Category Archives: April

In the whirlwind of returning from LA, writing our magazine articles, and preparing for our presentation with the Mindanao group (not to mention catching up on other coursework), I felt like there wasn’t enough time to truly decompress and reflect on the experience.  In fact, over a month after the fact, it is something I am still processing…

Like most things, I would have preferred to have more time to work with the two groups – LA and Mindanao – to create a more cohesive and rehearsed presentation.   Time constraints necessitate urgency sometimes and all things considered, I think we pulled it off smashingly.  If there is anything I have learned from my years as a performer it is that somehow – despite an incomplete dress rehearsal or maybe because of it – when the audience arrives and the lights come up, people rally and the show comes together.  Somehow.  I would say that our combined trip presentation: Violence Explained and Peace Explored was a MIIS event success.  I received only positive feedback from the attendees and not only the obligatory congratulations kind.  I had audience members, including faculty, tell me they were glad they came because it reminded them to re-visit these conflict laden issues that are often swept under the rug at MIIS.  Moreso than any performance aspects, the ability to make the audience reflect and continuing reflecting to the point of enacting change is a marker of accomplishment.  After all, wasn’t gathering stories to share with others and initiate an ongoing dialogue one of the main goals of the trip?  In this sense, I feel quite proud of our work.

On the other hand (there is always an other hand isn’t there?), due to the hastiness and contrived nature of the presentation, it also felt a bit disingenuous.  Partly, I felt like our story was more the voices of a dominant few and not a platform for everyone involved to speak.   More problematic for me was the feeling that our narrations, as well as our answers to the audience questions, were scripted, filtered and/or embellished for appearance sake.  I regret that we didn’t talk about the more raw, uncomfortable and conflicting issues that arose on our trip.    For me, it reduced the experience to feeling sterilized and censored instead of alive and authentic.

In a way, this conflict I have about feeling both hopeful and fake about the experience captures one of the core conflicts from our trip.  I think many of us felt hopeful and inspired to see so many NGOs hard at work providing critical services to their communities.  At the same it was disappointing to see so many Band-Aid approaches without real systemic change.  The non-profit organizations all put on a positive, high quality show when we, the audience, came to visit.  But what really goes on behind the scenes with the funders, the inner office conflicts and the ethical dilemmas was outside our privy.  We can all talk the good talk and put on an engaging, well intentioned show, but beyond the gaze or judgment of others, both individually and institutionally, we are all in flux, conflicted and ultimately driven by selfishness and fear.  Until we can openly and honestly admit and discuss these not-so-nice motivations that we all experience, we will not progress beyond the surface cordiality of discourse.

Throughout our course in Los Angeles we visited a wide variety of organizations working tirelessly on the ground to make a change in their communities.  In Skid Row we toured long-term single room occupancy affordable housing and we visited the short term homeless shelter where cots line the wall as if on an assembly line.  We discussed the violence perpetrated against women and men both domestically and in state sponsored institutions such as prison.  We heard first hand stories from former gang members and prisoners, both young and old.  We spoke in depth with neighborhood advocates exploring alterative ways to invest in their neighborhoods without displacing the residents.

According to the 2000 Census Los Angeles is the most diverse city in the United States.  It’s demographic is predominantly Latino (47%) followed by white (30%), African American (11%) and Asian (10%).   The population of LA is about 10 million residents, one-third of which are foreign born immigrants.  L.A. is a home of transplants trying to find their slice of the American pie.  Some have made it big but most are simply trying to survive.  LA exists in the extremes of the rich and famous and the severely poor, creating a huge disparity in income, opportunity, political voice, access and race.

Even though we were unable to visit all 3,000 non-profits of L.A. county during our brief visit,  among the handful of groups that we had the fortune to visit, there was a distinct and reoccurring theme that emerged.  Race.  Racism is still an ongoing struggle in L.A. county, and the country for that matter.  It isn’t necessarily the blatant, aggressive racism; it is the more subtle, systemic discrimination that is harder to extinguish.   Many of the activists we spoke with referred to the history of marginalization, ill conceived policies, and the growing disparities between whites and people of color.  There was a palpable distaste and frustration with the majority white man designed social status quo.

Full disclosure here, I am white.  Several of us in the group were.  Whenever I heard these negative statements made toward the generalized white population I made the conscious choice not to be offended or embittered.  As a privileged white person in America these grievances deserve to be heard without a defensive stance or a rational white perspective explanation.  Besides, for the most part, although not always, I agreed with their criticism.  What impressed me the most is that they were open and willing to invite me into their communities, into their safe spaces, and share their stories with me.  Me, a gringa, a person who in all appearances looks exactly like the enemy.

With the wealth of new knowledge and empathy acquired from our experience in LA, I am left with the lingering question, what can I do as a gringa, as a living contribution to the problem, to support the oppressed minorities of L.A., and elsewhere, in America?  As an educator I am committed to working with youth and fighting for equal access and opportunity.  Yet I also recognize that a student of color will always relate better to a mentor from the same neighborhood who has experienced the same struggles and discrimination.  And that is how is should be.  I don’t ever want to be that white woman coming into a community telling them how to run things.

What I do want to be is an an ally.  An advocate.  A friend.  And a sounding board.  I want to continuing sharing the stories they entrusted to me within my own community.  I can do this in a respectful manner that facilitates ongoing dialogue and progress.  But perhaps one of the most important things I learned on this trip is that, as a white person, I need to sit back, shut up, and truly listen.

“This age group is under siege.” – Mentor from Fair Chance

As an educator I was particularly moved by the organizations we visited who are working to empower the local youth.  There are many ways to tackle the roots of violence and reaching out to youth – who are often the most vulnerable  – is a proven and powerful way to disrupt the cycle.  At the Youth Justice Coalition we spoke with youth leaders who have been directly impacted by incarceration.  Through the initiatives of the YJC, they are using their first hand experiences and knowledge to actively change the policies that adversely effect them and their communities.   Listening to their stories was intensely moving and I am grateful for their willingness to share them to a bunch of note-taking strangers.

Most of us, at least those with at least a smidgen of national awareness and compassion, understand that our system of mass incarceration is deeply deeply flawed.  The school to prison pipeline is documented and real.  The youth – particularly those of color from poor neighborhoods – are not given an equitable chance to succeed.  In the Boyle Heights neighborhood we were told that the local public high school, Roosevelt, has only about a 50% graduation rate.  This is deplorable.   Furthermore, the lack of developmental support manifests into disruptive behaviors.  The gangs become a place to release their young, undirected anger at the world.  It is an anger that stems from being neglected, being belittled, and from being oppressed.  It is an alternative to suicide or hurting others.  Instead, as Alex from Homies Unidos explained, “we agree to take our anger our on each other because we are both part of the same bullshit.”  This is a simplified, yet deeply poignant, description of what transpires.

The education and incarceration systems still have a long way to go in order to reach something that resembles justice, but the programs we witnessed are making dents in the offensive structures.  From restorative justice circles to community radio – they are each employing a variety of creative tools to engage and empower youth.  As Omar, a mural artist, educator, and civil rights activist in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, reminded us, there is something about the process of creation that is really important for change.  The process of research, history building, design, discussion, and collaborative action leads to a discovery of meaning.  The transformation of the person, and the community, becomes an “unintended consequence of the aesthetic.”

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.

Before today, my imprinted impression of a place called “Skid Row” was the song from the musical Little Shop of Horrors:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0kSBiu1IGk

In the scene from the movie adaptation Skid Row takes place in NYC, but I get the impression that the feelings and the struggles are the same no matter which Skid Row you visit.  And, well, we sure visited it today.  We walked through the main drag over four times traversing from one social service organization to another.  Early in the morning the streets were fairly quiet and sleepy.  By midafternoon, the community had come alive.

Community is the word that sticks in my mind from today.  Adam told us before we left that the 50 square blocks of severe poverty and homelessness known as Skid Row is very much a community.  I distinctly felt this communal atmosphere as I strolled through the neighborhood.  There was a palpable familiarity and comfort level between the residents.  People were shooting the breeze, joking around with each other, and straight chilling.  There were convivial regulars and accepted sections of sidewalk real estate.  This insider knowledge was most apparent in contrast to our own group.  We clearly didn’t belong.  My first time walking down the street I felt quite uncomfortable.  As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the way I imagined I would feel.  I was tense and closed off, yet trying my best to play it cool.  No one treated us badly or gave us nasty looks – quite the opposite, most residents were pleasantly friendly.  And, in fact, by my third or forth time passing through I began to feel more and more comfortable.  I recognized the corner store, the sidewalk hustlers, and the mural art work.

Upon deeper reflection I can now see my initial discomfort as a reflection of my own values preconceived notions, and not about the reality of the inhabitants.  At the same time I also imagine that the community members of Skid Row must be a bit territorial.  Even though I felt no maliciousness, I couldn’t help but think that the people I passed must get some small pleasure from labeling me as an outsider.  This community is perhaps the only place they have ever belonged anywhere and as such they feel protective of their space.  Myself, and our group, represent the status quo of society – a place they have never fit in.  It must be refreshing for the tables to turn and to witness the privileged, adjusted class feel insecure and unwelcome.  I am not even sure it is a conscious thought, but I feel like that power dynamic reversal must be cathartic in some way.  This strong sense of belonging and not feeling judged also helps explain why so many residents choose to stay on the streets even though they have other options.

View of downtown from the Skid Row STAR apartment balcony (efficiency apts for the homeless)