Meena Harris, KAMALA AND MAYA'S BIG IDEA

[1:47]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books. This thirty minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, three hundred and sixty five days a year for about thirty minutes. Am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction and memoir. Our books are already out now. You can check it out on zippybooks.com. And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag where we have lots of wonderful essays and lifestyle features. That's at zippymag.com. We have classes at zippyclasses.com. And I recently opened a bookstore in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue at 11th Street in Santa Monica. I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings. But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018. And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing. Enjoy. This episode with Mina Harris is one of my re releases for the weekend in case you missed it. It's really awesome and Mina has since come out with other books and has really grown her phenomenal business and brand and everything. So I hope you enjoy. I had so much fun talking to Mina Harris. Mina is the author of Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, which is based on her aunt and mom, Kamala and Maya Harris, who campaigned to change the playground outside their building when they were kids. Mina is the founder and CEO of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School. We had the best time talking and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome, Mina. Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[3:33]Meena Harris: Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure.

[3:35]Zibby Owens: My kids and I loved your children's book. Great. Oh my gosh. And not only do we like the children's book, but I'm holding up. I know we're on Skype and nobody else can see. But we filled out the Kamala and Maya's big idea, big book of ideas as well, which they loved. Although the big idea that my son wants to work on is that he thinks I boss him around too much. Oh my gosh. That's too funny. Yeah. I'm gonna have to like big idea. To get his mom to stop telling him what to do. Good luck. Good luck with that. This is a picture of him looking very sad and me looking happy like bossing him around. Oh, that's so funny. So and the tools he needs because you ask him your thing, what tools do you need? He thinks that he thinks we need a magnifying glass to solve this problem.

[4:20]Meena Harris: That is so good. I love it. So That's like that's like super quarantine edition.

[4:26]Zibby Owens: Right? Yes. Exactly.

[4:29]Meena Harris: How do I get my mom to leave me alone? Yeah. I mean, I just told him it was lunchtime, but, you know, finally it for me to really buzz him around too much. Oh my gosh. That's too much. Well, thank you for doing the activity book. That's so I love that you guys did it. We wanted to make it, you know, as easy as possible for people to print out and to do with their kids. So I love that you guys actually did it. No, we did it. We have the letter. I'm saving it forever. His letter to me.

[4:54]Zibby Owens: And actually, no, it was great. You have letters in there also for hospital and frontline workers. So had my older daughter do those. So we're gonna mail those later. So, yeah. Love it. Awesome. So tell everybody what your book is about and also where they can find the downloaded activity guide and all the rest. Yes. So I'll start with, you can find everythingphenomenalgirl.com.

[5:14]Meena Harris: It's all there. And we just released the activity book, I guess, couple weeks ago. Just thinking about, you know, the book is obviously not out yet, but what are ways that we can give something to parents to, you know, engage with their kids? I think everybody is looking for stuff and there's not even enough stuff out there to occupy as long as you need. So anyway, yeah, it's all on on the website. The book is about two sisters named Kamala and Maya. It's actually based on a true story from the childhood of my mom, Maya and aunt Kamala. And it's really, you know, it's a story that I heard growing up when I was a kid. And it's really about, you know, two sisters coming together, you know, leaning on their community to solve a problem. It's very basic, right? But it's about persevering in the face of no. It's about community organizing, right? Leaning on your neighbors to make your community better and being creative in problem solving. And so I don't wanna give too much away. I know that you've already read it, but what's amazing about it is, you know, through my women's brand Phenomenal Woman, I spent basically the last three years talking to adult women, right? About, you know, this, I guess now era, this moment that we're in post 2016, where I think many people have thought about, you know, what can I do? How I speak up? How can I, you know, make an impact in my own community? And I always tell people that it's just about starting somewhere, right? No matter how small. And that's really what the story is about. It's these two sisters noticing something in their apartment complex that they want to change and they decide to go for it and to pursue their big idea. And they figure out, you know, what are the tools that they need to make that happen similar to the activity book, right? Where do you need help from? How do you get that help? How do you, you know, get creative when you have adults telling you you're too small or it's too expensive, right? Or you can't do it. And it's, I think a great story that all of us can learn from adults and children. And it's also just about, you know, having two strong independent girls as main characters. Part of the inspiration for me not only was sort of memorializing this family story that inspired me when I was growing up for my own children and for, you know, kids all over, of course. But also feeling that there was a lack of, you know, just interesting, fully developed characters that were girls girls of color in kids books. And when I was a new mom, you know, I was reading, this was now four years ago with my oldest, we were reading the classics and, you know, replacing he was she, you know, sometimes coloring the skin color brown so they felt sort of you know that they could relate to it more. I think those you know the classics are important and they're wonderful. And we were also lucky in that I became a new mom when there was sort of this you know burst of feminist kids lit. The sort of radical women, rebel girls and those are really great and important. I think teaching that history is super important but I also kind of found myself at a certain point like I'm tired of reading lists of women history. What about real, you know, fictional characters that children can and girls can see themselves and can imagine themselves in and just, like, existing. Right? It's not about, like, teaching history or, you know, something sort of deeper than that. It's just, like, girls in the world doing awesome stuff, going after their big ideas. But, you know, as basic as that sounds, as we know, there's still, you know, a lot of room to grow in terms of representation in children's literature. There's still, you know, a a lot lot more work to do even though there's been some great, I think stuff that's come out even in just the last two years. But I think there's some crazy statistic that I think in 2018 there were more books about main characters that were animals than Black, Latinx and

[9:13]Zibby Owens: indigenous characters combined. Right? I don't know what the story is with all these animal books. Like, I do not care. I mean, not that I don't love animals, but like, why? Why is everything about, like, sheep and goats? And I don't know. Like, I I haven't seen a sheep. I don't think in my whole life.

[9:29]Meena Harris: Right. And it's I mean, you know, we know that kids learn you know, they're learning about animals for the first time, and that's great. And you have all these board books, right? They're like learning. But yeah, exactly. Like that's not my experience. I'm a doctor, you know, a sheep that I'm really trying to dig into that. There's this young book activist, Marley Diaz, who has this line about it's just like a white boy and his dog. It's like every book is like a little white kid and a dog. It's true. I mean, I was just looking at some of, you know, some new books that were coming out. And even if the character, you know, the full cast of characters is diverse which is really great and really important and again just diverse you know diversity just existing is important but still the main characters are often not children of color. Right? They're supporting characters. So you know again I think we made a lot of progress and it's important to applaud that but also to think about how we can do better. One I think really important point to make too is that as much as I hope that this inspires girls, right, and girls of color, it's not just for them. It's important for boys to read this and to see this. Right? It's important for white children to see this and to see these powerful characters. It's good for all of us. And I as I said, as a mom, you know, I never had this, like, on my road map or bucket list to write a kid's book. I never ever ever thought I would be doing this. But it was really just sort of similar to my launching the women's brand where I was just responding that moment and feeling like, you know, I'm not I'm not seeing it. And so I'm just gonna go do it. I'm gonna go put it out there. So it's been a really fun process and is is really meaningful both in this sort of, you know, broader commitment to sort of what I I wanna see in in, you know, children's books, but then also of course the

[11:14]Zibby Owens: sort of personal family story behind it too. Well, that's actually part of the reason I wrote that roundup for the Washington Post recently where I included your book because I noticed a whole slew of books with diverse characters as central protagonists, and I thought that was so cool. So that was sort of the theme of my Yeah. Of all the books. So at least there's a new, like, mini movement starting. And I saw also on your website that you have the option for people to donate a book to We Need Diverse Voices. Is that what it's called? Yeah. We Need Diverse Books, which is so great, and which I actually did. But anyway, it's Oh, thank you. You're welcome. No. It's it's like, why not give a book to someone in need who would prefer to have somebody that looks more like them in a in a book than than not? So tell me about your work with that organization too. Yeah. So we actually, we did a teacher giveaway that just ended yesterday,

[12:02]Meena Harris: and it was also in partnership with We Need Diverse Books. So when we launched the book and announced it, we were receiving tons of requests for people saying, I'd love to have this in my classroom, you know, librarians. It was really inspiring to see that, you know, people wanted it. And finally, we're able to put together a giveaway. And again, some of the messages that we received from teachers, just again basic stuff, why diversity on bookshelves is important and why that matters for them and their classrooms and their children was really super inspiring. We received a ton of entries. I wish I could give away unlimited books and we're working towards doing that. So the donate a book is part of that, right? Giving people an opportunity to actually donate books directly to children in need and to school districts. We need Diverse Books as an organization that I'm actually, I'm not, I think they've been around for a while but are really doing, I think, important work in terms of everything we're talking about, right? Promoting the fact that we need to have children's literature that speaks to all children. And again, I want to make that point very clearly, which is that it's not just children's literature for children of color. It's diverse literature for all children. We all benefit from those stories. So they're doing really great work. It's been really fun partnering with them. And I hope that we'll be able to do more teacher giveaways we received. Since we did that, we received requests from other institutions like children's hospitals, right, especially right now with, you know, coronavirus wanting to give children engaging, you know, activities who are hospitalized. So we received more requests than we can accommodate right now, but I really hope that we'll be able to, through the donate a book initiative, and maybe doing more giveaways that will get get the book in more children's hands. It's fantastic. It's really such a great it's just great. More people should do that. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[17:06]Zibby Owens: Awesome. Tell me more if you don't mind about Phenomenal Woman and Phenomenal Girl.

[17:12]Meena Harris: So Phenomenal yeah. So Phenomenal Woman, I launched it in 2017 coming out of the presidential election. Think like a lot of people woke up thinking, you know, what just happened? And more importantly, what can I do? You know, how can I be more engaged? And I think we saw this incredible surge of ordinary people saying I'm gonna, you know, stand up and I'm gonna do something. And so that was, it was my little contribution. I decided to make a t shirt. I had another sort of smaller t shirt line that was really focused on women, female entrepreneurs. And so I was able to spin this up kind of quickly and it was for the Women's March. And I thought, know, my Angelo's poem Phenomenal Woman is something that really spoke to me. And obviously with the Women's March, right, I thought it could be something inspiring and I couldn't make it myself because I had a newborn and I decided, you know, how can I be a part of it? I put it on a t shirt, sent a handful of shirts with friends to the march and it was just super inspiring to see the images of them, right, marching and on the hill and they got tons of compliments. And so I thought, let's, you know, do more. Let's turn it into a fundraising campaign. So we launched a campaign. It was supposed to be one month long. It was never supposed to be more than that to raise money for women's organizations in the month of March, Women's History Month. And I thought, you know, we would sell, you know, a couple 100 t shirts. On the first day we sold 2,500 shirts. Oh my gosh. And right. And I was, you know, I think I could have said, all right, at the end of the month, like, I'm going to go back to my regular life, but it just really took off. And I I felt like I I couldn't stop and how could we, you know, keep it going. And it's funny to look back because even in those sort of early days, had all these people saying, you make a different color? Can you customize this? I'm like, no way. I have a very good thing going. It's like a basic gray t shirt. And now, you know, here we are, like three and a half years later, and we have dozens of styles. And, you know, I just I never thought that it would grow as much as it did. And I really think at the end of the day approached it like an entrepreneur, right? How do you really keep it going and build and grow it? And this book likewise was something that, you know, I didn't sort of intend on doing it. And it very much grew out of the experience of talking to women and mothers and seeing people, right, engaging in ways that I think in many ways we've never seen before. But also thinking about, you know, how do I go beyond bringing my kid to the march, right? How do I really engage with them in a meaningful way around some of this stuff? And I think the real message is again that it's really basic, right? It doesn't have to be that you're committing ten hours a week to you know being an activist. It can be something very small, right? Such as deciding that you're gonna gather all the kids in your neighborhood and do something good for your apartment complex or your community. And in many ways we saw that as well, you know, through I think about all the moms that have really, I think stood up for family separation, right? It was something that I think a lot of people, it struck them in a way where they said, I can't sit by. Right? And I'm an ordinary person, but I have to do something about this. So that coincided with the launch of Phenomenal Girl. We I've been wanting to get that out for a really long time, and this was finally felt like the right moment to do it. So we launched a Phenomenal Girl t shirt along with the the book. And we actually have a whole preorder campaign with local bookstores

[20:25]Zibby Owens: around the country who as, you know, we know are really struggling right now to stay afloat. And if you buy the book from one of those partners, you can get a free Phenomenal Girl T shirt. And you have the amazing Phenomenal Mother T shirt, which I feel like I need to partner with you to, like, give it away or I need to do something for, like, the moms to follow. Like, that way it's, like, so perfect. I know we'll I'll probably air this after Mother's Day, but as we recorded it's before. So I'm like, who can I give this shirt to? I

[20:51]Meena Harris: mean, it's such a nice I mean, love gifting the shirts to other people. I mean, it's such a small thing, but any friend that has a baby, you know, I'm always gifting a Phenomenal Mother shirt. It just feels good to be recognized. And sometimes you need that reminder yourself, right? Like some of the weeks where I feel like I'm not probably the most phenomenal mother or when I want to put it on and remind myself that like, that's okay. And I am phenomenal, right? But yeah, actually we launched Phenomenal Mother as part of that effort around families at the border and around family separation, both to recognize all the incredible moms who are stepping up, right? And then also mothers who were impacted, were risking everything to come here to The United States to create a better life for their children. And it was, I think one of the most inspiring campaigns that we partnered with Families Belong Together, is doing critical work at the border. But it was one of the most inspiring campaigns in that way where, you know, these are just ordinary people going about their lives busy as everybody else but said, you know, I have to do something about this. I cannot, you know, go another day knowing that there are babies being ripped from their mother's arms and that I hadn't done something, anything about that. So it was a really inspiring campaign. Obviously perfect for Mother's Day which as you mentioned is coming up. We've had a lot of interest especially where people are you know away from their mothers and are likely not going to be able to spend time together.

[22:14]Zibby Owens: It's just such a nice, you know, meaningful but small thing that you can do. Actually, long time ago, maybe two years ago no. Guess not that long. About two years ago at a Mother's Day brunch, I brought a girlfriend of mine this little mug that I found called that said you are a good mom. That's all it says in tiny little lowercase typewriter font. And I was like, you know what? I might just buy one of these for myself. And now every so often, just like what you were saying with the shirt, I just need to, like, pick up the mug and be like, you are a good mom. It is okay. Everything is okay.

[22:40]Meena Harris: It's little reminder, you know, and it's sort of exactly. It's that self affirmation that I think we can all use in any, you know, on any given day, whether it's phenomenal mother or, you know, phenomenal woman. I think that's what's cool about it is that it it as much as it's about sort of the universal message, That women are phenomenal, mothers are phenomenal. It has such significant meaning to individuals in any given moment on any given day. I've had people who, you know, warrant leaving the hospital after giving labor or going into labor or, you know, people that had a big deadline coming up. They just needed to like pull an all nighter and jam through it. And it's like armor, right? It just gives you sort of that simple little reminder that helps you to keep going and to feel powerful and phenomenal.

[23:28]Zibby Owens: So when are you gonna run for president? Oh, my. As

[23:33]Meena Harris: you can imagine, people ask me that all the time. I bet. And I don't know. I hesitate to I sort of say that in a joking way and that I don't want to discourage women from running for office. Obviously, I think it's very important and I want to see more women and more moms do that. But I also, you know, the other kind of part of the message with Phenomenal is that you don't have to do that. Right? There are other ways that you can contribute. What I've learned on my journey is that is not, you know, I think how, at least right now, how I want to participate. Right? I think that there are other ways that I can such as do something as small as a t shirt or writing this kid's book. And I really believe that strongly. I think especially with encouraging women and moms in particular to run. It's like it's not an easy thing to do, right? I think we do need to make it easier. We need to talk about it more. We need to normalize it. We need all that. But I think we also need to have some real conversations about like what it takes and what a huge risk it is and how hard it is on your family. Right? Like these it's just not something that you you kinda wake up and like, I'm gonna go do this and it's gonna be totally right. I just it's complicated. So anyway, that's my very long winded defensive answer

[24:51]Zibby Owens: how I'm not running for office anytime soon. Alright. Just had to get it out there.

[24:56]Meena Harris: Thank you.

[24:58]Zibby Owens: Well, what about more children's books? Are you gonna just or do you plan to wait to see I feel like you're very reactive to things that come up and you feel strongly about it. So are you going to wait for your next sort of mission driven project? Or do you have one in mind already?

[25:11]Meena Harris: I know. I've been on this path where like none of this stuff has been planned and it's working out okay. I think it's part of that, you know, creative process of making space to allow yourself to be inspired and to sort of react in moments. But yeah, I think I have ideas around how I could do more with it, right? And this concept in particular around big ideas and more to that, you know, listening to girls and treating them as fully formed humans who are capable of saying yes and no and who are leaders. Right? Like this is all really important stuff that we know, especially in terms of having boys read this and see this is going to impact them later on in terms of how they treat women, right? Respecting women starts with respecting girls and treating them with admiration and seeing them as leaders. And so I absolutely want to do more. I don't currently, you know, have another sort of book in the pipeline, but I have tons of ideas. And I think part of it is, you know, similar to Phenomenal. It's really about telling stories and stories of underrepresented communities and individuals and getting them out into, you know, the mainstream and making them accessible to all people. And I absolutely wanna continue building on that whether it's through another kid's book or something else, but I'm I'm certainly committed to it. And I I welcome

[26:36]Zibby Owens: that creativity to strike again, and I'm excited to to keep it going in some way. Well, I think you should make per sisters t shirts because that was like my favorite expression in the book. And then you could get sisters, sisters giving it to each other. So that's my Exactly.

[26:51]Meena Harris: Well, I love know, I grew up as in I had a very particular experience of growing up as an only child, like a super only child, right? So I had a single mom, my grandmother was effectively a single mom, and I was like the only kid surrounded by, you know, all these adults and in particular these incredible women. And I've always, know, people ask like, you wish you had a sibling? I'm kinda like, not really. Like, it was kind of awesome. It was kind of awesome to be the center of attention as an only child. No. But, you know, I I have a sort of fastened not fascination, but admiration for like the bond between sisters, right? Because I saw that with my mom and aunt and then now I have two little girls. I really that's really special to me thinking about kind of that parallel with my grandmother raising her two girls and now I'm doing that. Right? And really this book is about doing it in the way that my grandmother did as much as I can. I will never be able to you know emulate exactly what she did but there's so many incredible lessons and seeing how my grandmother raised them and me as well and wanting to really, again, remind myself of that so I can keep sort of, you know, pursuing it for my kids, but also share that with others. And it's really, again, about just like showing up without intention and committing to it. Again, it's not about, you know, going to a march or protesting every weekend, but just being thoughtful about how you talk to kids about, you know, showing up in the world with that kind of purpose and wanting to make an impact and wanting to do good in the world. Again, whether it's sort of in your community or your school or neighborhood, it's really basic stuff. But what I learned from my grandmother is that it really does have to sort of be injected into everything that you do and really be sort of a constant continuous reminder, right? That we all have that responsibility. And parents are busy. Like to be clear, that's a big, you know, task to sort of do something with consistency as a parent. Like we're multitasking and doing a lot, but if you really do carry that with you, think that there are extraordinary outcomes in terms of really building up your kids with that sensibility of wanting to do good in the world. Right? So yeah, I'm excited that I'm now able to share it with others and through something so personal. But again, I think that anyone can relate to. Congratulations on your book and it was so nice chatting with you. You too. Thanks for having me. Thanks for reading it. Thanks for doing the activity book. I'm so excited you guys did that and that you have a really amazing funny story now that I hope you troll your your son. It's your son. Right? Yeah. In twenty years at graduation or wherever. Right? About how his big idea was to figure out how to get his mom to stop bossing him around. There you go. That's where all the companions come from. Lunchtime. Exactly.

[29:47]Zibby Owens: Exactly. All right. Well, thank you so much. And I wish you all the best with the lunch. Yay. Okay. Bye bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and momsdonthavetimetoreadbooks. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.