A.J. Acosta is Organizing for Change
AJ Acosta grew up in Oceanside, CA, where he competed at El Camino High School and won the 2005 Footlocker Cross Country Championships. On the track he earned national titles in the 2-mile and 1500m. At the University of Oregon, he was part of three national championship teams, including a cross country championship. An 8-time All American, he left Oregon having tied the school record in the 1500m with a time of 3:36. He qualified for two US Olympic Trials and placed 6th in the 1500m at the 2014 national track and field championships. After recurring injuries, he retired from professional running in 2016 and is now an active member in the East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. He is also an assistant coach for track and field at Bishop O’Dowd High School.
AJ, tell me about your political evolution since retiring from running. How did you get involved in political activism?
From a young age I was aware of left-wing social movements. My best friend growing up was a 2nd-generation Mexican-American, who's older sisters were very politically aware. He got me really into Che Guevara, and I specifically remember when I was six or seven years old being taught about the Zapatista uprising after the 1994 NAFTA free-trade bill. (If you have the time, learning about 1994 in Mexico is a trip: between the assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donald Colosio, the implementation of NAFTA, and the subsequent ELZN uprising). So I've long been left leaning but not really "activated".
The real tipping point for me was when I moved up here to the Bay Area in 2014. I was still running professionally without a contract. I was making $9.50 an hour, working 35 hours a week as a barista at Starbucks. After taxes and everything, I was making $1100-1200 (depending on tips) a month. I was paying below market rate on my rent ($750 a month) which still meant I usually only had $100 a week to pay for gas (driving to training spots), food, and any other incidental expenses. I was on food stamps, Medi-Cal, and Denti-Cal.
I developed an abscess in one of my molars that needed a root canal and Denti-Cal only covered the front six teeth ("essential teeth"). So my options were getting the tooth extracted or paying full up front ($800) which I absolutely could not afford. So then I started paying for the cheapest dental and medical plan Starbucks offered but it still only covered half the cost of the root canal. It took me another six months to get that done; meanwhile half of my jaw bone at that tooth eroded (thankfully, it grew back).
This whole time I'm thinking to myself, “What the hell? This healthcare situation is completely FUBAR.”
In 2016 I contracted a freak throat infection that incapacitated me for two weeks and resulted in an emergency room stay after two misdiagnoses from urgent care. I spent one hour at the ER, was given antibiotics and a saline solution. The total bill was $10,000, of which I was on the hook for $2,000. That took me two years to pay off in installments.
This whole time I'm thinking to myself, “What the hell? This healthcare situation is completely FUBAR.” This was around when Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic Party nominee for President. He was talking about “Medicare For All” and was a democratic socialist. I was like, “This guy knows what's up!” I’d gotten into some left-wing podcasts and the name "Democratic Socialists of America" (DSA) was being bandied about a lot. I joined in 2019 because I felt compelled to do something about this broken system of neoliberal policies and capitalism that has chewed us up and spit us out.
Acosta protesting in solidarity of the forcible eviction of Moms4Housing in West Oakland.
You were recently elected Recording Secretary for the East Bay chapter of DSA. How is the new role and what has it been like to be, quite literally, on the front lines of the protests for racial and economic justice?
It's a trip. A little over year ago I was just being mad online about all this, and now I've done everything to handling our merchandising, to managing our office (and now Zoom meetings), to organizing direct actions. I'm on our Steering Committee as the Recording Secretary (and still organizing direct actions).
One thing that's really changed for me from an ideological perspective has been seeing first hand the escalation tactics and brutality that Oakland Police and Alameda County Sheriffs wantonly mete out on citizens exercising their constitutional rights. I was tear gassed twice, one of which was during a march organized by Black youths that organized 15,000 people to march in protest of police terror. After this march an unconstitutional curfew was announced and groups of peaceful protestors, mostly youth, were tear gassed 15 minutes before the curfew was even in effect. It's one thing to see the statistics—from 2000 to 2015 of the 90 people murdered at the hands of Oakland law enforcement, 74% were Black despite representing only about 25% of the population—but it's another thing to step in their shoes for a moment and experience the brutality that happens every day to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) folks.
A lot of people are being radicalized in real time. It's no surprise to me given the role social media plays in our everyday lives. Cops are not becoming more racist all of the sudden; it's just that we have the capability to physically show that cops use extrajudicial and illegal tactics and weapons to squelch protests, instead of relying on some police spokesperson spewing “copaganda.”
The current insurrection makes sense for a lot of reasons: we’re seeing civil disobedience on a scale not seen since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's with mass unemployment at levels unseen since the Great Depression and a global pandemic impacting our brothers and sisters in ways not seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu.
Has running prepared you for political activism and organizing? Are there any principles or habits that you honed on the track that you've been able to apply within your organizing work?
It prepared me to be a hell of a lot more empathetic and understanding of people’s financial considerations! I was on food stamps and other government assistance because I was getting paid minimum wage. It’s so hard to get by on those kinds of wages when you're giving 50+% of your income to provide a roof over your head.
In terms of organizing work, one translatable skill is perseverance and flexibility. Organizing on the left, you need to have that drive to keep going because there are so many fights that we need to push, and we need to be flexible and adaptable to the current time. When you're racing, things can change on a dime and you need to be ready. With organizing, look what happened after George Floyd was murdered. DSA was kind of sputtering because Covid-19 presents real challenges to organizing in person. But in the span of a few weeks we helped organize logistics for several protests that had tens of thousands of people: the ILWU Port shutdown had an estimated 20,000-25,000, which shows the power of the people. So just like in a race, you have to be able to adapt to the moment when it presents itself!
Protesting police violence in Oakland.
These are strange times for running, but what role is the sport playing in your life these days? How do your running and life experiences inform your coaching?
This is a very strange time, indeed! I am still trying to get in a few training runs a week. I’m at the stage of my post-competition running career where I’m now at risk of straining a muscle on training runs!
Coaching has been been a fun way to plug back in and give back to the sport that has given me so many opportunities, memories, and friends. A lot of how I try to be a leader and mentor for my kids is drawn from my high school (and post-collegiate) coach Tom Kloos, who is just an amazing and inspiring person and coach. He was always there for me and helped me become a better person. So I try to be there and to show up for the kids to give them the opportunity to grow into their full potential beyond running. Obviously success on the track or course is a goal, but my priority first and foremost is the development of life skills and independent decision making for our kids. We want them to run fast, but I want to be there to talk through difficult things whether it's running, school, life, whatever. I want to be their north star because for the most part this is their first time navigating what can be hard or frustrating situations for them. And I want turn them into socialists. ;)
