Tanu Kumar & Nepal Asatthawasi on Place & Wellbeing

Nepal Asatthawasi is Director of Development at Mechanism. She leads fundraising and organizational systems that support Mechanism’s work with communities. Before joining Mechanism, she was Director of Development and Operations at the Pratt Center for Community Development.

Tanu Kumar is Director of Programs at Mechanism. She leads program strategy and partnerships to help communities design and deliver inclusive, community-led growth. Before Mechanism, she held senior roles at the NYS Office of Planning and Community Development and the Pratt Center for Community Development.

All right, Tanu and Nepal, thank you so much for accepting my invitation. I start all these conversations with the same question. Tanu, I think you’ve probably encountered this question before, but I stole it from a friend of mine who helps people tell their stories, and I start all these conversations with the same question.

So I’m going to ask each of you in turn. It’s a big, beautiful question, which is why I borrow it, but because it’s big, I over-explain it the way I am now. Before I ask it, I want you to know that you are in total control, and you can answer or not answer any way you want to. And the question is: Where do you come from? And I’ll let either of you choose who wants to go first.

Nepal AsatthawasiI can go first. You know, it’s the end of the year. I’m going home soon for a month. Home is Thailand. I’ve been in America for a long, long time, but home is always Thailand.

So I come from Thailand, specifically on the banks of the old capital, Thonburi — which is essentially Bangkok, but it was the former capital before it moved. And my people were farmers of durian for a very long time. As Thonburi got incorporated into Greater Bangkok, they became landlords.

And I have been trying to live with the knowledge of both those things my entire life. That is why I believe nuanced, community-based urbanism is extremely important — because it’s not just about form. It’s also about people and their histories.

Tanu KumarI come from a couple of places. I come from Chicago, from the Midwest, and grew up there for most of my life — suburban Chicago, in a largely immigrant community comprised mostly of people like my parents, who were first-generation immigrants from India. They were able to move to the U.S. because of the passage of a bill in the late 1960s that enabled certain classes of immigrants to enter the U.S. They had a window of about two years to apply for that and guarantee passage.

Another place that I come from is India, specifically northern India. My father is from Agra, now a pretty big city in Uttar Pradesh. My mother is from Indore, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. I spent a lot of my childhood going back and forth to India and lived there for longer periods at different points in my life.

So I very much feel like I’m from there and from the Midwest. I feel this expansiveness in terms of what my reality is, what cultures I inhabit. It’s a liminal space that I think a lot of first-gen immigrants experience and try to straddle, because there are a lot of different worlds coming together. That’s really part of my perspective in the work I do and in the way I choose to live my life now, as a resident of upstate New York in the Hudson Valley.

Do each of you have a recollection of what the younger you wanted to be when you grew up? Did young Nepal or young Tanu — what did you want to be when you grew up?

Tanu KumarThere are two things I really wanted to be. One was a dancer on Soul Train — did you all ever watch that? I’ve just dated myself. But I watched it every week and tried to mimic those moves, and that was a huge goal.

And the other was a writer. I have a very strong memory of being six or seven and feeling very certain that I was meant to be a writer — not fiction, but nonfiction. I wanted to be a nonfiction writer.

Awesome. Do you know who you were thinking of? What was the writer, what was a non-fiction writer to you at that point?

Tanu KumarI was thinking of… well, I watched a lot of PBS. So it was the kinds of people that wrote for, were able to create and produce documentaries on PBS, or the Jim Lehrer NewsHour, or any of these things. Those were very strong influences in my life. My father watched this every evening and we had family conversations about it.

So anything that was acceptable on PBS was something I wanted to write.

I like the Soul Train and the NewsHour together. Nepal, what did you want to be when you grew up, when you were a kid?

Nepal AsatthawasiI’m kind of getting stumped because I don’t remember. I feel like I had no strong inclination towards any profession, although with the kind of family that I was in — which was quite conservative and proper and very fixated on social standing and appearance — maybe being a doctor was acceptable. Or, conversely, not being very much at all, as long as you were able to move about in society in a respectable way.

So I do remember the through line has always been: I wanted to live life differently and to just be kind of free. Not necessarily bohemian, traveling in Bali with a guitar and a sarong type of free, but I just wanted to live a chill, interesting life doing interesting things. And yeah, still maybe an archaeologist.

I like how the archaeologist snuck in at the end there.

I mean, I definitely had a shelf of archaeology-related books. But when I was young, that’s the only thing I can remember with any great clarity. But I just wanted a different life.

How did you guys meet? We’re going to talk about the work that you’re doing at Mechanism, but when did you first encounter each other or meet each other?

Nepal AsatthawasiI feel like it predated us working together for many years before Mechanism. But I’m not certain of the circumstances.

Tanu KumarI remember. I was working at the Pratt Center for Community Development in Brooklyn, which Nepal later joined. And we worked together there for many years. But we were working on a project around entrepreneurship and supporting small businesses and thinking about space constraints and issues in New York City.

And Nepal was working at LaGuardia Community College’s incubator — I’m going to get the name wrong. But I remember this was back when you went to meet people in person anytime you met them for the first time. So I remember going over to Queens and meeting Nepal there in person.

Nepal AsatthawasiSo this was New York Designs, which was the first incubator that CUNY created with a makerspace in it. And it was housed at LaGuardia Community College. So actually, this is amazing because this is our shared — this is our kind of meet-cute. And it has everything to do with what we’re doing now.

Yes. In what way?

Nepal AsatthawasiIt was trying to create a production and entrepreneurship ecosystem that was connected to a public university system — specifically in one of its non-traditional colleges, its community college. So bringing that framework of small business, entrepreneurship, solopreneurship, innovation to a community of students who, because of their socioeconomic circumstances, didn’t have the luxury or the time to participate in those endeavors.

All right. Will you introduce Mechanism? At this point it’s usually, “Tell us a little bit about where you are and the work you’re doing now.” So I don’t know who wants to take the turn, but I want to also introduce Mechanism and the work you do together. Whoever wants to take the lead.

Tanu KumarSo Mechanism, which was formerly known as the Urban Manufacturing Alliance — and thanks to you, Peter, is not anymore — we are a nonprofit organization, and we work with communities and manufacturers and practitioners that support manufacturers across the country. We work to create production ecosystems that increase local resilience, well-being, and vitality.

We’ve come a long way from our days as UMA. We are still building on those foundations, but I think we are shifting away from “Urban Manufacturing Alliance” in a couple of important ways. One is that we recognize the impact manufacturing has had on communities in ways that have been extractive, have caused harm, have depleted communities. And we are trying to embrace a vision that is more holistic and cultivates ecosystems that center production but also safeguard the environment. And ensure that while we have economic stability, we also empower workers, and we’re thinking about resiliency — community resiliency — in all its forms. Not only environmental resiliency, but also well-being.

And we work across the country with communities that want to partner with us. We go to where we are needed or wanted, and where people are trying to accomplish the same visions and goals that we are.

Yeah. What’s an example of — I always think of the old Batman show with the red phone. Commissioner Gordon had the red phone he would call Batman on. What’s the Mechanism red phone? When does a city — or who — calls you and why do they call you? What’s the moment that Mechanism was built for, if there’s only one? I know there are many, but why do people reach out to Mechanism?

Nepal AsatthawasiI mean, one frequently occurring reason is: they have surfaced information or insights of their own, about things going on in their city — a lot of people engaged in small-batch production, what is commonly associated with making and the maker community, or just small businesses in manufacturing. It could be all of those things, some of those things, or only two of those things. But enough of a concentration that it raises questions about resource allocation, including space, and the identification of opportunities that the community — or the people already doing that — can improve what they’re doing.

Their businesses grow. They employ more people. There’s an identification of potential or opportunity and no clear understanding internally of how to analyze what’s happening and take it forward. Sometimes they just want an understanding.

They want us to come and share case studies from other places in the country and what we’ve done — or even what we haven’t. A consolidation of case studies that seem appropriate to their circumstance. Other times they realize they need more, at which point we are tapped to co-create programs or communities of practice or learning cohorts, or just give straight consulting on a strategic framework.

In answer to why: the reason is usually they don’t understand what’s happening, and they’d like to capitalize on it.

What is happening too — and maybe I want to step back a little bit, I remember talking about this — is that there’s one big story that we tell, or gets told, for people outside the work about manufacturing in the U.S. What is the state of manufacturing now, and what’s the story? How is Mechanism doing it now in a way that’s different than maybe it was done in the past? Is that a coherent question?

Nepal AsatthawasiExtremely, yes. There are many aspects to this, and I think we just have to — in a boring way — define what we’re talking about, but also recognize that manufacturing is many things, and most of the time we’re not talking about the same things.

Because of the political context and the news, the manufacturing that has captured everyone’s attention is the big facilities and plants with lots of immigrant workers who are being raided. There’s also manufacturing made up of family businesses across the U.S. who are being hammered by tariffs and are struggling to continue to do what they do. So those are two strands that are pretty active in our imaginations right now.

And I think the picture that paints is that manufacturing is big, right? It’s over 100 employees. It employs a lot of people — enough that disruption is bad for the town or community where it’s located. And a lot of them are trying to get by but still getting all of their materials and parts from overseas, so they’re struggling there as well.

And while that profile of manufacturing is true — it’s all true — the manufacturing that we concentrate on, because we want to unlock the specificities of this type of work, is small. They’re definitely under 100. More often than not, under 50.

There’s a high chance there’s only one worker there — the owner-operator. At most, they have three to seven other employees. They have space needs but not intense ones. They’re small businesses, but some of them are highly innovative. And while that innovation can drive scale — meaning growth and expansion — more often than not, that doesn’t meet up with their desires for the interesting life they want to have.

So like, that’s also a manufacturer. So yeah, I just want to put it out there that it is not a homogeneous typology of business or footprint or whatever.

Is there a good story to tell about the work that you’re doing that brings it to life?

Tanu KumarYeah, there are a couple. I guess one that I’ll highlight — which is a really recent project — speaks to a bit of what Nepal is talking about in terms of how the manufacturing sector is so varied. In the spaces we create, we tend to focus on the small, but they’re all impacted by and connected to the larger picture of manufacturing, mainly because a lot of these small businesses are part of huge supply chains that exist in the country. But the issues they face are so different from those large businesses.

So about a year ago, we launched a pilot project that was funded through the Families and Workers Fund with a goal of helping small and medium-sized businesses bring in workers and also retain them. Because what was happening across this sector — and it’s true of other sectors as well — is that people can’t find employees and they can’t keep their employees.

And this project built off research that was hypothesizing that the reason this is happening is because manufacturing leaders, or leaders of any businesses, are really out of touch with their workforce. They’re out of touch with people and the communities and their perspectives — what they need at work to succeed. And in order for this to be addressed or solved, it’s not going to just be a business owner and an employee coming together to solve it. It has to be other entities within these ecosystems that play a role in supporting residents to access and find these jobs and stay in these jobs, and organizations that help these businesses understand how to keep their workforce.

So that was the premise — that we were going to bring a whole different group of people together to address this problem. And so we identified two partners. One was in Oklahoma City and one was in Houston, who are training people from low-income communities to work in manufacturing and placing them in these jobs.

But they were very concerned about the quality of those jobs. If they were going to put people in these positions, were they going to be high-quality positions that people would want to stay in and grow in? And so they decided to work with us to design a process to help these businesses really engage their workers — through focus groups, through one-on-one conversations — really trying to understand their perspectives and understand the challenges to staying in these positions. And the next step was to change their policies to address that, with support from other stakeholders in the region.

And so we did this — they went out and did this — they talked to a lot of folks, they got a lot of information.

We came together last month, and there was a very small group of organizations that know about these issues and are committed to working on these issues, that came together to workshop these ideas. And it included some of the employees and employers as well. And it was just a beautiful gathering of people who cared about this and were really working toward a new solution — in states where it’s often challenging to talk about job quality at this moment.

It can be challenging to talk about some of these issues, but they were able to do that. And while it’s a long-term process, I think it demonstrates the kinds of spaces that Mechanism can create. We can create environments where people feel comfortable talking about this, where people are taking on topics that are challenging or new. And we’re bringing together the right mix of perspectives to try to drive more innovative solutions. And it was very gratifying that it worked out, that it happened. I think people walked away with a lot of appreciation and a lot of energy to keep working on these issues.

Yeah. I mean, because of the work we did together, I’m aware — I have insight into the experiences that you provide for people. And you’re talking about the power of bringing people together and the kinds of spaces you create. I wondered, can you share a little bit about how you do that? Is there a sort of secret sauce? Especially now, it feels particularly magical to have the skill to bring people together to collaborate at that scale. It seems unbelievably important. How do you do it? What’s your approach to bringing those parties together to work on things that are sensitive and big?

Nepal AsatthawasiWell, there is an approach and a methodology. But there’s also a culture of care for our guests. They’re participants in our programs, and we facilitate them through conversations that end in action steps and all that stuff. That’s the engagement that we do.

And there’s definitely an approach, and Tanu, being in the thick of it, can explain that quite well. I do want to say that we are an organization who — despite how lean we are and how efficiently we work to steward our resources in order to do this work at a broad scale — cares very much about gathering people in beautiful spaces with excellent food and drink. And that doesn’t seem to be a priority for a lot of people working in our space, which is equitable economic development with bits of planning and inclusive capital and stuff like that. We care very much.

And it doesn’t have to be luxuriously expensive. We’re not spending funders’ money on four-course meals. But we make sure that people are well fed — usually catering by a local business, usually foods from immigrant communities — and there are snacks, there are cookies, all of those things. That is the setting for us to work on the hard things.

We always have really good feedback on our… we always do a survey at the end of our events, and the food always gets really good feedback. But I think we also — and this is illustrated through one of our primary programs and modes of work, which we call Local Labs — one of the things we do in these Local Labs, when we go into a place, is spend a lot of time doing pre-work to understand and connect with a lot of different stakeholders in the community. So we get a sense of all the perspectives and voices that should be in the room and the kinds of connections that will facilitate and support the community to move forward in a decision-making process.

So oftentimes, you may not get the mix of people that we bring into a room in a normal setting. But we do a lot of pre-work to make sure we have a diversity of voices, and we open it up to a lot of different kinds of people — maybe people you normally think of as part of a making or manufacturing economy, and those who aren’t necessarily part of that but have a perspective or support it in some way. So I think there’s something really strong about our approach to understanding who needs to be in the room and then getting them there.

Okay. How would you guys describe the future you’re aiming at? Some of this can be very abstract, and for people not working in the space it can be hard to get a handle on the impact of it. But what would you say is the biggest challenge you encounter and are working on? And what’s the vision you’re trying to bring into reality when it comes to cities and manufacturing?

Nepal AsatthawasiWell, the vision is for many people to have a different relationship to manufacturing and vice versa, right? Before, it was activity at the periphery of cities that released lots of pollutants and toxins into the air and the water — but it made things we needed. And so we put up with it. And it also employed a lot of people who were economically secure and were able to raise their families in a good way. So it was a hive of contradictions, right? We were discussing how even the promise of secure, stable jobs with union benefits…

If you read — there was an op-ed about Bruce Springsteen and his father in the Times the other week — which kind of hit hard, pretty emotionally. Because while Bruce Springsteen’s father was employed in the manufacturing sector with a union job, he was miserable. And that job, while giving him economic security, also took a lot from him that passed down pain and trauma to his family as well. And wrapped up in that is the idea of well-being.

And the manufacturing and the making and the production that we see is one that really supports and promotes community well-being — whether in the form of jobs or linkages to schools, to senior centers, to art centers, to other nodes within the community that are also important. And conversely, all communities need manufacturing — whether it’s small or large or medium-sized, whatever is right for their scale. Because of the jobs, and because we see the potential for the capability to make things as being part of a resilient future, but also a resilient present.

Without the skills and the capacity to make things when we need them, we will be at a loss when the things we rely on and the systems we live in start breaking down, as they do in ways that we are beginning to feel and recognize. So that’s still abstract, but I think an example most people relate to is how, when COVID broke out, we did not have any masks. This country was not equipped to equip everyone with masks to stem the infection.

But cities — especially the sewn trades in those cities — stepped up. Facilities were donated, material was donated, and then we had masks. And most of that infrastructure has been broken up and disassembled. But it would be nice to know that in the event of another pandemic, or some other thing that required the capability to make things, we were able to tap into that.

What if we needed emergency housing for 10,000 people, and it was full of obstacles to get all the materials and contractors and carpenters from outside the city boundaries? Could we do that? Don’t know. But that’s part of our vision — that we could. That we would develop the capacity to build in that way and respond in that way.

Yes, but not only for emergency response. We want to cultivate it because it belongs in a community in other ways too. But for a resilient community, especially one that is proofed against future shocks, we feel it’s vitally important to have a base of manufacturing to stabilize community well-being and resilience.

What needs to change in order to make this happen? What position would you want to be given to make the changes you need to implement this stuff? Do you know what I mean? I could say “if you were president,” maybe that’s the one — but what’s the job you would need in order to implement the changes needed for us to do what you want us to do?

Tanu KumarI mean, there are so many. First of all, I don’t think it’s anyone — it’s definitely a collective effort. This is system change. And there are a lot of systems that need to be shifted because what they reinforce are instability and inequality. So we have a system — an economic system — that definitely promotes profit and does not take into consideration a balance with our natural environment, our resources, or people. So that is a big system to tackle.

But I think that’s one of the foundational systems that production ecosystems operate within. And we hope that these ecosystems could start to reconsider or realign some of those more extractive systems that deplete the earth, that deplete communities. I think there are other systems that perpetuate social divisions within communities.

And I don’t want to get too political, but we do have a siloization of people, and there’s not a lot of open dialogue and understanding and communication. And that is a condition that is challenging and makes it harder for us to achieve what we want to achieve. I think what we’re talking about is a more democratic, participatory approach to designing systems.

And then I think there are other civic resources or essential social resources out there that we need — and we believe production ecosystems can be important to improving — around, as Nepal mentioned, housing; around thinking about culture and how production and making is tied into our cultural history; around other types of infrastructure needed to get goods from place to place or people from place to place. So it’s all embedded in these other systems that I think are not serving us now and will not serve us in times of crisis or emergency as well.

Yeah. I’m curious — you avoided being political, but what was the silo? I will encourage you to get political. What were you pointing at with the siloization? Could you be more clear about what you’re talking about?

What I’m thinking of is how challenging it can be in certain cities and states we’re working in now across the country, where there are different political affiliations, beliefs, whatever, between different stakeholders who are working to change something. So there may be people at the center of some approach that would actually improve the lives of their communities — the outcomes for their workers — but they cannot openly talk about that, sometimes even within their own communities, or certainly with policymakers.

And so it becomes even more difficult to identify allies to support that work — but also to do the work, because it’s really draining when you have to watch your words, when you have to think about the very real repercussions on your community if you pursue this work. Around funding, or drawing attention from different federal agencies.

So there are lots of reasons why you would want to not do that, yet this is still very important work. So I’m thinking about that in terms of siloization. I think there are a lot of people who have just stopped communicating openly with each other.

Yeah. We’re kind of coming near the end of the hour we have together. Is there something you want to share in particular about Mechanism that we haven’t had a chance to talk about? Or another way of asking: is there a story you want to tell about Mechanism?

Nepal AsatthawasiWell, we are kind of grounded in relationships and a lot of coincidences and alignments that feel like little gifts every time they’re uncovered. So many people over the first 10 years that we were Urban Manufacturing Alliance came to us because someone told them about us. It was like soft whisperings of things that were happening.

And Peter, I think when we were talking earlier this year about the essence of Urban Manufacturing Alliance before it was renamed Mechanism, I told you that it’s almost like it was a secret.

Yes.

Right? So a group of people already in the small world of equitable economic development or inclusive economies have known about us for a long time, but not in a bold-faced way. More like, “Oh, these people do this very specific thing, but it’s really cool — you should go to one of their events.”

And that’s how people have traditionally come to us. They’ve told other people. And there are so many coincidences — whenever we travel to cities, and all of us do it a lot, it’s like, “Oh, you might remember me from 2016 at that gathering.” But then it turns out the colleague who sits next to them at work worked with someone who went two years ago, or maybe they went to grad school with one of us. And for me — I don’t know if it’s the same for Tanu — this happens on a weekly basis at this point.

It’s both connection to Mechanism, formerly UMA, or to one of us or to one of our colleagues or former colleagues. And it just swirls with serendipity almost. And that’s not really — it’s neither here nor there. It’s not about the work directly. But I feel like it’s a magical space, almost. And how these atoms of people knock into each other all the time reinforces my suspended belief that this is magical, even though we’re talking about economic development here.

I want to thank you so much for accepting the invitation and sharing Mechanism with the world.

Thank you.

Thanks, Peter.

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