My Namesake and Roots

I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1970, just after the Kent State massacre. A national strike of student protesters shut down universities and burned dozens of campus ROTC centers across the country. My parents were student anti-war activists. They met and had a short-lived relationship during this heightened period, from which I was born.

Growing up, I didn’t really know my biological father. My mom had remarried when I was young and moved us to the Midwest, where my stepdad found work in the steel mills of the Mahoning Valley. I grew up in what would later become known as the “rust belt.” My father stayed in California. But by my teen years, he began to fly me out for summer visits. This was awkward at first. His new family and mine back home were about as far apart culturally as they were geographically. My father lived in a well-off neighborhood in Berkeley. He and his wife were politically active and enjoyed things like museums and theater. I was growing up in a working-class steel town on the decline, where resources were sometimes scarce. The closest thing to a museum I had ever experienced was Graceland the summer our family took a road trip south.

My mom was private about the past; she didn’t share much. But my father was open and engaging. As I got to know him, he shared how he was arrested and nearly expelled with a group of student organizers fighting to stop university support of the war. They were also demanding racial justice on their campus. In public health he later served farmworkers in the central valley, worked in prisons and public clinics. From my father, I also learned I had been named after Ericka Huggins, a Black Panther and political prisoner whose husband was killed just before my birth.

Learning about my namesake motivated me to read all that I could about the Black Power movement. This led me to George Jackson, Angela Davis and the prison system. By my 20s, I had relocated to San Francisco to attend SF State and pursue my path as a musician and performer. I continued to study Black history as well. Then, after a number of unarmed people were killed by the SFPD the 90s, I got involved with a community group demanding police accountability. I later helped litigate police and jail misconduct cases working for a civil rights attorney in Sacramento. 

As a young woman, learning of my namesake informed and ignited my path. The relationship I developed with my father also inspired me to become more engaged and active. Although I wasn't raised in the Jewish faith, it is part of my ancestry through my father. Given this, I feel compelled to understand and confront the crisis in Palestine. Joining this delegation is my first step.