Who We Are
We are professionals, students, and parents reviving what it means to be an American.
We are Americans who share a vision to protect our American identity.
Our Goal
By 2050, one out of five Americans will be foreign born. Latino communities will triple in size and the percentage of Asian communities will increase significantly. There will be no clear racial or ethnic majority. Only 47% of Americans will be classified as white.
By 2050, the American population will drastically shift. New faces, new foods, new languages, and different skin colors will influence our everyday experiences. What appears ‘foreign’ will challenge how Americans see the world and how Americans identify themselves. America’s demographic shift will ask Americans to question how they define themselves as Americans.
IMAGINE 2050 will answer Americans’ questions by initiating a national dialogue about what it means to be American. By creating a national conversation, the blog seeks to strengthen our American identity.
IMAGINE 2050 asks you - as an American - to strengthen your American identity.
American Identity
Being an American means fighting for what you believe in. It means inspiring the people you love to hold onto their dreams and helping them to succeed. Being an American means hope, aspiration, optimism, perseverance, freedom, and liberty.
Being an American means to take what you’ve been given and to transform it into something unimaginably new.
None of us have succeeded on our own. We are who we are today because of the support of our family, friends, schools, and jobs. That’s what being an American is all about. It’s to look out for each other, not to protect the “number one.”
Our American strength - our individual courage - comes from each other, not just from ourselves.
American Identity - to protect and preserve human dignity
About Us
Contributors
Eric Ward - Eric is currently the national field director with the Center for New Community based in Chicago. He began his evolution as a human rights leader in 1989 in the Pacific Northwest. A former staff member with the non-profit organization Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC), Eric founded and directed a community project designed to expose and counter hate groups and respond to bigoted violence. Eric began this work during a period when the national white supremacist movement was shifting its focus from the South to the Pacific Northwest. He is the editor of three published works: Conspiracies: Real Grievances, Paranoia and Mass Movements; Second Civil War: States Rights, Sovereignty and the Power of the County and American Armageddon: Religion, Revolution and the Right.
Jill G. - A student of journalism from Columbia College Chicago, Jill has worked extensively with non-profit organizations both professionally and as a volunteer. Committed to addressing the economic and social discrimination barriers in childhood and youth development, she has worked in the public school system, coordinating elementary early childhood programs. A native of Chicago, she recently returned from Brooklyn, NY in order to work with non-profit organizations in the Midwest, and has enjoyed working for the Center for New Community for the past year. An avid international traveler, Jill has spent time in Europe and South America, most recently studying Spanish in Argentina, Chile and Peru.
Joel Ebert - Joel is currently is an undergraduate English major at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He regularly writes for the school newspaper, the Chicago Flame, often penning social commentaries which fuse pop culture and politics, in an informative and entertaining manner. Joel is also co-founder and acting President of SPEAK, a student led organization which seeks to discuss controversial topics by creating an avenue for constructive dialogue in order to diminish apathy and polarization. He is deeply interested in politics, sports and music, among a plethora of others interests, and plans to work as a watchdog freelance writer.
Marjorie N. - Marjorie is a social scientific researcher. She conducts research and evaluation related to race/ethnic relations, immigrant and refugee integration, cultural competency, and health. She has conducted research in the United States as well as abroad. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland College Park in Psychology and a Master’s in Science in Cross-Cultural Psychology from Brunel University in London with an emphasis on international health.
Nicole Hallengrogg - Nichole graduated from Fresno State University where she studied English with a focus on creative writing and ethnic studies. She is a former Amicorps VISTA member for intercity youth in Washington - opening the door to the importance of reading, writing and freedom of expression in our children. Currently Nichole is a pre-school teacher in Bozeman, Montana, and raising her two young daughters as a single mom.
Noah Chandler - As a 2007 graduate of the master's program Social Documentation at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Noah's background is largely centered around human rights activism, and he has served as a researcher and writer for over ten years in that capacity. Noah has a lot of experience and expertise working in diverse communities in both leadership and support roles. His documentary background has mainly been photography and writing but audio has been a close second.
Sarah Viets - Sarah is the blog editor of Imagine2050. A graduate of the University of Illinois Chicago, Sarah was a columnist with the Chicago Flame. A long time organizer, Sarah was the community outreach coordinator for Solidarity & Unity Now a social justice organization which mobilized young people around issues of social and economic disparities. In addition, Sarah was involved in Union Summer where she interned for SEIU Local 1 in Chicago and while an undergrad at Penn Valley in Missouri co-founded Student’s Against Repression to educate and mobilize the student body around issues of racism and social and political equality. Sarah has her own blog called Deeper Digs.
Walidah Imarshi - Walidah has toured the country several times performing, lecturing and challenging. She has facilitated poetry and journalism workshops third grade to twelfth, in community centers, youth detention facilities, and women’s prisons. Walidah is also the bad half of the poetry duo Good Sista/Bad Sista, and has co-authored with her partner Turiya Autry two chapbooks: "Good Sista/Bad Sista: Can YOU Tell the Difference?" and "Action-packed!". She has shared the stage with folks as different as Kenny Muhammad of the Roots, Chuck D, Saul Williams, war resister Stephen Funk, Ani DiFranco, John Irving, dead prez and organizer and revolutionary Yuri Kochiyama. She has appeared on Puerto Punx Ricanstruction’s second album Love and Revolution and toured nationally and internationally with them.
