Kenny Uong: Metro is the way to Go

J.T.1 Comment

Traveling in Los Angeles is not a fuss,

if everyone rides Metro Rail or Metro Bus.

Going with a friend, you can’t say no,

Since Metro is the way to go!

The county is connected

via public transportation.

Together, we are one big nation.

When we take transit everywhere,

We feel courageous, like a bear.

It’s always exciting 

to soar over the traffic

that is causing all of the havoc.

Passengers wait for the train to arrive,

after a work day from nine to five.

Surfing the internet or reading a book,

then into the distance, they all look.

For only a dollar seventy-five,

you don’t have to drive.

To request a stop while riding the bus, simply pull the cord.

But for heaven’s sake, please don’t pull it if you are bored!

A public transit enthusiast like me,

would always use transit to get from Point A to Point B.

I definitely feel positive and free,

when I am not the one who’s driving, you see.

From skyline to sea,

or from SFV to SGV,

people all know

that Metro is the way to go!

K.U.

Kenny Uong is an avid transit rider and transit advocate who is currently an Urban Studies and Planning Major at Cal State Northridge. Having grown up in a household that relied on public transit to get around the region and seeing firsthand how unreliable transit service negatively affects riders, he strives to help improve it in the near future. Kenny originally published this poem in 2016.

What to Communities of Color in America Is White “Insurrection”

Dylan Rodríguez,Leave a comment

Dear Colleagues, Friends, and Loved Ones,

There has been an expected wave of statements from higher education administrators, academic departments, research centers, and prominent individuals affiliated with our fields of work regarding the armed deadly takeover of the United States Capitol by self-declared “patriots” on January 6, 2021. I must be honest that I dread adding to this noise, which is why I have waited a few days to send this note. I do not write on behalf of the American Studies Association (ASA) or its leadership body, but rather out of a humble sense of accountability to the communities of radical and abolitionist movement that nourish me.

Last week’s spectacular white nationalist coup attempt may have been exceptional in form, but (for many of us) it was entirely familiar–utterly “American”–in content. It is misleading, historically inaccurate, and politically dangerous to frame this event–and the condition that produced it–as an isolated or extremist exception to the foundational and sustained violence that constitutes the United States. As the surging neo-Confederates in the Capitol building made clear, there is a long tradition of (fully armed) populist, extra-state, and (ostensibly) extra-legal reactionary movement that holds a lasting claim of entitlement on the nation and its edifices of official power.

Further, the steady trickle of information from January 6 indicates that police power–including the prominent presence of (former) police and “Blue Lives Matter” in the coup itself–animated and populated this white nationalist siege. Contrary to prevailing accounts, this event was not defined by a failure of police power, but rather was a militant expression of it.

People in the extended ASA community have organized their lifework around practices of freedom, knowledge, and teaching that unapologetically confront this physical and figurative mob in, before, and beyond 2021. I write as your colleague, comrade, and “ASA President” to urge you to invigorate and expand your scholarly, activist, and creative labors in this time of turmoil. The ASA is but one modest apparatus at your disposal.

Finally, I encourage a collective embrace of an ethnic and practice that is common to some, though under-discussed by far too many: collective, communal self-defense. This robust ethnic and practice is not only central to abolitionist, liberationist, Black (feminist, queer, trans) radical, and indigenous self-determination traditions of mutual aid and community building, but is also a necessary aspect of “campus life” for many of us in the ASA. The need to develop well-deliberated, mutually accountable forms of self-defense cannot be abstracted, caricatured, or trivialized in this moment of asymmetrical vulnerability to illness and terror. Get your back, and get each other’s backs, in whatever way you can.

D.R.

Dylan Rodríguez (@dylanrodriguez) is Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside.  He was named to the inaugural class of Freedom Scholars in 2020 and is President of the American Studies Association (2020-2021).  He recently served as the faculty-elected Chair of the UCR Division of the Academic Senate (2016-2020) and as Chair of Ethnic Studies (2009-2016).  After completing his Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley in 2001, Dylan spent his first sixteen years at UCR in Ethnic Studies before joining Media and Cultural Studies in 2017.

Heleo Levya, Lead Community Gardener, Bids Farewell to Madison Ave Community Garden

Heleo LeyvaLeave a comment

Dear East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Neighboring Communities,

When a group of us started the Madison Ave Community Garden during the summer of 2019, our team had major challenges concerning soil quality for the garden, as well as several design and policy decisions to make for the space. As the lead gardener, I volunteered to cultivate over 700 square feet of soil in order to develop better planting and organizing space for the communal plot area, also known as the area for local residents to come and grow their own fruits and veggies. I also filmed and edited a bunch of videos about this process, which you can find at the Provost Kitchen on YouTube.

The Madison Ave Community Garden, like 42 other community gardens in the city of Los Angeles, is overseen by a board or group of three to five community members. As a board member, my primary focus was to make the Madison Ave Community Garden an accessible site for the working class Latinx, Asian, and other BIPOC communities that make up East Hollywood. This is why when I learned that of the available community plots for the garden, over 70% of them were taken by white residents, I sounded the bell and noted to fellow board members that it was important to be more inclusive.

Small plots coming to life at Madison Ave Community Garden in East Hollywood – April 2020

I then submitted and ensured passage of a motion to include Spanish in all social media posts. Prior to this, all social media for the garden was published only in English. I also submitted and ensured passage of a motion seeing to it that the next chair/vice chair position be held by a Latinx person, in order to be more reflective of the Latinx residents who make up the East Hollywood and Virgil Village areas. Finally, I created a new position on the board known as the Community Outreach Coordinator, whose goal is to find local, long-time residents who may be interested in taking space at the garden. Thanks to these efforts, we now have more Latinx, Asian and other BIPOC community members at the garden.

In November of this year, I also organized and executed the first ever Dia de Los Muertos festivities at the garden. As a person of indigenous roots, it was very important for me to have the garden blessed with a ceremony.

“There is of course a lot more work that needs to be done.”

Motions currently being considered by the board are publishing social media biographies of the leadership team, making motions available to the public, allowing garden members to sit in on leadership team meetings, and creating a yearly diversity report, as well as Tongva land acknowledgement. All these motions are an effort to further increase diversity, transparency, and accountability at the garden, and I hope to see each of these motions pass by the end of the year.

To the recently-arrived white community in East Hollywood, I invite you to reflect on words such as community and food justice. What does community mean to you? I encourage you to use your privilege to create more access for communities and food justice for communities of color. You don’t need to go far to see racial disparity. According to some of the most recent figures, East Hollywood is comprised of 24% whites, yet they made up over 50% of the people assigned plots at the garden.

“These types of disparities don’t go away with a Biden win.”


After many conversations with the board at Madison Ave Community Garden, as well as with board members for other similar gardens across Los Angeles, I’ve realized that “food justice” is a term that is now widely tossed around in discussions about inclusivity. However, if the garden is not made accessible to BIPOC communities in Los Angeles, and if equity is not a part of the garden’s mission, then there can be no such justice.

To the Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian communities in East Hollywood and beyond, I invite you to reflect about the work that we do in Los Angeles. Do we work to keep building those same systems that favor the few, or do we to help build a new system, where all of us have access? Tongva land acknowledgement, for example, shouldn’t even have to be made into a motion. It should be a given. Yet when necessary, we ourselves must speak up about our work and our heritage so that others don’t take credit for our critical contributions to the communities we help make and cultivate.

Baby tomatoes at Madison Ave Community Garden in East Hollywood – April 2020

Work has been hard. I put in over 2,000 volunteer hours at the garden, or the equivalent of $50,000 worth of work over a year and a half. My term isn’t officially over until July 2021, but I now believe it’s time for someone else to take on the role of Lead Community Gardener for the space. My hope is that the next board member in this role will also have diversity as a top priority.

It has been an honor to serve this community and watch it grow, and I now look forward to meeting again in the days ahead for more work in equity and inclusion in Los Angeles.

H.L.

Heleo Levya is a leading community chef and gardener in East Hollywood. He holds a Bachelor of Science with a concentration in Finance from Cal State University, Long Beach. In his senior year, he was admitted to the Student Managed Investment Fund, a one-year finance honors like program in which he managed real portfolios consisting of over $750k. His work was recently covered by This Side of Hoover, Eater, and the L.A. Times.