Emma Gray Mankin grew up in a small, rural, and very conservative town in Northern VA. After high school, she stayed in her home state and attended Elon University for undergraduate and worked there for a number of years after graduating. During her time in Northern VA, she saw an increase in ICE raids with the Trump administration and experienced the excess raid points set up in the conservative counties surrounding her home. Experiencing the social injustices in her own home inspired Emma to become involved in the “beautifully resilient” Latinx community. Emma decided to pursue her Master’s degree and moved to PA to attend the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently completing a two-year program where she is able to gain classroom and field experience simultaneously. Emma is excited to be a part of the Penn School of Social Policy and Practice where she is able to study social work and create changes within many outdated or underfunded systems.
Emma first became involved with CCATE when she took a policy class with Holly and Obed where she studied policy and analysis of the Latinx community. The class only had six students, allowing all teachers and students to bond and form an intimate community. In the past, Emma has had experience in communications outreach at other non-profit organizations and has since taken over the newsletter duties at CCATE. She enjoys being able to tell the stories of the Latinx community of CCATE and restore the land that was stolen from them and continues to be negotiated by outside invaders. Emma states, “land is something that is really important to me because of my own relationship with the land and the relationships I’ve seen stolen from communities.” Through her past non-profit experience with Benevolence Farm in North Carolina and social reform work in the justice system in Philadelphia, Emma has become passionate about abolition work and focusing on restoration of relationships with stolen land to ensure equitable distribution of land for the benefit of society as a whole.
In the future, Emma hopes to continue working in various systems and carrying out promised acts of service. She would love to see more implementation of policy advocacy that involves testimonies and input from those communities which are most impacted by specific detrimental policies. Additionally, she would also like to return to the world of agriculture and social care farming, which involves empowering communities who tend to be seen as more vulnerable populations through the use of land. Emma also hopes to one day return to the South and continue these pursuits, as she claims, “the South is not a lost cause, but a land of opportunity and struggle.”
To Emma, CCATE is so special because it focuses on long-term social change, rather than temporary social service. She enjoys seeing the community thrive together, dream big, and deny any internalization or limits placed on them by external oppression. Emma also loves that CCATE is a community first that focuses on their members and their health, education, and overall well-being, and a non-profit second. In the future, she hopes that CCATE can have their own community garden or a small farm to manage outside of the building, and that they are able to continue to share their stories with other Latinx communities in the United States.