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Making Waves

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Convergence

Cayden Mak

Cayden Mak

Publisher, Host of Block & Build 13 articles and 101 podcasts

Cayden Mak is the publisher at Convergence Magazine and the host of Block & Build: Roadmaps for the Left.

Prior to Convergence, Cayden spent nearly a decade in various roles at 18 Million Rising, including five years as Executive Director and two as Chief Technology Officer, developing the organization inside and out into the digital-first anchor of national progressive Asian American organizing. His other movement work has included organizing for community-designed affordable housing with the Save E. 12th Coalition, co-founding Youngist, a youth media collective, organizing graduate research assistants for a labor union, and helping coordinate tracks and network gatherings at the Allied Media Conference. He serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Kairos Fellowship.

Contributions from Cayden Mak

Embodying Abolition in Our Lives, w/ Maya Schenwar

Hosted by
This week on the show Cayden is joined by one of the editors of the new anthology We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, out now from Haymarket Books, Maya Schenwar. The book brings together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, its writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice.

Holding Our Collective Grief, w/ Sarah Jaffe and Malkia Devich-Cyril

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Cayden is joined this episode by organizer and strategist, as well as co-founder of MediaJustice and founder of the Radical Loss Project, Malkia Devich-Cyril and journalist and author of From The Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire, Sarah Jaffe. Together, they seek to grapple with the political and cultural implications of grief, both individual and collective, arising from everything that’s happened to us, collectively, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We Don’t Need a “Joe Rogan of the Left” w/ Adam Johnson & Hermalinde Cortés

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This week on the show we’re exploring the challenges of building a progressive media ecosystem and mainstreaming movement narratives in existing corporate media. First, Adam Johnson, co-host of the Citations Needed podcast, joins Cayden to help us understand the current state of play in media and public relations work and why it’s against us by design. Then Cayden talks with Hermelinda Cortés, Executive Director of ReFrame, about her organization's research on the ways narrative links traditional and social media to create the social “weather” conditions for our movements. They dig into ReFrame's post-election efforts to help build deeper, more powerful, and farther-reaching movement narratives.

Avenues for Action, w/ United We Dream and LJ Amsterdam

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This week on the show we’re looking at how our strategies need to adapt in the coming months. First, we are joined by Senior Political Director for United We Dream, Bruna Bouhid, about their vital lame duck session advocacy. Then we take a bit of a longer view of what movement work needs to look like during the second Trump administration with Senior Fellow at Future Currents, LJ Amsterdam. Her soon-to-be-published report about the changing nature and strategy behind direct action holds some key learnings for all of us preparing for next year.

The Post Election Blame Game w/ Waleed Shahid & Connie Razza

Hosted by
Cayden is joined by political strategist Waleed Shahid, to discuss the lay of the land that is the many hot takes and finger pointing that has been going on since last week’s election both inside and outside the Democratic party. Waleed recently laid out a really helpful typology on his Substack and we’ll discuss what we should we sit with and digest versus what should roll right off our backs.

We Failed to Block the Return of MAGA

Hosted by
Lots of folks are getting tugged at by the “blame game” that happens after every election cycle. Instead of looking at counterfactuals, we want to ground in reflection and self-critique, as well as where trends are going and what we need to do next.

State of the United Front Against MAGA, w/ Loan Tran

Hosted by
We’re just a few days out from Election Day, so this episode covers a lot of ground. First we hear from Dusti Gurule, President and CEO of COLOR Latina. Dusti and COLOR are front and center in the campaign to pass Colorado's Amendment 79, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution and remove a major barrier to accessing those rights by allowing public funds to pay for abortion services. Then we're joined by Rising Majority National Director Loan Tran, back to check in on the state of the united front against MAGA as we go into election week. And we have another report from the doors, this one from Ellie, a canvasser with Essie Justice Group, which works to harness the collective power of women with incarcerated loved ones to end mass incarceration's harm to women and communities.