How Positive Youth Development Became a Battleground for Democracy is a powerful dual memoir that traces the collision of public service, equity, and political backlash within one of America’s most iconic youth programs: 4-H.

Co-authored by two leaders from vastly different backgrounds—Lisa, a lifelong 4-H member and federal public servant from rural Kansas, and John-Paul, a Guatemalan immigrant and civil rights advocate who became Iowa’s first Latino 4-H State Leader—the book chronicles their shared commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) in youth development. It reveals how their efforts to make 4-H truly open to all youth—regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or immigration status—sparked national controversy, institutional resistance, and ultimately, their professional ousters during the Trump administration’s “War on Woke.”

Blending personal narrative, policy analysis, Maya cosmology, and Christian civic ethics, this urgent and deeply human story exposes how youth programs have become frontline battlegrounds in America’s struggle over pluralistic democracy. From the Iowa State Fair to Washington, D.C., from ancestral milpas to federal courtrooms, the authors ask: Can institutions built on exclusion be transformed into spaces of radical belonging?

Part love letter to 4-H, part whistleblower testimony, and part roadmap for ethical leadership, this book is essential reading for educators, youth workers, DEIA professionals, public servants, and anyone who believes that democracy is built in the hearts, hands, and minds of young people.