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April 26, 2002
"Milo Mumgaard, Executive Director, Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest"
An interview with Milo Mumgaard, Executive Director, Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest. Questions and answers will appear below starting at 1 pm EST on Friday, April 26. You may ask a question in advance by clicking on the "Submit a Question" button. Due to time constraints, not all questions will be answered. You may need to refresh your screen during the interview to read the most recent responses.
read background Leadership for a Changing World
Welcome to Leadership Talks. Today's guest is Milo Mumgaard, Executive Director of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest.
Milo, can you give us a little background on yourself and how you came to this work?
Milo Mumgaard
I was born and raised near Lincoln, Nebraska. I’m a lucky white guy. Couldn’t have had a more “whitebread,” Midwestern upbringing. One of ten kids to a good Danish Lutheran couple; dad was the breadwinner, mom a very busy homemaker. Church, school, community. Pretty simple, caring, low-budget environment. Out of that came a strong hand-me-down attitude that we must care for our neighbors as much as ourselves.
Personally, I’ve thought a lot about what led me into social justice work- and still have few direct answers. I can remember early on being stirred by things happening in the world outside of my neighborhood- and wondering at the unfairness of it all. There’s no question my strongest motivation is a desire for fairness to all. Blame it on all those Sundays at Prince of Peace Lutheran or those dinner table discussions where my parents made clear the treatment of blacks, farmworkers, the children being bombed in Vietnam, and our schoolmates who had no money was just not right. Early on, something stirred in me that recognized my own privilege and my ability to help people receive their due.
I know that I could “hire out to the other side,” but what kind of life is that? It’s far more satisfying and exciting to work with others, be a part of something that is making things fairer and better for all. So in “doin’ it,” I’ve been fortunate to get public interest law training at NYU, share lives with farmworkers in West Texas (where my proudest accomplishment was to start the annual “Fiesta Campesina!”), and come back to Nebraska to help my neighbors: family farmers in northern Nebraska, welfare recipients and low-wage workers across the state, immigrant meatpacking workers in small-town factories, etc., etc., etc.
San Diego, CA
Keep up the great work! Can you share who your "leadership heroes" are? Have they changed over time?
Milo Mumgaard
I have to admit, I am a sucker for the “big ticket” leadership “hero.” I very, very regularly look at the lives and works of Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy for inspiration. I read about these guys all the time- learning more about their obvious shortcomings and screw-ups, but their powerful ability to inspire and lead in the right direction. I mostly look for their motivations and their way of joining their skills with others to move people and time forward. I’m not a foolish believer in the charismatic political leader as the messiah for the people or something- but I totally believe there is hope in individuals leading within the political and justice system to achieve social justice gains forward for all.
And so I try hard to figure out how individuals can help make this happen- thus many of my “heroes” are those people who give me examples. And it’s not only these national historical figures. Here in Nebraska and the midwest, I also look to many examples from our own history and present day. People like Merle Hansen of the Nebraska Farmers Union, who was critical in organizing farmers to help their neighbors during the Depression, such as through “penny sales” that kept families on their farms despite the banks best efforts to kick ‘em off. And today, people like State Senator Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who describes himself as the “Defender of the Downtrodden.”
And all the time, I see and talk with people who are “heroes” to me, because of what they can do in the face of so much unfairness: the single mother who struggles to get her kids to school, get to her low-wage dead end job, and keep her family’s life intact despite the incredible vilification she and others must face every day and our failure to help her do this all so much better; or the meatpacking worker getting poverty wages, getting hurt regularly, has little to nothing, but who shares his time and his money with his community to try to do SOMETHING to make it better for all. Yes, I would say as my direct experience grows and continues with people with little to no power, my heroes change and grow as well.
Plainview, NE
Each rural, smaller, Nebraska community has residents that are working two or sometimes three jobs to make ends meet. How do we motivate those individuals to spare some of their extra (?) time to help the community survive?
Milo Mumgaard
This is a problem in every rural town in the Midwest because of the farm economy and the recession that the ag economy has been in for years.
The same problem exists with the urban families we are working with. They have low-wage jobs just to make ends meet.
This is the biggest dilemma in trying to engage working poor families in the public policy debates we work on. It is, frankly, not possible for people to do all of this to support their families and still be fully engaged in the big picture questions.
I actually very much respect that, and that's what motivates me.
That is one of the reasons Nebraska Appleseed exists -- to provide a voice that other people don't have the time to provide.
Sturgis, Michigan
Mr. Mumgaard:
I am serving a large underserved community in this county and I am having a hard with the "profile" that the law enforcement are imposing. What should I do to prevent and protect the victims of this action.
Elizabeth Datkovic
Centro de Ayuda Director
Milo Mumgaard
There are several things they could do. One thing we've done in Nebraska is publicize racial profiling problems and at the same time work with other groups to create responses to that.
For example, we worked with groups to pass legislation that prohibits racial profiling, and also requires law enforcement to keep statistics on their enforcement activities, to identify if profiling is happening.
The key here has been we worked across racial and cultural lines. The ACLU has been involved and the African American and the Hispanic communities. Fortunately, Nebraska Appleseed was set up to bring those groups together.
Omaha
What would you say about the recent Supreme Court decision having to do with denial of back-pay for undocumented workers who are fired due to their trying to organize?
Milo Mumgaard
I think it's a terrible decision and one that reflects a philosophy that is wrong. This decision means undocumented workers can be even more exploited by bad employers.
And the Supreme Court thought it more important to protect bad employers rather than employees. Obviously, folks are working on getting that decision turned around.
KANSAS CITY MO
How will the Patriot Act affect Latino immigrants' ability to open bank accounts?
Milo Mumgaard
It will affect all noncitizens in general, because of course there is much more monitoring of financial accounts with the Act. But it should not hinder Latinos from getting bank accounts, period.
We're working on that issue here, trying to get Hispanics to use the banking system because they should be using that system.
St. Paul, MN
How have you been able to bring immigrant workers and employers together? How about other communities - i.e. legal community, politicians?
Milo Mumgaard
That’s the most interesting part of what I do here in Nebraska. I’ve got a knack, frankly, for working with and among amazingly different- but in basic ways very similar- people. Our approach is aggressive and goal-oriented, but we are credible, fact-based, and constantly seeking common ground. This keeps doors open. My belief is that no real social change is possible unless a broader community supports it, and it only happens when common interests become clear and achievable. I’m also not at all ideological about who we can work with and who we can’t.
Of course, I have my own perspectives, but one I do not have is the belief that anyone is evil or beyond the pale, despite their actions. I am able to sit down with the heads of big meatpackers, knowing full well they are rigging the system so injured workers have few options, and talk seriously and credibly with them about why they should be supporting change. I will come back again and again to how they share certain common interests, even economic ones, and should be engaged in processes to make things better.
It is all about identifying the way an issue presents common ground for change- and then just being willing to stick with it. This is not to say it always works or that this strategy always is the best. But I’m always interested in showing how family farmers, meatpacking heads, rural communities, urban consumers, meatpacking workers, and so on, all share common ground.
Kampala, Uganda
What advice do you have for us in less developed countries as far as developing our legal services are concerned in order to reach out to the poor and unprivileged who cannot afford paying on their own?
How can we sensitize the local communities about their legal rights?
Milo Mumgaard
The ability to have rights enforced is as important around the world as it is here in the United States. Unfortunately, the U.S. doesn't have the best examples of how to get that accomplished.
But having the basic concept that individual rights exist and must be respected is a strong starting point.
Brattelboro, Vermont
How do you address local problems that need to be addressed at national policy levels rather than the state level? Do you have any experience with international policy level issues (e.g., NAFTA, FTAA, etc.) that impact poor communities in Nebraska, the rest of the U.S., but also other countries?
Milo Mumgaard
The Iowa-Nebraska Immigrant Rights Network, started here at the Nebraska Appleseed, is all about having local experience inform national as well as international public policy debates. The Network is designed to create critical mass among organizations and people to both demonstrate how big picture policies like immigration law and NAFTA play out locally and why things should be changed, and how that relates to why we need change on the national or international level.
Of course the Network is designed to influence policymakes who make these decisions. This Network is the first of its kind in the Midwest.
"International" sounds really big, but the U.S.-Mexican relationship is international. And that's one of the most critical issues of the day right here locally.
New Orleans, LA
What do you think are the benefits and drawbacks of doing your work in a rural area as compared to an urban one?
Milo Mumgaard
The benefit is the chosen lifestyle that agrees with me. I've never, though, noticed a difference in the sense of community between rural and urban. It's just a difference of scale, a difference of issues.
Rural people have no special claim to mainstream values. Working in a rural atmosphere can be as complex as in an urban setting.
A major drawback is resources, in particular, for legal or social change work. That includes people who are in fact engaged in this work.
In an urban setting, you've got people everywhere. In the rural work that we do, it's few and far between.
The lack of people and resources, institutions, increases the challenges of doing this work.
Fayetteville, NC
How much support do you have from local citizen groups and other grassroots activist groups? What kind of support do they give?
Milo Mumgaard
We have a lot of support and work regularly with what exists here in Nebraska and Iowa for grassroots groups. Our organizing principle is to directly join our legal skills with grassroots community groups.
So depending on the issue area - welfare, immigration, a living wage -we work with the grassroots groups that exist in those areas.
Des Moines, IA
Do you think we have too many progressive groups across the country, that inadvertently we water down our efforts by spreading resources too thin?
Milo Mumgaard
I somewhat agree with this. In my opinion, we should be doing far more collaborative/collective activity rather than sort of balkanized or isolated-interest activities.
It's necessary to have organizations to promote isolated interests, but they should be, from the get-go, always collaborating with others who share an aspect of their issues or problem.
I see a lot of isolated and, therefore, ineffective advocacy. So to the degree there are too many folks working independently of others, that's a problem we should address.
Raleigh NC
What's the best example you have seen of a rural community that has found a way of reinventing its economy after losing business to the global economy?
Milo Mumgaard
Here in Nebraska there are a couple of good examples. West Point, NE, for example, is a farm community that has created a very diversified and small business/small industry-based economy and preserved its population and its business community, even though it's rocked by the farm recession as much as anybody else.
And groups like the Center for Rural Affairs, and in particular their Microenterprise Project, have really helped grassroots communities to see that there is hope.
There are other examples, but it boils down to focusing on the local strengths rather than hoping for a quick fix or a messiah.
San Francisco
Can you talk a little about how you see the connections between policy and programs? What ways does your organization work with CBO's and communities to create sustainable programs for their communities? And how does your organization view "community mobilizing"?
Milo Mumgaard
I see a direct relationship between public policy and programs that help on the ground. For example, we spent the last year and a half in Nebraska going through a process to identify public policies that either effectively help integrate the new immigrant populations here or are barriers to it.
Nebraska is full of public policy that doesn't help or doesn't help enough.
In the case of economic development, for example, so much is done to help large-scale corporate interests and very little for small entrepreneurs, and nothing for the new Hispanic population.
That's how development then occurs in many places - because of those policies.
So, yes, we work with community-based organizations around the state to identify and improve these policies.
Albany, NY
There seem to be many different pieces to your work. What is the process that your organization goes through when deciding on a new project or issue to take on?
Milo Mumgaard
Nebraska Appleseed is a systemic law project, so we focus on how we can use our legal skills to work with community organizations on common agendas for social change. Our primary goal is to create a strong voice for those with little to no economic or political power. This means we focus on issues facing the working poor, welfare recipients, meatpacking workers, and similar communities here in Nebraska without any level of real political power. We decide to deal with issues like living wage ordinances and tax credit challenges by constantly interacting with organizations and low-income community leaders, and asking: What will make the most difference for the most people? What kind of strategy can be developed that will really change things for people? What will get the most attention and the most response?
I often describe Nebraska Appleseed’s work as being in large part an end-run around the present political system. The present system is totally unresponsive to these communities and their critical issues, and short of a revolution or a few well-placed winners of the lottery, this will continue. How, then, to achieve policy changes that the political system will not deliver on its own? That’s the level we operate on, one that demands we creatively find openings and leverage for organizers and advocates working for and with these communities. The process we go through to decide what, where, when and how is designed to be one that includes community leaders through our Advisory Councils and our direct involvement with community campaigns around the state. I feel very comfortable that our work is grounded in the very communities that need our type of legal and policy work the most.
Abilene, TX
Have you faced any challenges in being a white man working on immigration issues? Is your credibility ever questioned?
Milo Mumgaard
A strong suit for me has been the ability to be oblivious to the obvious differences between the Latino immigrants and leadership I work with and myself, a white male. This has been a good characteristic, really! I’m not ignorant or naïve, or someone who dismisses racial or cultural or class differences as irrelevant. I’m just okay with who I am and who other people are. This has allowed me to just go about being an advocate, a colleague, and, if the situation presents itself, a leader. Other people accept me the same way, I think.
The biggest challenge I have is not having any direct personal experience with the situations immigrants have, and then presenting my own judgment about what is best for folks. It is a chronic disease that white male lawyers like myself are always fighting off, and must always be on the watch for. Sometimes I need some serious medicine, because I definitely have a predilection for deciding what is best and assuming everyone else agrees. And that’s when my friends and colleagues remind me, in strong terms, that my opinion is not always the best.
Baltimore, MD
I read about your work on the website and it's incredible. You obviously have a strong set of underlying principles that guide your "right actions" towards those with whom you work. How do you connect, either philosophically or practically, the larger movement for social justice in the world with what you're doing in Nebraska?
Many thanks again -- Sid Ford, YANA, Baltimore, Maryland
Milo Mumgaard
The bottom line is the reality of people's lives in Nebraska and the Midwest - how do you put food on the table and keep your family together and have opportunities for a better life - are the same issues and problems faced by people around the world.
Because here in Nebraska we have so much new immigration and so many exploitation issues related to that, I can see right in my backyard the same kind of exploitation that takes place around the world.
So it's kind of easy for me, then, to see and empathize and relate to the bigger global problems.
I have been called "hyper-ironic" because I regularly point out how one public policy on one subject relates to another, relates to another, relates to another. And I usually end up saying: "Isn't that ironic?"
So I think every day about what goes on here and how what we do here relates to the bigger picture.
New York City
First off, thank you for all you've done. I loved reading about your project (s) and how you think about the different quilting squares of social change. I read that you have two quotes from Woody Guthrie on your wall, plus your "quilting squares" quote. What other roles has art - song, theater, poetry, storytelling - played in your organizing work?
Milo Mumgaard
A lot. In Texas when I was a farmworker attorney, I helped create the Fiesta Campesina, where we had music and games and food and lots of culture, all with the theme of "standing up for your rights" - how to do it.
Right now, in Nebraska, we're sponsoring a project called Images of Injustice, which is an effort to have grassroots groups take photos of community challenges and create an exhibit and website on these issues.
So, yes, art and music and culture is part and parcel of advocacy - and it's fun, to boot. It' jazzes up our life a bit.
Phoenix AZ
What do you think about the contributions of the Indigenous People Concept of collective decision making in the circle of life as opposed to the Individualistic concept of leadership promoted by mainstream Western philosphical concepts of leadership.
Milo Mumgaard
I agree with it. I think there is a tremendous amount that the mainstream male, white culture can learn from those approaches to leadership.
The most striking thing for me is how much emphasis on community there is by these indigenous communities. And I wonder why we don't have that more built into our mainstream institutions.
I also work in a profession that is exceedingly traditional, in terms of leadership procedure and so on - how you do things. So it's very exciting for me to talk to people about how you could do things differently.
Cincinnati, OH
How do you measure your success?
Milo Mumgaard
I measure success not by some isolated accomplishment, such as a new law, but by whether these changes really do help people deal with their real lives. A child care subsidy law change or a food stamp change making more people eligible is great- but the real satisfaction I get is knowing people are, in fact, more able to live a full and happy life. Immediately after we helped Omaha pass a living wage ordinance, I was walking through city hall when a janitor stopped me. As he leaned on his mop, he told me thanks, he was now going to get his first meaningful raise in years. I also find success in how this was accomplished. I want to be with and around people who share the same desires I have, and who work together to get it done. To accomplish something with others, that’s an amazingly strong satisfaction, one I long for all the time.
Madison, WI
How do you sustain yourself personally? What do you do to prevent burnout for yourself and those you work with?
Milo Mumgaard
The best thing I do is stay consistently flexible, to constantly remember that the world doesn't change - probably in my lifetime or anyone else's - but that really anything attempted in the aim of doing something good is the right thing to do, whether you can point to any specific success or not.
So I don't get hung up on any one objective or any other objective that has to be done or has to be accomplished. And I have my own family and friends and community in which I live - and that's what we all try to have - a good life, family and friends.
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us. That's all the time we have today. For more information, you may contact Milo at:
Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest
941 O Street
Suite 105
Lincoln, NE 68508
Phone: 402-438-8853
Fax: 402-438-0263
Email: mmumgaard@neappleseed.org
Web: www.neappleseed.org
Please join us for future Leadership Talks.
Milo Mumgaard
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