Hometown Hero: Cristina Arroyo

Cristina Arroyo

This whole thing started because I said back in May that this pandemic would further exacerbate racial and socioeconomic inequities in our schools when I was running for school board. The responses on social media were telling that this wasn’t even a conversation that’s been had in any capacity in our town because they were so toxic, hostile and mired in misconceptions and defensiveness.

The whole goal of the Valley Stream Justice Project is to address policy and leadership and reform systems that have been designed by and work perfectly for only a few people. This isn’t about individuals who are perpetuating these systems; it's is about the people being disproportionaletly and negatively affected by them.

I'm decentering the agents of oppression and centering the victims of this oppression.  These systems work to oppress through secrecy and through inaccessibility to power, and that includes information. The game plan is to expose everything, and to make information accessible to everybody. It's transparency and accessibility always rooted in evidence-based research and data.

We’re talking about things such as code enforcement being weaponized against people of color. We’re talking about having no Black teachers in Valley Stream District 24. We’re talking about things like not having open and accessible elections.

If we achieve some of these goals, there will be more representation. Our leadership will look more like us. They’ll think more like us. They’ll better understand our lives.