News

Abortion Access Granted

What do you get when you put together years of activism and advocacy with lawmakers who support our freedom of choice? Abortion coverage! That’s right, y’all, beginning July 1, plans available in our state health insurance exchange can FINALLY cover abortion. In case you didn’t know, abortion coverage in our state health insurance exchange was […]

News

Are You There Unemployment? It’s Me, Virginia.

I never thought I would need to file for unemployment. Since graduating college, I always had at least two jobs. It wasn’t uncommon for me to hold three jobs at once, usually two regular part-time jobs and one rotating, less frequent gig, like teaching improv comedy or assisting with florals for weddings. Then last year, […]

News

I Used to Be Pacific Islander, but Now I’m Asian

by Kimberly Nario As a second-generation Filipino American, when I think of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I think: screw those annoying standardized testing scantrons. I’m not talking about standardized tests itself, although I do have some feelings about those. I’m talking about the little section on the scantron, after filling out my […]

News

Minimum Wage, Maximum Rage

by Kimberly Nario At the start of the pandemic (before I started working at Progress Virginia), I had to cobble together two part-time jobs with occasional freelance work to survive. My hours from these two jobs combined were equal to a single full-time job. So how could I be making more than twice the minimum […]

News

If You Don’t Hate Me, Act Like It

by Kimberly Nario Sometimes it feels like I grew up in a hospital. When I was a kid, my mom and several aunties worked at hospitals across Hampton Roads. It was common for my dad to drop me off in the middle of my mom’s shift so I could spend an afternoon bouncing between the […]