Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Samarjian.
Hi Natalie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am an immigrant from Beirut, Lebanon. My mother and I left Beirut as war refugees when I was five years old, fleeing civil war and poverty in pursuit of safety and refuge. We arrived in Los Angeles on New Years Eve 1989, undocumented, and our new life in the US demanded quick adaptation and learning. My mother was a very young single mother, working to not only understand a new country and its contours, language and customs but also how to earn a living for us.
My childhood was both beautiful in the hope that we had for a better future and tremendously difficult as characteristic to the undocumented war-survivor journey. We were under-informed, under-resourced, and often afraid of what being undocumented could mean for us. Early on, I was very aware of how public policy, public institutions and systems impacted our journey and story. My formative years were built on deep curiosity, a desire to learn more, to grow, to understand, to impact, and to build confidence in the possibility that there was a place in change-making for someone with my story and status. There was a high emphasis on education in my household as I was taught early on that education was a gift I would have to commit to, fight for and take seriously. My mother, against all odds, pursued her education while raising me and concurrently worked a number of full and part-time jobs.
The gift of public institutions and systems played a critical role in my education journey. I am a proud product of our community college (LA Valley College!) and our public universities, graduating from UCLA in 2006. During my time at UCLA, I met with one of my professors of Public Policy at UCLA’s Luskin School (and former Presidential candidate) Michael Dukakis. In the meeting, I shared my desire to work at the intersection of policy making and law, and he said, “there is a terrific program for students just like you, called Coro, I think you should look into it.” That is the moment the Coro spark was ignited in my life.
In 2006, after graduating from UCLA, I moved to Northern California to partake in the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. The fellowship is a full-time experiential program that gives a group of 12 emerging leaders each year a deep dive into the varied corners of public life and leadership, fostering a growth mindset to contribute to and shape civic life and leadership in each person’s respective journey. That year expanded my knowledge, skills and social capital exponentially. I attained new depth and self-reflection from the unique experiences and perspectives of my cohort-mates. I learned about systems that define public life and the impact that effective, ethical, adaptive leadership can have. I learned in that year that leadership is not positional but active – it is the exercise of moving ourselves and our worlds forward with vision, humility and courage. I graduated with a deep love for Coro and the community it had built since its founding in 1947 and knew Coro would hold a place in my heart, mind and life moving forward.
I moved on to pursuing graduate degrees in Public Policy (Carnegie Mellon) and law (I’m a proud double Bruin!) utilizing my education to practice as a public interest attorney working to address the comprehensive and unique legal needs of women and girls. My work centered on advocating for victims and survivors of domestic violence through direct representation, impact litigation, public policy advocacy and conducting extensive community outreach and legal education. My mother was a domestic violence survivor, and supporting women and children in systems that often leave them vulnerable was a tremendous honor and some of the most rewarding work I’ve been able to partake in. During this time, I also served on Coro Southern California’s Board as a Director. In 2017, after the presidential election that left our nation deeply fragmented and our democracy vulnerable, I stepped into the CEO role at Coro.
It has been the honor of a lifetime to lead an organization that has had such a profound impact on our nation and my own life and leadership journey. Along with a team of brilliant leaders (I work with the most incredible colleagues and Coro has an exceptional Board of Directors), we have developed a new strategic plan, expanded programs and partnerships and cultivated a growing community of Coro alumni who are transforming communities across the country. The organization and its impact in Southern California has grown three-fold in the past five years due to the heightened need for cross-boundary solutions to our pressing public challenges. Our mission at Coro – to strengthen the democratic process by preparing emerging leaders for effective and ethical leadership in public affairs – is more salient than ever. We strive to impact a public life that includes multi-perspective discourse, a commitment to transformative solutions to public challenges, and a willingness to work beyond traditional boundaries to implement those meaningful solutions. We are always inspired by our alumni, and especially so in the past year, with a community who have contributed to educating our children through a pandemic, vaccinating our most vulnerable siblings and keeping our safety net intact and durable through a year of immense loss.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road and journey has been rather bumpy with unexpected twists and turns along the way, but I still feel incredibly fortunate. Unlike many others I grew up with, I had the opportunity to immigrate to the United States, meaning I had a chance at pursuing education and career, which I likely would not have had in Beirut, Lebanon, given my family’s socioeconomic status and my mother’s status as a divorcee. And while many doors were slammed shut, many were gracefully opened for me through the help of some incredible mentors and champions. In other instances, I had to use every resource at my disposal to identify cracks in doors that seemed to be closed to me and force them open when tested by the full weight of my determination for better. Being poor and undocumented meant we were often vulnerable in those early years, but it also meant we had an opportunity to develop perspective. It was this perspective and empathy for others on similar paths that has allowed me to develop a larger vision to impact and improve public life for those marginalized and underestimated.
There are different bumpy roads – the ones that are perpetuated by systems, the ones that are part of the human condition, and the roads that we can straighten out and pave over through our own self-reflection and growth.
The bumpy roads that are caused by inequitable systems impacting housing, food and education we must address immediately as they jeopardize foundational human rights, growth and safety. We have agency to smooth these roads for our collective human experience and to rebuild through a lens of equity and belonging. We must have the uncomfortable conversations that challenge the systems that perpetuate these inequities.
Then there is bumpiness in roads that is caused by our human condition – illness and loss and painful circumstance generally. This is bumpiness that we may not be able to control or to smooth out, but part of the human experience that we can support through collective consciousness. We must ask how we can build a better human community that holds us through life’s pain and loss, how we can build cultures that hold our full human experience and holistic human selves.
When I speak to leaders, I remind them to not expect a smooth journey. The leadership journey is often about people and not things, and people are complex with disparate needs and perspectives. The leadership journey requires consistent listening, reflection and growth, and a realization that leadership is signing up for bumpy roads with a commitment to develop the skills, tools and community to smooth the roads that can be addressed and develop supports for our most vulnerable on the roads that cannot be smoothed but must be navigated.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Coro Southern California?
Coro is a civic leadership institute established in Los Angeles in 1957. Coro’s mission is to cultivate a community of civic leaders who have knowledge of our entrenched public challenges, the skills to effectuate meaningful change and the community and networks to implement and drive that change collaboratively and inclusively. Our programs center on holding space for leaders to learn about their own unique leadership styles, and within that, to demystify notions of leadership that are positional, authoritative or extroverted. We all have the capacity for leadership – leadership is a choice to commit to forward movement, and our program participants, by signing up for Coro programs, are making that choice; they are making a commitment to positively and meaningfully impact civic life through self-reflection, collaborative change-making and community.
We’re most proud of the incredible work of our alumni to innovate, problem-solve, and move our city, state and world into a more equitable future. We hold a cross-sectoral community of alumni who are driving innovative solutions through leadership in business, labor, nonprofits, and government and leveraging their Coro tools and skills to collaborate across traditional boundaries and silos.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
My advice for networking and for finding a mentor has common threads. My advice for both is to move with authenticity, reciprocity and longevity. I approach my relationships holistically – I don’t differentiate between professional and personal relationships, my professional relationships are also personal ones because we are fully human in all of the roles that we hold. I commit deeply to the relationships I hold, invest in my people, and expect the same in return. I also don’t overextend so that I can be fully present and engaged in the lives of those I hold in my network. I seek out relationships with leaders in different industries, roles and areas of expertise. Being a lifelong learner is a critical part of my identity, and I learn most from my friends and colleagues and therefore strive to hold a community that is diverse in all ways.
Relationships are not transactional and thus the best advice I can give is to show up – really show up – for people when they need you, to ask for help along the way, and to nurture your community of peers, mentors and mentees with humility (admitting what you don’t know), vulnerability (showing up as your full self), and authenticity (building a full human and non-transactional relationship).
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: corola.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsamarjian/?hl=en
