3-12-09, 9:53 am

My job is to meet with people across Southern California and figure out what moves them, why they do what they do. There amidst the variations of a kitchen table, lazy couch, or occasional pristine Starbucks, I have found that unfortunately this thing of being moved is contagious. They get inspired to act, I get inspired, and now I can’t help but share these stories, they boil over keeping me up at night bringing me here to confess all that I’ve been able to absorb.

My story is humble and I will get to it but first I must share theirs so you can get a better picture of exactly what it is I’m dealing with. I know it must sound strange meeting with strangers, and indeed it is. You see you get a list of people that you are loosely affiliated with and then you call them. You call them and ask them if they are available to talk. The initial response is “What about?” They have an annoyed edge in their voice suspicious that you will ask them for money. I tell them how I came to know them, or their name rather, that I work with their union. That I see they were active in such-in-such campaign. I tell them I simply want to know what motivated them to be active. I tell them these things as I was trained to tell them one weekend in San Jose. Each of us standing and sharing our personal stories, crying, eating, crying some more. Me, an MFA student being told details of how to craft a story with a narrative arch, how to include sensory details, it was funny, strange-funny, receiving this crash course from union colleagues, but after I got over my ego I cried too. So here I am on the phone with this stranger hoping that they can get me to cry. Hoping for another opportunity to share this genuine vulnerable space that we usually only reserve for close friends and family members.

'Well you can meet me at work on my break.” Then here comes the real kicker, “No actually I would like to come to your home.” Being taught for so long not to let strangers into their home I am asking people what seems to be the simplest gesture yet next to impossible. Let me cross that barrier. Let me see your warts. Prolong your dinner, your television viewing, your drinking, your love life, your general ease with the world, ignore your children or pets, for forty five minutes to an hour. Some people say no, most people pause, think, can’t come up with a good excuse and say “Okay, what time?” Somewhere in there I usually impress upon them a sense of urgency for this conversation. The critical moment in history that we must sieze, this small window of opportunity. Obama’s first hundred days in office.

Now I must share with you what I’ve discovered, what I can no longer hold on to, what kills me and thrills me, what has become why I do what I do. One of the first women I met with is a state worker in San Diego. She is Latina and Lebanese. She is tough, her voice carries the rasp of menthol cigarettes. She has a nice home. I took a train and a car rental to meet her. She lives on one of those streets with two story homes that climb up hills, all somewhat similar, a modern taste of Spanish. The type of home that likely has a domestic animal or two and a tricycle in the garage. The type of home that is hard to get your children to move out of. I remembered the moment I entered that my job was to be observant and listen. I was hit with a tremendous amount of nostalgia of my own family gatherings in places like Hayward and Bakersfield where these houses were overstuffed with Filipinos, food, mah jong, dominoes, activity. But today it was quiet just me and her. Like the morning after a cook-out. She tells her story. She grew up in a working class neighborhood in San Diego. When she was in high school her family moved to a more affluent neighborhood. She had to change schools. Because she was part Chicana they automatically enrolled her in ESL courses, although she was fluent in English. At this time they were busing in children of color from other neighborhoods to integrate the school. Most kids assumed she was one of the bussed-in students. She was suspended for speaking Spanish to another classmate. This was a time when Latino students were told they could not receive an “A” in Spanish because it was assumed they already spoke it. She fought her way back into school. She taught her grandfather to write his name. Then she taught him to read and write more. She brought MECHA into her school, prior to it even being referred to as MECHA. She noticed that her school college advisor was not aiding or recruiting minority students to go to college. She started up an organization to aide minority students to secure monies to go to college. In doing this she herself did not get an opportunity to go to college. At this time there was a lot of pressure on SDPD to recruit women and minority police officers. She was recruited as a Parole Officer. She was in her twenties, young, a woman of faith. This is important. One day while at work a parolee came in high on drugs. He had elephant strength and the feeling of being invincible. He began assaulting her co-workers. She did what she was trained to do. She shot him. He died. She was questioned thoroughly afterward as to whether or not she had followed protocol. She was in her twenties, young, a woman of faith. One day at a girlfriend’s house she got discombobulated and passed out. She suffered from amnesia secondary to the stress of the incident. She still does. While she was recovering she met someone and got married. He did not want her to return to a job where she had to handle a gun. She transferred to a different department. The Employment Development Department. She, a woman that has lived and fought for justice her whole life, said that when she got there she was shocked at how the workers were being treated. She got involved in her union. Today she is a leader but to me she is an everyday hero.

I met with another woman, she works for the DMV, she was the first African American woman to move onto her block in Compton California. She used to come home to crosses burning on her lawn. She is not just a state worker, she is a mother, a daughter, a sister, and an activist in her community. She is active in her union because she wants to see that her colleagues and she get just treatment.

One day I was at a house in Fontana, over tamales, and coffee I heard two cancer stories, one of a man that works for the city, a sanitation worker who is fighting cancer, he has good benefits is being treated. The other of a woman who was working as a secretary in a Pharmaceutical company, in 2007 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was off of work and being treated with chemo. When she returned the company had downsized due to the economy. She was laid off. Chemo makes your mind a little fuzzy and messes with your short-term memory. She thought she had paid off her insurance but it turned out she missed a payment. They canceled her insurance. She begged them to take her back and in the interim missed her six-month window to elect new insurance. Now she is uninsured. She is being denied medical coverage because she has a pre-existing condition. She also has a port-a-cath in her chest that she cannot get removed or drained. Typically these ports get drained on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. She has not gotten hers drained since 2007. She is simply waiting to get an infection so she can go to the emergency room. I’m sure at times it feels like she is waiting to die.

Last month Obama mentioned in his appeal to Congress, “Every 30 seconds someone files bankruptcy due to medical bills.” I met one of those people tonight. She also works for the state. She has medical insurance, but she also has chronic fatigue syndrome and diabetes. Her medications are expensive. She was off on medical leave and could not afford them. She had to file bankruptcy. Today she is just relieved to be working but finds herself rationing out her medications so they can last longer because she cannot afford the prescribed amounts.

These stories go on and on and on, people with treatable, preventable illness’, diabetics without insulin, asthma without an inhaler, children with broken bones, parents with dementia, all without insurance. On the flipside there were nurses that had to throw away insulin and inhalers because they expired. They were all the stories that ignited in me the call to be a social arsonist to set afire the minds and hearts of my community, our community, our Congress, our Senators.

Finally there is my story, that might be banal in comparison but I feel compelled to share it anyways. I came to Los Angeles, the daughter of an immigrant military family. My mother being single at the time was accepted to UCLA. We drove from Monterey, California with hopes and dreams for both of our futures, or in the least to see the stars of the television drama General Hospital. I was taught at a very early age that if I wanted to accomplish anything in life I needed to concentrate on my studies. At thirteen I got accepted to an accelerated program at school, it allowed minority students to have access to college courses while we were in high school. At the same time my mother started to present with symptoms of mental illness. I became her caretaker and at times her captive. My grades began slipping in school. My attendance varied. My wardrobe stagnant. One of my teachers noticed, my English teacher. I told her about my mother she performed her duties as a licensed reporter and later that afternoon I entered into foster care. I was escorted off my high school campus by two police officers, and the unwarranted shame of a shoplifter. I was terrified. I had no idea what to expect. It’s true my life was inconsistent at home but consistently inconsistent. There in my first group home I was met with small children much younger than me bruised and battered, and children much older than me, gangsters – real gangsters not like those posers I hung out with, fresh out of juvenile hall. Again I was terrified. These are places where there is no room for vulnerability. You learn very quickly how to be manipulative. I was advised to quit the school I was attending and attend their on-site school. Their on-site school was a Special Ed. Class, while I was enrolled in a program for gifted students. Their class was teaming with underdeveloped children puffy and drooling from their psychotropic medication. I refused. They suggested I take the GED exam. It was argued to be in my interest as I would not know where I would be placed next, where I would be living. Again I refused. Instead I kept a flashlight under my pillow and did my homework after the regularly scheduled “lights out,” I ate half my dinner to bring the other half to school for lunch, I caught rides with friends. I graduated. I graduated into being a very angry teenager. I combed the streets for solutions but knew too well that the distance between foster care and the juvenile justice system was too short. I did not want to go that route. I met a woman. She was working on a public works jobs bill that was advocating to create jobs by putting monies into public infrastructure, rebuild roads and parks, put money into education. That made sense. My political education began. I went on to college, attend a small public interest law school, set up a legal clinic for homeless veterans, serve the homeless community in Los Angeles (of which there are over 91,000, naming us the homeless capitol of the United States!). Since then everything I do is for working people and their families, for all those people I spoke with, for those kids torn from their parents that were not in foster care for lack of love but lack of resources, for myself. Now I ask that you consider why you do what you do, and remember that and all of us when you are faced with the decision of voting for the Employee Free Choice Act, and the access for quality affordable healthcare for America.