PUSHMAG: The Active Issue

a youth-driven
movement for change
BY KINSEY LITTON
It used to be that becoming an “adult” came with a few
inescapable truths: filing taxes, navigating the job market
and forever paying the adult fare at the movies. But the
fact is, times have changed. Now, becoming an adult not only
means confronting a failed political system, a barely recovered
economy and advanced technology that has altered the very
foundation of how we interact, but also deciding how to
navigate within these systems...if at all. Brujas are one of the
many youth-driven organizations facing these changing social
and political landscapes, and their accompanying issues. Brujas
as an organization are hard to define but that’s mostly due the
fact that they don’t want to be defined, at least not by anyone
other than themselves. They are a group composed of active and
wildly driven young women, men and gender non-conforming
folk that reside in New York City. What originated as a group of
outspoken, take-no-shit young women who simply wanted a
safe space to explore their love for skateboarding has evolved
into a progressive organization with complex goals that
involve going up against monstrous and deeplyrooted
systems such as their local government and
the mass media machine. While they expand their
organization, they are leading solution-driven
conversations about the purpose of longstanding
public systems such as schools,
jails and hospitals, and whether or not
they are supporting our youth or
stripping them of opportunity.
PHOTOS BY NAIMA NOGUERA
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