Granada’s Civic Engagement and Politics Club is meeting every Friday in Room 300 during lunch, navigating current events through the lens of both policy and theory. In a divided political landscape, co-presidents Anna Pham (12) and Freyjaa Kirti (12) are aiming to create a space for positive and productive dialogue between students from all different perspectives and to encourage students to advocate these perspectives within our democratic system.
The club was originally founded in the lead up to the presidential election last November. “I wanted there to be a space where we could talk about all the political issues that were culminating towards the month.” Pham said. “I felt like during that time, politics was very polarizing, so I wanted there to be a safe space for people to talk about their views and discuss topics without feeling like their views aren’t accepted.”
From the beginning, creating an environment for productive discourse has been the aim. “I feel like the important part about having these conversations is to approach it like you want to learn about the perspective, and not like ‘that’s immediately wrong.’” Pham said. “There’s definitely a lot of opinions that I disagree with initially, but after hearing the perspectives of others, I feel like it’s really important to see how they got to that viewpoint.”
“We definitely encourage people to take action within their communities and speak up about issues that matter to them. Last year, it was ‘Politics Club’ and now it’s ‘Civic Engagement and Politics Club,’ and the goal is to encourage people to do canvassing, or call their local representative about an issue that they care about; more of the action side of advocacy” Pham said. And these are subjects the co-presidents have experience with: Kirti recently canvassed in support of California’s Prop 50, which would allow the State Legislature to redraw their congressional district map in a response to Texas’s own alleged gerrymandering efforts.
The format of the meetings is this: Pham and Kirti will give a presentation on an issue (for example, Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension following his political comments and our current government shutdown have been topics discussed at the last two meetings), then they will turn to attendees to give their opinions and engage with each other on the issues. With the pre-prepared presentations serving as a baseline to inform all participants, objectivity in these initial presentations is key for cultivating a productive discussion.
While the co-presidents both have their own political perspectives, they aim to provide the necessary neutrality in their portrayal of current events within the club. “When researching a topic, I won’t only look at an article from the New York Times; I’ll look at a bunch of articles to see how the perspectives differ and what the similarities between articles are, and I’ll use that as the facts,” Pham said.
But current events aren’t strictly the sole focus of the club; how we view and discuss politics as a whole is another topic Pham intends to cover. “We want to have a discussion about different political and economic structures. That would be more political theory-oriented,” Pham said. “People seem to throw a lot of terms around—socialism, communism, capitalism—all these words that just seem like buzzwords because they don’t really know what they mean. The purpose for having the club is for people to be more educated about what the politicians and the people who have power in our country are actually talking about.”
“It’s really important for young people to be talking about politics and current events and world issues, and as things have gotten so crazy in the last few months and years, I think that more and more people are starting to have an interest in politics, and I feel like it’s important for there to be a space at Granada that cultivates that culture,” Pham said.
