Story Archives 2000

by Tony Robles

I’m at work sitting across the desk from my co-worker Solo. His eyes are tired and watery. He leans back in his chair awash in the overhead florescent light. “I want to go back home”, he says. He speaks of the tsunami that hit his homeland on Sept. 29th and the image he saw of a slipper floating on water on TV. Four 15-foot waves triggered by an undersea earthquake hit the island of American Samoa, waves crashing into everything in its wake a mile inland. We sat and watched the images together, images of wrecked boats, cars, destroyed houses. The reports indicated that the tsunami had destroyed all low-lying areas and struck too rapidly for a full evacuation. He pointed out places he knew, like the local fishery and parking lot. “I want to go back and help my people”.

I met Solo a few months ago. I remember when he walked through the door for the swing shift. I thought he was Filipino. He was about 6 foot 2, 220 lbs. I’m Filipino. Sometimes I wish I was 6’4”, 220. We work as security guards at an apartment complex in the city. Our uniforms are the same—jacket with fur collar, polyester shirt, badge and shoulder patch with some kind of Celtic symbol. We worked a few days when I asked him, “What are you?” “I’m Samoan”, he said. Some of the residents at the complex tell him he looks like the wrestler known as “The Rock”. That makes him laugh. I don’t respond. We spend our shift communicating on a 2-way radio. Lots of static on that radio.

A couple weeks ago I was drinking coffee. The TV was on and the coffee fumed as the images passed over the screen: people in water, neck deep; children and elders hovered together on buildings, people wading through mud and debris; elders and mothers looking up to the sky amidst the destruction of their communities, their homes. Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines on September 26th bringing a month’s worth of rain in just 6 hours. Manila was covered in water. I’ve never been to the Philippines. My grandparents left our indigenous homeland in the 1920’s. I speak no Filipino but I feel Filipino. I recall my cousin saying to me, “You couldn’t make it in the P.I.”. He used to be in the Navy.

Solo sits across from me, the light reflecting on a desk that cannot hide its scratches. We take our break in the guard office. On the wall to the left is a map of San Francisco; in back is a map of the world.

“Eat” Solo says in a way that reminds me of family. He brings food in Tupperware containers: ham, pineapple, chicken, rice and fish. “Eat” he says again, gesturing for me to take as much as I want. The way he shares is food is Filipino. He lets me take a helping first. Then he serves himself. He then walks to the soda machine and buys drinks for both of us. I tell him he eats like a Filipino. He puts the rice in his mouth and we share our laughter. I wonder if he thinks I laugh like a Samoan.

“Back home I go fishing”, Solo says. With a spear and snorkel and flashlight”. He talks about catching lobster and fish. He says that when the fish are caught, he first shares it with his neighbors, then brings the rest home to his family. Solo is from a big family of 8—5 boys and 3 girls. To share is part of Samoan culture. “Back in Samoa, if you walk in front of another person’s house, they call you in to eat. We are a sharing people, a giving people. In Samoa, people respect the elders, here they don’t care”.

We finish eating and walk around the apartment complex we are hired to guard. It’s time to close the swimming pool. Many folks in the pool are young, many are white and from Orange county, among other places. They sometimes sneak into the pool, their form of entitlement. We tell them that the pool is closed. Through the trees we can see the moon. Solo looks at the blue water of the pool. “Back home in Samoa, the water is deeper than this”, he says.

Solo works 2 jobs. He’s tired much of the time. He sends money back home to his wife. His other job is doing security at a hotel. He sees young girls, drunk, late at night during all night parties. Where are their mothers, he asks. Back home in Samoa, the young do not leave their parents. The families stay together.

Solo came to the US 3 years ago from American Samoa. His uncle is pastor of a church in the city. Solo came to help with the church. He is the Sunday school coordinator, plays guitar and serves breakfast to the elders in the congregation (oatmeal, hot bread and cocoa rice). He loves to sing. His baritone is rich. He’ll sometimes sing that old song, “The Green Grass of Home”. I asked him why his homeland is called American Samoa. He paused and said he didn’t know. There are 2 Samoa’s he says, Western (Independent) and American Samoa. Sometimes he and his friends ponder the question but those moments come and go. It is a legacy similar to the Filipino experience: colonization and displacement from lands. American Samoa is considered an American territory (it is the size of Washington DC), land that was divided between the Germany and the US. There was an indigenous resistance movement to the colonization but was suppressed by the US Navy. A committee was sent to “investigate” the status of American Samoa, a committee made up of the same people involved in the overthrowing of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

We sometimes sit in his car and he’ll play music from back home. The songs are in Samoan and praise the creator. I went home and found a Samoan radio station online called, “Showers of Blessings”. I think of the downfall in the Philippines, one month’s worth of rain in 6 hours. The music is beautiful like the music in Solo’s car.

We go back to the security guard office and sit at the desk. We talk about the typhoons that have hit the Philippines and Samoa, and Indonesia. He wants to go back home more than anything. On the radio a commercial for the California lottery comes on. “If I won the lottery, I’d take the money and rebuild all the houses”, he says. His family moved to high ground on the island. Many have died. The airport was shut down and roads and communication have been severely damaged.

He told me the story of an old woman in a wheelchair. The younger one’s were trying to move her to safety. The woman told them, “Leave me, just go. I know that it is God’s love. That water is God’s love touching me”. A field supervisor for the Security Company that employs us, also Samoan, told me that the Samoan people survive because of their love for and faith in God. Big people, big heart, she said. We sat for a while, not saying anything. Then we got up and went on our patrol.

To help our brothers and sisters in Samoa, send your contributions to POOR Magazine, 2940 16th Street #301, San Francisco, CA 94103

by Kaponda

An eerie hush passed through the grandiose structure
as Scott and I walked through the doors of the
building at Dr. Carlton Goodlet Street. We had
planned to seize the area bordering the space inhabited
by the Mayor and, therefore, arrived 15 minutes
earlier than his scheduled press conference.

Shrouded in secrecy the entire week, the homeless
voucher plan had been expected to be announced by
Mayor Willie Brown during his press conference on
Friday, March 24, 2000. Advocates of the homeless
had interpreted these private meetings of City officials
as veiled threats.

The homeless voucher plan (hereinafter, "the plan"),
according to inside information, features elements
similar to the ill-fated initiative set forth by Earl
Rynerson, Proposition E. Instead of welfare
payments, the plan would provide vouchers to
homeless people. It would cause people to scurry
throughout the city to find compassionate landlords
who would accept vouchers instead of lucre.

As we ascended the ritzy stairs to the second floor of
City Hall, Scott and I reviewed one of the many
questions propounded as a reality check for the
Mayor. If Proposition E was soundly and decisively
defeated by the voters of San Francisco, why are you
creating a plan that voters have strongly opposed?
Paul Boden of the Coalition on Homeless mirrored
the sentiments of San Franciscans in his statement,
"San Franciscan voters have recognized what people
tracking housing and treatment trends across
Clinton's America have been saying for years.
Vouchers do not build housing nor can they create
treatment slots."

The inside informant further advised that the proposed plan
would create a state of emergency, as many homeless
welfare recipients would be unable to secure housing or a
place in a shelter. During a daylong symposium on
affordable housing, Lyle Wray, a housing official from
Minnesota was quoted as saying, "It's like the twilight
zone here. By our standards, nothing is affordable in San
Francisco." Mayor Brown also stated at the same
symposium, "....This [San Francisco] is a place where
everyone wants to live and everyone wants to work. It's a
creative challenge to help find enough housing for
everyone."

The only possible rationale, according to inside
information, to institute a voucher policy is that it would be
cost effective, and; therefore, would stack the City's coffer
on the overburdened backs of homeless people. But those
cohorts in this putrid scheme have to understand that a plan
of this magnitude would devastate the very foundation of
this great City. It should be conveyed to the various heads
of agencies that vouchers as a way of paying rent will not
work in any form. They do not work because they are
inherently less valuable than cash. Vouchers do not afford
an individual the opportunity to save money for permanent
housing. Lastly, vouchers will not work because of the
abundance of red tape on both the Department of Human
Services and the prospective property owner.

There were many other questions that needed to be
addressed on this Friday morning. The names of the
participants who helped devise this plan? Also, if those
participants had spoken to the Local Homeless
Coordinating Board, the Coalition on Homelessness, or
shelter clients? Would a voucher guarantee a shelter bed?
From where would the 1,900 additional shelter beds come?
(DHS estimates there are about 3,000 homeless people in
the CAAP programs and there are currently only 1,100
shelter beds for single adults.)

The slender blond appeared caught off guard as Scott and I
inquired concerning the press conference. Ms. Bender,
Mayor Brown's press secretary, located the strategically
placed calendar to make certain that there was no scheduled
press conference. In a pleasant tone, she, again, told us,
"I'm sorry, Mayor Brown does not have a press
conference scheduled this morning."

by Kaponda

I sit in the nerve center of an underground movement in America that has created more talk than the wireless telephone. I observe the strategically placed compact disc turn and compact disc change, along with other elaborate broadcasting equipment, as gurgling sounds from the aquarium swim past my ears. The voice of the late El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) permeates the airwaves with the legendary “Words from the Front Lines,” as he echoes the difference between the house and field niggers on plantations in the South. I see a man garbed in a brown dashiki come into the room, wearing a warm smile. He is Michael X, the latest person to join the micro radio movement, and the founder of Bayview Hunters Point Radio, 103.3 FM.

Bayview Hunters Point Radio, 103.3 FM, is the wings on which the voice of Michael X soars through the airwaves of his beloved community, urging the masses to escape the slave mentality seared in their psyche. As Michael X prepares to communicate with the only community he has ever known, I ask him what forces in his life brought him to the front lines of community activism and emboldened him to step out of the conventional outreach box into broadcasting without the sanction of the Federal Communication Commission or a license therefrom?

“Basically, I’ve always had the urge to do good in the Bayview Hunters Point community, where I was born and raised. I dabbled in micro radio five years ago with Stephen Dunifer in Berkeley. I had an opportunity to do a radio show. During that show, I thought to myself, ‘Hey! I can do this, too. I need to bring this back to the neighborhood.’ It was not until the death of my 16-year-old son, who was killed in a drug-related incident, that I was inspired to do something, you know, to honor him,” the 50-year-old revolutionary concludes.

Stephen Dunifer, to whom Michael X refers, is one of the first disciples of Mbanna Kantako, the sighted black man whom many people refer to as the father of micropower radio. In 1987, Mbanna Kantako set up a radio station in his home in the projects in Springfield, Illinois. Mbanna Kantako justified his right to set up a micro radio station as his right based on the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights and its guaranteed right for ordinary citizens to communicate with their fellow citizens. Today, 13 years later, Mbanna Kantako still broadcasts in Springfield, Illinois, and he is the benchmark by which over 1000 other members of the micro radio movement across America are measured. Stephen Dunifer later brought the knowledge he acquired from Mbanna Kantako to Berkeley and launched Free Radio Berkeley, the radio show from which Michael X acquired his insight into community radio.

As he burrows his body into the chair he reaches for one of the two microphones to began a passionate petition to the community residents. “You were listening to words from the late El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz...,” states the voice of the spiritual-minded Michael X who now embraces in his hands as if it were one of the many youth of the Bayview district to whom he cries out. He talks about the change that needs to occur in his community, and how its incumbent upon each individual to assume responsibility to effect change. As I sit beside him and listen to his broadcast, I can see how a slight shudder seizes him as he discusses the horrors visited on people in his community by forces within and without, horrors that linger in the mind like the swish of a basketball net from a flawless shot by an opponent that brought the crowd to its feet. His micro radio is a device that he uses to address those horrors. But it is like trying to even the score with a jigsaw.

As he honors his community with a selection from the album of Sly and the Family Stones, I ask him to explain some of the horrors that plague the Bayview Hunters Point district?

“The southeastern section, in particular, and most Black neighborhoods, in general, in San Francisco have long been neglected by City Hall,” begins Michael X as he ponders which of a litany of examples of governmental, environmental, and political abuses to begin. “There have been more than 20 deaths of young people in shoot outs, drive-bys and walkups within the last couple of years. There is a lot of children killing children in the Bayview and many of those deaths remain unsolved. In addition, the jails and prisons have become residents for more and more Black brothers and sisters, clear examples of political neglect,” states Michael X.

While the fact remains that African Americans make up only seven percent of the population of the state of California; in truth, the concerns of Michael X that an astounding 38 percent of the prison population is African American are worth examining. To get this disproportionate number of representation is like trying to draw a thousand aces in a single-deck pinochle game. The cards have to be stacked to defy these laws of probability. Michael X and others will argue that the hand dealt to the Black community in the Bayview district has been stacked. Or, another way to explain the disproportionate number of African Americans in prisons throughout California is that members of the African American race are evil savages, not unlike a Timothy McVeigh, who deserve wholesale incarceration -- or worse. A more logical explanation, of course, of why Blacks are disproportionately incarcerated is that the sentencing laws in California are stacked against African Americans. Rather than apply rigid sentencing laws to people who harm others through gross imprudence, the California legislature has targeted a particular drug and declared war on it.

I was one inmate, for example, out of over 2000 inmates in San Bruno Jail in the year of 1996. A startling 75 percent of the African American population of San Bruno Jail was incarcerated for drug-related offenses -- like possession of rock cocaine, the equivalent of a nuisance crime. Furthermore, these laws are framed to lock African Americans out of sight, forever, by including mandatory sentencing for a third felony, possession of a rock of cocaine, for example.

Conversely, while there are 12 percent of African Americans in America, there are less than three percent of Black owned and operated radio stations. Again, this disproportionate lack of ownership of Black radio stations in America has to be a result of a strategy designed by the Federal Communication Commission and National Association of Broadcasters to lock the voices of people of color out of the airwaves.

So, with the knowledge that there are less than three percent of programming by people of color, I ask Michael X How it feels to be a part of the micro radio movement and why has he taken on this mammoth responsibility?

“I am the Clint Eastwood of the Bayview community. I have ridden into a town of desperadoes. This is a town of outlaws and outcasts. Its a town where the imaginations of its residents are unrestrained It is a town that is besieged by a corrupt government that sells the land of the community to the highest bidder to empty its bowels and devour it with hazardous waste. Like Clint Eastwood rode through town and corrected the corruption, I’m riding through town to clean it up. My goal is to restore peace to the town of Bayview, and I’ll ride into the sunset after my job is completed,” concluded Michael X.

Michael X may successfully curry favor with the residents of the Bayview district, but he may find it very difficult to ingratiate the Federal Communication Commission, who recently shut down three micro radio stations in Berkeley for broadcasting without a license. The FCC has been inconsistent in terms of its eligibility guidelines for obtaining broadcasting licensing for less than 100 watts of power. For example, in January of 2000, it was legal to broadcast with less than 100 watts of power. “Now,” according to Michael X, who broadcast with 40 watts of power, “It is illegal, again,” states Michael X, as he continues. “A person can get a license from the FCC if the radio station broadcasts in rural areas, only. The FCC is not issuing licenses in urban areas because, according to the FCC, ‘there are no available frequencies.’”

I ask Michael X if he thinks the FCC will eventually upset his applecart?

“Yes,” utters the undauntable Michael X, as he prepares to surrender the airwaves to prepare for the next show.

On this Sunday, however, there was no FCC to fear. A special guest, who hosts a radio show on 103.3 FM every Sunday, Marie Harrison, of the San Francisco Bayview Newspaper, enters the room and prepares to take over the airwaves for the “Marie Harrison Show.

Clad in a soft white blouse with denim jacket and pants, Marie assumes control of the airwaves and begins her interplay with the community. Marie wastes no time with her report on the recent discovery of the black beauty sand and environmental issues in Bayview, issues on which she is versed. She continues her diatribe with an appeal to the community members to reach out to young people.

“I think we need to work with a lot of our young folks,” stated Marie. “They’ve got a lot of good ideas. We need to bring them up to par. We need to let them know that we are there for them. When I keel over the day after tomorrow or the day after that, somebody has got to be in my place, and somebody has to be there after that person. It is a never-ending battle for education, knowledge and the sheer will-power to get up and do something worth doing. We need to have me. We need to have you. We need to have your next door neighbor, and the folks across the bay to bring all of their knowledge to help us resolve some of these issues,” Marie continues as I prepare to walk out into the streets of the Bayview Hunters Point district.

by Poverty Scholar/Facilitator; Dee Gray, Teaching Assistant;Alex Cuff

1st ‘reading’ by PSI Poverty Scholar; Jewnbug

1). What was the transubstantive error in the movie?

*

Hedi would have a better life in so called “America.”
*
Hedi takes her Vietnamese family’s behavior about money as rude.

Hedi is conditioned to view things from a (KKK) white racist perspective and very Americanized not embracing the interdependence in her family in Vietnam.

But wasn’t there transubstantive error on the part of the Vietnamese family? What is it? Explain.

*

The Vietnamese family I think interpreted Hedi’s gift giving and her living in ”America” as her being wealthy thus why wouldn’t she help her family out with money and/or because “America” is capitalistic upfrontness about money wouldn’t be taken as rudeness and she wouldn’t be so emotional about it . However Heidi may not be hella wealthy she is still I feel in a financial position she can offer her family the support they are asking. The Mother however did make a comment about how she understood that Hedi has been raised in a different culture(lifestyle) and this talk of support for the family is something she is not being understanding too, but I feel that the Mother is still hurt by her daughter’s response even though she is trying to understand the conditioning that has influenced her daughter’s behavior.
*
The Mother showing Hedi the shrine for her grandma/ancestor/elder expecting her to understand/value/honor death in this same manner.

2). What was needed in this situation to have not made the ending so hopeless?

*

The daughter brings her Mother with her to meet her grandchildren and stays for a while.
*
Heidi goes to Vietnam and brings her husband and two daughters to meet their family.
*
Heidi stays in regular contact with her family and rediscovers and embraces her Vietnamese heritage and educates her children, husband and the family that adopted her. She doesn’t deny her heritage to the adopted family and they are confronted about their racism and classism. She builds a very strong bond with her family in Vietnam. She learns and realizes the lies of the American government and the truth, that her Mother never gave her up. She also is reducated about the war from the Vietnamese perspective and reality.
*
Heidi helps her family in Vietnam every month and understands the upfrontness about money is her family keeping it real. (In my family we discuss money openly and honestly we have to, it’s the way we survive. It really upsets me she isn’t supporting her family who really loves her and shows it and here she is with all this food etc...and she can’t even give anything. I am on welfare and will still try to help my family out.) Furthermore she is grateful for the constant affection from her Mother and family because she didn’t get that kind of affection from her adopted family she adjusts without being turned off by the physical closeness. She leaves the audience with her brainstorming about moving to Vietnam with husband, daughters or stays every summer in Vietnam.

3). What did you most empathize with and why?

*

I cried and cried about (Operation Babylift) children, babies taken away from their family, their Mother. I cried at the end because Hedi don’t even write her family back that’s beeped up. The lies the Mothers were told and this white woman trying to take childern to “America” really angers me.
*
I am happy she was reunited with her Mother but angry, frustrated with her attitude towards her family in Vietnam. I am sad for the Mother her pain her mourning over her daughter.
*
I dream and cry to meet my family one day. My family in Hawaii who are in contact through letters, pictures and phone but to touch them is something I hunger for. Many people who aren’t even Hawaiian get to travel, live, go to school in the home of my Ancestors my family. I didn’t even have money to go and over a year ago my grandpa died me and my dad, my brother couldn’t afford to go to the funeral. It hurts. I got two brothers who I haven’t even met who live in another state of colonizing and dream of meeting them. Heidi to me had the opportunity of a life time and she acted like a beep.
*
I think she acted like a (beep) and still is because she is not writing back and basically it looks like she has totally written them out of her life. I think that her behavior is a result from the following:

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The adopted family never encouraged her to be proud of being Vietnamese/ mixed.
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Believing that her Mother gave her up and probably being taught that by her adopted family.
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Not being able to really identify with anyone or anything as a person who’s a mix of Asian and European heritage in the environment she is being raised in.
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Not gonna be accepted in this society if she represents her Vietnamese heritage therefore assimilates to be an all “white American”. ( I myself as a mixed woman who’s mix is not your so called average mix and being someone who is non white but could pass if I chose to has dealt with white youth only wanting me to represent white and being attacked as a teenager by a white guy who called me a nigger and told me to leave the Sunset and go to Hunter’s Point . I tried to hang out with white youth at one point in time and felt so out of place I stopped hanging out with them but did make connections with youth who were non white who were hanging out with the same crowd. Here I was taking two buses from my hood to go kick it with white youth with the exception of a few youth who were non white. I felt so uncomfortable a lot times that I stopped. When I look back I feel the reason I did this was because I at 16 for the first time had been exposed to white youth who were well to do on a mass level and I was curios plus the parties the houses the cars the drugs the money appealed to me a mixed lite skinned young lady who’s poor, wished at one point could have their life with the exception of some things.) Heidi having this opportunity to not wish but actually was living the life as a youth in a white community who didn’t go with out food, shelter, clothing and could pass chose to for reasons of protection, acceptance and access.
*
Heidi didn’t get physical or verbal affection on a daily basis from her adopted family made her in ways a non touching feeling person. She is encouraged not only through lack of affection but the mannerism of this white community to be separated from family to succeed. When she left home she didn’t go live with anyone else in her adopted family not even the grandma. At the end of the movie you see her talking with her adopted grandma saying she knows her best but yet this family didn’t work together to intervene when the adopted Mother kicked her out of the house nor did anyone in the community. She did stay I believe with friends but it seems no one helped restore the relationship with her adopted Mother. This is another example of separatism which influenced her to not empathize with her family in Vietnam’s need for her intervention and support to help them survive. She was taught she had to survive on her own by this white community’s separatism.
*
The school she attended spoke on the war in Vietnam yet did they even discuss Operation Babylift and did they educate her on it with a prejudice towards Vietnam. I think perhaps they did therefore she is being conditioned to blame her Mother for having made the decision to have her adopted in “America” not the facts of who the oppressor is in this situation but she takes it out on her Mother. ( Myself can recall being upset with my Mother and Father of why were poor but as time went on I learned my parents are being oppressed and that they are trying to do what they can so we survive. I at that point in time had been conditioned to take it out on my parents instead of the welfare system, capitalism etc… I everyday must unlearn oppression and it’s conditionings.)
*
I think that Heidi is part of a community that is based on lies and teaches lies such as racizm, classizm and that individuation is a good thing. She lives around people who aren’t keeping it real who aren’t teaching the truth. Her family in Vietnam keeps it real in terms of where they are coming from and what they need. I think she ain’t used to such honesty and openness.

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2nd ‘reading’ by Poverty Scholar Valerie Schwartz

1. What was the transubstantive error in the movie?

I believe there were several transubstantive errors in the movie. Beginning with "operation babylift" it was more than evident that the whatever they called themselves, representatives of the American government and adoption agencies. They did not seem to care that they were taking children away from their mothers and brothers, sisters, families and culture. They just knew they were "doing the right thing" without considering the ramifications of their of the program they were implementing and the long range effect it would have on the people involved. They were just doing their job for America is what they probably tell us. Another great American faux pas...

The second transubstantive error is made by Heidi herself, this was as crippling as "operation babylift" itself. She went very impulsively into finding and meeting her mother. I don't believe that she took the time to consider the contrast of culture and life between Viet Nam and the USA . I don't think she put forth much energy thinking about anyone other than herself and perhaps an unrealistic view of how her renuion would go her vision was myopic if not blinded by the thought of how she dreamed it would be.

The third transubstantive error was with her siblings and relatives in their thinking that Heidi would understand the concept of being responsible for her mother, family, and elders. I am sure that they were unaware of how many American treat they parents, siblings, and families in general: they don't understand that Americans have been brought up to believe in individuation and are basically brought up in the school of thought that we have come to know as "me, me, me, mine, mine, mine." I am not suggesting that they
disregard Heidi's behavior but unfortunately it wasn't considered.

2. What was needed in this situation to have not made the ending so hopeless?

I think that Heidi should have taken the time to find out more about her people and culture and especially done a lot of correspondence with her family before going. Americans don't even consider the idea that people in other countries live very differently than we do. Heidi regretfully I think entertained an "orphans dream" meaning that her life was gonna be wrapped up in a wonderful little package once she and her mother reunited that all her life she had wanted a June Clever type mother...ya know the loving TV mom who is always there, knows just what to say, and is very loving and nurturing. Nice thought, but not too real. Not that it couldn't be accomplished with some understanding, love, and work. I believe her mother truly loves her very much and really thought at the time that she did the right thing by giving Heidi up especially with the rumor of the burning of all the Amer-Asian children, but Heidi needs to get real and get off her pity pot. At times I had the definite feeling that her siblings were of little importance to her. I was disgusted by the way she reacted to the thought of helping out financially, she never even seemed to consider how good she has it, that she doesn't struggle from day to day. I guess I feel that Heidi should have put forth a lot more effort and it wouldn't have been so hopeless. She did initiate the reunion therefore I think she should have put more into making it work and tried to be aware of the cultural differences.

3. What did you most empathize with and why?

I can only empathize with Heidi on a small scale. The person or idea that I empathize with is probably with Heidi's mother. She was left with children to care for during a war, her husband gone and she did what she had to do to see that her children/family stayed intact, safe, and alive by being a G.I.'s consort. I know the reality of having to compromise yourself to feed your children. She then thinking she was saving Heidi from death at the hands of Vietnamese soldiers/ new regime, thinking that all the children would be rounded up and killed. What a horrible decision to have to make to make and then wonder for decades if she had done the right thing. I also caught a deep feeling when her family was asking her to help care for her mother and her mother explained to them that Heidi didn't understand, that it was too soon, and they shouldn't make her feel forced. That was truly a mother's compassionate and genuine love even though she was disappointed...she did not give up hope.

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2nd ‘reading’ by Alex Cuff

1. what was the transubstantive error in the movie?

...there were so many. first of all, the vietnam war itself – or most wars, i
think. then, "operation babylift" – assuming that the vietnamese children were
better off with american parents. i feel that both heidi (i can’t remember her real name) and her mother are victims of the transubstantive
errors mentioned above. As far as their own transubstantive errors – yes, they both made the errors. The family asking for money is sort of a cross cultural “error” because americans don’t usually do that but I don’t think it’s a major error as in it didn’t really have much of a negative impact on the receiver of the error, heidi. If anything, getting upset was probably good for her in that it broke the comfort bubble she arrived to vietnam in. Okay so heidi’s transubstantive error was taking something as huge as a reunification with her mother very lightly. She made an error is getting personally insulted by the asking of money instead of learning more about the culture before her arrival. The family laid off when she got upset and didn’t press. They didn’t hold anything against her when she reacted to the request for help.

although i was appalled by heidi’s behavior when she went to visit her family in
vietnam, i can not find a way to blame her except for being super selfish and
badly educated. the latter probably contributing to the prior. i wonder why she
wanted to back to vietnam to meet reunite with her mother. If anything, she wasn’t prepared for what the trip meant.

2. What was needed in situation to have not made the ending so hopeless?

I really don’t know. Maybe more support and education and encouragement from the Filipino woman who escorted heidi to the village and acted for part of the time as translator. Really heidi needed to be different. I don’t want to come down so hard on her and say that she needs to follow through with the entire thing (which is what I feel) but she could have at least continued correspondence with the family, sent pictures of her children, maybe even gone back over with her family or something.

3. Who did you most empathize with and why?

Certainly the mother. Her emotion was so real to me as where heidi seemed cold and disconnected. The mother waited so long to see her daughter – the scene on the beach in the beginning, memories of heidi’s father was probably painful and of course the regret and guilt she probably felt for letting heidi go to the US. I empathize also for the family because they see and live with the mother’s pain and don’t really have a way to console her. The mother is strong through and intelligent, she seems to understand where heidi is coming from SO much more than heidi even tries to see where the mother is coming from. I can empathize with heidi if I try to put myself in her position – her life back home seemed so stale and I feel bad for her cause I feel she’s scared and wants to be comfortable even with the grandmother who doesn’t seem too warm. Heidi doesn’t get the richness she is missing in vietnam.

All in all it’s really a terrible situation. It’s hard to point blame on the victims which I think all of the characters in the movie were. Our invasion of vietnam and the post-transubstantive error of stealing children from their families is the underlying blame.

by Bruce Allison and Thornton Kimes

Sitting many hours, listening to the Planning Commission, is not an easy thing to do. Bruce did it for approximately 12 hours October 15th, 2009, I lasted less than 3. The CPMC hospital proposal for the Van Ness corridor, finally came up at 8p.m. after 4 hours spent on a project threatening Open Space on De Haro Street.

You can always tell when the Sutter Corporation people are around by the red folders and their unrelenting ability to be “on-message”.

This corporation has told many lies, done many interesting things (like sucking $1 million out of Marin General Hospital for who-knows-what), including their current hard and soft sell of transforming what used to be the Jack Tar Hotel—now the Cathedral Hill Hotel, mere blocks from Thornton Kimes’ SRO hotel—into a giant boutique for-rich-folks-only hospital, while draining the life, money, bricks and mortar from their other hospitals which have served poor people for, apparently, too many years.

This poverty scholar was not surprised (but the other writer of this article WAS…) to know that CPMC/Sutter doesn’t only want the Cathedral Hill Hotel, it wants space on the other side of the Van Ness and Geary/Post block for this Frankenstein’s Monster project lurching into our collective rear-view mirror. Many small business people, including the Vietnamese and other South-east Asian women who run the 24/7 doughnut shop that Tiny and Mama Dee loved and still loves, will see their dreams shattered and lose the source of their income. San Francisco will lose the tax money they have been paying into city coffers for years, for however long it takes to build this monster—if it is actually built.

They destroyed villages to "save them" in Vietnam. Now they want to do damage to the tax base of San Francisco to put in a hospital we don’t need (I almost quoted “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”, not exactly the definition of “automatic writing” but close enough). This other poverty scholar article writer wonders if the doughnut shop women, who I have also come to appreciate (and took their doughnuts to watch movies down the street instead of buying vastly more expensive corporate movie theater candy…), feel a bit of “burn the village…” déjà vu?

Ms. Nancy, one of the workers at the doughnut shop, spoke at the hearing, using this poverty scholar’s time for an extra two minutes. She said that as a person who speaks limited English CPMC/Sutter’s project will make it incredibly difficult for her to find another job.

The people selling the hospital project visited the doughnut shop and told Ms. Nancy and others they didn’t need to bother showing up for any hearings, it was a “done deal”. The truth is they don’t even have permits to tear anything down or build anything new up, haven’t done an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) or any other preliminary study the “Usual Suspects” do when they attempt dotting i’s and crossing t’s.

Among other truths here, the other poverty scholar responsible for this article experienced considerable construction of needed and unneeded stuff in the same neighborhood over the past 2 years—an “affordable housing” building at Hyde and Turk, a Community Housing Partners SRO right next door to his SRO--and a building on Van Ness between O’Farrell and Eddy. This is all part of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan (ENP), the Cathedral Hill Hotel is on the far, well, frontier of it.

One of POOR Magazine’s alternative media allies/friends/partners, the Mission District-oriented El Tecolote monthly newspaper has run many articles about the ENP, so, please, readers of this space, check them and their coverage of it out, keep watching for more here, and, most definitely, we want your bodies sitting in front of the Planning Commission—and your voices talking to them about this and the need for more and better health care for those who really need it in this town: the poor.

by Leroy Moore, Darla Lennox, Maria Palacios, Zilwood, Tiny

Another group home Christmas

Another year of watching others loved ones

make their once a year obligatory visit

This day just feels like all the others

Told what time to get up

what time to sleep

What he wants to watch on t.v. is already

decided for him,

it's what the staff want to watch.

"Merry Christmas!" the staff say encouraging
him to be happy

"Hey, it's Christmas, let's see what Santa brought you?"

"Are you kidding me?!" he thinks, "I'm a grown ass man!

And what if I don't feel like being merry and bright?

What if I decide to just stay in my room tonight

and spare myself from eating salty lukewarm ham

and cold peas? "

"Yeah, it's another group home Christmas

and wishing like hell I was somewhere else."

Darla J. Lennox

Christmas 2009

by Joe B.

Blunted Wind Chimes

As new life arrives people and things change, gifts are bought, returned,or exchanged for other more needed items.

At Poor Magazine Inc.
its no different

As Office manager, staff writer,columnist, rare sometime,reporter, and reluctant ‘Po Poet some of these changes cause slight problems for example:

When an infant is in a workspace the normal clatter of keyboards, radio sounds,and talking is muted so as to not disturb said infants rest and feeding routine.

I’ve worked for PM Inc. for five or six years I have learned what to be good at and what I’m bad at like answering phones especially when phones have technical problems where I have to repeat what’s said because of a few second delays on the receiver’s of the phone.

The latest crimp is wind chimes. Wind chimes usually are outside of homes or businesses large and small to sound as customer enter.

In this organization or door is inside,on the second floor of a duo business/living space and cannot be hung from outside screened windows.

One set of chimes are hung on the front door near me another on a door behind me leading into another office.

Beside making a racket every time people enter when an infant visits as I said their must be quiet these chimes add not the tingling tinkle of happy sound but noisy thuds inside an enclosed space festive looking they may look but the application fails when an infant’s sleep is disturbed.

Myself,knew this is going to be a problem for me as well as I have already suggested to both bosses "Those chimes are just more noise to me but since I’m an employee it doesn’t matter at least they know my opinion.

A way to combat excess noise pollution in my personal workplace is the use of tape any tape from duck,electric to scotch tape wrapping it around chimes muffling the sound to dull thuds.

Of course the tape is taken off after a few days when bosses don’t here happy tinkle noise.

I replace it wraping more and more tape around it.

I really think it silly having wind chimes placed where there’s no wind unless it where children, adults use them to signal breakfast,lunch,dinner, rest,playtime,or special events as in birthdays, births,or various kinds of anniversaries.

I know it’s a small niggling thing but like vacuuming,sweeping, mopping floors wiping brass doorknobs is a bit too much.

I also so don’t clean venetian blinds or clean windows, and if ever I begin babysitting that’s the end of my working at Poor M.

I do lots of stuff not strictly part of office management – copying whole or part of newsprint, magazine articles,other people’s work,or transcribe voices to text.
[This probably won’t be seen publicly so I’ll print this reminding me of my agenda of becoming an author of fiction with an independent life finally and forever achieved.

I wonder can City Lights help me in this as they see my work radically differs from Poor ’s.]

Anyone who has struggled to be where they are and finally make know of what I speak, can snail mail or email me also.

1000 Market Street #418

San Francisco, Ca. 94103

1-510-533-0469


Donations C/0 Poor Magazine

1448 Pine Street #205

San Francisco,CA 94103

Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Joseph Bolden

The errors are from trying to work fast and not giving myself enough time in the day to complete all my work and starting again the next day.

The computer dedicated duty is to keep track of dates of writing not realizing human sometimes with not enough time will continue their work another day.

This being a two part effort with near similar titles confuses the programing hence all the dates of creation and/or recreation.

From now on I'll make time for columns written completing them in the same day even if they were thought up days before.

Once again my apologies.

by Maurice J., Darrin Lewis and Tiny

It was late.... so late and so dark, even the streetlamps started to fade
and flicker in that disturbing way they do at dusk and dawn. In this hour
of darkness something happened to a homeless friend of mine at the United
Nations Plaza in San Francisco..something that left him.in critical
condition..something that involved my friend and several police
officers...

a knife.." an altercation".... a shooting .

I didn't see my friend hurt. hardly anyone was around..... I did see the faint
glow of police searchlights flicker in tandem with the flickering streetlamps.
The birds, sparkling charcoal clouds and moist brick sidewalks whispered
to me that something was wrong but I was hidden and it is o hard to find
a good place to sleep when you are living outside that I denied what might
have been going on around the corner.

As a homeless not-resident of UN Plaza it is very clear to me, that between
the Mayor's office, the sheriff's department and the federal police, WE
ARE NOT WANTED HERE! Further, my opinions on this event and/or that of
any homeless witnesses, will not hold any weight, suffice to say we know
through personal experience, poor people are rarely believed, and their
opinions are rarely legitimized My neighbors and friends are saying it
was attempted murder by a federal police officer who wants us out of here
- my neighbors and friends are very scared because they feel like its
just a matter of time before they are the next "altercation" The FBI,
the branch of government who are "Handling this investigation" have released
the following statement:

At approximately 10:00 pm on Thursday, August 10th, an as yet unidentified
federal police officer encountered an as yet unidentified individual in
the small alleyway in UN Plaza, behind the fountain, that leads to McAllister
street. As per federal regulations the investigation is now being handled
by the FBI.The individual pulled a knife and proceeded to attack the officer.
After sustaining several cuts the officer then pulled his weapon and shot
the man in self-defense. The suspect is still in General Hospital while
the officer was treated and released that night.

At this point the homeless residents of UN Plaza have no official statement,
so far it is only that, "we are scared"

by By JENNIFER STEINHAUER (reprinted from the NY Times, courtesy of The Emergency Coalition to Save Public Health)

The city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, strapped for cash and
desperate to find new income, has begun charging a universal fee for
prescription drugs at the pharmacies of all its public hospitals and
community clinics.

Under the new policy, which was quietly introduced last month,
patients are charged a $10 "processing fee" for each prescription
filled, with a cap of $40. There are also some exemptions.

The policy has already come under criticism from health care experts
and doctors, who say the fees will discourage the poor and uninsured -
the most frequent users of the pharmacies - from getting the drugs
they need. The critics say such patients will end up in the hospitals'
already overcrowded emergency rooms as their untreated conditions
become serious.

Previously, the corporation allowed its 11 hospitals and 6 clinics to
decide whether or not to set a fee, and what that amount should be.
Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, for example, charged $10 per
prescription with a cap of $30. At Gouverneur Diagnostic and Treatment
Center in Lower Manhattan, there were no fees at all.

Dr. Luis R. Marcos, president of the Health and Hospitals Corporation,
said the systemwide fee was just one of many measures being taken to
stave off the $313 million deficit the corporation expects to face
this fiscal year. "The corporation has reached its limit of providing
health services for which no one is willing to pick up the tab," he
said. "I believe it is fair to ask patients who can afford it to pay
for prescriptions."

The new policy does not affect those who obtain medication during
hospital stays or during an emergency room visit. Also exempt are
those in public programs for AIDS or prenatal care, those with
tuberculosis or teenagers who receive oral contraceptives.

Patients with insurance, including Medicaid, are to pay their
prescription program's lowest co-payment, which in many cases may be
lower than the $10 fee. Dr. Marcos said he hoped this would encourage
uninformed or reluctant patients to apply for Medicaid, which has
become the corporation's main source of steady income. Some patients
and advocates for the poor say there have been problems with the new
policy, including a shortage of financial counselors who are supposed
to help patients enroll for Medicaid or negotiate for lower fees.

"We did an observation at seven hospitals and two treatment centers
and observed long lines to see a counselor," said Judy Wessler,
director of the Commission on the Public's Health System, a health
care advocacy organization.

Several patients said they were told that they must pay amounts above
the $40 cap, and were turned away when they said they did not have the
money - even though the policy states that no patient is to leave
empty handed because of inability to pay.

Celeste Almonte, for instance, left Gouverneur a week ago without any
of her medications, including those for diabetes and asthma, because
she said she was told her fee was $50. Ms. Almonte, who is 55 and on
Medicare, has no pharmacy benefit. She has a month of drugs left and
said that she had no idea how she would get her next batch. "What a
pity," Ms. Almonte said. "It is too much money for me."

Confusion over the specifics may spring in part from the way hospitals
are informing patients about the policy. At the clinic at Gouverneur,
a sign in the waiting room explained that a $10 fee would be imposed
and that financial counselors would be available. But it did not
mention the medical conditions and drugs that are exempt from the
policy, or other payment options. Other patients learn of the policy
only at the systems' pharmacy counters.

The corporation said it was working to inform patients better. Each
hospital is now sending out explanatory letters, and is working to
improve waiting-room communication. Dr. Marcos said that he had not
heard about centers overcharging or turning patients away empty
handed. He also said that financial counselors were available during
all hours that clinics were open.

For the past five years, the corporation balanced its budget through
cost cuts and other moves, but has been hammered with an increasing
load of uninsured patients, coupled with reduced payments from
government and private insurance programs. In 2000, 564,476 uninsured
patients came through its health care centers, a 30 percent increase
from 1996. In the same period, Congress reduced Medicare
reimbursements to hospitals, while Medicaid reimbursements to primary
care clinics remained basically unchanged, and drug costs increased 16
percent between 1999 and 2001.

But others argue that the new policy may compromise public health,
citing studies that show that the poor often forgo medications and
health care when costs increase. "Almost all the research that has
been done suggests that the health impact of a drug co-payment policy,
particularly for poor and elderly people, is adverse," said Dr. Jan
Blustein, an associate professor of health policy and management at
New York University. Dr. David Stevens, a doctor at Gouverneur, said
that some patients with chronic illnesses have run out of medicine
since the policy was introduced, and may end up in emergency rooms as
their conditions worsen.

Some health care policy experts suggest that the corporation seek
other options, like drug formularies, which limit doctors to
lower-cost brands. Others believe payments should be made on a sliding
scale, as clinic visit fees are. Dr. Marcos said the corporation was
developing a formulary system, but added that doctors and drug
companies frequently put up considerable obstacles.