My name is Owen, and I have worked as an activist and an educator for over a decade. I believe in systems without hierarchy, especially in learning environments. Activism, like adult education, shouldn’t be about trainer and trainee. It should focus on creating knowledge and redistributing resources. 

I live in Baltimore, Maryland. I see the things we can improve in education and our communities.  In addition to being an educator and an avid advocate, I’m a spouse, a cat dad, a community organizer, a cyclist, a gardener, a hiker, a reader, a traveler, and a writer. I enjoy spending time with friends and family, including my wife, Mairin Srygley. We met while co-leading a delegation of Maryland high school and university students in El Salvador in 2012.  

I started actively questioning authority in 2009 when a friend at UMD invited me to protest in DC in the wake of the 2009 coup in Honduras. That shift in trajectory changed the direction of an undergrad planning to enter the U.S. State Department into a degree holder with a commitment to oppose ongoing imperialism, racism, and patriarchy, which is too often supported, indoctrinated, and emboldened by U.S. government policy.

My experience in the streets of DC inspired me to travel to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade. When I returned to the United States, I became active in Occupy to oppose wealth inequality.

Participating in social and political conversations is a family tradition. My grandfather, Abe Silverman, set a standard of what’s possible when he ran as an independent third party candidate and was elected Mayor of Sedalia, Missouri in 1958. His policies advancing good governance, civil rights, public works, education, small businesses, and inclusivity are guideposts I live by.

I learned many lessons from my Poppa Abe. An important one is that we should do what we think is right, not because of the expected benefits we hope will accrue from doing so, but because doing right is its own fulfillment.

After working in fish markets on both the East and West Coast and on a dairy farm in El Salvador, I began working for Latin American peace and justice organizations in DC. We engaged nationwide and hemispheric networks of activists in direct action, mass mobilization, faith-based advocacy, digital communications, popular education, and radical lobbying.

One of the most important skillsets I developed at School of the Americas (SOA) Watch and Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) was an understanding of policy and electoral advocacy as tools within the same toolkit as other forms of popular resistance. At this time in 2013, I also began teaching English to adult immigrants as an adjunct faculty member in Maryland. I see language teaching and popular education as additional means of creating a more just society. I have been teaching and advocating ever since.