When Tanya Lozano learned that Chicago, her hometown, had the highest life expectancy gap in the country, she sprung into action.

She combined her passion for sports, dance, and activism into a community organization that

offers fitness and community health programming, Healthy Hood Chicago.

Tanya and I talk about growing up in a family of outside agitators, her work inside

city government, and why she believes community is critical to well-being.

Tanya, I'm so happy to see you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so

excited for this. Tanya, you come from a family of activists. Can you tell me about them?

Yeah. So my mother is Emma Lozano. She's also the sister of Rudy Lozano, who would be my uncle,

are both internationally recognized immigration activists. So I grew up in that kind of world.

And my father, Reverend Slim Coleman, he was a member of the Chicago chapter

of the Black Panther Party with Chairman Fred Hampton. He was also a key person in the election of our

first African American mayor here in Chicago, Hero Washington. And since then, has done just

incredible work all over the map in terms of social justice. So that, yeah, those are my

parents. And then like I said, my uncle, Rudy Lozano, was a key figure in bringing about the

Black and Brown coalition that got Mayor here at Washington elected. He was somebody who was really

fighting for unifying the black and brown communities for the sake of liberation, for the sake of

social justice. So I kind of have a legacy, right, of family who has been in the movement for social justice.

What's the first act of community organizing that you do?

Because I grew up in it, it was just all around me all the time, and I had to participate in it,

regardless.

But I would say my first act of community organizing that I've ever done myself in terms of

being a leader would be my freshman year of high school.

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