Alum Profile: Kristin Urquiza and Marked by COVID
Kristin in 2009, when she worked with the Fund as a Regional Director.
Her father, Mark “Blackjack” Urquiza, age 65. Her father’s cousin, Manuel Urquiza Falcon, age 67. Her cousin’s husband, William Curby, age 42. Her cousins, Jesus “Chuy” Mata Urquiza and Miguel Angel Mendoza Urquiza. These are the family members Kristin Urquiza has lost to COVID-19. Like millions of Americans, she is forever “marked by COVID.” But what’s remarkable is not just what Kristin and her family have suffered, but the resolve she has found to fight for change amidst that suffering.
She grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, the only child of Mark, from a Mexican family, and Brenda, from an Appalachian family. From her father, Kristin developed a love for this country and for politics. They didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but they never let that negatively affect their close relationship.
Kristin as a child with her father
Kristin pushed herself to do well in school, and she excelled. She remembers being called to the principal’s office during her senior year of high school. When she got there, a recruiter from Yale — a place she had never heard of — was waiting to talk to her. He encouraged her to apply, and she was accepted. Later that year, Kristin took a three-day-long, $69 bus ride from Phoenix to New Haven, Connecticut, to start college.
Upon graduating in 2003, Kristin found herself unemployed but with a determination to make a difference. After viewing what seemed like 500 posters for “summer jobs for the environment,” she finally pulled off a tab and gave “Sandy” a call. Kristin started as a canvasser and then a field manager in the Fund's New Haven office. Trevor Kaul recruited her, and Kristin recalls with admiration how he “nailed the entire recruitment process.” She particularly remembers him asking about her leadership experience; she blanked. Trevor followed up by asking her to describe her most recent job, and Kristin talked about her work in the custodial department at Yale, where she managed 40 people. Kristin was soon FM'ing and applying to be a canvass director.
Kristin loved her first day canvassing: She talked to complete strangers at their homes about an issue that they cared about, and then gave them an opportunity to act on their excitement right away. Canvassing was a hopeful activity, and to Kristin’s amazement, it was something that someone brand new to grassroots organizing could just show up and do. At the 4th of July retreat that summer, Wes Jones interviewed her for a canvass director position. Kristin went on to direct canvass offices from 2004 to 2006 in Ann Arbor; Minneapolis; and Portland, Oregon. She particularly remembers the professional and life lessons she learned from working under the wing of Ed Johnson, who passed away in February 2020. Kristin says working with Ed was a huge part of what helped her become the person she is today. In 2006, Kristin became a regional director and remained on the canvass leadership team until 2009.
In that year, Kristin headed to work for Corporate Accountability to follow her deep desire to challenge corporate power in our political system. After five years working on the organization’s water campaigns, she decided to move west to be closer to her family. Kristin landed in San Francisco and worked with Phil Radford to help launch Membership Drive; went to graduate school at Berkeley to earn a masters in public affairs; and then began a new position at Waxman Strategies/Mighty Earth as deputy director, working with fellow alumni Glenn Hurowitz and Deborah Lapidus and focusing on corporate campaigns to fight deforestation in tropical rainforests.
And then … the pandemic struck. Knowing that when a public health crisis hits, it’s too often people like her parents who are among the first affected, she got nervous.
Kristin was in constant contact with her parents, coaching and counseling them every day about safety precautions they should be taking. Then Arizona became one of the first states to reopen during the early waves of the pandemic. She found that despite her warnings, her dad was confused about what was safe to do. He took his leads from then-President Trump and Arizona Gov. Ducey. He was full of life, exuberant and strong, and he didn’t want COVID to be a barrier to living his life. And then everything was turned upside down. Mark contracted COVID-19, likely after spending time at a karaoke bar that had reopened, and passed away on June 30. Her mom was also infected with COVID, so Kristin wasn’t able to hug and hold her mom during the aftermath of her dad’s passing. And then she had to witness what was happening in Maryville, the neighborhood where she grew up. Approximately 70 percent Latino, 40 percent immigrant, and with many residents living around the poverty line, the community was hit hard. Especially in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Kristin felt she needed to use her skills to elevate these problems of the disproportionate burden of COVID in her hometown.
Then Kristin did something that most of us find remarkable: Eight days after her father passed away, Kristin launched the Marked by COVID movement, in conjunction with her father’s funeral. She invited Gov. Ducey to attend the funeral. She invited a reporter to his gravesite. She organized a vigil outside the state capitol. And she wrote a beautiful tribute of an obituary for her father, which also called out state and national leaders for their failures to protect people from the virus.
The following day, Kristin awoke to a full voicemail and email inbox. She proceeded to do 20 hours of interviews, all just one day after burying her dad. She also received messages from people like her who lost someone they loved, telling her that what she was doing made sense. Kristin knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she reached out to friends — Trevor Kaul was one of the first — and pieced together a team of volunteers from her network. They raised money on GoFundMe and went through countless obituaries. The goal was to get some policy wins and point out leadership failures. They worked to engage people who had lost loved ones to COVID and ended up creating a group of COVID mourners to get the word out and make their voices heard. Within just a couple months, they created an entire network of COVID activists.
Kristin realized that our country had an opportunity to design short- and long-term solutions to impact those most vulnerable. The type of policy they needed to pursue would have to be commensurate with that challenge. So she worked with others to develop a policy agenda that focused on the “Five R’s": response, recovery, resilience, recognition and restitution.
Their efforts grew and racked up some big media hits, including Kristin’s televised speech during the Democratic National Convention; multiple op-eds; a profile on her and the campaign in The Washington Post; and an article in People featuring Marked by COVID families. Kristin was invited to attend the first presidential debate. Marked by COVID hosted a week of mourning in October to mark 200,000 COVID deaths in the U.S., coordinated empty chair vigils at state capitols and organized virtual events around the National COVID Memorial service in January.
Over the last couple months, Kristin has been able to take a step back and evaluate how much her movement has accomplished. She believes that Marked by COVID is the group that will fight for COVID justice and make sure the cold, hard truth of how the pandemic was mismanaged in the U.S. goes down in the history books. They will fight for a national holiday to memorialize COVID victims and are still working, as the pandemic rages on, in a coalition to institute necessary public health measures to slow the spread.
When asked what resources she recommends for those who are skeptical that failed government leadership is responsible for making the pandemic worse in the U.S., Kristin suggests reading this article and cites this piece, which predicted that 40,000 American lives could have been saved had the U.S. instituted universal masking early on.
For those who want to get involved, Marked by COVID is starting a COVID sympathy card program. Like a pen pal system, it allows you to send a letter of encouragement to victims of COVID. More information can be found on the Marked by COVID website. Donations are of course also greatly appreciated.
Kristin lives in San Francisco with her partner, Christine, and their dog Blaze and cat José. She can be reached at kristin@markedbycovid.com.
