2009

by Mike Rhodes/Special to PNN

From Loves and Fishes - advocates for Poverty Scholars in Sacramento

What is this “Tent City” I’ve heard about?

You may have heard about the Sacramento tent city on The Oprah Show or other news media. The encampment that has received the most attention was the largest in the City, but not the only encampment. The “Tent City” has now been shut down by the City of Sacramento. Most of the campers have dispersed to other less visible areas. All of the encampments in Sacramento are informal gatherings of people sleeping in tents or under tarps. They are considered illegal by the City of Sacramento.

What is this “Safe Ground” you keep mentioning?

Safe Ground is a proposed location where the homeless can camp legally with access to basic needs such as running water, toilets, and trash cans. Safe Ground does not yet exist.

What’s the difference between the “Tent City” and Safe Ground?

The “Tent City” was an illegal and informal gathering of homeless campers on an unsafe and unsanitary site. Safe Ground is an organized location where the homeless can camp legally with access to basic needs such as running water, toilets, and trash cans.
A successful Safe Ground incorporates four things:

1. It is self governed. The campers are responsible for maintaining order and enforcing the rules they choose for themselves.

2. It must be sanctioned by the City and County government. The City and County must give permission for the Safe Ground to exist.

3. It has access to basic sanitation – running water, toilets, and trash.

4. It has a non-profit sponsor.

Why do we need a Safe Ground?

There are over 1200 homeless sleeping on the streets each night. All of the emergency shelters are full to overflowing.. The city of Sacramento has an anti-camping ordinance which makes it illegal for anyone to sleep anywhere but designated camp sites. This leaves over 1200 people with nowhere to go at night. Sacramento needs a legalized Safe Ground with running water, restrooms, and trash cans where people have a safe place to sleep at night.

What is the City doing to help?

The city has shut down “Tent City” and forced everyone to relocate. The city has provided the funds to keep the Overflow shelter open until June and added 50 more beds bringing total capacity to 200. The city is also providing funding for 40 more permanent housing solutions which will be available at a future date. While we applaud the city for moving forward and giving more people the shelter and housing they need, we are also appalled that this accounts for only a small percentage of the 1200 people who are homeless and on the streets.

How Can I Help?

Contact Mayor Johnson and let him know you want a legalized safe ground/tent city. His email address is mayor [at] cityofsacramento.org or phone him at 916-808-5300.
Bring donations of Tents, Tarps, Sleeping bags, and backpacks to Loaves & Fishes or other local nonprofits.
Volunteer at Loaves & Fishes or one of the other local nonprofits already serving the homeless.
Join our Action Alert E-mail list to get timely news on how to help.Click Here to go to the sign up form.

Where is Tent City?

Sacramento has had many tent cities over the years. Because they are considered illegal by the city they typically only last for a few months before being shut down by the authorities. The Tent City featured on most media channels has been shut down by the City of Sacramento. Most of the campers have dispersed to other less visible locations.

Can I bring things to Tent City?

The large Tent City has been shut down, and the campers dispersed. Until a legal safe ground with the proper water, trash, and sewer facilities is established bringing food and other items to tent encampments typically results in loads of trash causing health and safety issues. We recommend not bringing things directly to tent encampments but instead to a local nonprofit who is serving the homeless population. Loaves & Fishes, The Salvation Army, The Union Gospel Mission, and Volunteers of America are all serving the homeless population and are well prepared to give out supplies in a safe, organized, and fair manner.

What is Loaves & Fishes doing to help?

Loaves & Fishes has been providing survival services to the homeless since 1982. Because of the proximity of Loaves & Fishes to many tent encampments many of the campers come to us for basic survival services. We serve 400-700 people a hot lunch everyday, provide over 100 showers each day, and have clean fully stocked restrooms available. On our campus are a dozen programs to help homeless people including a school for homeless children, a daytime resource center for homeless women, a medical clinic, mental health program, recovery program , legal clinic and shelter for mentally ill homeless women.

We are a part of the Safe Ground task force, which is actively exploring how and where to set up a Safe Ground. We are also holding a Safe Ground rally on the Capital Steps on April 21 at 2pm.
Loaves & Fishes also advocates on behalf of the homeless by attending city council and county board of supervisors meetings, alerting the public to urgent issues through our Action Alert Email List, fighting for the rights of the homeless, and by organizing marches and rallies when needed.
To Join the Action Alert List Click Here.

Won’t a sanctioned tent city turn Sacramento into a homeless magnet?

Numerous studies of homeless people in Sacramento have shown that overwhelming majority have lived here 5 years or longer. People become homeless in the same community where they once had an income and a home.

Is safe ground the solution to homelessness?

No, the solution is to recognize that housing is a basic human right and commit ourselves to ensuring that all Sacramentans of all income levels can afford a simple home of their own. However, until we reach that goal, we should provide safe ground for those forced to live outside for lack of a better alternative.
For more info go to:http://www.sacloaves.org/safeground/

by Staff Writer

The wind swims through the bamboo stalks like an eel in water

The embers crack and dance in the village fire's glow

The Elders pass their wisdom across the generations

The Children harvest their heritage like the river flows

Their song echos across the summer's tall dancing grass

Stars hang like jewels, each telling a tale of poverty or fortune

At the head of a well worn wooden table sits the wise man

His eyes casting shadows like the rounds of the fullest moon

There is a road that leads in and out of the village old and worn

Gravel ruts crack the crooked line carved with human toil

A thousand miles of hope cake the road like ancient mud

Dreams of a concrete and steel promise without spoil

Child-like dreams hang from the bamboo canopy far above

Out of reach yet close enough to taste their sweet scent

On the jungle's edge a lone mountain cat watches the embers

Connected to the elders through time carefully spent

The Manong guard the midnight fire's crackling roar

Across the darkened jungle the sound cracks like a whip

The conversation colored in hushed and muted tones

As the morning comes their thoughts into silence they slip

The embers die quietly as the blood red dawn shatters the sky

Morning comes with the songs of wives sweetened in sorrow

The blackness of night now muted between the longing hours

The darkness of dreams folded into the creases of tomorrow

The Manong elders watch the dawn turn to the light of day

Their thoughts now drifting to their voluminous days gone past

The untold silence spoken in tongues of ancient thoughts

Each of the elders walks off into the forest their father's cast

They sit and sing of the wise men of the aged Manong

Their tale is told from weathered father to untattered son

The fabled tradition of cultures faded from the great books

Their story forever told yet never completed, forever, never done

Manilla town built from the sweat of broken proud men

Casts shadows from a long gone International Hotel

Whose brick facade once housed the history of his people

Now the ghosts of long gone Manong wander in its cells

The wind blows down the concrete and steel valleys

In a modern village the Manong pass the torch of tradition

As sons walk the walk of the ancient tales from fathers

While mothers pass their stories on well worn Kitchens

by Staff Writer

"I need to see your license and registration," It seems like such a simple question, a routine traffic stop I think it's called. Just another tool of the Criminal UN-justice in amerikkka. So why was I consumed with terror? Why did flashes of grey steel and 18th century locks, urine stained wooden benches and holding cells the size of someone's smallest closet flood every inch of my terrorized brain. Why did my mind go to suicide, homicide or at best, fraud, anything, but go back to jail or more crimes of poverty.

Me and my houseless mama were barely existing in the fringes of Oakland at the time. It was 10:00 pm and we were driving around trying to find somewhere to park and sleep for that night.

The deaths of Lovell Mixon at a routine traffic stop, and the four humans who were part of an ongoing military occupation of Oakland brought back this and several other acts of po'lice terror perpetrated on me, my mama almost all of the other POOR Magazine/PNN staff writers for the sole act of being houseless, poor and of color in Amerikkka.

I did lie to the cops that night and ended up getting an 18 month jail sentence which was later reduced to 18 months probation due to the extremely revolutionary lawyering of an attorney who advocated for poor folks. That said, even with my "lie" our car was seized, I was taken to jail for the 4th time that year, leaving my disabled mama on the street as I was dragged away.

There is constant talk about the fact that Lovell was a "parolee", an ex-offender, a criminal, this knowledge always added to the corporate media stories about the case, seemingly as a way of rationalizing that Lovell's death was less important than the officers who died. This is odd, I thought, considering the murder of three job holding Oscar Grant, whose only crime was coming home from a party on New Years Eve and being African Descendent. Strange that Oscar didn't get flags woven at half mast, a visit from Schwarzenegger and a multitude of corporate media pieces about the histories of genocide by the perpetrators (po'lice) who killed brother Oscar.

The prison industrial complex has created militarized zones out of our communities of color and poor communities leading to the rise in the murder of youth and elders alike everyday. Consider the case of 73 year old, disabled, African Descendent elder, Bernard Monroe of Homer, Louisiana, shot dead earlier this month on his own porch at a family barbeque by white po'lice officers (read: military). His only "crime" was being black, alive and living in racist Amerikkka, in a militarized zone called, "a poor neighborhood."

People have told me not to be so angry, to come with love for everyone, I'm not sure im able to do that, as long there continues to be an undeclared war/attack being perpetrated on poor people of color all across Amerikkka. I don't know what was going on in Lovell's mind, but it has been said that he was afraid to go back to prison and I, for one have been that afraid, more than once.

by SAD BOY

“Another brown motherfucker that I gotta’ get rid of,” is the first thing I heard from the judge as soon as I walked in the courtroom. As soon as I heard this I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew then that I had to deal with racism and somehow put myself together in the short time to deal with this situation and present my case. My brain was storming with all these emotions from blatant racism in the court. I told my lawyer to ask the judge if we could have a five minute recess so I could pull myself together and judge’s answer was no. When my lawyer asked why, the judge’s answer was “I have a lot of criminals like himself to get rid of and they are the reason why this nation is the way it is.”

It took me 11-12 years of emotional abuse from the court systems to actually get my point across. Even though I’m in the country I know I will always be treated as if I was a ghost. As a person of color I have to be strong because they opened my eyes to the reality that all people of color deal with on a daily basis with the judicial system. It took me back to what my mother and father had to go through across the border for two and a half months for my sisters and I to have a better future.

I knew after that trial that my life had changed. One of the changes I had to make was to take advantage of this new opportunity that God had gave me. Instead of getting angry at the judge or the system, one of the ways I would change was to go to school get educated. I can’t imagine the struggles of my ancestors who came before me had to go through. The majority of them speak only spanish and in some cases only speak in dialects which makes them easy targets for abuse.

This has been going on since the 1930’s, where the government would send any person who looked mexican or latino to the farthest parts of mexico making sure that they could not find a way to come back. Blaming the migrant workers or braceros, for their own dirty business practices was common in these days.

Despite the fact that two million peasants lost their lives in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the government failed to provide them the resources needed to improve their lives. By the late thirties, when the crop fields began yielding insufficient harvest and employment became scarce, the peasant was forced to look for other means of survival. The Bracero Program was created in which more than 4 million Mexican farm laborers came to work the fields of this nation.

Even though things have changed we can still see how migrant people are targeted. For example, back in the 90s they tried to pass proposition 187 to take away migrants people’s human rights. Even though I was a little kid back then I still remember how difficult it was for my people to take their children to the hospital.

Because I’ve had this experience I believe that if we fight we can get what is entitled to us. I have also learned that we can empower ourselves and take what is negative and turn it positive. We should all be equal and people should not be marginalized because of the color of our skin.

by Staff Writer

Dear Al --

Im one of your Tule Lake friends, Misa from Oregon. Shizue and I join you and Peter in the morning to do Tai ChI and if at night youre on the piano, we join you there too.

I've got your picture -- you know the one with your finger punching the air emphasizing your words, that one is tacked up on a cherry tree right over our Sacred Fire.

I'll go out to pray every day joining the trees whose arms are already lifted up toward the sun and the birds who are already singing those prayer songs in the morning.

Shizue and I meet on the cell phone and we're sending you long distance Reiki.

I hear you are traveling and don't know where you're traveling but I know you'll let us know when you're well because you never hoard magic. You always share.

I don't know how long the recovery will be but I'll carry prayers to Mt. Shasta, to Winnemem River, to all the sacred places. Just get well soon.

You are brother to so many maybe you don't remember all of us.
But, in case, I'm Shizue's roommate, and you told me to write a poem for Tule Lake and told Shizue to bring her sheet music next time so she can sing while you played. And I've done my homework for you.

Much love and light sent your way.

Love you, Misa (Joo), Oregon

by Johann Hari/UK Independent

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments
would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read
this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of
more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is
sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still
picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains.
They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even
chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most
broken countries on earth. But behind the
arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an
untold scandal. The people our governments are
labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times"
have an extraordinary story to tell - and some justice
on their side.

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In
the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the
idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard
that lingers today was created by the British
government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary
people believed it was false: pirates were often saved
from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did
they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All
Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the
evidence.

If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked
from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry -
you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all
hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you
slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you
with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you
could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or
years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this
world. They mutinied - and created a different way of
working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates
elected their captains, and made all their decisions
collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty
out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian
plans for the disposition of resources to be found
anywhere in the eighteenth century".

They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with
them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and
subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the
brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and
the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes,
despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young
British man called William Scott, should echo into this
new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in
Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to
keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing
to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed.
Its nine million people have been teetering on
starvation ever since - and the ugliest forces in the
Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to
steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear
waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone,
mysterious European ships started appearing off the
coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean.
The coastal population began to sicken. At first they
suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies.
Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped
and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to
suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells
me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There
is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and
mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back
to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be
passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of
cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European
governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh:
"Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation,
and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been
looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource:
seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by
overexploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs.
More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are
being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local
fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a
fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of
Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there
soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the "pirates" have
emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to
dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a
"tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer
Coastguard of Somalia - and ordinary Somalis agree. The
independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70
per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of
national defence".

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and
yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those
who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in
a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders,
Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits.
We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally
fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would
understand.

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on
their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch
us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London
and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes - the
only sane solution to this problem - but when some of
the fishermen responded by disrupting the
transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil
supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised
by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth
century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander
the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by
keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and
responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth;
but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a
robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are
called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets
sail - but who is the robber?

by Staff Writer

Dear Al and fellow Tule Lake Pilgrim,

Misa Joo told me that you are in hospital. I've read the updates about the GBS. As Misa said in her letter, she and I are roomies when we are on the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Me--I'm the one who is actually from Santa Cruz, CA, but everyone thinks I'm from Seattle because I always travel with the Seattle group (my brother is from Seattle).

Misa has done her homework that you gave her. Me--well, let's say that the sheet music is still to be found and decided upon ;-) Earlier, "flyin' high in the friendly sky" was going through my head, Marvin Gaye's song from the What's Goin' On album. Will see if I can figure out how to record a favorite song of mine from childhood and send it to you. The Pilgrimage is just not the same if Peter is not there doing Tai Chi, and if you aren't there to play those jazz standards on the piano. Next time, I'll sing if I know the words (except for My Funny Valentine--heard too many bad covers of it!).

Are you flying through the purple golden rose-petaled skies of the shamanic terrain that most of us only see in dream states? I just know that you are one of the few who sees those skies whether asleep or awake. Al, when you return from your journey, please share the stories with all of us. Before I fall asleep, I'll ask my guardian angels to send greetings via your guardian angels. I placed your name in the healing prayer box at my Qabalah class this evening. And Misa and I will be doing reiki for you. I'll be sending you pink and gold. Whoever is reading this might think this sounds silly--but i know you that you know what I mean, neh!

When you are up and about again, I hope to visit and say "hi, Al! what's what?"

Take care,

Shizue Shikuma

by Byron Gafford/PNN Race and Poverty Scholar

God woke me up at three o clock in the morning, a typical
salutation used by Byron Gafford to greet people in the mornings.
Upon my first introduction with Byron a few months ago, I found him to
be an extremely kind-hearted and friendly man, often with a smile on
his face. The first thing I discovered about him was that he was a
passionate and creative writer. He has written over 80,000 poems and
keeps all of them extremely organized by number, day, and title. He
is a spiritual man who practices positive thinking and enjoys living
life.

On Wednesday, March 25, 2009, he was let go from his position as a
contracted security guard at the George Lucas Building B on 1
Letterman Street in San Francisco, California. Byron was culturally,
racially, and religiously discriminated against based on that greeting
to a female Lucas employee that morning.

"Every day, like I've been doing for the past seven months, when the
employees enter into the lobby I would greet them with Good Morning
and God Bless You and no one ever responded back to me in a negative
way", says Byron. "I greeted everyone the same way. I never knew that
I offended anyone and no one ever mentioned to me that I was offensive
in my greetings to any employees. My supervisors have never expressed
to me that my greetings were inappropriate".

We at Poor Magazine are exposing George Lucas in their blatant
discrimination against Byron Gafford. They have made what Dr. Wade
Nobles defines as a "transubstantive error" by interpreting his
comment as inappropriate, yet they are without explanation or notice
of his termination. They have fired him on an illogical and illegal
basis and we need to put a stop to this hypocrisy. We will not allow
Darth Vader to strike.

Transubstantive error is defined as making a wrong and assumptive
conclusion about a meaning and value of peoples by looking at their
surface behaviors. In the sixties the Assistant Secretary of Labor
Daniel Moynihan was assigned to examine the black family as part of a
welfare study ordained by President Johnson. Upon his assignment he
made a transubstantive error by deeming the black family environment
as, "broken home [that] would cause negative things to occur in the
development of children".

Dr. Nobles is a tenured professor in Black Studies at San Francisco
State University and the Executive Director of the Institute for The
Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture in Oakland,
California. He says that Daniel Moynihan made the first mistake by
interpreting their values and behaviors from his own European culture.

"He draws the wrong conclusion", says Dr. Nobles. "So the entire
time he is examining them, there was this whole notion of families
with womyn without husbands raising children, which he deemed a broken
home".

Dr. Nobles goes on to conclude that, "The mistake he was making was
that the instillation of values in the development of children is not
tied to mother-father linkage, it is tied to a system of eldership.A system of eldership does not believe in just a nuclear family to
raise children, but it is the responsibility of both the immediate and
extended families to raise them, including aunts, uncles,
grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, and so on.
Almost like a hierarchy of eldership, all of these elements contribute
to, improving the development of children. And so you have African
American people behaving in a certain way that is uncommon and
unfamiliar to someone with a European background, and it becomes
misinterpreted and seen as broken, or wrong and less than, thus
causing a transubstantive error.

In this particular incident, the female employee of George Lucas
found Byron's morning greeting to be offensive. However, by her
placing that negative judgment upon Byron, like Daniel Moynihan, she is
committing a transubstantive error. She, as a white womyn with a
Eurocentric background, is deeming Byron's entire cultural value
system as inappropriate as he is a spiritual man and an African
American man.

The day started out as a typical day. Byron started his shift at
6:30 a.m. as a security guard at the George Lucas Building B childcare
lobby. He was contracted by Advanced-Tech Security Services and has
been there since September 9, 2008. By 6:45 a.m., he was at his post
and by 7 a.m., the building was open.

At 7:35 a.m., Byron was at his desk performing his post duties when a
Lucas female employee came into the lobby. As is customary, he greeted her politely and commented that "God
woke me up at three o' clock in the morning". A reference to his late night work schedule.
The female employee departed while Byron continued with his duties.

He continued his day and took his first fifteen-minute break at 8
a.m., lunch at 10:30 a.m., and his third break at 1 p.m. However, at
approximately 1:38 a.m., another ATS guard came and told him that Mike
Mitchell, his employer, wanted to see him. Byron went to Mike's
office upstairs, and his other supervisor Jim was also in the office.
Jim then proceeded to get out of his seat and close the door. When
they were all seated, Mike said that a Lucas employee went to the
people higher up and complained about Byron. She said he told her
that "God woke me up at three ˜o clock this morning". Byron told them
yes, he did say that. Yet without any further explanation, Mike and
Jim responded, "We have to let you go". They took his badge, told him
to leave, and told him that would no longer be an employee there,
leaving Byron unclear about the situation.

This incident is an example of cultural digression and it is illegal.
As stated under Federal Law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 (Title VII), it "prohibits employment discrimination based on
race, color, religion, sex, or national origin". Byron is an African
American man and is a spiritual man, and George Lucas is
discriminating against Byron based on his culture, his race, and his
religion, resulting in the loss of his position. They issued him no
write up or any warning, and prior to this incident Byron had no
complaints on his record.

"George Lucas is a media corporation", says Tiny, editor of Poor
Magazine. "They supposedly produce diverse media, but have judged
and decided on someone else's value system and fired him. Byron is a
writer, he is hard working, he is supporting a family".

Byron Gafford was an innocent bystander caught in a transubstantive
error and was wrongly let go of his position under federal
discrimination and without any legal justification. We need to
combine our forces against George Lucas and expose this hypocrisy
before they strike again in our community.

by Mission Resistors

An Oakland mourning, grayish clouds like the courthouse building.

Looked like a skyscaper to me… As the people walked down the street, they looked scary to me like the building. As I went into the building with my parents to see the judge for his judgment, he sent me to another foster home.

I must have stayed there about 3 weeks before I ran away again. They found me on the streets in the Fillmore with the prostitutes, the pimps and the players of the street life. Everybody used to hang out at Chicken A-Go-Go on Fillmore Street. It was a restaurant for the prostitutes. The prostitutes would give me a dollar to go to school—-for lunch money. They would say, “You make sure you go to school, cuz if you don’t, I’m gonna whip your ass just like your mama. I’m not givin’ away my money for nothing."

They were wearing short mini skirts with high heels. They swayed from side-to-side. I used to sneak into the Fillmore theater all the time, like when James Brown came to town. I’d seen him for free—-and Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. I liked the song, “Please Please Please.” I liked the way he sang it and the way he danced. Sam Cooke would make the women jump up, holler and scream. Back in those days, it was a big dance floor—-everybody would be dancing.

Then I got arrested by a truant officer. I went to Juvenile Hall, then back to court. I then went to a boarding school named Frego Ranch School in San Andreas, California. I tried to run away from there, but instead, got lost and scared. I stayed 6 months at the ranch and later, went back home. I was about 13 years old. I was going to a Jr. High School named Benjamin Franklin for a minute. I would never go to my class and ended up running away from home again. This time, they sent me to Los Angeles to a foster family’s house. I didn’t know anything about LA.

The first day, I arrived at their house, they took us to Disneyland and I was gone again. I ran away... I met a white man going back to S.F. He gave me a ride and dropped me off at the old Greyhound bus station on 7th and Market Street, but the police found me sleeping in the doorway there.

I ended up going back to Juvenile Hall and back to court, when the judge asked me, “What should I do with you?” I answered, “Why don’t you let me live with my real parents?”

He granted it.

by Staff Writer

The eyes are the window. The light talks first in little beams that grow into constellations. So much beauty in the gleam.

Last Wednesday Alfred opened his right eye. That evening Russell asked, "Do you want to go to Chinatown to get some tomato beef chow mein? No words, just one eye, reaching for the sound of his younger brother. Al closed his eyes. Russell asked, Do you want to leave the hospital and go home? He opened his one eye again. Clarity in the look.

The next day two eyes open.

says, Russell. What can I say?

Utopia, Alfred's loving niece says, Al is moving more muscles in his face, including his mouth. Words are never far away with Al. Never have been. Thoughts have already been spoken for, before the tongue becomes familiar.

Muscles move the body and draw the bone. A tingle becomes a twitch, becomes and little motion from here to there in centimeters. The fight against atrophy calls those who know the way. Cliff Young shows how to properly massage Al's hands and arms to increase blood flow to the limbs. Phyllis Wong is doing Reiki, bringing energy to Alfred's body. Atrophy does not stand a chance!

Family and friends stand firm.

The hospital staff say, He is improving... which is very encouraging, but the sweetness of the words comes with an after taste. The elephant is in the room with Al. The cost of healthcare is beginning to communicate, the way it does when it is hungry.

Al's sister, Theresa, has begun talks with the social worker and those in charge of patient care for the hospital. The question is when to move Alfred out of ICU? Already the money! Already the costs, but we all know this is the price of living in the world the way it is. The other side of recovery comes with accountants, as blood pressure becomes a line item and the journey back sees the landscape of our common dilemma: how much does it cost to heal?

Al will be moved from ICU in a couple of weeks. That is the plan and the tubes will not follow.

These are the days of recovery now, the days we have been waiting for.

People, community, friends, have been the strength for Al and family: help when needed, responding to the call, giving room, and sending love with words and prayers. Amazing. It is all so amazing.

Nancy Hom says, Al brings out the best in all of us, even when he sleeps.

by Byron Gafford

A Lucas Art employee

That God woke

Me up at 3 o'clock

In the morning

That day.

With any warning

From anybody I

Didn't know that

What I had

Said to her that

She hated God

That much.

That at 1:38pm

I had to lose

My job over

Me thanking God

For waking me

Up this morning

3-25-09 like I

did every morning.

by Mission Resistors

When the judge granted the department of human services their request that I take a psych evaluation, my heart dropped. I felt betrayed by people in authority. I felt like my world was ending. I felt numb all day. I felt there was a conspiracy to take my children from me and my life was in their hands. I had to obey every thing that they said. As a mother I felt the need to protect my children like an animal that protects their children, but I was human trying to protect my children from the very system that tried to take them away from me. Should I take the psych eval? And let them take my children? Or should I go and get my own psych eval and compete with them? I didn’t want to jeopardize anything. I was afraid like prey that’s been caught in a trap, and knowing nothing but to protect my children. When I looked at the judge, Judge Gargano, I knew in my heart that he was going to grant the request. I looked at him looking at me with his piercing eyes like he was cutting me in two, section by section, saying “You little black nigger, you better shut up or else I will ruin your whole life. You have no rights and you cannot fight us.” I felt nervous I felt like I was by myself even though there were people around me. There was no one I could turn to.

I looked a the judge with his old, pale white face and he reminded me of Scrooge. He was wearing a black cape like the grim reaper. They had no reason, no explanation. Just because I was a mother I went to the right people to ask for help, yet they turned on me. I started talking to some people I thought that I could trust. The very people I thought that would help me: the dept of human services, the judges, the city attorney turned against me. I had to go get help from the Center for Exploited Children. I brought every piece of paeprwork, every doctor’s note, every school papoer from my children, I went to my church talked to my pastor. I went to go see my faimly doctor to ask her to write a note about my character. I asked anyone that knew me or loved me or cared about me to write a note about my character as a parent, as an advocate and I also took my foster child’s paperwork from when I got her even before she was born—-I had them all. I took it to the National Center of Exploited Children, finally someone to listen to me I thought. He put all of that together, read every paper, every doctor’s note, every teacher’s letter, my doctor’s letters, he put it all together in a document. I had another court date to go to finalize the psych eval and I took that paper to my next court hearing. I was told that if I didn’t take a psych eval and went against court orders, I would be placed in jail. I thought that was another tactic to take my children.

They say the squeaky wheel gets oil--I needed to keep talking. So I took that document frm the National Center of Exploited Children to my court hearing and filed it for the judge to see. And to my surprise, it was pandamonium. They said, “Where did you get this from?” I said there is a name there and I said, “I am not taking a psych eval.” There my story started getting worse. I was not afraid as I was before. I didn’t go to jail. They didn’t take my children. They were bluffing me all along to take a psych eval to use their own people, not allowing me to use my own.

But with that, I went through all kinds of horrible things with the system. During that time I hired an attorney named Craig Martin.

He was the only person that I could talk to that I knew could rattle the judge’s mind and authority more than I could. So all I could think was put myself in survival mode for my children because my children are my life and no one could love them like I could. With that, I decided to let him touch me in places I didn’t want to be touched. But as time went on, it got worse. He did what he was supposed to do and do the paperwork and go to court but he used it against me for the simple fact that I was a poor mother with no money. But I thought I was paying him enough with my rent money, grocery money, anything to keep his hand off of me. But that didn’t help. But then I would think about my children and I let him do these things to me. During that time he grew angrier and angrier at me. I tried to tell anoher judge that my own attorney was raping me because I was scared that if I let him go I would lose my children.

by Staff Writer

Paying Respect

(For Al Robles)

Shhhhhh listen with your heart

Brown Yellow, Red

voices of color

Rising us up from boxes

people put us in

Yes, I'm Black

feeling activist elders from all ethnic cultures

Combining communities

Through the arts

Black, Chicano, Asian, Native, Women Gay Arts Movements

From Manilatown to Motown

Homo-Hop to Krip-Hop

Koreatown, Chinatown to Chocolate City

Walking Down These Mean Streets

With Piri Tomas, Gil Scott Heron & Al Robles

Spoke political poetry

Real artists\activists

California Hotel residents learning from I Hotel legacy

Black elders strateg izing with Asian elders

Robles left a foundation

Of self-reliance

planting seeds that left POOR with homefullness

collective ownership

_______________________________

Peoples culture versus American medical system

Breaking up families

Kids in foster care

elders in nursing homes

Lost of kinship no wonder we die early

...........................................................

Folk lyrics of justice by Chris Lijima

Mixing with 2009 Hip-Hop by Blue Scholars

A Song For Ourselves

Burn Hollywood burn

As we write and film our stories

In post production for more than thirty years

No more ties to foundations that had ties to the economy of plantations

Untie the knots that keep our art and stories like

Manilatown Is In The Heart..

In endless production

Passing It On wrote Yuri Kochiyama

"Gave up dancing to become a revolutionary" said Bill Sorro

When Will The Time Come? Sang Bambu

Rapping with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark with Uncle Al Robles

Ted Nakamura, Trinh Minh-ha, Raeshem Nijhon

Pointing their lenses on his/herstories for the big screen

Noemi Sohn, Mia Mingus mixing identity & politics of race, sex & disability

on paper in lecture halls and on protest lines

Grace Padaca serving her people and country in the Governor's Mansion

Aiming to be the first disabled woman president of the Philippines

The smells of San Francisco

Black-eye Peas, Burritos, Lumpia MMMMMMMM

Forms a cloud of aroma around the Bay

Dissolving boundaries following your nose

Into different neighborhoods

Meeting the real policy makers cultural workers

Uncle AL's' spirit will always be around Maniltown

Like the sounds of great jazz musicians

Echoing through the Fillmore at 2am

With Sakeone on the cheek cheek- turntables

Remember Richard Aoki, A field marshal for The Black Panther Party

Not your average Asian, donated first defend weapons for police patrols to the BPP

Afro-Asian, Latino-Cuban, Puerto-Rican Tribes, Afro-Haitians

Jessie Jackson didn't create the concept of the Rainbow coalition more like Fred Hampton

So I stand here in the oral tradition

Continue to learn from my elders

Beyond institutional walls

Paying respect to Al, Bill, Chris, Yuri ...

A rainbow of Revolutionary spirits in the sky going back home

By Leroy F. Moore Jr.

by Wendy M. Fong

I was born in Santa Clara, California and my first language was Cantonese. I think my first word was “nay,” or milk, because I used to drink a bottle of milk everyday for breakfast. I remember at four years old telling my mom I wanted to "sake phan," or "eat food," while running around the kitchen squeaking and stomping on the emerald tiles in my yellow mouse slippers. Thirteen years later, everyday conversations of "jo san, ney ho?", "sai woon," and "ho liang" became “good morning, how are you,” “wash the dishes” and “very pretty” overnight. We only spoke English. I did not realize what exactly had happened. When did we stop speaking Cantonese? I could barely even remember how to say “sock.” What happened to our language? How did Cantonese slowly disengage itself without any of us realizing that English had conquered our home?

Lori Phanachone was born in California, moved to upstate New York, and a few years ago ended up in Storm Lake, Iowa at Storm Lake High School. She is daughter to migrant parents from Laos and an honors student. Upon enrollment in the beginning of her sophomore year, she received straight A’s, including an A in English. However also upon enrollment and without her knowledge, she was classified as an English Language Learner (ELL) based solely on the fact that she listed “Laotian” as her first language instead of English.

Later that school year, Lori was given an English Language Learner test, which is used to access a student’s progress in English every year. She took the test and answered everything correctly. However, she was still never aware that she was classified as an ELL.

During the following eleventh grade year, she was tested again. In protest, Lori completed the test by filling in all C’s. When she turned in the exam early, she was forced to wait on solitary confinement for more than three hours before being excused. Under Iowa law, if a student is classified as an ELL, they are allowed to monitor him or her for a few years to track their progress. Yet the process was not clear on how a student is considered an ELL in the first place. Also under Iowa provision, students who are bound to be proficient in English are supposed to be technically accessed, but again this process was not clear on whom or not requires this provision. Although Lori did well on the test her sophomore year, Storm Lake misapplied Iowa law by classifying her as ELL because she listed Lao as her home language.

This year is Lori’s senior year, and they asked her to take the test for a third time regardless of her 3.98 GPA and high marks in all her classes— all of which are taught in English. She refused to take the test and was suspended from school for three days. They also did not give a formal written notice of the suspension. When someone is suspended, Storm Lake High School is required to give a written notice before it occurs. They have also threatened to take away her eligibility for scholarships, and participation in school activities including track team, prom and other extracurricular activities; then proceeded to revoke her National Honor Society Membership.

“The school did not access Lori's actual abilities and needs. They made no effort to test her English proficiency formally through a test or informally through an interview,” said Khin Mai Aung, Lori’s the staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). They merely based it on the fact that English was not listed as her native language on her enrollment application.

Presently the story is ongoing. “Storm Lake labeled me an English Language Learner when I enrolled without even bothering to test me. All I want is to continue my education without the school labeling me unfairly,” said Lori. AALDEF demands that Storm Lake High School remove all disciplinary action from her school records, assure in writing statements of further discipline also be removed, written clarification of Storm Lakes’ procedure for classifying a student as an ELL, clarification on how the school assessed Lori as ELL, and Lori’s status to be adjusted as a student proficient in English. “School districts need to have assessments that make sense and are based on students' actual abilities rather than broadly categorize based on blunt criteria,” said Khin.

As of Friday, April 8, 2009, Storm Lake School District reclassified Lori as English proficient and restored her National Honor Society membership. However, the other requests are still pending.

by Mission Resistors

It came without warning!

I was going to be homeless with nowhere to sleep but the unpreditible streets of San Francisco, filled with drug addicts, mentally ill patients turned away from treatment centers, and roving bands of gangsters vying for turf space.

There had been a full-blown shoot out in front of Ella Hill the previous Fall, and a murder inside the shelter itself a couple months earlier, a man shot during an afterschool basketball game in front of his young daughter.

Ella Hill Hutch, the shelter I had stayed at for the last 1,000 days
was being shut down, the staff member at the front door informed me
as I entered that cool night last Spring.

“Can you believe that?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

I could hear the fear in his voice and realized that it not only meant that we would be losing our place to sleep, but he would be losing his job as well.

“We have a petition over there on the table you can sign if you want to try to keep the place open,” he said.

by Staff Writer

Dear Uncle Al

I remember when

you was telling me stories

about the many manongs

and the carabaos

and fish soups

and singing

and the blondies

all traveling in the mish mash

memories

somewhere

like radio waves

invisible

at manilatown

and beyond.

they carry traces

of their history

and the tears

were the burden

of the futures

they were building

like the many seeds across

the American west

and floating across the

Pacific ocean.

Dear Uncle Al

thanks for the stories

you tell

to make sense of

the criss cross

mish mash lives of

young pinay plant

growing from roots

tangled

across different land masses

in the Pacific.

Ellen-Rae

by Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia, co-teacher, poverty scholar and daughter of Dee

My name is Vinnie and I make a living with this," his hands were small and Columbian--coffee brown, each finger rippled with the struggle of homelessness, racism and poverty as he carefully unfolded a 12-inch cardboard sign upon which was meticulously printed black letters stating Starvin Like Marvin. (A reference to one of the famous sayings of middleweight boxing champion Marvin Hagler.)

The indigenous circle of multi-lingual, multi-generational and multi-racial, youth, adults and elders in poverty who produce news rooted in community struggle, art and resistance known as Community Newsroom at POOR Magazine busted into laughter of joy and appreciation at the sight of his sign. Vinnie stayed quiet as his sharp, chocolate eyes scanned the room. Then slowly, tentatively, the corners of his mouth seemingly frozen in a serious stillness lifted to reveal a broad and beautiful smile. He shook his head in tandem with the laughter, and just for a miraculous second, almost unseen, barely caught, Vinnie seemed carefree.

In a powerful collaboration between The Race, Poverty Media Justice Institute (RPMJ) at POOR Magazine, Intersection for the Arts and the Mission Community Council, I and other poverty scholars in residence at POOR Magazine were blessed to meet Vinnie H, Carmen C, Jennalyn S, Rhonda C, Jon T, Carlos L, Raymundo S and many more folks that we at POOR consider poverty, race, migrant, gender, elder and/or youth scholars engaged in different forms of unrecognized micro-business (panhandling, recycling, day laborers, sex work, mothering) and survival.

Through this collaboration, entitled Mission Resistance as it focused specifically on mission based organizations and communities, folks like Vinnie were exposed to the revolutionary concept of poverty scholarship itself, launched by POOR's RPMJ, which honors and recognizes the scholarship of youth, adults and elders in poverty for the knowledge they hold, have earned and continually learn from lives of struggle.

Starting with the first magical day in March, POOR's RPMJ led over 35 scholars from several non-profit organizations such as Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, Delores Street Community Services, La Raza Centro Legal, the Iris Center and St Joseph's Center through an intensive bi-lingual media, arts and organizing workshop in creative writing basics, media literacy, media justice, journalism and poverty scholarship called The Revolution Begins with I.

Your 'I' stories of struggle and survival, to stay housed, to stay employed, to feed your children, to fight systems that are in place to support you and often do the opposite, to find shelter, to keep your families safe and your children educated are valid and significant stories, important community media, and what we at POOR/PoorNewsNetwork consider revolutionary truth media, RPMJ co-teacher and co-editor, Tony Robles explained to the Mission Resistance class on the first day.

I have struggled to be housed with no help from most of the services supposedly in place to help homeless people,Jon T, began his RPMJ I am exercise tentatively, wondering out loud if his story of struggle was valid, or was in fact even media...By the graduation ceremony of Mission Resistance 8 weeks later, he presented his story to get housed, fight eviction and eventually become permanently housed as a story of resistance and triumph.

Your stories of struggle can cause change, can be tools of change, my experience of struggle with the welfare system has helped to change legislation that works against poor parents like me,� co-teacher, poverty scholar and welfareQUEEN Vivien Hain inspired the class with her own poverty scholarship and media resistance.

�I was profiled, stopped and questioned just for being a brown man on my way to get a job,� David M, a soft-spoken young man spoke at the third class of Mission Resistance, barely looking up from his small cup of hot tea. Working three jobs just to save money for housing, David was silently dealing with homelessness and racism while receiving services from Dolores Street Community Services. In addition to the actual struggle related to poverty, David was dealing with a silent and more brutal conflict, the shame associated with poverty, a shame that inhibits dreams, destroys hope and kills spirit. By the last class, a confident and focused David addressed the Newsroom with the subject of his investigative journalism project: �I want to write about the impact of budget cuts on mental health services for poor people of color in the Bay Area,� he concluded without looking down.

Los Viajes/The Journeys - the Mission media of migration

�La revolucion comienza con migo!� (The revolution Begins with �I�) called out Guillermo Gonzalez, co-teacher of the Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia program at POOR Magazine and coordinator of the Los Viajes project at POOR Magazine, a literary and audio anthology of peoples migration/immigration across borders all over the world.

Los Viajes was the concurrent project of Mission Resistance led by POOR Magazine migrant scholars. Taught in Spanish to migrant & poverty scholars from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Laos, the Carribean and beyond, this project incorporated the revolutionary �I� curriculum as well as beautiful stories of peoples' journeys across borders and lands to help support their families and folks. Through literary and visual art, this project also introduces the UN declaration on Indigenous Peoples � a new lens on migration to migrant communities in the Bay Area and will continue with several workshops and performances until a formal release in September in tandem with the anniversary of the signing of the UN declaration on Indigenous Peoples.

�Yo soy madre inmigrante de tres hijos,� (I am an immigrant mother of three children) Carmen, one of the members of Colectiva de Mujer of La Raza Centro Legal read an excerpt of her journey to the audience at the Mission Resistance graduation ceremony on April 8th. Carmen, who is struggling to feed her children as a working poor migrant mama, added with pride after reading her work of literary art and media resistance. �And, I, am a Poverty Scholar.�

Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia, poet, revolutionary journalist, poverty scholar, welfareQUEEN, co-founder and executive Director of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork and daughter of Dee, is the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America published by City Lights. She is also the Communications Director for Justice Matters.

POOR Magazine is a non-profit grassroots, arts, organization that provides media access, art and advocacy to youth, adults and elders in poverty in the Bay Area as well as on-site child care and arts education for children through the Family Project For more information about POOR Magazine�s ongoing media, arts and organizing project go on-line to www.poormagazine.org and for more information about our education program for educators, professionals and community members at the Race, Poverty Media Justice Institute go on-line to www.racepovertymediajustice.org.

by Mission Resistors

It didn't occur to me that the young, black, self-proclaimed thug whose girlfriend I owe three dollars was about to cowardly strike me from behind with a wooden baseball bat. The back of my head and throughout my body was almost without life.

Over three dollars.

I lay there, trying to protect my face. The Barry Bonds of Mission St. continued to reach the all-time record. As the blood and beating continued, the fans accumulated and just stood in awe.

That's all they did.

He finally walked off with a silent standing ovation. He had the nerve to return moments later to say I was making the block hot.

I couldn't move. Warm blood poured over the back of my head, neck, back. I thought my arms and legs were broken. A prostitute helped by putting pressure on my wounds to stop the bleeding from my head. Paramedics soon arrived and asked me to get up on the gurney. They spoke to each other as if around an office cooler.

They released me that night.

I returned and gingerly, but purposely, walked the same block where the incident occurred. As the fans accumulated, I signed no autographs except for one, the prostitute who possibly saved my life.

by Staff Writer

Waking Up in Hopi

In the physical world, we saw each other only twice.

Once when I was not awake.

Once when I woke up.

Now I never see you in the physical world.

But you are always there.

Do you remember when I woke up, there on the Mesa at Hopi?

How funny that I was to find the fish and the rice right there, on that Mesa in
Arizona

But why not,

You were by my side, you and Jayo, Lou and Eddie.

All of you Manongs were right there by me.

It was no wonder I woke up.

Now you are asleep, resting, taking a break,

But, you are awake even when you are asleep.

You are still laughing, I hear you laughing and being so funny


I hear you asking me if I am writing.

I tell you I am, but I don’t have a lot of time.

You ask me, “You go to the bathroom, don’t you? Just write on the toilet paper.”

You laugh.

I write.

It scares me Al, where you might go.

Then I remember, you are no going anywhere.

The fish and the rice are inside me,

The mandolin is inside me

My father is inside me

You are inside me.

That’s just how it is

I love you Manong, I love you.

Pinay Kay