Mamas Action Project + Mamas of Color Survey

On May 9th, 2010, Mamas of Color Rising realized their first Mother’s Day Action Project to demand midwifery through Medicaid in Texas. After brainstorming and bringing their ideas together, MOCR decided that to bring awareness to the community about the midwifery model that women of color lack access to, they would hand out flowers to women of color with a palmcard attached with reasons why Medicaid in Texas SHOULD cover midwifery (reasons on posting below).

The Mamas gathered in a parking lot of a grocery store which they thought would be supportive of their work, being that the majority of their customers are families/women of color. However, the store managers failed to demonstrate interest in their work. The Mamas being the revolutionary group that they are, proceeded to gather in the parking lot and continued with their work, aware that their presence was not wanted.

As the members of MOCR approached women of color in the parking lot, offering other women a flower to acknowledge the work that they do/ did as a mother, some were surprised, perplexed, responsive, and the majority thankful. Some, even offered donations for the flower, and then it was clarified by a Mama that no donation was needed and that the flower was simply a symbol of acknowledgment from one woman of color to another.

After passing out nearly 300 carnations to women, the store security approached a member and notified her that they were not allowed to be passing out flowers. Lucky for the Mamas, they had already made contact with nearly 300 mothers with whom they had the opportunity to chat with and bring their message across to.

This moment of accomplishment within a community of motherhood had to be captured.

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Young Women United (Albuquerque, NM) & Mamas of Color Rising (Austin, TX) also posted a nation-wide survey to find out what’s most important for mamas of color. They write:

Mamas of Color….how are you doing out there?

Concerned with the way our US society and government treats caretakers, especially poor and working class mothers of color, this survey was created by members of Young Women United in Albuquerque, NM and Mamas of Color Rising in Austin, TX as well as individual women across the country.

We put together this survey as a way to hear from you, Mamas of Color, about your experiences, feelings, ideas, and knowledge as a parent in the US. In gathering this information, we hope to identify issues affecting our lives, find common experiences and collectively organize as Mamas of Color.

revolutionarymamas@gmail.com

We are Mamas of Color, together creating a vision of how we want birthing, parenting and caretaking to be in a more just and loving world.

You can find the survey here.