On Being is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation,

harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest and most perplexing questions facing humankind.

To learn more, subscribe to their newsletter, possibilities, and discover the work Templeton supports

on topics from curiosity and kindness to evolution, black holes, and the origins of life.

Sign up at templeton.org-forwardslash-possibilities.

As a college student, Aigen Poo began to see an invisible workforce of millions,

laboring with dignity and love everywhere behind the doors of private homes,

nannies, and domestic workers, and companions to the elderly.

Digging deeper, she learned that professional caregivers had been excluded from every milestone

of the 20th century U.S. that guaranteed simple life-sustaining rights, like time off, and over time pay.

In 2007, Aigen Poo co-founded the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

The story of how she and her team took up what they saw with equal parts, tenderness, and muscle,

is part of the generative narrative of our time.

I should note that we went into production on this before coronavirus was a word we all knew.

But the many dimensions of the crisis now upon us

have revealed Aigen Poo and her world of wisdom and action,

as teachers and leaders for our life together in the present and beyond it.

I think that this is a once in several generations' opportunity to transform and update

how we care for one another in this country.

I'm Christa Tippett, and this is on Beeing.

Aigen Poo's parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan.

She was born in Pittsburgh and grew up between Southern California and Connecticut.

...