{"id":3854,"date":"2017-03-22T05:10:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T15:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/workable-level.flywheelsites.com\/?p=3854"},"modified":"2017-03-22T05:08:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T15:08:31","slug":"kcc-student-takes-active-role-in-local-political-organizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/22\/kcc-student-takes-active-role-in-local-political-organizing\/","title":{"rendered":"KCC Student Takes Active Role in Local Political Organizing"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Chris Takahashi<\/a> | Staff Writer\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Maile Murphy, a 22-year-old culinary and patisserie student from Pacific Grove, Calif., speaks glowingly of her mentors in the culinary department. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe teachers are really passionate, and you can tell that impacts how they teach,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps, though, some of her teachers are unaware of the high-charged passion that the first-year culinary student dedicates toward progressive politics here in Hawai\u02bbi.<\/p>\n

Murphy is the current co-chair of the social justice committee in the student-led political organizing group, Young Progressives Demanding Action<\/a> (YPDA). YPDA originally began as a \u201cStudents for Bernie Sanders\u201d advocacy group in the beginning days of the 2016 presidential primary.<\/p>\n

Though Hillary Clinton was named the Democratic Party’s nominee over Sanders, Murphy makes clear that, in the days following Donald Trump’s general election victory in November, she experienced a type of grieving that she never had expected. The grieving period has since ended, and Murphy now brims with optimism on the very tangible prospect of influencing progressive politics at the local and state level.<\/p>\n

Though Murphy has only formally been involved with YPDA leadership after the Nov. 8 general election, it was this election that galvanized her\u00a0to roll up her sleeves and become much more involved with the political process. She, along with fellow members of YPDA, have been busy tracking and testifying on behalf of a number of bills in the ongoing legislative session.<\/p>\n

Notably, Murphy’s social justice committee has kept a close eye on bills pertaining to crisis-pregnancy centers and death with dignity.<\/p>\n

Murphy acknowledged that understanding the legislative process is something that comes with a steep learning curve. She also gives credit where credit is due. Murphy remarked that Will Caron, a fellow member of the YPDA leadership team, is essentially like \u201cSuperman\u201d when it comes to navigating\u00a0the nuances of the legislative process.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Murphy testifies before the Hawai’i State Senate (photo courtesy of Maile Murphy)<\/p><\/div>\n

On submitting legislation, noting full well that it\u2019s difficult to have a personal story for each specific piece bill, Murphy\u2019s approach is to use \u201cstatistics and facts, and I try to research what the financial impact will be … and then, as for personal stories, I try really hard to reach out to our (YPDA) membership to see if anyone has the time, or wherewithal, or desire to submit their personal story.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u00a0also gives a major nod of appreciation to UH M\u0101noa students Asami Kobayashi and Cameron Sato for their organizing prowess and ability to effectively grow the group from their nascent days advocating for Sanders into the progressive change-making organization it is\u00a0today.<\/p>\n

YPDA has given Murphy an outlet to flex her voice, and she\u2019s made many friendships along they way. As the legislative session winds down in May, Murphy notes that the Hawai\u02bbi chapter of YPDA (it\u2019s a nationally organized group) will likely be more involved with events in the national political conversation.<\/p>\n

While keeping up with legislation is invariably a time-consuming activity, Murphy does find the time for her culinary education at KCC. She ultimately wishes to use her politically progressive voice to influence the largely male-dominated world that defines the culinary industry.<\/p>\n

She aspires to shaking up the industry by helping to create more avenues for women and minorities in leadership positions. Specifically, she wants to see the gender wage gap erased in the culinary world as the industry has customarily favored men in the higher-paying positions.<\/p>\n

For Murphy, her love of all things food related can be traced back to her Italian mother\u2019s homemade cooking. Coupled with a variety of different culinary roles over the years, Murphy decided upon following her passion after graduating high school in 2011.<\/p>\n

Only 16 years at the time of her graduation, she\u00a0moved shortly thereafter to O\u02bbahu and has called the island home ever since. Her father and grandmother also reside here.<\/p>\n

Back in Monterey County, Calif., as a child, Murphy did gymnastics with Clint Eastwood\u2019s daughter. This was long before the conversation of politics entered her daily consciousness, but it was in California under former Gov.\u00a0Arnold Schwarzenegger (from 2003-10) that prompted her own political awakening.<\/p>\n

She\u00a0remembers the budget cuts to public education under the Schwarzenegger administration and how that ultimately impacted her own personal education.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a perfect world, we would be able to reform our current education system for K-8 and make it equal and accessible and good,” she said. “Which I know there\u2019s so many debates about and I can\u2019t pinpoint the answer to it (in terms of a specific policy solution) … that would be wonderful.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris Takahashi | Staff Writer\u00a0 Maile Murphy, a 22-year-old culinary and patisserie student from Pacific Grove, Calif., speaks glowingly of her mentors in the culinary department. \u201cThe teachers are really passionate, and you can tell that impacts how they teach,\u201d she said. Perhaps, though, some of her teachers are unaware of the high-charged passion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campusfeatures","category-features","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}