Hopeful pathways, Natasha Hakimi Zapata’s ‘Another World Is Possible’
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It’s hard to have hope in the U.S. today. In “Another World Is Possible,” Natasha Hakimi Zapata shares the stories of countries that have successfully transformed often devastating realities into hopeful ones. Through countless interviews, in-depth research and personal experience, Hakimi Zapata exposes the urgent conditions under which creativity and innovation sparked change around the world. Hakimi Zapata gives color to policy by passing the mic to people who are both impacted by it and have shaped it, analyzing its consequences, and drawing lessons that encourage those in the U.S. to imagine a more caring world.
Hakimi Zapata gets practical when it comes to social transformation, evaluating policies that have successfully served large segments of the population. In this interview, she shares what she learned through this project and how these lessons may apply to the current U.S. context.
Your book begins with your mother’s story, when her undiagnosed diabetes and its consequences confronted you with the fragility of care in the U.S. How did that personal moment shape the way you approach policy and justice in “Another World Is Possible”?
I grew up in a family of immigrants that deeply believed in the American Dream. My brothers and I were the first to earn college degrees on both sides of our family. But as we got older, that dream, the idea of what was possible, started to feel quite impossible in the U.S., where we were born. Much of that realization comes from my mother’s story.
In the book, I write about her diabetes diagnosis and the amputation of her leg due to years of untreated, undiagnosed diabetes. She couldn’t afford or access health insurance or care for much of her life. That experience became a personal starting point for my progressive politics and understanding of what should be a right for everyone, especially in a country with the immense resources and undeniable ability to provide universal health care.
I approached every policy in the book through that lens — through my mother, my own experience and my communities, thinking of my friends and family, and how they navigate daily life without the support of robust social policies and programs that could make a meaningful difference.
Many of the policies you profile, from Estonia’s digital democracy to Uruguay’s energy transition, were born out of crisis. What can these moments teach us about how crisis can spark imagination?
This was something I realized later in the writing process as I brought together all my research and experiences from nearly five years of deep dives into these policies. I spent almost a month in each country, trying to talk to people from all walks of life as much as possible, and what became clear was that many of these policies are rooted in moments of deep crisis.
The UK’s National Health Service came out of the ashes of World War II. Uruguay’s energy transition grew out of rolling crises — they couldn’t keep the lights on because of economic and climate factors that have only gotten worse. After regaining independence, Estonia was trying to build a path forward on a very limited budget at a time when the internet was still quite new. And Portugal, where one in every hundred people was affected by what they called “problematic drug use,” was trying to find a more humane path forward distinct from the disastrous U.S. war on drugs.
What stands out about these crises is how they gave rise to social solidarity. Even in dark times, when everything feels like it’s being defunded or destroyed, what comes next — what we build out of the ashes — can be scrappier, more creative and longer-lasting. Of course, I’d love for us not to have to go through such hard times to get there, but crisis can become a means toward more progressive ends.
Even now, while it may seem that nationally we’re moving backward on many issues, at the local level we’re seeing these pockets of light shining in the most unlikely places. For instance, during the general election, in states like Alaska, Nebraska and Missouri, voters passed paid sick leave on their ballots, sometimes with huge majorities.
Building broad, unlikely coalitions seemed pivotal for these policies to succeed. What are some key ingredients for broad coalitions?
Portugal is a really good example. I hold it close to my heart because I lived there for five years and saw firsthand the difference that their drug decriminalization and broader approach to drug use has done for the country. It took the country from a very difficult crisis to becoming a model for other countries of how you can approach drug use through a public health lens rather than a criminal justice lens.
This stems from a crisis where everyone in the country, including political leaders, knew someone or had someone in their family or friend groups struggling with a “problematic drug use” issue. The people who came together to build this really radical shift were everything from a family doctor in the south who wanted to help his patients, to legal experts, activists, psychiatrists, community advocates and political leaders. But importantly, they also involved the public in the policy process, renting out cinemas across Portugal to explain what they were trying to do and to ask people on the frontlines of this epidemic what they wanted and needed. That understanding that it’s happening to all of us, that we are all part of the same social fabric, was really key.
Many of the policies you highlight are universal, meaning they apply to everyone. But in the U.S., people often say it’s more complicated because of immigration status, race and inequality. How might these differences actually help us rethink what universal could mean here?
I think about this a lot, and I get asked this question a lot. “Don’t we have too diverse a population or too big a population?” I try to preempt that in the introduction to my book. I’m a big believer in universal programs. I definitely was already a believer before I started writing this book, but actually going through and seeing the impact of these universal programs just reiterated to me how important it is to build programs that help the majority of people.
Like many others, I’m not in favor of means testing for these kinds of policies because universal programs are more efficient, more economic, and ensure a more dignified approach. More importantly, they build social solidarity, which is crucial. Universal health care or universal public schools eliminate these off-ramps we have for the wealthy in the U.S. and ensure that we all materially understand that we are in this together.
Living in the UK, people complain about their universal health care system, but they can complain because it’s theirs. It belongs quite literally to the people. There is nothing in the U.S. privatized health care system that belongs to me or to my mom or to you. That’s why a universal approach can make the entire difference.
When it comes to diversity or population size, I want to reframe the question: Why is it that a country like Uruguay, with such fewer resources, is able to green their grid in less than ten years? Why is it that in Finland, a country that was relatively poor before the 20th century, children can get an amazing public school education without the zip code lottery we have in the U.S.? It just doesn’t seem logical to look at diversity and people power as impediments. They are assets.
Some people dismiss these kinds of policies as part of a “leftist agenda,” but your book shows that’s not really the case. How do the ideas you highlight work across political lines?
One of the things I wanted to do was look at as broad a spectrum of countries as possible. I went to every continent except Antarctica. I wanted to look at a huge variety of economies, political systems and leanings.
I did go to a couple of Scandinavian countries because they have great ideas, but I wanted to move beyond Scandinavia and go to places like Uruguay, Costa Rica, New Zealand and Singapore. Singapore was one of the most instructive for me. No one can really call the Singaporean government left-wing, and yet, even in a country that I think of as hyper-capitalist, there was a clear understanding that housing as a right is an important foundation for a stable nation. About 80 percent of Singaporeans live in high-quality, mixed-income public housing.
I also looked at Costa Rica, where they’ve done what we would consider quite radical things like getting rid of their military and emphasizing environmental policy that ensures the nation’s natural resources belong to the people.
Another lesson I learned is that once policies like these are implemented, once people feel the benefits of them in their everyday lives, it becomes incredibly difficult to rip them away. Interestingly, they even begin to defy ideological categorization.
I saw this everywhere in Norway, where paid parental leave had originally been opposed by some of the right, and now no politician would dream of getting rid of it. It stopped mattering if it came from the left or the right.
Of all the policies you research, which one continues to feel like the most revolutionary and urgent to you, and why?
That’s a really hard question because I’m so passionate about all of the policies in this book. I don’t think I can choose a single policy that is more important or more successful, but perhaps given what a huge, huge, huge problem it is in the U.S., and going back to the beginning of my book and my own personal experience with it, for me one of the programs we’d most benefit from in the U.S. is universal health care.
Something like Medicare for All, which is actually nowhere near as radical as Britain’s National Health Service, would still make a huge difference. The UK has a fully socialized health care system that is publicly owned, publicly run, and publicly funded. Medicare for All is a single-payer model with government-backed health insurance. Even a step like that would make such an enormous difference across the board to the hundreds of thousands of Americans struggling to access or afford care, or pay off medical debt.
Your book is filled with hope. You show what’s possible when societies choose care and solidarity over despair. What gives you hope today, for immigrant communities, for U.S. democracy, and for the possibility of building a more caring world?
I find a lot of hope in much of the work that I see people doing today. I think about my own immigrant communities in the U.S. — you’re in Chicago right now, where I was born, where much of my family was undocumented for so many years. When I was there during my book tour in February, one of the headlines was about how frustrated some Trump administration officials were at how good of a job activists in Chicago had done in helping spread the word and informing communities about their rights when, for example, ICE came knocking on the door.
The reason they were so frustrated is because a well-informed, unified community is a very powerful thing. And of course, it’s absolutely horrific what’s happening, but the fact that we can come together and fight against even these terrible odds gives me a lot of hope.
I also see a lot of hope in political leaders who are coming out and fighting for these really bold ideas, even when people tell them it’s not going to work. At the same time, I’m very aware that we’re going to need to continue to build broad movements that hold political leaders accountable, so that even once they’re elected, they continue to hold steadfast to those values.
Natasha is working on a second book focused on local policies that can show us bright spots amidst larger crises.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
– Story by Sandy Ovalle
– Copy edited by Daniela Garcia Perez and Kami Waller
Sandy Ovalle is a table-setter, a poet and space-curator, rooting her work in the deep faith and strength of Chicane and Latine spiritual teachers. Committed to pro-social systemic change, she has worked in the immigrant rights, climate, democracy, and faith-rooted social justice movements. She writes to inspire, create joy, and dream up justice. A native of Mexico City, Sandy often explores migration, identity formation, grief, and loss. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Latina Critical Feminism and Sojourners.
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