Tell us a little bit about your background and why you joined Workforce Matters.
My name is Tuquan Harrison (he/they), and I am a Program Officer at the James Irvine Foundation. For the past three years, I have led grantmaking and strategy development for the Better Careers Initiative, focusing on investing in a robust ecosystem of direct-service organizations across California. My work supports the design and implementation of holistic workforce development strategies to uplift low-wage workers who have been systematically excluded from economic opportunity. My priority populations include incarcerated workers, immigrant communities, women and gender-expansive individuals, Native and Tribal populations, and workers and learners with disabilities.
I joined the Workforce Matters steering committee to learn, collaborate, and engage with peers committed to reimagining workforce development through an equity and justice lens. This network has been instrumental in deepening my expertise in participatory grantmaking design and exploring strategies to center historically excluded worker and learner populations, including individuals with disabilities, within workforce systems.
What do you love about workforce development? (or why is workforce development important to you?)
What I love about workforce development is its potential to serve as a vehicle for repair in communities historically impacted by structural racism, economic divestment, and exclusion—when designed with equity and holism at its core. And, informed by those people it is intended to serve.
What is something people might not know about you?
I deeply cherish Black Feminist theory as a praxis for liberation, justice, and joy. Authors like bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler inspire me to dream beyond the present, challenge assumptions about humanity and interlocking systems of oppression, and envision a world where we are truly free. In the face of the socio-economic, political, and environmental challenges ahead, the power of dreaming will be essential to shaping a more just and liberated world.
