Story #32: Aaron Tanaka on How PBHA Inspired His Public Service Projects

The following is a transcript from Aaron Tanaka’s speech at PBHA’s 18th Annual Robert Coles Call of Service Lecture on Nov. 8th, 2024.

Thank you, Jessica. It’s such an honor to be here with everyone tonight. Sharing the stage with Jessica, one of my oldest friends, is especially meaningful. We met during our first week of college when we both tried out for CityStep—a very Harvard thing, to have to compete just to be in a public service organization! (No shade, no shade; I was part of CitySteptoo, and we both loved it.)

Judy, it’s also an honor to share this podium with you. Thank you for sharing such a beautiful trove of wisdom on how to live a life of purpose and meaning. Your words were deeply moving, and I will carry many of your lessons with me, especially in this moment when we really need them.

I want to start by acknowledging the theme of today’s event, which is that many of us are carrying so much heartbreak, sadness, and despair—and rightfully so. There are so many communities already under attack who are now facing even deeper types of assault—women, queer and trans people, immigrants, workers, people of color, Palestinians, island nations... and unfortunately, the list goes on and on.

But at the same time, for some of us, this is not the first time we’ve experienced a devastating election. I want to recall a little bit of my first experience with this, which happened during my freshman year at Harvard in 2000. I came here as a student body president, like probably half the kids in our class. I thought I might want to be president... but then I met people like Pete Buttigieg, and I realized, "Oh, you really want to be president!"

But, at that time, I was still enthralled by electoral politics. I was excited to vote for the first time. As a budding activist from a safe, non-swing state, I voted for Ralph Nader. I didn’t think he would win, but I believed in the message. It was devastating, though, when George Bush beat Al Gore. I remember sitting on the steps of Weld Hall, my face in my hands, just feeling like I didn’t even recognize the country I thought I lived in.

That year, there were two key experiences that helped me move through the darkness. One was the Harvard Living Wage Campaign—over 40 students took over the president’s office for more than three weeks, demanding a living wage for Harvard’s janitors. That experience was a visceral lesson in the words of Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without struggle.” I saw that it was ultimately our responsibility, regardless of who is in power, to help guide leaders toward the moral path, even if they resist.

The second experience was being part of the Harvard Prison Education Program. Every week, I’d get on the iconic PBHA vans—shout out to the van drivers—and head to the Connelly Juvenile Detention Center. I’d sit across from my mentee, Nick, and the beauty of that service was that I was able to build a real relationship with someone society had told us was not worthy, someone who had been discarded and demonized.

That experience taught me two things. First, it showed me how deeply racist and corrupt the criminal justice system is, and it inspired me to dedicate part of my life to trying to reform it. But second, it helped me realize that even in the face of powerlessness, there’s something we can do now. We can do things, no matter how small, to make a difference in our communities, and that gave me a sense of agency.

After that, I went on to start the Harvard Progressive Advocacy Group, a program within PBHA. We partnered with community-based organizations to support their public policy campaigns at the State House. We had committees on prison reform, affordable housing, and education—incidentally, the education committee was chaired by our very own Jessica Tang.

Following that, I was fortunate enough to receive a Stride Right Fellowship (now called the Priscilla Chan Stride Fellowship) and spent a year helping to start the Boston Workers Alliance, an organization that organized chronically under- and unemployed workers—many of whom had criminal records or were returning from prison. It was an amazing experience, and I spent my 20s leading the organization. We helped pass "Ban the Box" policies in Massachusetts, which helped spark a national movement to examine the unjust discrimination against people with criminal records.

Through that experience, I came to realize that the prison industrial complex, mass unemployment, and the deepening racial wealth divide were not bugs in the system—they were features of the capitalist political economy. (Shout out!)

For me, this became an animating goal: to help move beyond the stifled imagination that Margaret Thatcher once insisted upon—that there is no alternative. With the mentorship and support of the late Chuck Turner and the late Mel King, we started the Center for Economic Democracy in 2014. Over the last 10 years, we’ve been able to build policies, projects, and models that empower everyday people to control their own economic destinies.

For example, we helped pass a ballot measure in Boston that changed the city’s charter to require participatory budgeting, where residents can propose and vote on how to spend part of their tax dollars. We also helped establish a State Office of Employee Ownership to support worker-owned cooperatives, where workers share in the profits rather than those profits being extracted from them.

We launched the Bostjima Project, the country’s first democratically governed impact investing fund, where everyday people pooled $5 million and have an equal vote in deciding which companies to invest in. During COVID, we launched a Mass Redistribution Fund, raising nearly a million dollars and democratically redistributing it to everyday people—mostly immigrants and families of prisoners—who were excluded from access to COVID relief.

It’s been 10 years, and I’ve just changed jobs—I’m now the co-director of One Project, where we recently made a $10 million commitment to the Greater Boston area over the next three years to support this ecosystem. We’re also building technology to support a just transition to a new economy.

All of this work, for me, started across the street at PBHA. I’m deeply grateful to PBHA for helping shape my moral compass and for the relationships and mentors I’ve had along the way—people like Maria, David Dance, and many others, as well as my colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with me.

The work we do is multigenerational, as we try to bend the arc of history. And so, I’m deeply grateful for the future stream of PBHA leaders who will take the torch and carry it forward. PBHA taught me the power, care, and possibility of community.

So, today, I say: Long live our communities, and long live PBHA.

Thank you.