An Interview with Eva Maria Lewis
When I first met Eva Maria Lewis, she was a young, outspoken Girl Scout. While we quickly formed a mentor-mentee relationship, it soon became clear to me that I had so much to learn from Lewis.
Indeed, she is the one who introduced me to intersectional feminism and what it means to fight for what you believe in. Despite both of us being writers, we’d never formally been in conversation as such … until now. Here, in her own words, 22-year-old Eva Maria Lewis shares her story.
On Her Name
“Even as a senior in high school, I started signing things ‘Eva Maria Lewis.’ My first name isn’t Eva Maria, but my name is Eva Maria Lewis. That’s my full name. It’s not like Maria is something you can throw away though. As somebody who’s reconnecting with my ancestry because I wasn’t raised on my father’s side and I’m named after his mother, it feels like I’m bringing my ancestry with me.
I’ve been told by people you have no idea what it means to be Afro Latina, you have no idea what it’s like to claim your own intersections. So it’s saying, “f*ck you, this is my name.” And I can make of my name what I want to make of my name and use it how I want to and interpret it how I want to interpret it.”
On Being Both an Artist & an Activist
“Before the protests, before I was working with Girl Scouts to speak at the United Nations, I was doing poetry. I’ve been singing and I’ve been dancing since I was 3 years old. I was always on stage, always in the arts. I didn’t feel like I could own those spaces, but I did them and I was fulfilled by them.
When I started speaking out about my oppression when I was 13 or 14 — which was forced because of the environment I was in and rampant white supremacy amongst these infrastructures and my peers — I was considered dramatic and somewhat problematic because I was seeing beyond. People were like, ‘oh she’s doing too much’ and then it became, ‘oh, that’s who she is.’
In many ways, I found comfort in that because I didn’t want to be weak. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. I didn’t want to admit that I was young and I was learning and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. But people were seeing worth in me in that way. It took a downward spiral in 2019 and losing everything for me to really sit with myself, which is how God intended it to be, and say, ‘you can be passionate and you can help your people heal and you can do this work without doing it on other people’s terms. There’s no reason your art has to be separate. I don’t have to sing about oppression for my art to also be activism.’”
The only reason I have a sound mind is because I write. I write poems, I write essays, I write one-liners, I write songs. I write so many songs. I can freestyle for hours and that’s my meditation. That’s how my lessons come in. That’s when the ancestors talk to me. That fuels me and that keeps me grounded. That keeps me motivated to do the work.”
On Self-Care
“I love talking to my friends. It took so long to get to a place where I have a good community that’s reciprocating my energy and caring for me deeply. I spark joy by looking good .. it takes me an hour to do my makeup, so I don’t do it every day. But when I take the time to do my makeup and make some content, too, I’ll look in the mirror and remember there was a time when I didn’t feel cute or physically worthy. Not only am I beautiful, but I’m taking the strides to be the person I want to be. It’s really taking the moment to consecrate that I deserve to be here. I’m not inconsequential. And also absorbing art … I just finished New Girl and I’m watching iCarly because I miss it. It’s about being unapologetic about what makes me feel joyous.”
On Free Root Operation
“I started The I Project when I was 16 as a blog. And I started imaging more. I wanted to do more than just write people’s stories, I wanted to help people tell their stories and change them.
My grandfather died at the end of my junior year and didn’t get to see me lead the protest or go to college. I cry so much about that because my life changed so much the summer of 2016. We went down to Alabama and Mississippi to see my grandfather’s first cousins and I got to see my ancestors’ graves. I learned they started a church after slavery. And I had a vision in the car that was like building blocks. It took years to understand what that meant, but I knew I wanted to create something I hadn’t seen before.
I wanted to do something that wasn’t contingent on people in power making decisions about what our people need and what we deserve. The I Project began to reflect my evolution and my understanding of what we’re capable of doing, but it was all over the place. So I killed it.
I went into 2020 with a new task force and asked for help budding this new thing. I went to the Bible and read Psalms: 1-3 about a tree that has its roots in the river. God says that we are that tree, because everything we need will always be with us. The tree's roots are in the river so it’s always getting its nutrients. It doesn’t need soil. It has everything it needs because it was next to the river. And I said, “What if we are that” So I derived the name Free Root Operation from that and I found out later that it was my grandfather’s favorite scripture. Sometimes you have to kill something in order to grow. I needed to kill The I Project because I’d outgrown it and I was stepping into my power.
I said by 2023, I want to have a nonprofit with a budget of $100,000 … and God said, “I got you,” and we hit that goal in three months. Last summer, we were able to serve nearly 600 families through our Chicago food pantry program. I really want to prioritize agency … We want to show people what we’re about, what our people are about and hopefully get more resources from the program.”
On Her Legacy
“I want people to say she helped us see the humanity in each other. And I want to do that through my art, too. My goal is to liberate. Harriet Tubman could come today with her pistol and say, ‘Get up. We’re gone.’ But I promise you she would shoot everybody. We’re not ready to be free. And I want to get us ready to be free.”
To learn more, visit freerootoperation.com.
