Monthly Archives: March 2015

Disparities…

There was a diversity in non-profit (NGO) agencies visited during the past week. LA CAN advocated at a grassroots level with a very limited budget. Peace Over Violence was housed in a beautiful building with even more beautiful employees. Why the disparity? Trendy causes attract the superstars that light up our TVs and movie screens, but scare away anyone who wants to avoid conflict. A Butterfly Ball means that designer gowns must be worn, but what does one wear when traversing the human waste of Skid Row?

Funding a mission statement requires a strong Board of Directors with connections to the deep pockets itching for the next big thing. Tax incentives encourage one to donate assets or cash to agencies with glossy Annual Reports and outreach personnel with short skirts. But… what if the cause is relevant to human rights, but housed in a dirty warehouse with a dirtier executive director? Do I donate? Do I listen? Do I hear?

If I empower the homeless of Skid Row and give them a voice, yet I opt to leave them unwashed and baked in the California sunshine, can they tell the donors a story that opens a wallet? If the woman without teeth and talking to the wall shows up at the red carpet event, will she be welcomed with open arms or avoidance? What makes Alzheimer’s attractive to your finances while schizo-affective disorder scares you?

Healing the Past Using Tools From the Present

A lack of culpability of the parties involved in a conflict can open the door to transformative justice. There is no need to blame one another… seek a bold way to look beyond fault. Accept that all parties play a role in conflict –whether to enable, discourage, or allow. Support of the parties is crucial to transforming the conflict and encourages healing which can open the door to positive dialogue that promotes a better outcome if the same issue is broached in the future.

Agencies in Los Angeles like Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) use restorative justice as a form of conflict resolution. Restorative justice allows victims or survivors and their offenders to play a role in addressing the harm caused by an action (or crime). This type of healing has been used in Rwanda after the 1994 Genocide in a process called gacaca whereby murderers were allowed to seek forgiveness for their role in the slaughter of their neighbors and kin, as well as the juvenile justice system in the US.

One of the toughest tasks that I face is saying ‘I’m sorry’. This may be caused by a youth of defiance where I reacted to actions that surrounded me. I often felt as if I lived in a war zone of punches, slaps, and vitriolic abuse. I have learned to atone by changing my behaviors and opening my mind to the fact that others may not feel the same as me. What I learned has taken a lifetime of experiences and therapy to ground me in nuances of kindness. When I look in the eyes of the youth at YJC, I see potential and joy because they are the light which extinguishes the darkness out of which their mentees must exit. In order to move forwards into a life filled with possibilities, it is essential to step backwards and learn from the decisions and choices of the past.

Day Six: Non-Public Transit

Today we visited Boyle Heights located in East Los Angeles. We met two community actors here working to raise awareness toward and fight against gentrification. One significant sight was Mariachi Plaza, where we visited an empty lot that was fenced off. Normally, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to such a lot, but on a section of the fence were at least a hundred colorful ribbons. These ribbons had various words and phrases and after reading through a few of them, I was able to make sense of them and discover that these were community inputs for what they would like the empty space to become.

We learned a brief history about this space that this empty lot is owned by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority or LA Metro for short, which is the agency in charge of all transportation in LA. LA Metro has not developed this plot of land for reasons ranging from economics to social discrimination/inequality. Regarding economics, LA Metro has claimed that developing on this land would not be economically viable. They claim that the local community is not the demographic, they cater to. Another reason was that the Metro wishes to create an affordable housing project to assist the local community. However, this “affordable housing” project would base its income qualifications on the median income in all of Los Angeles, which is an annual salary of roughly $80,000- well beyond the means of a Boyle Heights resident.
I believe both of aforementioned reasons. The Boyle Heights district is surrounded by freeways and it apparently is a leading district in particulates in the air. The wind produced by these freeways carries dust and pollution toward the town, which has led to health issues and complications, as well as the creation of a local hospital. Secondly, the economic deprivation in this district reinforces the attempted gentrification by housing developments, neighbors, and the government. Most landowners in Boyle Heights are approached by development agencies who offer the landowners cash for their properties. For a poor household these offers are very attractive since they have never been anything but poor. This cash purchase allows for a quick and tempting option for landowners, where they could move out of this expensive area and live wealthily in another area. Landowners’ second option is to refuse the offer and to remain poor in their strongly knit communities, yet strive against gentrification and work toward improving their lives in the long run.
I was quite taken aback when I heard that the company that was handling this development project was government run. The first words that come to mind when I think of public transit are affordable, inexpensive, and great for sporting events. However, from today’s Boyle Heights’ speakers depicted, the Metro was described as a pro-gentrification organization. The Metro has been holding back from developing this land and has put up red tape to delay work on projects. Additionally, since this project is supposed to incorporate community input, I am shocked to learn that it is nowhere close to gathering or hearing community concerns or solutions. The Metro sounds like a multinational corporation pursuing its plans regardless of effects on the local community.
My brain screams irony. In America, public transit has the stigma of being for the poor and immigrant populations, but in a poor and high immigrant population in Boyle Heights, the opposite is true. The Metro doesn’t seem to be concerned with the wellbeing of their community. Besides management and policy change needed within the LA Metro, I applaud Minor’s efforts in educating and coordinating the Boyle Heights community to take a stand and speak out against exploitive development projects and hope that credibility and trust can be built among residents, politicians, and developers. As with the rest of the social conditions, I have been talking about this week, let us hope for the best.

30% for Housing

Transitional housing… what does it mean? Temporary accommodations due to displacement, couch surfing, camping, weekly motels, shelters, living in a car, and many more examples are forms of transitional housing. The displacement of an individual or family is caused by just as many factors: abuse, loss of income, death of a spouse, fire, and choice. Sometimes, there are warning signs preceding the move to transitional housing (ongoing domestic violence or a recession); but often the signs are not immediately present (wildland fire or runaway).

Safe shelter is a basic need that humans often fail to acknowledge. This can lead to poor financial planning and an acceptance of the status quo. Not everyone was raised in a household where foresight involving a tomorrow was discussed, so social service networks exist to help people when they are struggling to find housing. Federal housing programs like Section 8 (HUD) often have long waiting lists with inferior options for residences, but non-profit agencies have responded with affordable housing developments encouraged by local governments. After meeting requirements such as age or income, tenants can move into their new apartments within days or weeks.

Living within our means by paying 30% or less of our monthly income for safe housing is a lesson that I learned this week in LA. I have always paid a disproportionate amount of my take-home pay to housing –as a renter and a homeowner. The reason had less to do with a luxury apartment and more to do with the inability to calculate the actual amount I needed to spend each month on housing. While I am more fiscally aware today, I will still look for the safest home.

Trauma and Healing

What is your definition of peace? Close your eyes and think about it for a minute. Is it the absence of violence? A large tranquil sea? Does peace include activity? Is peace intentional and dynamic? We ask this question over and over in our interviews to try and see what the people in LA see. We struggle to look through their eyes and see the same community. To many people we have spoken with peace is brotherhood. Peace is inclusion. Peace means that everyone gets to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.

We have heard many people talk about the need for understanding. The need to ask the question “what happened to you” not “what is wrong with you”. How else can you understand a person other than to know where they come from, their story, their narrative is. How can you heal what is broken when you don’t understand the sources of trauma, the context and history.

The stories I heard today made me think about even more deeply, the trauma of the students I work with. The fact that, 15 and 16 year olds are labeled as dumb stupid, or problem kids. How can they be anything else when they are treated as children, even as they have children of their own. When they have to conform to rules and regulations that would make a competent adult cringe and rebel against. What kind of healing can be found for them when they are threatened with incarceration for the slightest infraction.

We have to start acknowledging that the criminal justice system is deeply flawed. That it works for the white minority and affluent to control the poor and people of color. In a society that can’t stand to see the reality of poverty around us, we criminalize the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill. In some states we execute the mentally ill. The criminal justice system is deeply sick. It do 20150317_091238-1-1 esn’t provide the outcomes that represent the people that it serves. To begin the healing, we need to reform the system. Not only the criminal justice system. The school system that has chronically failed our students of color. The development systems that displace people and perpetrate poverty, the legal systems, the political systems. We are reaching a “tipping point” is something that many people have said to us. The old status quo doesn’t serve the interests of the people, it doesn’t create the outcomes that we want, and it no longer has the legitimacy it needs to continue to operate.

Feeding Development

Today we worked primarily in South Central LA and one place we specifically visited was the Mercado La Poloma community housing corporation. This center was home to many organizations but the most attractive and popular section of this building was the downstairs area. This space was occupied by more than 6 restaurants, all pertaining to different cultures. There were Mexican, Thai, Ethiopian, American, Yucatan, and Oaxacan cuisine. All of these restaurants were locally owned and supported and have been located in this complex either just recently or for more than a decade.

As you can see in this picture, there is a nice ambiance, where restaurants are located side by side, predominantly located on the perimeter of the building and chairs and tables located throughout. Every menu had affordable meals as part of their leasing agreement with their NGO landlords. I chose the Thai food since we hadn’t yet had any Asian food during our stay. The green curry beef with rice and veggies was phenomenal. From what I sampled and saw from the group’s meals, they also had authentic and fresh tastes.
This diverse community restaurant experience was a development project to embrace and preserve local businesses, thereby combating gentrification by the nearby University of Southern California, various corporate housing developments, and franchise chain restaurants. This grassroots and sustainable (long term) business model was orchestrated by one of the main NGO tenants and property owner. I am talking about food today because I appreciate the unique and various ways to approach poverty and violence. It doesn’t have to simply be a grassroots approach or conducting policy work or even advocacy to tackle a social issue. A sustainable, viable, and well though business model can be used to protect vulnerable neighborhoods and populations. Additionally, using business can not only provide direct services by creating jobs and having taxes attribute to community development, but it can reinforce diverse cultural communities by attracting business and lead identical communities to move into the area. I’m encouraged by this approach because we have talked a lot of gentrification and this is the first time I’ve heard of an organization seemingly using gentrification’s medicine against it. It is striving to flip the process on its head and de-gentrify. I quite like that there are so many opportunities to collaborate and approach social issues from various perspectives and methodologies.

Gaps, more gaps, and gaps with compound Interest

A common theme between the organizations we saw yesterday and today were gaps. Gaps between the have and the have-nots, those that perpetuate gentrification and those that are displaced as a result of it. Gaps between what the people who write acts and policies think the homeless need vs what the homeless think they need vs what they actually need. Gaps between services and the people who need them, whether the gap is as a result of result of distance, accessibility, knowledge of the service, and so on. Some of these gaps are as far apart as the outstretched hands of Adam and God in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, and soe are far, far wider and deeper, like the Mariana Trench of Policy.

But I especially want to talk about the gaps between policy and procedure, or as a LA CAN representative said, his arms outstretched, – “left vs right, you know what I’m saying’.” These are gaps between people who are enacting policies and bills and those that those policies and bills are affecting, and that gap is so far removed that the people that are enacting the policies may have genuinely good intentions but have no idea how their actions affect those on the bottom of the totem pole. Likewise, the gap between those that write policy and those that enact it is often a slippery slope because some policies take years to enact, and that process outlives the term of the policy authors. Not only that, but the gap between the authors of the policies and the people implementing the policies are vast since there is no communication between the two. The implementers interpret the policy as they see fit, in ways that are convenient or possible in their realms. A good example of this is the Safer Cities Initiative: the policy that was passed was two-fold, with a component that increased security and police activity on skid row, coupled with a component that would provide more services on skid row. By the time it was implemented, the second half of the initiative was lost. We see the effects of that everywhere we go.

How can we address and diminish those gaps? How can we prevent them from occurring in the future?

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Write Love on her Arms

The violence against women is a an epidemic of rather frightening levels, not only in this country but the world over. The “rape culture” that is prevalent and often reinforced in my home country of India is a problem that we as Indians have done little to solve. There is a certain shame that comes from being recognized as one from a culture that not only pushes down their women but also defends itself for doing it. I personally, have huge issues with how much danger and peril women in India live with each and every day.

One our second day out in L.A , we visited an organization that dealt with violence against women and the measures been taken to overcome these problems. This wasn’t my first experience with violence against women in this country, while completing my undergraduate studies in Minnesota, a certain athlete was accuse photo (1) d of sexually assaulting a woman on campus, and it was a story that made waves within the community but when push came to shove, the administration chose to not suspend or penalize the athlete in any way or form. This behaviour, especially towards persons of celebrity and fame is quite rampant and has occurred much too many times within popular culture, from Kobe Bryant of Los Angeles’ own Lakers to more recently Ray Rice formerly from the Baltimore Ravens NFL team. And in both cases, neither athlete was convicted or incarcerated for any period of time, Ray Rice was suspended from his position on his team but no legal action was taken against him, this is the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in.

The same epidemic which troubles my home country is one that is rampant here too, the culture of men being in a higher and superior place in society than women are and that patriarchy is putting a heavy and terrible weight that only makes the issue more stark. What really struck me about the organization we visited was the approaches to dealing with the issue of sexism and rape culture and going to the source of the problem to try to cure it. One of the social workers at the organization told us about how they looked at the problem in the form of an analogy where there is a river and there are babies floating in it every day, and everyday you ask why are the babies in the river, but one day you realize you want to know where are the babies coming from and why they are in the water in the first place. That’s exactly how the solution for this problem comes around, we have to start questioning why this rape culture is propagated and where it comes from rather than standing idly by while babies float by in the river. It would be unbecoming and even more so shameless, to our fairer and more brilliant counterparts to be put down while we say and do nothing. It would be letting down to all the feminine members in our lives that stood up and fought for us when we couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t know how, so for all of them, our mothers, sisters, lovers, friends, take a stand MANkind, its high time.

I Left My Wallet in El Skid Row-oh

I left my wallet in a bar in Skid Row.

Today I got it back. I got, got it back. Fully in tact.

You could call it the luck of St. Patrick’s Day. Or you could call it for what it is – most people in this world, even in the most run down of communities, are good at heart. To be fair, I left my wallet at a bar in the newly revitalized, swanky part of downtown that isn’t technically Skid Row anymore. It was a bar where the happy hour specials were still a $5 minimum. Regardless, I am grateful for the moral integrity of whoever found it. There were at least 80 dollars in there that could have easily been misplaced.

The wallet story demonstrates my belief that most people, despite all of our contradicting flaws, generally have good intentions. We have visited a variety of social change organizations over the past two days and we have eagerly soaked in their stories. We listened to their challenges as well as their successes, and we have had heated discussions about their work. Skid Row, in particular, is a case in point where a bunch of different services are working to assist and advocate for the same population – the homeless residents. A variety of tactics are being employed with varying degrees of success. All of these individual services – affordable housing, wellness, job training, civil rights training, violence prevention, community beautification, etc. – are desperately needed. However, it seems that they are not communicating or collaborating sufficiently to truly have a collective impact. There are conflicts of territory or funding and there are fundamental belief differences in how to enact long-term systemic change. On one hand it feels frustrating that they cannot work together and combine their collective powers for a common good. On the other hand one questions whether they are better designed to fight independently for their specific niches.

I am inspired by the work I see in community organizing that is giving the local people a legitimate voice and presence in their struggles and successes. This was present in the violence prevention theater programs for youth as well as in the grassroots community network campaigns. Whether it is actively practiced or not, it is increasingly apparent and widely accepted that neither significant nor sustainable change can occur without the buy-in and self-motivation from within the community for whom the change will benefit. Figuring out the best ways to encourage and support this sort of community led change is the part that is uncertain and contested. Each organization is trying to address the problem using their own informed set of theories and belief systems. I cannot say which method is the most effective, but I do see that vilifying the other groups is not productive. The more these organizations can work together – including the government and private businesses – and participate in open, honest, and constructive dialogue, the better the chances are for lasting positive change. There are so many stories and perspectives out there dying to be told. Sometimes all of us just need to follow the advice of Rolando and shut up and listen.

Day Four: Activism

Today we met with three organizations working in downtown Los Angeles on issues of domestic abuse, activism, and immigration. Out of these three, I was least impressed by the organization that focuses on activism and I wrestled all day with why this was. This organization’s form of activism is the very overt and well known form of activism: protests, marches, and the such. For the purposes of conveying my thoughts in this blog, I am going to refer to this form of activism as street activism. During our nightly debrief, I worked out that I wasn’t impressed by this organization because I do not view street activism as particularly effective as other methodologies of conflict resolution or development. I understand the importance of activism and the need for it since it gives a very clear voice for the voiceless, but in regards to achieving the goals of those who are voiceless, I challenge the effectiveness because I rarely see the results. My perspective (and it is not originated by me) is one that is commonly shared by millennials. Why are we so different from our American parents who regularly participated in protests and street activism?

I would like to speak about the reasons for not partaking in street activism and that there various forms of activism besides those on the street. I mentioned above that I don’t believe activism to be the most effective approach to fighting against or for a social condition, but other reasons exist such as apathy and fear (much to lose). Activism is great and I advocate for it because I believe it provides a very clear and loud voice for the voiceless, however, rarely does street activism lead to tangible and obvious results. Results are usually thanks to a collaboration of programs and factors. Moving away from the effectiveness argument, people don’t participate in street activism mostly because they don’t care about the protested issue at hand or they don’t care about the person in need of an advocate. The second reason regards culture and class. There exist a significant portion of people worldwide and the vast majority of Americans who are privileged. This means that they have opportunities and the needed support groups to assist them in time of need. Therefore, the majority of Americans and a percentage of the world, are afraid of what they can lose. They have a lot to lose and will then not do anything to compromise certain opportunities that benefit them.
My second writing point is that street activism is just one form of activism as a whole. Especially in today’s modern era of incredible technology. Twitter and online petition-signing and sharing are strong and influential methods through which many have actively participated in. These websites can and have given global voices to individuals to empower them and accomplish shared goals. Furthermore, activism can look like standing out against the crowd on an important issue to speak your mind despite the opposition that is present.
With these thoughts laid out, I initially thought that I didn’t find activism to be super effective, but I now see how and where it has worked (i.e. Arab Spring). Additionally, I believed that I did not participate in any form of activism since I have never protested or talking with people. However, my friends and colleagues here showed me that I do participate in forms of activism, whether it may work with at-risk youth in Salinas or signing an online petition to stop an oil pipeline. Technology has transformed activism, creating different methodologies of this larger concept. Knowing this, I feel better because I know that I participate in activism and can continue to do something.