The Harris-Walz campaign has put content creators, activists and digital strategists at the forefront of its efforts, and a Tucson organizer is playing a pivotal role.

Deja Foxx, a Tucson-based reproductive justice advocate, checks all these boxes and more, and brings an important voice into the campaign.

Foxx experienced homelessness in her teenage years and understands firsthand the necessity of having politicians in Congress who look like her and care about the needs of people.

This understanding fueled her determination to stand up to then-Senator Jeff Flake at a town hall meeting in Mesa in 2017, when she was just 16.

“If no-copay birth control is helping me to be successful, to reach for higher education and Planned Parenthood is doing that as well, why would you deny me the American dream?” she asked. 

The video of this exchange gained national attention, placing her at the forefront of the fight for reproductive health access.

That same year, Foxx helped co-found the El Rio Reproductive Health Access Project and served as a youth leader on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood, where she received their Catalyst of Change Award. She also advocated for comprehensive sex education in the Tucson Unified School District. 

Two years later, as a college sophomore, Foxx made the bold decision to leave her studies at Columbia University to work on Kamala Harris’s Vice Presidential campaign as the influencer and surrogate strategist. 

“I withdrew from school as a first generation college student to go work for her because I saw myself in her,” Foxx said. “She’s an Asian-American woman like me, she’s a first generation American, she was raised by a single mom, she’s been the first in nearly every position she has ever held and in my mind, embodies what it means to be fearless.”

Foxx has continued to use her platform to help elect Harris, recently participating in the campaign’s Reproductive Freedom Bus tour.

Traveling through Arizona, she created digital content and interviewed prominent figures such as First Lady Jill Biden, U. S. Senator Mark Kelly, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, as well as Ruben Gallego., a U.S. Representative who is running for U.S. Senate.

“I think it’s really important to underscore that content creators are going to be a really important part of and have already been an important part in how we deliver the message of this campaign to people who are not consuming traditional news, but are building their political opinions online,” Foxx said.

An increasing number of adults are getting their news online, and more than half are tapping into social media to stay up-to-date on current events, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

This trend makes Foxx’s role even more vital, especially given that a key focus of both the Harris campaign and Foxx’s career is women’s empowerment. 

“The through line for my career really is about building that political and narrative power for young women, and I hope that the impact is they take up some of that power in whatever way speaks to them, whatever is their talent, the thing that they can uniquely offer,” she said. “ I hope that they apply it to the issues that they care the most about,” 

Foxx’s advice for young people is to “get personal,” saying politics is not about politicians, but rather about people and policy. 

“I want people to ask young people in particular, ‘Where does my life intersect with what I see in the news?’” she said.

She highlighted Harris’s policy plan, which includes loan access and down payments for those wanting to get their first house or start a business. 

“When you think about your everyday life, it is political,” Foxx said. “Find the place where your life intersects with what you see in the news, the policies people are putting forward and have put forward. Once you find that, I want you to drill in on what is your personal story,” 

She said that journaling and sharing personal stories with close family and friends is a good first step.

“If you can make that connection for the people you care about and tell them why it impacts you, they are so much more likely to take action,” she said.

Last month, Foxx hosted a live storytelling event at Crooked Tooth Brewery, a collaboration with Plan C, a public health campaign that advocates for access to abortion pills by mail,  Female Storytellers of Tucson, a nonprofit that offers a platform for women, trans, and non-binary people to share their personal stories. 

During the event, storytellers, organizers, elected officials and student leaders gathered to share their experiences with reproductive health, many recounting personal narratives regarding their own experiences with abortion care. 

Foxx concluded the event with a call to action.

“I need you to talk to your coworkers. I need you to host an event like this in your living room with your friends and your family over the dinner table, because that is what is going to move the needle when it comes not only to our elections, but to the narrative when it comes to stigma, because we know that this is a big fight,” she said. “We have a lot of work to do,”

Isabela Gamez is a University of Arizona alum and Spotlight reporter. Contact her at gamezi@arizona.edu.

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