able to make that happen in a very lived way. So that's so beautiful.

I want to come back to that connective tissue aspect of what caring can be for humanity. I see in you somebody who is deeply invested in service, in a keen attunement with humanity's needs and hungers. And you're so dedicated to it. So I'm curious, when did it sort of come to you, the awareness and spark that this is the step I want to take, and when did it come to you that this is not just a step I'm taking, this is actually a life purpose that I'm forming?

Wow! I'm processing. You talk about the contradictions and then the hypocrisy. It still takes a capacity to be really brutally honest with yourself and with your relationship with the humanity in the world to be able to step back and actually acknowledge that, process that and then feel like I'm going to act on that to resolve that contradiction, to actually address that hypocrisy rather than just kind of let it pass me by and keep living from one day to the next in the sphere of material accomplishments and gain that many people get swept up by. There's a sense I'm getting from even just these early glimpses that we're getting into your story, that there's a certain wholeness that you have possessed from a very early stage within you so that you showed up in life and in the world and didn't feel compelled to go into perhaps more mainstream, formulaic, popular lanes and paths because you had to prove something to the world, because you had to fit in some ways or, etc., some of these pressures and demands that, painfully so, unnaturally so, so much humanity sometimes in that formative age and stage of high school and college sometimes faces that is in any way sort of resonant. Can you give a little insight into your inner life? Like, where do you think that has come from for you?

Well, shouting out a heartfelt thank you to your grandparents for what they did to shape you and form you, and look what a multiplicative impact it's having in the world. So beautiful. One of the things that, of course, is America's strength is its diversity. Part of the value of that diversity is that America is always a work in progress. It's always forming and reforming. Part of that is because these different cultures come here and meld in a certain very unique way, isn't it? I do think that we should strive to recognize something very timeless and something very unique to what America is and has sought to manifest in its own imperfect, evolutionary ways since its very inception, but even with those timeless things, there's a certain sort of things that are evolving yet. And what I notice in your story is, that reverence that you highlight that exists in certain cultures, you come from an Asian culture. I come from an Asian culture, from India, and certainly, I can vouch for as much in India as you do so articulately from some other Asian cultures as to the appreciation and place of honor that we give to the elders. The older you are, the more naturally so. There's a central place and space for you in every community event, in every family event, you're the center of it all because you're calling the shots. Because you're the only oldest. So it's almost as natural, instinctual, something. And yet, we come to America and somehow, we, very quickly put these people a little bit on the sidelines of society, and you hardly see them and you hardly deal with them, and it's considered a little bit of an encumbrance or an inconvenience. Anyway, I just wanted to share that because a) I'm just framing this for our listeners and I'm just wanting to share with you how much I appreciate and relate to that ethos that, perhaps comes a little bit from your immigrant Asian background that can perhaps now be of service to helping, again mold, soften and, evolve America into the next phase of its growth, right? So anyway, can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. A thought that's coming to my mind is, how, maybe at the root of it is, our obsession and identification in the West, in America, for example, with our material identity as our identity. If you think about your body and if you think about how fast you can run, and how pretty you look and things like that, those are all aspects of our material physical identity. If that is the sole identity that you really take on, then as the body ages, it looks like you're going on the decline, right? But, if part of the identity was something to do with your spirit, with your soul, with the enrichment of perspectives and the library of stories that you now carry within you, or things like that, and society were to also savor that and draw that out of you, then perhaps we might start to change the thinking? In other words, it is about aging, but it's also about the intangible, deeper aspects of who we are. What do you think?

Of course, at the very end of that lies a door that none of us will be able to escape from. At some point, the door will open and invite us to go through it. You talk a little bit about that, too, as a critical reframing of a relationship that we need to make in society, and that's the door of death. My father passed away a few years ago, and he had a beautiful, blessed life. And in India, which is where he lived, when I went back for his cremation, which is what we do in India, we cremate the body, I realized how different the experience is in India of sanctifying that moment and playing a role in that moment as a member of the family and all of that than the very polished kind of funeral home experience that we have in the United States. Part of it is just the viscerality of actually seeing the body of the deceased and even, getting to have to touch it as you help support it with the right clothes or things that it has to wear for his final departure to the cremation ground, and then you go and cremate the body. So you, as a child would light the fire to the pyre, where the body is. Then you come back, you watch it being cremated and burned. Then you come back the next early morning to collect the ashes in a cast. In doing so, there might be a few little bones or something, but most of it is ashes. Of course, there's a heaviness of heart, but at the same time, there's such a lesson life is teaching you.

I remember, by the time the next morning I was going there to pick up some of those ashes, there was a part of me that was almost kind of just smiling and laughing like, what is this? Life is such a joke. If you get deluded into thinking that the identity of this person was just the body because it was not just the body, I felt so deeply convinced from within that my father's spirit is still alive, and it is just gone somewhere else from where it has been, and that was just so intuitively clear to me. And yet, on the other hand, how instantly within just a day or two, the body could just completely disappear from the body that completely identified with my father. And so anyway, that experience was so rich and profound for me.

I really related to that part of the conversation you had, and I'm really applauding you for inviting us into that uncomfortable space, and less talked about space of sort of what is our relationship, culturally, emotionally, etc., with the process of passing and I'd love to have our audience hear a little bit of your sentiments on that and why do you think it's important?

Well thank you for that. Before we get to that stage, there is this phase of aging where at times disability or struggle physically, mentally comes to us, and that's been a key part of your focus to help put a spotlight on what are we doing as a society to really be more mindful of the way we come together in engaging and supporting that generation who has reached that stage. You have this thing that you call the caregiving majority framework. I'm going to quote from something that you've shared, you've said, "We have to engage all of the communities that are impacted by the elder care workers, senior groups, disability rights advocates, women's organizations, unions, communities of faith, youth and students. This is the caring majority, the powerful intergenerational alignment of American experiences that represent the full diversity of who we are as a nation, with unlimited potential to change the political landscape and the basic value that connects us all, which is care."

What I really love about that is how you're taking something that sparks you, and then you're inviting us all to be part of that, not just because that's your cause, but by alerting us and reminding us that that's the natural cause and that's everyone's cause. So beautiful!

Talk a little bit more to us about what is it that for those of us who have not really paused and thought at this stage of the life or haven't really been thrust into a role yet, why is this something that we should be consciously really investing in, thinking about our values, our attitudes, our practices and the policies around us, etc., around care?

Yeah. You have been bequeathed with some really special gifts. You're doing this beautiful work. You are conceiving it strategically, and you're also just a great articulator of it, just the way you phrase it, talk about it, is very stirring for so many. I can only imagine how many people's hearts and minds you have changed. I noticed that one of the things you talked about is also how much the act of caregiving actually ends up really benefiting the caregiver themselves. Talk about that a little bit to us.

Thank you for sharing. I've been studying the pursuit of excellence and I've been studying changemaking and leadership, and, you know, a few of the usual suspects show up like Mother Teresa or Monet as a painter or Gandhi and what have you. And, in studying their lives and seeking to, as best I could, stepping into the shoes for a moment, step by step one, one thing I realized is that, they were obviously loving people, but they were actually in love. And that made it easy to be loving because you're basically in love. Monet basically said that perhaps I owe it to flowers that I became a painter, because I can't help it when I see them with the ravishing beauty that they have, I have to paint them. Mother Teresa also exemplified that so much in her work. A dear friend of mine, Jeannette Petrie, was on this podcast. She and her sister went to India after Mother Teresa won the Nobel Prize and all of that and said, we should make a movie, this is such a beautiful institution and what she's doing. So she gave them permission. And so they spent five years making a documentary on Mother Teresa.

Then she was so swept off her feet, she just quit everything in New York and just said, "Mother, how can I serve you? I just want to be with you." And she spent the next ten years with her as well. So 15 years overall until Mother's passing. From the stories she says, but also from just the video documentary footage that we can bear witness to ourselves when we watch it, which is such a blessing to have, the thing that most strikes my students, for example, at Columbia in the executive MBA program, is that, you see how much Mother Teresa is in love with these people that she's serving. I very rarely found anybody articulating that as a core principle of their movement. So, it was such a joy for me to see that in you. You have also discovered that truth. While I'm just a teacher of that truth, you are actually a practitioner of that truth, which is lovely. And you are validating it even more with the translatorability of this idea and anything and everything that is noble and important in the world.

Can you talk a little bit about this? You talk about how you believe that love is the most powerful force for change in the world. What is this idea about being in love?

Lots to soak in. I'm not in a rush to continue because I just want our audience to also just pause and take in the profundity of what you're saying. It is beautiful.

I'm reminded of how inspired I was by studying Gandhi's movement and the principle it sort of helps me conceive is that, there's all kinds of changemakers out there, and some of them are actually really very empathetic and caring and connected and committed to, a community, a cause. But what differentiates those that I think leave a really timeless footprint in the sands of time is that they tend to not your point like separate that group from the rest of humanity and say like, "In doing for this group, I don't care what judgments are passed on the rest of humanity or what, I inflict on the rest of the because this group is in so much pain. This is all I'm concerned with, and the whole world should be concerned with this, etc." They're able to simultaneously keep their intent, focus on that group, but at the same time, that expansive lens on the whole world, that dual kind of frame.

In the case of Gandhi, what that means is that, yes, he wanted the British to surrender power and walk out of India and not anymore continue to extract economically from India and all of that and give India its rightful opportunity to lead and govern itself and all of that. He wanted the British to do that. Now in economic terms, you might consider that a zero-sum game, as I say, but what he was saying is actually, this is good news for you. He was telling the British public, he was going to Britain and saying, this is the right thing for you. Why? Because in doing this, you might be getting economically richer, but you're getting morally poorer. I care for you, and I love you. And I see so much goodness when I come here to the United Kingdom about the way you live and what you do and all of that. And, I want you to kind of advance morally and spiritually, and you're bankrupting yourself by doing this.

In other words, what I see in these people is a capacity for a certain kind of transcendence, where there is a sense that when I'm fighting for justice, even for a community, it cannot be innate negative for the rest of humanity because the universe just doesn't work that way. The solutions that we have to forge are solutions which may not necessarily help everybody equally materially, but if some people have to sacrifice materially, it will be for their own moral gain or something like that. I don't know if that makes sense.

Well, you said some of this so beautifully, you talk about how much of an irony it is. I'm not paraphrasing you, I don't remember your exact words, but how much of an irony it is that in the caregiving world that you have these caregivers, often, low income immigrant, folks with less qualifications etc., who are sometimes not just not given their due, and yet here they are, touching and supporting your loved ones at the most vulnerable moments of their life and you need them there to do it in the most loving way, gentle way, caring way, attentive way and mindful way and all of that. How could it happen that there should be tension and conflict in seeking to support their rights in the more traditional labor union kind of management wars that happen? So again, I was paraphrasing you and did a very imperfect job of that, but can you articulate that a little bit? Because it's really a wonderful framing that I think would help so many of us in other arenas as well, to recognize that when you are fighting for something or against something or whatever, keeping that larger war in mind, rather than just the battle of ultimately wanting to keep the relationship whole.

There must be countless people who have been so positively impacted by that. I want to share a quick story with you and relate it to what we're just talking about.

Winston Churchill, I don't know if you know this about him, but he had a tough time growing up with a father and a mother who were both very busy with their affairs in the world, in all the things they were doing, in politics and society and all of that. He ended up really yearning and hurting for wanting that paternal and maternal affirmation and love. And ultimately, the person who really gave it to him was his nanny. She was the one who really ultimately raised him. And it was a very close and dear relationship for him. Everest was the name, Elizabeth Everest, and he considered her to be almost like his most intimate friend. She was a constant companion to him as he was growing up. I think he was about 21 when she passed away. It really was a moment of great grieving and loss for him. He then started to pay from that day on for a certain stone, on a tombstone and everything. Anyway, so I wanted to kind of just share that as a backdrop to this idea that, when you talk about caregiving in particular for that role in the home where it's a nanny, doing it for your kids, I wonder if it's also important to have us recognize how formative that stage in age is for anyone. And then essentially, my hypothesis is that the energy that that person is bringing into the home, the mood, the aura, the intention, the love, the care, the support or the lack thereof, doing it mechanically, transactionally and professionally and politely, but fundamentally not being fully there. It could happen anywhere on that spectrum. We all aspire for having the right nannies and most of them who are drawn to it as a choice as a profession, are coming in through that natural heart, that natural gift of that. But, in some ways, the greatest and most lasting and enduring gift that they might be giving your family and the child might be beyond just the material upkeep of that little fragile life is the deeper inner foundation stones that are being set up in that person.

I feel moved now just hearing about that. That is so beautiful and it's such a thoughtful way to seek to create influence with the stakeholders that you can have all the bars and charts about the economics and the demographics of caring and all of that. But then there's just these little stories, and what a story for her as an adult now, just talking about how formative and central that was to her. It was beautiful!

Who has shaped you in your thinking and inspired you the most? Is there an individual or a group of folks that you have found most exemplary or instructive in the art and craft of bringing positive change in the world?

*Ai-jen Poo: O*ne person who came to mind is a woman named Dorothy Lee Bolden, who was a domestic worker in Atlanta, in the civil rights era. In the 60s and 70s, she was a neighbor of Doctor Martin Luther King's. And, as the momentum of the civil rights movement under his leadership was building, she went to see him and knocked on his door and said that domestic workers want to be a part of this movement. This is about us. He said to her, "Well, then organize a union of these domestic workers." And that is what she did. She founded the National Domestic Workers Union, which at its height, I think represented over 10,000 mostly black women who worked as domestic workers in the South. There were two criteria to joining. You didn't have to even pay dues because most people didn't have the money. You just had to, one, be a domestic worker, and two, be registered to vote. She just understood how important it was to be civically engaged in that way and to utilize to see your agency, no matter how little the world or society might think of you. You have your voice and you have your vote, and you care. And that is important.

I think I was very inspired by her as I learned about her in my early days as an organizer, and I've had so many important mentors along the way. I am such a believer in mentorship, and I often think if I'll have one regret, it's that I don't have enough people that I'm mentoring in a deep way. I think that's one of my goals for this next phase of the work, is to support younger organizers who are coming into this work because I am the beneficiary of much generosity from people like Linda Burnham, who was the founder of the Women of Color Resource Center and so many other wonderful leaders who took the time to answer my wild questions.

Well, as we bring our conversation to a reluctant closure because I know the audience just as much as I would continue to feel so enriched with every minute and hour of our time together. But as we bring this to closure, I'd love for you to invite perhaps, first step from those in our audience who may get sparked by what you're sharing about the discipline and power and value of caring as an active value that we engage in life.

What is one way they can be in some ways involved in your movement without having to pack their bags and just come over and ask you, how can I serve? I'm sure some of them do that too.

That's a beautiful step that any or all of us can take. And you're actually giving me a practice that I want to implement tomorrow. Thank you so much for that. That is so beautiful! I want to end with a quote from my side and then invite you to share which would be the last voice that we want to have in this. What would be your big dream for the years ahead? Like what is it that you are seeking to manifest? So that would be my question for you.

Before that, the quote I have, which comes to my mind in the context of the beautiful work and the message you have for all of us is, from Rumi. He once said something like, "All doubt and despair and fear disappear when the whole purpose of life becomes love," and I see that in your story. The courage, the clarity, the commitment, the conviction that has emerged from a deep stirring of love from within for humanity and for this beautiful quest of caring.

Thank you so much again for coming and joining our world here at Intersections and for all you do, and wishing you really well on this path that is so luminous that you are blazing for so many who I know are following in your footsteps and will continue to expand in the years and decades ahead. But for now, I invite you to have the last voice and tell us a little bit about your dream.