Morgan Talks Work-Life Balance, MALDEF and the Controversial Immigration Bill

State Rep. Alisha Morgan, a native of Miami, is always on the move. How she’s able to do all that she does in her smart black suit is a mystery.

She’s a wife to David Morgan, who serves on the Board of Education for the Cobb County School District, and a mother to their daughter, Lailah.

In the House, she currently serves on the Children and Youth, Education, Governmental Affairs committees as well as on the Health and Human Services Commission. Her involvement stretches beyond the Capitol, however.

She’s also a member of the Austell Community Taskforce, an active member of the Georgia NAACP and an active member of her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Somehow Morgan is able to balance it all, and at the age of 32, she’s the youngest female member of the Georgia State Assembly.

At 27, she was named as part of Essence Magazine’s “The New Power Generation,” and she was named one of the nation’s 30 leaders under 30 by Ebony Magazine and Georgia’s Brightest 40 under 40 by Georgia Trend and Georgia Informer.

She offers tips from her real-life experiences for maintain that elusive work-life balance in her 2010 book, “No Apologies: Powerful Lessons in Life, Love and Politics.” (Yep, she’s an author as well.)

At the end of each chapter of her book is a section entitled “Lessons I’ve Learned Along the Way,” which offers readers insightful “lessons” that they can apply to their own lives:

1. “One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned is to never apologize for who you are and what you believe in,” Morgan said.

2. Another lesson she learned and includes in her book is, “Don’t wait. When you see something that needs to be done in your community, don’t wait.”

She said often people hold themselves back from taking action because they may feel that they are too young or too old, maybe they are waiting to be asked to help out, but Morgan said it’s important to jump in and help out to create solutions.

3. “Choose your battles,” Morgan said. When someone carefully chooses which “battles” he or she will fight, it allows the person to have more energy to see the battle through, Morgan explained.

As for garnering respect from her peers in the legislature while in her early 20s, Morgan said, “It was earned, and it didn’t come immediately.” She said it took patience and hard work and creating a niche for herself to get there.

One of those niches is educational reform. It is of the utmost importance to Morgan that she not only help improve the education of Georgia students, but that she help increase engagement of parents, community members and other stakeholders who can help do the same.

“We have to operate from an empowerment model rather than from a deficit model. Because I think a lot of the programs that we have assume that these parents don’t know how to be parents or there’s something wrong with them so we have to teach them what to do, [but] sometimes it’s more of giving them the skills they need so that they can lead because they want to be involved,” Morgan explains, adding that for some parents, there are language or cultural barriers to educational engagement.

“We still should create a space where parents and members of the community feel comfortable getting the information because ultimately it’s going to help their students."

When it comes to reaching parents whose first language isn’t English, Morgan said “I am not an expert in that area, and it’s something that I could use some help in–trying to reach out to communities where English is not their first language, and MALDEF is a way to do that.”

MALDEF, or the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is a Latino civil rights organization. On March 12, Morgan held a community forum with MALDEF, the Georgia State Conference NAACP branches, the Campaign for High School Equality and The Coalition for the People’s Agenda.

Morgan said reaching out to organizations that have relationships with these communities is a way to bridge the gap for parents who may feel intimidated about getting involved in their children’s educations.

She knows that having parents involved in that process is imperative and finds several ways to bring parents in and listen to what they have to say.

In late January, she hosted a Parent & Engagement Symposium at South Cobb High School where she talked with parents, educators and community members about educational issues facing Georgia students and parents.

She sat down at tables with community business leaders, parents, students and asked questions. She took notes. She smiled, nodded and was genuinely interested in the conversations taking place.

She, along with many other democratic leaders in the state legislature went on a listening tour to hear the concerns from parents and students about the recent changes to the HOPE scholarships, which Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law.

Where She’s Headed

Morgan voted no on the controversial House Bill 87, the Immigration Enforcement Act, which allows local law enforcement officials to stop anyone at any time to verify his or her citizenship status. However, it passed the House and is currently in committee in the Senate.

“I hope there will be changes to the bill to make it more humane,” Morgan said. “I do not support illegal immigration. I think our laws should be followed. At the same time, this is a federal issue, and it’s something that needs to be dealt with at the federal level. I think that Georgia has little responsibility in trying to impose state laws on a federal issue.”

Morgan said it’s more beneficial to allow people who have matriculated through our schools to have access to higher education.

She also said that the similar bill passed in Arizona has had a detrimental economic impact on the state and on international relations.

 “That’s not the direction we need to be moving in,” she said.

Morgan said undocumented people and undocumented workers pose issues that absolutely need to be addressed, but she didn’t think this bill is the appropriate way to do that.