Erica Sagrans '05 - who left Providence a few weeks ago to join the staff of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. - is now an online writer and member of a small team working in Washington, D.C. on Pelosi's Web site.
The site, which has its own political blog - called the Gavel - and is updated throughout the day, is "a really good example of how government could be getting more information out there," Sagrans told The Herald.
In addition to writing for the site, Sagrans works on electronic newsletters that are sent to various groups and compiles updates for Pelosi on recent news in political blogs.
Sagrans said she "wanted to do something that combined writing and politics" - a combination shown in the work Sagrans did while on College Hill.
When she attended Brown, Sagrans was an editor of the College Hill Independent and took time off to be a Web intern at the Utne Reader magazine in Minneapolis. After graduating she continued to write, contributing to both the Providence Phoenix and local politics blog Rhode Island's Future.
Sagrans said she considered taking a job with the Boston Phoenix when she graduated, but she decided she wanted to do community organizing in Providence. She worked for a year at the Rhode Island Family Life Center, which helps people who are being released from prison.
At the Family Life Center, she became involved in the Right to Vote campaign against felon disenfranchisement, a Rhode Island ballot question in the 2006 election. She also helped with the campaigns of Rep. David Segal, D-Dist. 2, and Providence City Councilman Seth Yurdin, D-Ward 1.
She said she particularly liked working for the Right to Vote campaign. There were "a lot of challenges to overcome about how to get funding," but in the end it was a "really great collaboration" that involved residents of south Providence and other communities affected by the law as well as "a lot of Brown students, alums, people at nonprofits."
After engaging in so much local activism in Providence, Sagrans said, she was excited about her new job at Pelosi's office but also "wary of the culture" of Capitol Hill politics. However, she has had good experiences so far. "I really like the people I work with. They're really smart and dedicated," she said.
She now has a new appreciation "for how amazingly challenging it is to lead Congress" and to "try to solve that mess of Iraq."
Sagrans said she is also excited to be working for the first female Speaker of the House and says the media team has been trying to find ways to "use the Internet to reach out to women and to let them know what Pelosi's doing."
Sagrans said she has not yet met Pelosi - she's only been on the job for about two weeks - but said "from the people I work with, I feel connected to her."
Still, Sagrans said she misses Providence and the communities she became a part of at Brown through groups like the Indy and the Finlandia co-op.
"The co-ops were great - we take a lot of pride in the fact that we own them ourselves."
She also said activism at Brown could sometimes get intense and it was easy to burn out, but that she really values local organizing in Providence and the Brown alums involved with it.
"It's the coolest people who stay - just because it's the people who kind of fell in love with Providence ... and stay to work in the community."
