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20 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z B R O W N BROWN JUANITA Juanita and David. THEN AND NOW 4 B.A. Sociology 4 M.A., Consumer Economics and Latin American Studies, Cornell 4 Ph.D. Fielding University and Fellow: Fielding Institute for Social Innovation FAMI LY 4 Husband, David Isaacs ADDRESS 4 Millie’s Mountain 1119 Charlie Brown Rd. Burnsville, NC 28714 CONTACT 828 682-9108 Juanita@theworldcafe.com I T WA S M Y mom, Millie Cowan, a Florida civil rights pioneer and co- founder of the Florida Civil Liberties Union who urged me to attend Antioch. Her friends knew about the school and its experiential edu- cation program and Millie thought I’d LOVE it. Well, I did love it, but not at the beginning! Even though our family had crosses burned on our lawn in South Florida for our political activi- ties and even though I had testified as a teenager at the religion in the schools trial that later found its way to the Supreme Court, I was still a suburban kid from Miami at heart. I have fond memories of my mom buying me my first winter coat...black with a fur collar.When I got to Antioch, I was shocked to see all the kids in their camouflage jackets and long hair hanging out on the steps of the Student Union. I felt awkward and out of place.What and who is THIS! Although my first year was a cul- tural shock, I loved the lively con- ver-sations and intellectual stimu- lation and immediately applied to go on my first co-op to Guanajuato, Mexico, on the AEA program there. I was student No. 13 in our group and because I was outgoing, I ended up as the “odd one in”—living alone with a wonderful Mexican family with seven kids and no one spoke a word of English. Being with all those kids forced me to learn street Spanish really quick! Thus began a wonderful adven- ture that changed my life forever. I discovered a deep love and af- finity for Latino culture. My Mexican friends tell me I must have been a little cactus, a nopalito, in a previous lifetime. And, in another stroke of good fortune, I was able to help start the Antioch student co-op program at Na-Bolom, a rainforest preserva- tion and indigenous rights center in Chiapas where my Antioch biology professor, Ed Samuel, had spent time on a sabbatical. Ed put in a special recommenda- tion for me with the terrible and ter- rific Gertrude Duby Blom who had been a resistance fighter in World War II before being exiled to south- ern Mexico, later founding Na-Bolom with her late husband, Franz Blom. Trudi became my true grandmother of the Spirit and an incredible elder role model for what it means to live a life of committed action until one’s last breath. After spending an Antioch Education Abroad year in Bogotá, Colombia, I continued to return to Na-Bolom as often as I could.Trudi and I remained dear friends and col- leagues more than 30 years, until her death in 1994 on the eve of the Zapatista revolution there. I had the great honor of accompanying Trudi to Sweden in 1991 at the age of 90 to receive the Global 500 award from the King of Sweden for her lifetime of citizen activism on behalf of the environment and indigenous peoples. I married an Antioch student, Jerry Brown (a great folk dancer!), and we had, on the recommendation of Jill Guernsey, another Antioch student, the great good fortune to spend a number of years working with Cesar Chavez and the farm- workers movement. There, in my early 20s, I had the opportunity to work intimately with Cesar—being mentored by him and others in dis- ciplined, large-scale Alinsky-inspired community organizing and coor- dinating the International Grape Boycott across the globe...an amaz- ing opportunity for a brash little pip- squeak in my early 20s! Those generic organizing and cross-cultural skills served me well when Jerry and I returned to South Florida where I’d grown up. Jerry be- gan teaching at Florida International University while I began to work as a community outreach worker with a new migrant health care clinic in South Dade county. It was there, in 1973, at the ten-