I am the data – Part One.

Welcome to Data Uncollected, a newsletter designed to enable nonprofits to listen, think, reflect, and talk about data we missed and are yet to collect. In this newsletter, we will talk about everything the raw data is capable of – from simple strategies of building equity into research+analytics processes to how we can make a better community through purpose-driven analysis.

Today is about setting the context for what we will explore in the coming two weeks.

To set that context, I am taking a deeper and more personal approach to talking about data this week. And I believe in you – to be willing to explore everything that comes from this context.

A Monday in early 2017. A couple of months earlier, I landed my first job (in North America) after graduation. The first job after school is a big deal anyway, but it’s more significant when you are a first-generation immigrant who paid through the school via multiple back-to-back jobs and scholarships. Every emotion had been an understatement (thrilled or anxious). About a month and a half into it, this particular pivotal Monday came. That Monday afternoon, I was supposed to get a quick lunch and return to my 10th meeting of the day. Instead, I met an accident. Within minutes of getting into a cafeteria full of people, I slipped on the wet floor, rolled over the stairs, and fell on my face. By the time I received all medical attention, I had lost a chunk of my teeth (and the remaining needed a good amount of work on them). I will spare you the details of physical pain, financial resources invested (I had to pay myself), and all the exhaustion that came with it for the next 3 months. BUT I will share something that came out of it.

Two weeks later I got a letter. I was assigned a case number xxx-xxx-xxxx. To be reimbursed, I was being prepped procedurally for an investigation of the events on the day of. That investigation took a long, long time. By then, I had left that job and started to lose patience with that “ongoing investigation”. At some point, I decided to reach out to local attorneys for support. Perhaps feeling a ton of losing control made me want to take some action. The majority of the attorneys refused to speak after the first call. To them, I was a STEM immigrant with a limited visa. Perhaps the rest I can share when we talk over a call.

My point is – it was not until that entire experience that I realized how it feels to live in data. For a big chunk of my contacts, I was my case number. I was a category for the other half to whom I went to seek answers (“Non-resident STEM immigrant”). To be in those two labels felt scary, hopeless, and powerless. There was only so much the case number xxx-xxx-xxxx could do to get the answers I needed. I suppose navigating that trauma through structural inaccessibility made me look at healing differently.

And that (experience) has forced me to look at data more consciously. When, why, what, how, how long - all those pieces about us that get captured - can empower, alienate and threaten us. Some of those data points are captured with our consent. Other times it is based on all those factors of data collection that we do not understand.

Either way, if us being in the data is so inevitable, so easy, and yet quite dangerous, what does it mean to be in it? How do we make that living in the data not scary for one group vs. appropriately empowering for the other? This is the time to reflect and respond carefully, especially for the sake of all those communities that were actively ignored and silenced from injustices.

Take language, for example. It does influence “being in the data”. Here are two statements:

• Statement 1:?How can a BIPOC high school student, a middle-aged trans artist, a 70+ 1st generation Asian immigrant with language barriers, and an Indigenous young woman be safe, healthy, and empowered in data?
• Statement 2:?How do we ensure the safety, health, and empowerment of a BIPOC high school student, a middle-aged trans artist, a 70+ 1st generation Asian immigrant with language barriers, and an Indigenous young woman in data?

The first statement places the onus of being in the data less scary on those individuals, vs. the second statement holds data collection knowledge and processes accountable on behalf of those individuals.

Language affects.

And this is what we are exploring in the next two weeks. I will bring you selected stories from the book I am reading – pages that speak to me in more ways than I could imagine. I will share about the book, some stories, reflections, and snippets that I think are best if delivered as-is.

Let us explore what it means for you and me to be in data? As individuals? Not under a collective “we” that can lessen access, accountability, and belongingness, but as “I”.

Because?We are?I am the data.

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***?So, what do I want from you today (my readers)?

Today, I want you to consider what data means to you personally? If and when has it empowered, celebrated, and challenged you? What did you do?

?*** If you (or anyone you know) would be interested in being interviewed (i.e., very friendly convo with me - about work, data+ equity, and all life things in between) and highlighted here,?fill out this form.

*** Here is the continuous prompt for us to keep alive the list of community-centric data principles.