It is easy to see what divides us. It stares us in the face every time we turn on television or scroll through the news. Today, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, our ties feel particularly frayed. We are divided by race, class, education, religion, ideology.
So what does tie us together?
Constitution Day has roots in another anxious period in American history. In 1952, at the height of the Cold War, Congress chose September 17, the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, as Citizenship Day. If Soviet communism defined the ideological adversary abroad, Americans were asking what exactly defined us. The answer reaffirmed our existence as a creedal nation: a people connected not by a common ancestry, but by shared ideals embodied in our Constitution.
And who gets to own what these ideals mean? Nine enrobed individuals? No, we all do. So on Constitution Day 2026, 25 very different people gathered in one room in Mountain View: among them, a veteran, a rabbi, a retired Santa Clara County judge, a filmmaker, a scientist, a disability-rights advocate, an artist, and a 10-year-old. Each claimed a small piece of the Constitution and had their say in what it means.
We have spent nearly 240 years arguing about the Constitution. Each generation has had to decide again what liberty, equality, representation, and citizenship demand of us. We have fought bitterly over who was included in its promises. The argument itself is one of the things that ties us together. What happens when we stop having it and retreat into our separate rooms?
We need opportunities to encounter one another as regular, approachable, everyday folks before we encounter one another as political categories. When we can see the humanity in one another, our communities are stronger.
Before we can fight for a shared future, we have to remember that we share one.
LaDoris Cordell is a retired judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court and a longtime advocate for justice, civil rights, and police accountability. She served as emcee for the Constitution Day Community Conversation.
Nova Jiménez is a professional singer and a lecturer in voice at Stanford University. Nova's passion for singing led her to develop a course, “Sing & Be Well,” that explores singing's health benefits. Nova is known throughout the community for her Sidewalk Serenade Project, which brought over 100 live mini-concerts to people isolated during the pandemic.
Julie Lythcott-Haims is a New York Times bestselling author of nonfiction, including the memoir Real American, about their experience as a Black and biracial person in white spaces. They also serve as a member of the Palo Alto City Council.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is a spiritual director and writer who does extensive peace and justice work locally through Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice and nationally through the Jewish Conservative Movement’s Racial Justice Roundtable.
Mariya Genzel came to the US as a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union. She studied mathematics and computer science as an undergraduate, and later earned an MBA from MIT. Her career has included work on the early Russian internet and the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as roles at large companies including UPS and Amazon and at technology startups. In 2016, she founded the grassroots group that became Blue Turn Indivisible.
J.R. Wilson is a disabled U.S. Army veteran, past State Commander of the California Disabled American Veterans, and current Department of California DAV Legislative Director. He is also the founder and president of Delta Veterans Group.
Dr. Windy McNerney is a neuroscientist who researches neurodegeneration and how we can keep our brains healthier for longer. With family ties to politics and a strong interest in public service, she’s passionate about science, teaching, advocacy, and connecting people across different communities.
Stacey Farmer is a dedicated trailblazer for reentry reform and juvenile justice. Following her release from Elmwood Women’s Correctional Facility in 2011, she focused on systemic change, founding Sisters That Been There under Silicon Valley De-Bug. After returning to Humboldt County, she established California’s first full-time Peer Support position inside juvenile hall, where she now serves as a Senior Peer Support Specialist. She is also a TEDx speaker, college student, mother, and grandmother.
David Smernoff studied biologically based life-support systems for long-duration space travel at NASA Ames Research Center. He co-founded a biotechnology startup using marine cyanobacteria that make nature’s original UV-absorbing molecules and is working to commercialize that process, securing numerous patents along the way. He loves restoring local ecosystems in his free time.
Sergio Lopez was the first Latino Mayor of Campbell and is the youngest Chair of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in the agency’s history. Most importantly, he is the son of two immigrants who came to America in search of a better life.
Tim MacKenzie is a scientist who helped organize a graduate workers’ union while obtaining his PhD in chemistry at Stanford University. As a community organizer, he works with the Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America. He has advocated for municipal and county bathrooms to stock period products and is a leader in the fight against mass surveillance and ALPRs, helping remove Flock cameras from Mountain View.
Gregg Castro, Salinan and Ohlone, has worked to preserve his heritage for more than three decades. He is the Culture Director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, the people indigenous to the San Francisco Peninsula.
Taylor Kim is a political science student at De Anza College with an interest in natural rights and public policy. Taylor enjoys getting involved in campus events, having meaningful discussions, and learning more about the world and the people within it.
Loretta Green is a retired journalist, best known in the Bay Area for human-interest feature stories and thoughtful, often provocative opinion columns. Twenty years after leaving the newsroom, she is still enthusiastically approached by people who remember her award-winning work for the Palo Alto Times, Peninsula Times Tribune, and San Jose Mercury News.
Maria Marroquin has served as Executive Director of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View for the last 20 years and is currently Treasurer of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
Jahir Sandoval is a senior at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, where he serves as Student Body President and as an Executive Leader of the school’s Latino Student Union. He has volunteered with multiple organizations advocating for immigration rights.
Cora is a community member who has participated in various grassroots movements over the past year, including Tesla Takedown, Prop 40, Measure A, No Kings, and anti-ICE protests. She loves puzzles and video games.
Vedaant Dave Singh is a Bay Area student who loves science, math, Greek mythology, music, and building and inventing things. He helps his mother teach science and robotics clubs for children in his community and is working to build a foundation supporting children with neurosurgical injuries through music, math, and Legos. As the child of an immigrant family navigating the long green-card process, his experiences have shaped what belonging, opportunity, and the promises of America mean to him.
Michele Mashburn is a disability equity advocate, researcher, and consultant with more than 16 years of experience across nonprofit, public-sector, and grassroots spaces, and the founder of All Things Disability Equity. Her work is grounded in a human-rights framework that treats access needs as human needs and holds institutions accountable for real access, participation, and leadership. She serves on the Santa Clara County Public Authority IHSS Advisory Board and the steering committee for the Women’s Leadership and Policy Summit.
Julie Soo is a fourth-generation San Franciscan, a mathematician turned attorney, and an enforcement attorney with the California Department of Insurance for more than 25 years. Her public service has included serving as a California Democratic Party delegate and on the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women and the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board. Fun fact: Gavin Newsom was her date to her 20th Lowell High School reunion.
Forest Peterson is a research affiliate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford and co-director of the Stanford Workforce VDC Lab. Before Stanford, he spent seven years as a union concrete laborer on large infrastructure projects. He serves on Palo Alto’s Planning and Transportation Commission and has served as chair of Valley Water’s Flood Protection Bond Oversight Subcommittee and as a board director of the Santa Clara County Construction Careers Association. He’s also a clerical worker and a member of SEIU.
Harumo Sato is a visual artist working across painting and sculpture. She recently created a mural on University Avenue in Palo Alto and is currently developing a new one for Rengstorff Park in Mountain View.
Anuradha “Anu” Advani is a veteran social studies and English educator who has also been a community organizer for racial justice. She is a new member of Singing Resistance, a local group that brings music to protests and community events.
Sherry Diamond is CEO and General Counsel of the Santa Clara County Bar Association. The product of an interracial marriage before it was legal, she is a lifelong advocate in the DEI space. Her career has been entirely dedicated to nonprofit work in the arts and human services.
Dr. Seher Awan is President of Mission College in Santa Clara and a first-generation community college graduate who has dedicated her career to expanding equity, access, and opportunity through public higher education. At 32, she became the youngest California Community College President in the state, and today she leads with a deep commitment to ensuring that education empowers every student to find their voice, shape their future, and create change in their communities.
Jon Else is a writer and documentary filmmaker known for The Day After Trinity and Eyes on the Prize. He served on the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi and Alabama during the 1960s and directed Berkeley’s documentary film program for 20 years. Today he does voter-registration work in the Central Valley.
To close the evening, Judge Cordell led everyone in a rousing presidential oath pledge.