Cecilia Muñoz on More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You...and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise

Free and open to the public. Submit questions for Q&A in the live chat on YouTube or tweet to #PolicyTalks. 

Join us for a discussion with Cecilia Muñoz about her new book, More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You . . . and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise, moderated by Ford School professor Celeste Watkins-Hayes.

This event is presented in partnership with Detroit Public Television and Literati Bookstore. 

From the speaker's bio:

Cecilia Muñoz (AB '84) is Vice President for Public Interest Technology and Local Initiatives at New America. Prior to joining New America in 2017, she served for eight years on President Obama’s senior staff, first as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs followed by five years as Director of the Domestic Policy Council. Before working in government, she was Senior Vice President at the National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US), the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she served for 20 years. Muñoz is also a Senior Fellow at Results for America, a nonprofit that advances the use of data and evidence in policy making. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000 for her work on immigration and civil rights, and serves on the Boards of the Open Society, MacArthur and Kresge Foundations, as well as the nonprofit Protect Democracy Project. She is the author of More than Ready: Be Strong and Be you....and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise.

About the book: 

Women of color today are contributing to an unprecedented wave of "firsts"—whether they are the first in a family to attend college, the first to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or the first in public office, women of color are reaching new heights of influence.

Cecilia Muñoz was a first, too, and she knows what it means to make her way without exemplars to follow. The first Latinx to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council, Muñoz draws lessons from the challenges she faced as the senior Hispanic person in the Obama White House and as a longtime powerful voice in the Civil Rights Movement. She shares her insights, along with those of some extraordinary women of color she met along the way, as an offering of inspiration to women of color who are no longer willing to be invisible or left behind.

Full of invaluable lessons about working through fear, facing down detractors, and leading with kindness, Muñoz provides the thoughtful insight and tactical tools women of color need to be successful-without compromising who they are.

You can purchase More than Ready at Literati Bookstore. 

Faculty Expert

Celeste M. Watkins-Hayes

Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy; Director, Center for Racial Justice; Jean E. Fairfax Collegiate Professor of Public Policy; University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor; Professor of Sociology; Research and Community Impact Fellow, Anti-Racism Collaborative

Watkins-Hayes is an internationally-recognized scholar and expert on HIV/AIDS; urban poverty; social policy; and racial, class, and gender inequality. Her work illuminates social problems of great interest to scholars, communities, and policymakers. She works at the intersection of sociology, African American Studies, and public policy. Her work analyzes the impact of the HIV epidemic on women and the growth of the HIV safety net.

• Cecilia Munoz
• DEI