Diego Galvez | Improve Your Tomorrow (Sacramento, CA)

I spent my summer reporting on the fight to bring good-paying jobs back to America and train workers below the poverty line to fill them. Before the trip, I read dozens of articles about the historic achievements of the Biden-Harris Administration(IIJA-IRA-CHIPS & SCIENCE). I heard all about the jobs, roads, bridges, and broadband. But I heard very little about what these projects look like on the ground, the real people they're helping, or the unspecified local forces turning this grand and historic vision into jobs and concrete.

With support from the History Department and Haas Center for Public Service, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to witness history and record it. I traveled from California to Washington D.C., through the Southwest, Southern Black Belt, and Appalachian Coal Country. I visited union halls and city halls, interviewing 200+ people leading the resurgence of industry and opportunity in America. I met people in dead-end hollows and inner-city projects whose lives and communities were being transformed by government programs, teary-eyed at how much their lives had changed for the better.

Through it all, I couldn't shake the feeling America is less divided than people say. When you hear the same three things -I want a good paying job, I want my kids to have a better life than I did, and I want to feel seen by my leaders- you can't help but recognize the opportunity for consensus. Sorting through government failures and a uniquely American combination of joy and resilience, I learned exactly what kind of leader I want to be.

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