Base at Blackstone Avenue

I am La Migra

2009-08-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

I find out, after returning to the mission that there have been ICE officials scanning the parking lot at Home Depot. Padre runs out there to take care of anyone he can. He returns later; thank god there were no arrests.

But the rest of the day, everyone is jumpy. A new woman comes into the mission and eyes me suspiciously. I overhear her question to the girl I am talking to—Is she the mirga? I am horrified. I never guessed people might look at me and see me as the oppressor.

Later that day, I am interviewing a man. He is homeless, I know, but he is giving me the runaround. I just stop by here, he said, waving at the camp. I have a girlfriend! A son! I live with them! I live with my son and my girlfriend! He repeats it over and over.

Surprisingly, despite his suspicions, he is still willing to talk to me, even if he is projecting an alter-persona. So I am asking him some questions when he stops.

You aren’t a reporter, are you? Are you? He accuses suddenly, like he is teasing it out of me—this great secret. You are la migra, huh? That’s it! You aren’t a reporter.

The muchacha is a reporter, my friends vouch for me, just as the girl did back at the mission.

But it stings all the same.

A Girl like Me

2009-08-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 22 July, 2009

I’m sitting on the sticky leather couches of the mission, biding time until José is ready to go to the Factory with me. A girl who I have met before, but whose name I have forgotten, sits down next to me. We begin to chat.

I learn, during the conversation’s course, that the girl I am speaking to is my same age. That’s always interesting to consider—the parallel life that I could have. She is at college now, at a Catholic school, studying to be a teacher. Her father pushed her to enroll and though she was resistant at first (scared about her still shaky mastery of English), she is now glad that she is there. She isn’t a rough girl, doesn’t get into trouble or gangs and the people she has met at college are good, too.

Life is scary for her. Here, her neighborhood of little brick houses is the site of gang activity. She doesn’t go out at night. She used to love to return to Mexico, to stay with her Grandmother in the north of the country. But that area is scary now, too, since the drug ring gangs have started moving in to the area.

Her eyes widen, big and fearful. Is anywhere safe to live? She asks.

INTERNSHIP: ARACELI, 2

2009-08-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

When I walk into the Guerra-Gonzalez family home, I look at a picture of a tubby baby on the wall.

Is that you? I ask Jasmin, the oldest.

No, no, she says, None of the stuff on the walls out here can be ours. We can’t have anything here, it all has to be in our room. But come on! See the picture of our whole family—us and our dad!

I follow Jasim, 8, and her squealing siblings down the little hallway and we enter a door plastered with kids drawings. I poke my head into the tiny room, crammed full with a dresser, a TV, clothes and toys. Inside is one giant bed. Four out of five members of the Guerra-Gonzalez family now sleep in this bed—the mother; Araceli and the three children; Jasmin, 8, Anai, 6 and Carlos, 3. The one member missing, their father, Moses sleeps at Christian Country Prison. He awaits deportation.

Moses was arrested in December of last year. He had supported the entire family by working two jobs. Since his arrest, life has been hard. Araceli never had to work before, but now, she spends her days cleaning. The work is hard and she is forbidden from speaking Spanish in the workplace—which makes even communication exhausting. She has applied for work at a million other places; but no one is hiring. There is also another complication—she is undocumented and places like factories now ask any worker for papers.

But the hardest thing is sharing their home. Before, the family lived in the spacious upstairs and rented their basement to a family with two children. But after Moses left, Araceli realized the rent would be impossible—her husband used to make $700 a week; now she makes about $100 to $150 a week. She moved in with the family downstairs so she could rent up the upstairs to new tenants. Now, she and her three children live confined to their tiny bedroom. But the bedroom is not even their own—a tiny cot in the corner sleeps the daughter of the couple downstairs. It is, after all, her room. The Guerra-Gonzalez family are essentially; unwanted visitors in their own home.

Araceli stays strong by thinking about her husband. They met in Mexico when they were ten years old. By the time they were thirteen, they were boyfriend and girlfriend. The year they turned fifteen their families moved to the United States; Araceli’s to California and Moses’ to Chicago. They kept in contact that whole time and when Moses visited, he would try to convince Araceli to marry him. Finally, when they were seventeen; she agreed and he whisked her away to Chicago. They were married there and soon after; their three children were born. The separation now is worse than their brief separation as teenagers.

“I love him even more now than I ever did,” Araceli said. “For the first time in my life, I am alone.”

The kids are having a great time showing me the apartment they share. Even under less than ideal conditions; they are proud to be tour guides.

“Come, come! To the kitchen,” shouts little Carlos, leading the way. He climbs on a stool and shows me the ingredients for his favorite drink—leche. Then, he points out the microwave. “For leche!” he announces.

As I drink a glass of water with them in the kitchen; the kids clamor to show me “the rest of their house.”

“Are you coming upstairs?” Anai asks.

When Araceli gently reminds them that upstairs isn’t really their house any more that the kids’ faces fall and they decide, instead, to show me their bikes, stacked outside.

As we drive back, Araceli is tired, a little sad. She doesn’t like going home, even for a short visit.

“It is very small,” she says—expressing a lot with that one, simple phrase.

Carlos chirps from the back asking for the radio and Araceli gladly turns it on

Internship: Araceli I

2009-08-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 22 July, 2009

Before I enter the mission, I stop a few moments to talk business with the kids standing

outside. It is church fundraising season and the kids of the Mission are stationed behind a little table, peddling soda and candy, water and orange or grape drink. I ask them what is selling well, and the reports are mixed. In the past four hours, they have made about twenty-six dollars. Nicely done, I say, secretly wondering if their own parents or siblings contributed the most to that total.

It starts with a tap and a jump. I tap the glass storefront window of the mission and the little, round-faced boy at the other side hops back with fright. A second later, a huge grin spreads across his face. A tiny, balled fist taps back. We begin a game where I splay my fingers on one side and he mirrors me on the other. Soon, his two sisters join in and we are laughing and smacking the glass. I feel terrible about the greasy paw prints we are marking the window with, but the giggles are just too pure, the fun too extreme. We play for a long time, until finally I pry myself away. Embarassingly enough, my interviewee is inside, waiting for me. I am in the process of apologizing when the kids I had just played with crowd around her. I learn that my new friends are her children. They dart back and forth from me to their mother, smacking my hands. In winning their trust, I win their mother’s trust, who smiles a weary, appreciative smile at me.

Gilded Mixed Income Homes

2009-08-09T08:43:00.001-07:00

The small woman holding court in the living room had invited us in to see her new home. But it wasn’t a typical house viewing. Firstly, the audience crammed into the freshly painted living room was a forty-odd tour group. Secondly, the woman showing us her new home wasn’t proud—she was angry.

She had lived her whole life in Chicago’s notorious public housing units. Her new home was in one of the novel, brand-new mixed income developments that had sprung up in the empty lots the demolished projects left behind. Politicians, like Bill Clinton, touted the replacement of public housing with mixed income communities a great idea. But the greatness of the idea, just like the greatness of the house, only went just past the surface.

“Everything that glitters isn’t gold,” she said.

The woman provided evidence. The dishwasher never worked, the thermostat falls off the wall. The poor light fixture design means that it is impossible to change the light bulbs without calling in a handy man with tools and a ladder. The cement under the floor was poured hastily—stocking-ed feet can feel the bumps and ridges. The fluffy carpet was placed directly on top of the floor, meaning that when it rains, water begins to seep through the corners.

Once they made up their minds to do it, politicians were in a hurry to knock down the homes and a hurry to throw the next set up. The woman sighs.

“You want things quick,” she said. “Sometimes it’s good to take things slow.”

This new, fool’s gold home replaced the woman’s public housing residence. IT’s strange to remember that when the projects were first built, they were supposed to be niceBut that residence was a place she felt comfortable.

“I’d rather go back to the homes,” she said.

INTERNSHIP:Night Tour with the Padre

2009-08-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

The factory didn’t work out. However, as we wove through the streets of Little Village, the Padre began to casually comment on our surroundings. Soon, my enthusiasm coupled with his knack for teaching morphed our late night drive into a tour of Little Village and Pilsen through the eyes of the Padre. It was all the more fitting and intense because it was night and all the places we passed were dimly lit. We passed the corner café in Pilsen where anarchists meet. We passed sites of the immigration raids: quiet neighborhoods and shopping centers, chilling in the dark. The Padre described one night time raid, when ICE henchmen stormed 300 homes in the area and helicopters buzzed over head. We drove down 26^th Street; empty except for a few loiterers at the bus stop. A few years ago, Padre said, the area had boasted a busy night life. Now, policemen had started camping out down the street from clubs; waiting to pounce on late night revelers heading home. The Padre talked, too, about the gangs that plagued the neighborhood—the 26ers and the Latin Kings, among others.

We left Little Village, returning to Pilsen, where the Padre pointed out his favorite bars and restaurants, telling me a little bit about the management and cuisine of each. From there, we entered the newly gentrified lands of U of I- Chicago students: small art galleries, new condos and Starbucks. Five years ago, it wasn’t like this, he said. I marveled once again at Chicago’s capacity for urban renewal, the rebuilding of spaces and the displacement of people.

The Padre drove me right to my doorstep. I thanked him, head still spinning from all that I had seen and heard.

INTERNSHIP:Waiting for the Padre

2009-08-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 16 July, 2008

After the dinner, I changed from my fancy dress to leggings and a tee-shirt and sat outside of the Museum. I had finished up early, roughly 8.15, and the Padre wasn’t supposed to be here until nine. But I wasn’t worried at all. The air was cool and I had my book with me. I had just feasted on sumptious falafel, tomato salad and pita. My new acquaintances streamed past me, most asking if I needed a ride. I waved them on. The director came out, carrying a cardboard box and filling the air with the smell of fresh pita.

My thoughts drifted to what the Padre and I were about to do—visit a huge abandoned factory where he said that a bunch of men had been living for the past few months. We had tried to swing by one afternoon and no one had been there. We both agreed there was a better chance that the day-laborers would be home at night. So we had planned for him to pick me up after he finished his meeting and I finished my dinner. I trusted his word, but I hoped that the plan hadn’t changed. My phone had died. I checked my watch—9.15.

It got darker as I sat there, back against the wall. Joggers passed by me and we exchanged little hellos. Some junior high girls roller bladed past me. Several dogs sniffed my feet. An awkward little boy bounded over to me when his white terrier approached me. He and his dad had the same goofy grin. He launched into a speech about his terrier, named Brian, after family guy—did I watch that show? His dad bobbed his head and repeated in a strong Spanish accent asking me did I watch that show? I nodded I knew the show even though I hadn’t really ever sat and watched the show.

Oh! Said the little boy. What’s your name?

I was just alone enough that I decided to lie. “Sarah,” I said, then immediately felt crappy about it.

“That’s a pretty name!” he exclaimed. I smiled, wanting to tell him it was really my room mate’s name.

As he walked away, he almost tripped over awkward feet, turning around to yell back: “Have a nice night, Sarah! Take care, Sarah! Nice to meet you, Sarah!”

The newly named Sarah (me) glanced at her watch. It was inching ever later. But I was sure that the Padre would come.

I continued to read, back pressed against the wall, conscious of anyone around me the later it got. But my book was good and I soon lost track of time again.

Returned from his walk and going through his gate across the street from me, the little boy shouted: “Oh! Sarah—you’re still here! Well, have a nice night, Sarah! I’m going to bed now, Sarah! Oh! Sarah—this is my house.”

I waved.

“Aren’t you going to bed, too?”

“I’m waiting for a friend! Goodnight—sleep tight!”

“Goodnight, Sarah!” he hollered.

I checked my watch. It was ten to ten now. Damn my phone! I thought. I bet the tried to call me!

I decided to stay until ten. I felt pretty safe here, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. People were still jogging, still congregating on street corners, but I was starting to get jumpy. Cars were passing, but none of them were Padre’s. If they slowed down at all, I felt nervous.

Ten came, but I decided to finish up the section I was reading. At 10.15, I sadly decided that I had waited long enough. I packed up my bags and began walking to the train stop. It would be a long ride home.

I wasn’t mad in the least about it. I figured the Padre had some good excuse, even though I didn’t know him well. I trusted him.

I was walking around the corner when a car slowed. Someone called at me. I ignored them and kept walking.

“Brenna!” I heard. “Brenna!”

I stooped. Padre grinned up at me.

Whaddya know, I thought. But I am sure glad I waited this long.

Padre and I explained ourselves—I apologized for the death of my phone (“Oh,” he said, “I called you like five times!”) and he explained why he had been caught up (his meeting for the Anglican church on the matter of female bishops had run long.)

We were both relieved to see each other.

He began to drive slowly and we planned our adventure when I sat down. We agreed it was late and wondered aloud if it was safe to go to the factory. We agreed to stop by and at least see.

The Padre pulled up and we could see figures talking, laughing, drinking, silhouetted. He motioned for me to stay in the car. He called out to them in Spanish, through the fence. I opened the door and saw him give them his card.

INTERNSHIP: A Priestly Encounter

2009-08-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

Today, I was blessed by a priest in a parking lot.

Overcome with my meeting with Father Dahm, I sat in the schoolyard of San Pius V. My butt was warmed by the sun-drenched asphalt, my back leaned against a pole in the chain link fence and my fingers flew across they key board when a round, portly man with a cane and a balding, head moved slowly in through a gap in the fence.

“Why, hello,” he said, voice gravelly. “Are you a student here? Or… no… a teacher?”

Oh, I’m a college student, I said, scrambling to my feet. Let me introduce myself.

Oh—you don’t have to do that, but I was up already, extending a hand. I’m Brenna, I said.

“Oh, he said. Oh. Well, i-- I am one of the the elder fathers here, he said. I am a Dominican priest. One of the old ones, about eighty-one, so you know, nearing my time, he said. His eyes wandered.

Do you like school?

I said, yes, indeed, I did I liked being a journalism major because I got to talk to people.

Oh yes, he said. You keep up on things.

Yes, I said. Have you been here long—what do you notice about here?

Well, let me tell you. I once did something. I was a teacher for many years here, see, and I once said to another Father, at one of the dinners—Well, what else can I do? I’m a priest. I didn’t mean it that way, of course, but that’s… wel, anyway, that’s what I am. And he said—well, why don’t you do hospital work. And so you know, for eighteen years now, I have been the chaplain at Holy Cross Hospital right over there. You see everything. Which, for a prieset is good. You need a little bit of reality—of real humanity—not just intellectual material. Not to be morbid or anything, but you need that reality, that human suffering. Makes you thankful for what you are, what you have. For me, I am a Dominican priest. Makes you thankful, that humanity. And so I did that for eighteen years.

“If you write a thesis one day, include that and, don’t cite me by name—I don’t mean anything by that—I’m Father Morris—but say, say I met this Dominican Father once. It’s something to carry with you. He paused.

Here, I’ll bless you. He made a cross on my forehead while I stood awkwardly, hoping not to break any rules, and then slowly walked away, disappearing as magically as he appeared.

INTERNSHIP: The Padre Needs to Sleep

2009-08-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Father Dahm was exhausted. As I spoke to him, his eyes closed, his mouth drooped open. He slouched in his chair. He shifted every few seconds, in an attempt to keep himself awake.

I kept expecting one of my questions to fall flat, for him to be snoring by the time it was his turn to speak. But somehow, he’d jolt awake and he’d answer one of my questions in a slow, careful voice. Worn out, but truthful.

His parish, one of the largest in Pilsen, is made up of a constituency that is 80% foreign-born. Of those, he estimates 50% are undocumented. In Father Chuck’s twenty-three years as Parish Priest, he has built up a wealth of social services around the church. The church runs a thrift store, runs a food pantry, runs youth services. Human services are as big of a part of the church as religious services. But these days, the church is getting more pleas for assistance than it can deal with.

I guessed that that was what was exhausting Father Dahm—and I was partially right. He was also suffering from health problems which had left him weak. Still, he told me he had more and more people coming in, more and more people asking for help. And he just couldn’t provide that many people with assistance. The church has affordable housing, yes, but you need to make at least $20,000 to $22,000 a year to be able to qualify for the rent assistance. If you are making $250 a week, $1000 a month, there is no way you can afford rent like that. He talked about referring two or three men a week to a nearby men’s shelter—a shelter that has a waiting list, something Father Dahm called a joke—most of these men don’t even have phones.

I asked him what should be done and he just looked at me, sadly. I don’t know, he said, I don’t know. People need jobs, he said.

The more I talked to him, the more I realized that in these times, there were just too many people pleading for help from the church. People come, unable to find jobs, unable to pay their bills and he is powerless. Even if they get in to San Jose, they are soon out again. If they are looking for jobs, he tells them to make friends. What else can he do?

He was tired.

INTERSHIP: Talking with Dulcidia and Joceline Blanco

2009-07-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Over the next few weeks, I started hanging out at the Mission a lot. The fact that all I was doing was working my internship and exploring Chicago meant that I was uncharacteristically free. I could be flexible and wait around while someone completed their work. I could get to be friends with the kids. Each conversation ended up supplying me with practical knowledge about the people there or the neighborhood. I was relishing the art of hanging out with people and watching things happen. And moreover, people learned to like and trust me because I was always there.

On that first day of hanging out, the Padre returned to the Mission to make a phone call. When we walked in, he greeted a mother and daughter talking to friends at the front.

These are the Blancos, he said. You should talk to them. Marilu is helping them to get loan modifications.

And so, Dulcidia Blanco, her fourteen-year-old daughter Joceline and I sat on the wooden pews.

Dulcidia spoke ok English, but soon we moved into a rhythm where she spoke to Joceline in Spanish and Joceline translated. Sometimes, I asked interview questions, sometimes we chatted. It was in that way, in this relaxed, conversational style that I got their story.

Dulcidia and Luis had crossed into Mexico from Guatemala twenty-five years ago. They later crossed the rio to get into the united states. In the 1990ss, they received amnesty through a lottery. Dulcidia feels safer now, more free, less afraid.

They bought their house in the nineties and Joceline and her three brothers were raised there.

They told me about joining the church: “It helps out a lot of people, we like that a lot.” Luis drove supplies down on a mission trip to Tabasco. They never expected to be the recipients of aid.

They told me about last September, when Luis started getting less and less work as a trucker. Soon, he was only working 2 or 3 days a week at most.

Dulcidia had to go onto food stamps, something she has never done before.

She spoke of how they could no longer pay the mortgage. “The bank keeps pressuring me,” she said. “The first time they called was Christmas. They said we had lost the house. They keep calling and saying we have already lost the house when we haven’t. They once called my husband when he was driving and said the same thing. He almost crashed, so now I take all of the calls.”

“If they take the house away, what are we going to do?” she asked. “It’d be easy to rent another place but it’s been fifteen years there, I don’t want to leave.”

Joceline turned to me. “Mom gets really depressed. She cries a lot. Sometimes, I come into the room and she is just staring at the wall.”

Dulcidia adds: “Sometimes I want to just leave it all behind.”

The most precious part of the whole thing was the silence after we talked. I was able to share that with them, share the fact that discussing these things weighted us all down. I offered them a little hope, Well, if anyone can help you, it’ll be Padre, I said. I know, I know, said Dulcidia.

INTERNSHIP: Padre and I visit the Factory, attempt one

2009-07-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 15 July, 2009

The Padre and I entered the factory the next day, wriggling through a tear in the fence around it. I stepped gingerly over stagnant puddles, broken glass and huge piles of trash. It reminded me of the camp I had seen in the desert last spring, the hidden cave covered in human garbage. It was isolated, a cave in a lonely ridge in the Sonora, yet it was packed with flies and discarded pieces of human existence. Once again, here was a place I couldn’t believe people live. And Chicago winters were for me comparable to desert summers. Neither place are liveable for humans exposed to the elements.

“See how much they drink,” said Padre, pointing at mounds of liquor bottles.

The next room, however, showed poignant humanity—overturned crates and a few chairs, one looking like a seat extracted from a mini van made a makeshift living room. Magazine pictures were tacked to the walls. I pushed on a door and it opened wide enough for me to see six mattresses, stacked with clothes and blankets and someone’s stored bicycle. Yep. People lived here for sure, though no one was there now.

Padre and I climbed upstairs to see more beds and piles of clothing but no one answered our calls. They were probably out working, seeking day labor at the Home Depot. We agreed to come back the next night and see if they were around. In the meantime, he had some other people I could talk to.

INTERNSHIP: The Padre, ctnd.

2009-07-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 14 July, 2009

I was getting ready to leave the mission when Padre came in. “Do you need a ride?” he asked. “I am going now to play soccer.”

I agreed to the ride and was delighted that he played soccer. He just got better and better.

We piled into his old car, floor littered with coffee cups, banana peels and newpapers.

“Do you have time to see the factory?” he asked.

“Of course!” I said, astonished at my luck.

As we drove along, I marveled at the Padre and the conversation we were having. His accent was rollingly Central American—h’s before vowels and dropping the endings of other words. Still, he never missed a word. He had been living in the United States for more than twenty years now and I had the sense that he talked the same way in Spanish, too. Because it wasn’t the accent that made his speaking style unique.

The Padre has a way of interacting with you—a calm, slow way of looking at you intently and filling space with lots of repetitions—“Mmm-hmm, mm-hmmm, mmm-hmm” he says, nodding his head. He barely blinks when you are talking, yet his eyes twinkle when he is amused and he grins a lot.

We drove down shady streets of little houses, chatting merrily. I loved his slow sentences and the quirky phrases that came out and the grins that followed when I commented. Soon, we had reached the factory. It was a huge building and looked almost burned out. I couldn’t believe people lived there. He assured me they did.

“We going to go tomorrow,” he said.

Conversation shifted as we turned back towards the bus stop. I asked him about the park he was going to play soccer in; I asked him where he lived.

“Oh, I live on the north side,” he said. “I just moved. Y’see, I have two cats and a rabbit.”

This guy is out of this world I thought. I love everything he says.

“I used to have three cats, but one cat, she died on the road. She was like a daughter to me, so I moved.”

He continued on as we continued on, telling me about how the rabbit thought it was a cat and the cats thought they were rabbits. He had the sweetest, shyest grin as he talked about them. And every time I asked a question about them, he’d seem delighted to answer. We talked about his furry friends until we reached my bus stop.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said, clambering out awkwardly.

“Ok,” he said, grinning upwards. “OK! We go to the factory tomorrow!”

INTERNSHIP: I first go to Our Lady of Guadeloupe Anglican Catholic Mission and meet Padre Jose Landaverde

2009-07-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 14 July, 2009

I walked into the church off of 26^th Street and took off my sunglasses, blinking at the change in lighting. I was in a converted storefront, pews lined up behind a glass-covered case where colorful Our Lady of Guadalupe’s reigned. The receptionist was using the case as a desk. Grinning but speaking no English, he sent me back through lacy curtains into a type of waiting room. An older man and a younger man, chatting in the corner caught my attention. A few women waited dispersed in different seats, speaking quietly in Spanish to their children. A little boy ate fried chicken with greasy fingers and seemed to have run of the place—he even seemed to enter a closed room place where I assumed meetings with the lawyers were taking peace. Yesterday, when I had met with Mujica, he had given me the basics of what went on here—lawyers came to give free consultations on immigration and housing issues to community members. So I was there, but Mujica wasn’t.

The old man and young man seemed interested in my plight. I texted Mujica and it seemed the older man was looking for him, too. He kept asking me if I had an appointment. It was a hard thing to convey—Mujica has recommended that I go, but had never totally said he’d be there. I sad on the plastic seats, staring at my phone and the hushed Spanish conversations happening around me.

I felt, not awkward exactly, but that I was acting awkwardly. I was the only non-Latino in the room and I was sitting alone.

Eventually, I went to talk to the young man, who was now seated behind a desk. He had a smooth face and a mild expression. He was wearing a peasant sort of shirt, white with a symbol of a chieftain outlined in blue on either side of his chest.

I decided to start from square one, admitting that I had no idea what was actually going on.

So, I said. What’s going on here?

In the first two minutes, I was ready to bow to Mujica. The young man and I spent those two minutes establishing points of connection—of which, I quickly learned, there were many. Our meeting seemed established not by Mujica, but by some unforeseen god of fortune.

We determined that I was a reporter working for StreetWise writing about Latino immigrant homeless. We established that he was the Father of the church here (a surprise to me considering his boyish looks). We learned that he had gone to the University of Chicago for theological seminary and that I was living in Hyde Park. Then, he said casually that he had worked as a vendor manager at StreetWise when he came to the city. Then, he had worked as a member of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless creating a task force on Latino homelessness and the plight of day-laborers.

His casually stated comments were gold, all of them insights on the community, the homeless and his life. As we chatted, another community member wandered up. Soon we were swapping stories and observations. The Padre printed out his research and then, in the same casual tone, offered to take me to an abandoned factory where he knew a bunch of homeless were camped out.

What are you doing tomorrow? He asked. I cannot go now, I am busy. If you come, one o’clock tomorrow, we can go.

With a mischievous smile, he added: It’s a lil’ bit dangerous so I’ll wear my priest stuff and we’ll be ok.

Two minutes later, he led me into the back room to meet Marilu. I was deposited in a warehouse-like room after following the Padre down what looked like a supply closet—I hesitated at first, was he leading me or stopping by to grab some supplies?

But he beckoned and the room opened up. Half of it has junk and clothes piled on tall shelves. The room was filled with salty smelling smoke which drifted in from an open door.

Gathered around a table were six women, speaking Spanish. Some of them had plates of half-eaten cake. Tortillas sat in packets, tomatoes sat washed and ready to be chopped. The women were hanging out and looked up curiously when we approached.

This is Marilu, Padre said, pointing me to a round woman with a friendly face.

I sat down. With the help of the women around her, especially a young girl who translated, Marilu filled me in on what was happening in the community. I sat there for over an hour as they told me about their friends losing their homes, steep housing prices and a name, almost whispered with following nods: Herminia Corona, Herminia Corona.

INTERNSHIP: I am doing EXACTLY as I dreamed of doing

2009-07-18T13:35:00.001-07:00

18 July 2009

My entries about Jorge Mujica and Marcos have been part of the incredible journey of writing my cover piece for StreetWise. It began with the vague statement from Suzanne that won my decision to join StreetWise staff—and we’d like to have a story on the immigrant homeless.

Suzanne’s initial idea was one about the Polish immigrant community. I expanded that—What about a series? I asked. One on each of the three largest immigrant groups in Chicago and how they deal with their homeless?

And Suzanne gave me the ok and I began researching the situation of homeless immigrants in the Latino, Polish and Indian immigrant communities in Chicago.

I have visited a shelter for Polish immigrants and it will be an amazing tale to tell. However, the story that has won my heart is the story on homelessness in the Latino community. Of course, those of you who know me know that I am already deeply involved in the immigration reform debates—a passion which began with my volunteer experience with undocumented migrants crossing the desert in Arizona. It was there that I decided on my idiosyncratic dream—to be a reporter coving issues of immigration.

For this story, I started with a discrepancy in numbers and facts. I began with a statistic—that the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless states that only 6% of the homeless in the city are Latino. This doesn’t mesh with other statistics. Chicago’s population is 25% Latino and studies show that both increased raids by border officials and the recession have impacted Latino families. Latino families are often poor and the parents are often working minimum-wage, low-skill jobs. So I was sure that there was something that the survey had missed.

Well, turns out, there are a lot of factors about the Latino community that the survey didn’t take into account. I learned these facts from my own observation and from talking to many people, many of them participants in the first forum on Latino homelessness entitled Todos Contamos, an under-noticed symposium held in April.

This is what I have learned. For the most part, Latinos in Chicago form a close-knit community that has learned to support each other when they can’t count on others. Often, when one family loses a home, instead of going to a homeless shelter, the family (or individual) simply moves in with another family. Though they are homeless, these displaced people aren’t counted in surveys. Homes across the community, however, are overcrowded by this “doubling up” causing safety hazards, increased stress, child abuse and increased domestic violence. And even if they are out on the streets, most Latinos are mistrustful of government services—expecting that they do not qualify for aid, that the service will not have appropriate cultural and lingustic sensitivities and worst of all, terrified that they will be turned in. So instead, people are turning to churches and family members for help.

Chasing down this story has brought me to know the streets of Pilsen and Little Village, the Mexican communities of Chicago. Walking down them now involves waving to passersby and stopping in at my favorite places. I now know where ICE raids happened, where the activists hang out, and where gangs convene and where reform happens. The stories are being written with the help of an incredible cast of characters. Some are the angels who help the downtrodden in these communities and some are those who are homeless, struggling or losing their homes. Some are looking at the future with hope; others with trepidation. All of them have let me into their worlds.

I want to tell you there stories. In my article, they will be reduced to mere sentences or paragraphs. But here, in this forum, I can bring people to life. I can introduce you to the dapper Puerto Rican who runs San Jose Obrero Mission or the quiet, yet radical priest from El Salvador who runs Our Lady of Guadelupe Anglican Catholic Mission on 26^th Street. I can introduce you to the people who are uncounted—the family with four children who have been receiving foreclosure notices and the man who loves America, yet lives in a downtown shelter.

CONTRACTED OPTION 2: Shabbot Shalom and Aaaaah-mein!

2009-07-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

18 July 2009

It was the rabbi’s thunderous voice that brought us into Friday night service at Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation on South Kedzie Avenue. I had heard Rabbi Capers Funnye speak at a benefit for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs the night before. This heavy-set, regal-looking African American man had overwhelmed the room with his powerful, gospel voice, singing out across the tables and filling the room with it’s rich tones. I knew then that I wanted to go to his service. And so, we found ourselves heading into the far South side this cool Friday night to attend a rather remarkable service. Since coming into Chicago, I have become absolutely unfazed by discovering myself in remarkable situations. But as far as diversity goes, this one perhaps took the cake.

The Congregation was historic, I learned from a quick perusal of its website. It was founded as the Ethiopian Hebrew Association in 1915. When Martin Luther King Jr. was in Chicago during the Civil Rights Movement, he found shelter at the temple. It is still operating today, with one of the most diverse congregations around.

The website told me that much but as I walked down South Kedzie, I learned from Curtis a little bit about the neighborhood the congregation now sits in. Curtis works at the Southwest Youth Collaborative; a community center on Kedzie for youth growing up just South of 63^rd Street, one of the three most dangerous streets in the nation. Though today the SWYC building is covered in bright murals and has become a safe haven for kids in the neighborhood; its past tells a different story. There are photos of people throwing rocks at Dr. King Jr. from the roof of the building. The KKK used to have its center in the neighborhood and racial tensions still run high. For Curtis, a pretty preppy white kid, it’s been hard to win trust in the kids he works with. When he first started, another worker told him—“I’m brown and it took six months to get them to like me.”

We didn’t know what to expect when we arrived at the temple but what we did meet was locked doors. We wandered around a little bit hopelessly before ringing the doorbell and being let in by the Rabbi himself. We were ushered upstairs and handed over to a beautiful African-American woman wearing a sky blue skirt set with tiny mosaic mirrors. She explained that men and women in the congregation sat separately and that head covers are expected for both men and women. Curtis donned a yarmulke and the girls wrapped their hair in lacy scarves. We were offered seats and I spent the next few minutes studying the people around me.

The crowd around me was absolutely impossible to fit into any mold. In front of me sat the beautiful woman who had welcomed us and her neighbor, a tan woman with dark locks escaping from her gypsy-style black and white scarf. There was a red-headed white woman visiting from New York and an awkward looking girl with brown hair who was looking at the University of Chicago. Behind us was a Latino family—an eleven-year-old daughter, mother and grandmother. The men’s side was predominantly African-American but also included Curtis, the husbands of the middle-aged Latina and the red-haired visitor and the father of the girl at the University of Chicago. My favorite in the entire crowd may have been the Rabbi’s grandson—a tall, lanky, pants-sagging yet tallis-wearing guy. I’m sure that their belief systems and reasons for coming were even more diverse than their appearances, but the surface-level differences were wide-ranging enough for books.

Rabbi Funnye entered and raised his hands and then his voice. I melted into the noise. I didn’t understand a word of the Hebrew that he spoke but I knew that the inflection was different from any other I have ever heard—the Hebrew rose and fell in African rhythms, Gospel tones.

I could have listened to the Rabbi for an eternity, but unfortunately, the congregation was often invited in. When that happened, I strained to avoid the out of tune chorus that rose around me and focus on his voice.

The room was brightly colored with purplish walls and misty paintings of the creation. Out of a huge window, the sunset glowed pink and purple. The Rabbi finally beckoned us forward and I rose when the congregants rose and then shared in ritual grape juice and raisin-spiced challah bread. Throughout the rest of the service, whenever a congregant was hungry, he or she would rise, walk to the front and snag a piece to munch on.

The service took a turn after bread was broken. Moving forward to sit on the edge of the altar, the Rabbi spoke in English, asking the congregants to raise any questions they might have.

Jewish people, he said, have always initiated conversations with God. They always question Him. Even when they are called by God, they say: ‘Why me?’

He was an intimidating presence but the woman in blue soon spoke up with a question about a Hebrew word. The conversation continued and soon, we were on the role of women. (Earlier, he had read a prayer of praise for one’s wife. I thought it was a nice gesture, though I felt like some of the things in the prayer were a little dated—while it complemented the woman; it did so for her dedication to hard work, running the house, etc.) I had also thought a little bit about the separation between men and women in the Congregation and surprisingly; I liked it. It made me feel special, mysterious, and feminine— like when women pray, there is a magic utterly different from what men experience. It was a surprising conclusion for me to come to, but true. However, the discussion was a lot more conservative than I expected. Women in the audience were talking about deferring to their husbands and while the Rabbi was emphatic in saying that that didn’t happen anymore, his definition of women’s rights were a little weird. He said, for example, that he never touches his wife’s income. She has worked for twenty years but as a man, he still believes it is his income that should pay for everything in the house. He believes that is his responsibility. Several other questions (put forward by his tall, lanky, pants-sagging yet tallis-wearing grandson) were shot down by the Rabbi.

It was after nine pm when we shook hands with those around us and wished a universal Shabbot Shalom. It was the typical Chicago center adventure: the kind where you suddenly find yourself in another world, but one that welcomes you.

Correction at the Corner Cafe

2009-07-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

15 July 2009

The Corner Cafe

Once, in class, Scott told us about a book called Slim’s Table. It’s a book about the culture of a group of African Americans who meet at a café located not two steps from the Chicago Center. When Scott’s son Lane was assigned to read the book in college, the professor began the lecture by talking about how the café was in the middle of the ghetto in a dangerous area on the Southside. When Lane politely protested, saying he often went there for breakfast and it was actually in a safe, college town environment, the professor refused to believe him. He had a mental idea of where this café was and instead of asking the locals about it, he formed his own, misconstrued image of it.

Well, my friends, I am ashamed to say that I am guilty of the same thing. I began this blog, really and truly, with my entries about Verbal Balance, a spoken word poetry evening held at a Southside café. Someone had told me that the café was on the far Southside (“Danger!” my mind filled in). When we pulled up, we parked to the side and it did look to me like it was in an industrial wasteland. People had told me that it was a culture shock to go and I flat out believed them. I really did sit in the café, nervous about the outside, perceiving it to be a scary, unwelcome place.

Well, I was chastised by Scott for creating my own reality in my entries about the Corner Café. And it’s true; when we returned for the Verbal Balance event held last Wednesday; I saw the area in a whole new light. We drove in on another street and it looked pretty normal; some houses and some apartments. When we parked, I didn’t feel like we were at the end of the earth as I had on our first trip. In viewing the environment a second time, I saw normality that before I had let hide itself in the dark night.

Inside, I sat on a big, padded couch next to a big, padded woman who called herself “Earth” (I accidentally called her “Erf” for the first five minutes until she explained the origins of her name and I finally realized by pronouncing it with her accent I had made a fool of myself—as in, “Erf—what an interesting name. Where does it come from?”). Earth told me the neighborhood was ok, there are good parts and some bad parts. It go block by block. Some places, you could raise kids; others no. But, yeah, it’s really ok.

This discovery does make me nervous, very nervous. I had the fortune to visit this place a second time and the flexibility to add this note to my blog. But I am a journalist by profession and there will be times when I am expected to write about things which I will not have the chance to revisit. How can I trust myself when I realize my lens is hopelessly screwed?

Well, Solution Part A is that I will try to always visit a place more than once (something I have tried to practice, especially as a journalist because each time you visit a place or speak to a person, you learn something new.)

Solution Part B: Now that I am aware of certain blinders I wear, I can be on guard for them.

INTERNSHIP: Pilsen, through Jorge's eyes

2009-07-17T14:36:00.001-07:00

A little fat boy comes to our table with candy, he is asking if we sell it. No, darling, he says.

No, I say, shaking my head.

I smile as Tubby walks away but Jorge leaps into a comment.

That’s child labor, he says. That kid must pay his dues to his family, pay his keep. It gets worse during the school holidays.

We watch him go from person to person, showing his pitiful ware, almost tripping on a step.

That’s horrible, I say, horrible.

Our eyes wander out the window when the little boy goes outside, no doubt to meet a padre watching from the corner.

The theater across the street is where we led the debates for the 1986 immigration reform bill (Which granted amnesty to thousands of undocumented, permanent across the county). But it was crap by the time it was done. We got that through and started working on the next one the next day. That was twenty-two years ago. And we’re still working. How old are you? A lifetime ago. A whole lifetime.

Obama came here, to this café, on his “Tour of a Latino Neighborhood”. We have a picture. I met with him right here.

INTERNSHIP: Writing about Jorge

2009-07-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

Jorge drives me to the red line in china town, telling me about January fifteenth when he walked the 11 miles to Hyde Park to protest immigration reform for Obama. It was 1 degree that day.

He invited me to his organization tomorrow. Four pm is when the lawyers come, six pm is a kids program.

I’ll see you soon, I say. I walk to a park in China Town and sit by a big plant container. My view: a mural and the highway. Sun on my back, sitting on the ground, smell of piss saturates my nose. It’s gross but it feels good to be outside and good to tell this story, so carefully entrusted to me. My fingers fly on the key board.

INTERSHIP: Jorge's Community Anecdote

2009-07-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

I’ll tell you a story, Jorge said. I’ll give you some numbers that will blow your mind.

Ok, so in 2007, there was a heat wave in Chicago. It was bad, real bad. In our neighborhood, we lost eight, nine hundred people. People dying in closed up apartments. So many that grocery stores were lending the morgues their refrigerated trucks. It was horrible. But, guess, out of those, how many would you guess were Latino?

No idea, I shook my head.

Two, he said. Two. Do you know why?

Something clicked. Yeah, I said, yeah. The people who died were white, elderly alone in their apartments.

Exactly, exactly, he said, excitedly. Because we don’t do that. For Latinos, our grandparents live with us. We take care of them. We say, m’ijo, go fan Grandma, ask her if she needs a glass of water. We don’t leave them like that.

INTERNSHIP: what Jorge sees daily

2009-07-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

13 July 2009

Conversations in the Car between Pilsen and Little Village (Chicago)

This what we are seeing, he said. In the city of Chicago, one hundred men are deported each week. These are young, working men with families. The family has a traditional set-up so usually the wife doesn’t work. Small kids. Well, then he is gone and suddenly we have these mothers, these kids becoming homeless. That’s why if you come to our office right now, it is like a daycare center.

What do you do? I asked.

Well, we try to find someone to take them in, maybe someone who used to be in the same situation.

That’s how the community is. We open up our homes. The other day, my wife and I were counting how many people we had had to stay. It’s been thirty-four in the past six years. Some stay for days, some for weeks or months; I think this one guy stayed for years. Yeah, he was in the basement for about a year and a half. That’s just how we are.

We’re used to overcrowding. You know, if a young, undocumented man comes here they afford the rent by living maybe 12, 14 to a house. People aren’t there together, you know, eight are sleeping while eight are working and so on. You see it in the grocery store; you see two skinny guys with the two carts loaded up with beans, tortillas and you think, how can they eat that? Well, they are buying for all the guys.

Here is something else. We are seeing all these families who are being foreclosed on. You see, if you are an undocumented permanent resident than you can’t get any of the stimulus package money to get loans to keep your house. So we tell them, don’t keep paying your mortgage—don’t try to keep your house as long as possible. If it looks like it is going to happen, it is going to happen. So we tell them, stop paying. If it’s two thousand a month, and you don’t pay for three months than you have six thousand you can put down on an apartment when you loose your house. That’s what we tell them.

Me: Wait. So are there a lot of people like this? Permanent, undocumented residents who have bought houses? How does that work?

That’s the housing boom for you. You could go to the bank and get a loan, granted, they didn’t get good interest rates, they weren’t eligible since they weren’t documented.

Me: Wait, I say. They’d loan to undocumented people? Don’t you need a SS number?

Nope. You need what’s called an IT number, which you can get if you go to any number of places. It’s an Income Tax number and you get it when you register to pay taxes. All you need is your W-2s. So these people would go in with this. They’d get a loan to put down the deposit and then they’d get a loan to help pay for the rest of it. But then they’d have crazy mortgages—like $4,000 a month. But they were so happy, this was America—they had a house. But now, they lose their jobs and they can’t pay the $4,000 anymore.

Me: I get it. So these are the people who arrived after they gave out amnesty in 1986. So they were buying houses in the nineties... oh yeah, right in the middle of the housing bubble.

Exactly, exactly!

INTERNSHIP: Marcos

2009-07-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

13 July 2009

Home Depot Lot, Little Village Chicago

Marcos was shy, but once he started talking his voice flowed forth. Though he never spoke rapidly, he never paused, acting as if the words were almost tumbling out. Sometimes, when people tell me their stories, I can hear the way they build themselves up as we go along. But with Marcos, I heard more and more truth and honesty the longer he spoke and I listened. Sometimes he looked away, sometimes I heard shame when he dropped his already quiet voice, but he kept talking.
We started by talking about his life.
He was from Houston, up here to work. He told me about the jobs, the occasional employers who fucked you over—giving you too little for difficult work. If that happened, he and his friends would leave, hiking back to the Home Depot lot to farm themselves out to someone with a little more integrity. If it got to 2 or 3 and he still hadn’t found work, he’d give up for the day: find a park and maybe drink (he indicated this to me with the shy hint of a hand motion, bottle to mouth but so subtle I might have missed it.)
Most employers are good though, he assured me. They offer you water; help you out a little.
Looking around at the others in the lot, he told me there were more guys than ever who had lost their jobs. He told me about how he at least had a skill—sometimes people who bring him along just to translate.
Where do you stay? I asked.
He stayed in the mission—a homeless shelter down town. He didn’t like it. They were too strict. And religion? Well, don’t get me wrong, he said. I love god. I do, I really do. But I get a note to say I am working so I don’t have to do that stuff. I like going to church, I do, I really do. But…their services…
They just don’t speak to you? I offered.
Yeah! You know.

*

Eventually, we wound around to the rest of his story, a part I was desperate to hear. By now, we had been chatting for a long time. The sun was hot. Cars drove in and out of the lot and the workers around us shifted as people took work and left it. Jorge was talking animatedly to the workers around, laughing and waving his hands. When a driver rolled down the window and asked for a plumber, Jorge took a break from talking to run around to clumps of workers, calling out for the plumber. Marcos and I continued to talk.

I made a lot of mistakes, he said. You know, when you’re young, you mess up.
He stopped looking at me except to glance. He rubbed the back of his sunburnt neck and twisted his arm behind his bag, still clutching the half eaten burger, poppyseeds on top.
He continued.
Marcos: My parents were from El Salvador. But I was born in Belize. They were refugees there. I was born there and two sisters were, too.
Me: How did they get over… to the US, I mean?
Marcos: They did what a lot of people did, they got into the country, then…it was different for El Salvadorans then because there was a war there. They did what Cubans do today.
Me: They applied for amnesty.
Marcos: Yeah…
Well, I was making a lot of poor decisions. I, he stopped, still pained at the closeness of it all. I had my green card pending.
It was new years and I went over the border with friends, to party. On new years, lots of people were coming back and forth, they were busy. But when it came my turn, I was.. I was intox… I was drunk and high on drugs.
He strung the last words together, barely audible, ashamed.
I was. And uh, I tried to cross the bridge but I was alone. I walked that long way alone, you know and not with a lot of people, so the lady asked me a lot of questions. And it was all cool until she asked for my card and I gave it to her and she put it in her computer and she said, you’re not in the system and then, they imprisoned me, detained me for seven months.
I was sent to Belize. I wasn’t from there. I hadn’t been there since I was six. Everybody heard the way I talked, said: ‘where you from, man?’
It was horrible. I am used to here where they say, ‘ah man, you want some water?’ There, they make you work, they mean. They drive you and the work is hard and you make no money. Nothing. Like twenty five cents. And then I lost my job. I lived there for a year and a half and I was like, ah man, I gotta get back.
Me: How did you do it?
Marcos: Well, Mexico’s got real strict borders, real strict you know. I got into Mexico because I speak Mexican Spanish—and Spanish from Belize. They are two different like dialects, you know? I grew my hair long, was all shaven. So I did that. And then, when I was North, I called my parents and they paid for me to cross the other border.
Me: How?
Marcos: By… uh… boat. They took me across the river.
I can’t complain, man. It was all, all was inside I could feel the fear inside me. But I’m lucky. He touched his round face. I never suffered, no one ever beat me. And then I come here and man, America is great. Man, I so lucky to be here man. So lucky. And all of that. It’s like a bad dream. Like a bad dream, seems so long ago. After seeing what it was like over there, I’m just happy to be here. It’s so much better.
I wasn’t sure what to say. Here was a shy and sweet man, living in a homeless shelter in Chicago, standing in a hot parking lot waiting for day labor jobs that aren’t coming and he is telling me America is great?
*

Oh man, I real shy.
Marcos looked bashfully at the ground and rocked from foot to foot. He didn’t want his picture taken until I convinced him that the reason I wanted his picture was because we talked. I could take a picture of any guest worker anywhere, but I wanted his because I knew his story, because he had shared it with me.
You do? He asked.
We compromised. A picture from the back was ok. He checked it out on my camera.
Me: Is Markos with a “c” or a “k”?
Marcos: With a “c”, but I like Mark.
Me: Can I ask you your last name? Do you feel comfortable…? I asked.
Marcos: Martinez. Yeah sure, and here. I’ll give you my cell phone number. I like what you do. A lot. I—how do you say it—uh, support what you doing, he said. I really do. Your helping all these people. That’s why I want to help.
His faith in my work was almost disconcerting. Who was I—this young kid, this girl— he had entrusted his story to?
Me: It’s people like you two who tell me your stories, I said.
He wrote his name on a receipt in blue ink. Tell me when it comes out, I’d like to see it.
It’ll be out August 7th, I said. You can get a copy… I stopped. Did he even have two dollars to spare? Why would I make him pay when I’d send a copy to someone I interviewed who had an address?
Absolutely, I said. I will give you a call. Absolutely.
It’s a promise I am not going to break.
*
You hit the golden nugget with that guy. Jorge says, as we get into the car. I am a little shocked.
Yeah, I say. I know.

INTERNSHIP: Jorge Mujica, community organizer and a journalist's best friend

2009-07-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

13 July 2009

The Jumping Bean (Pilsen) to 26th Street (Little Village)

This is how I became famous during the immigration reform debates, Jorge Mujica said to me as we bumped along in his dilapidated greenish van, back windows curtain with moldy green curtains to match. I am always doing this kind of things for journalists. I may not be the person leading the press conference but they come to me, they say Jorge, what’s going on? And I tell them.

His hand holding the pipe was on the windowsill and the smell of sweet tobacco surrounded us as he continued: I used to be a reporter myself, so I understand, he said.

I was joining the ranks then, of journalists who couldn’t believe their luck at meeting Jorge Mujica. Himself a former undocumented immigrant, he has spent the past twenty years as a community leader in Latino Chicago and at the forefront of both Chicago and national immigration debates. He knew everything there is to know about the community and as we sat in a small Pilsen café over coffee and mint tea, he had to stop periodically to kiss old friends who wandered in and launch into jovial conversations in Spanish about their lives. He was just as friendly and open with me, his acquaintance of an hour- an intern who was questioning him about homelessness in the community for her StreetWise story. It was obvious why journalists loved him—he answered all my questions, peppering them with statistics and anecdotes. And he was willing to have an adventure like the one we were having right now.

Two minutes before, we had still been in that café. We were laughing, getting along well and talking about Obama’s visit to the same café on his “tour of a Chicago, Latino neighborhood”, when Jorge said, suddenly. What are you doing now? Want to go to 26^th street? C’mon, I’ll take you there.

Twenty-sixth Street, he told me, had the second largest economy in Chicago after Michigan Avenue and it was the Mexican shopping district of the Midwest. As we bumped along, he and I both knew why he was so popular with journalists. He didn’t just know about everyone and everything at the Jumping Bean; he also knew about everyone and everything in all of Pilsen and Little Village, Chicago’s Mexican areas.

We jolted down residential streets and talked about the labor unions he organized. He threw his slogan at me—We don’t want to be poor and documented any more than we want to be poor and undocumented. We need unions to fight for our rights.

As part of his community organizing, he had organized strikes against many of the buildings we passed. One was a tortilla factory. While striking there, he saw evidence of the huge market for the Mexican businesses in this area. We had trucks coming from all over: Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, he said. They could trust the tortillas in this factory and were buying them to bring them back to little Mexican restaurants and stores all over.

Shortly after our entrance through the historic Mexican arch that marked the beginning of 26^th Street commerce, I saw a tasty looking restaurant. Jorge casually said, oh we picketed that place for months.

Why? I asked.

They used a commercial Laundromat we were protesting, he said. They got so mad. We protested all these restaurants all over the city that used that service. One was Ditka's—a restaurant owned by the Bear’s manager. He was so mad—he was so mad I thought he’d shoot us.

He pointed out street vendors on every corner, peddling colorful wares. I thought them atmospheric.

We started seeing a bunch of them this last winter, he said. More and more. It’s a sign of how hard it is to find jobs. Used to be there’d be one every two or three blocks, now there are a couple selling things on every corner. Balloons, shaved ice, you name it.. what’s the word in English? You get the ice and put the stuff on top…

I think it’s SnoCone in English, I said, feeling a little ridiculous.

And right here, you see how the economy has hit this place. Two years ago, there was a waiting list to get a business here, maybe eighty business long. And now? Look—you see. He pointed out a particularly empty block. Three out of six stores stood vacant.

I know! he said.

Back to the vendors, he pointed at a cart selling hats and balloons outside of a barber shop.

You see, probably, that shop belongs to his cousin. And so he says, ok, ok, you can sell here. You see that all along. People selling everything—tamales, corn, shoes… look, there’s shoes.

He pointed to the man pushing a handcart with bells and ice cream. That’s more traditional, but there’s more of them, too, these days.

We continued along the street until the small commerce ended—so no more prom dress stores, supermercados, or piñata-filled windows. We were in an industrial area. The pea green van squealed into a parking lot, to turn around, I assumed. But no, he turned in to home depot. Something clicked.

Is this the home depot where…? I began

Yes, he said. Look, over there.

We drove the ridiculous van straight towards a group of three men standing by a stop sign. It was hot, sun beating on them, their backpacks and their beers, though a cool breeze from the lake offered relief.

Are they waiting for work? I asked. But it’s so late in the day. It was already past four.

Jorge squealed up next to them and parked with a jolt.

How’s your Spanish? he asked.

Minimal, I said.

So, you speak like three words? he laughed his horsey laugh. Ola and amigo and…

… and gracias, I finished.

He laughed again and undeterred, he leapt out of the car speaking rapid and friendly Spanish, arms waving. He introduced me as the journalist-- ne habla espagnol.

Immediately a chubby man with a sweet, baby face switched to English, his language almost unaccented. I introduced myself.

I’m Brenna, I said.

Mark, he said. Marcos.

Something serious to consider.

2009-07-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

Chicago Center Director's Critique, read 12 July, 2009.

Great start to the journal—some great reflections and analysis, Scott wrote. Your descriptions, while dramatic, tend to lead the analysis by crating the reality you then respond to. Race difference, as constructed in your journal through dialect, appearance, caricatures, and encounter, dominate in a way that threatens to diminish or obscure the human connection and to concede the race an absolute that historically has functioned in the interest of Euro-Caucasians. Consider your own relationships to race is a necessary starting point.

In explanation: I suppose I do seek to make a story out of my life. I let myself be affected by images and instances. Sometimes, I suppose, my viewing lens is blurred—colored by my emotionalism and my Caucasian understanding of the world. It's a disconcerting situation to be in-- to learn that the reality one truly sees is one's own creation in some ways. I no longer trust my gut feelings for the same reason-- because my gut feels in a racially preconditioned way.

This tendency that Scott describes is something for a journalist to fear. My own embedded prejudices and naivete are nakedly apparent when I seek to tell these stories. I cannot seek to fill predetermined roles in my head when I see the world. Not if I seek the truth. How to escape these confines? But here, in my journal, I record life and life is made only of impressions. You can’t live life over again and take a more candid, more analytical look at what you see. What must change is the sharpening of that lens.

INTERNSHIP 6: In the Office with Ben

2009-07-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

Most week days from June 18-July 3^rd, 2008

The StreetWise office soon feels like home. I share an office with Ben, a former Chicago Center student himself; he interned at StreetWise, got a job after a summer of work here and has now moved on to running the magazine. He writes articles, takes photos and most importantly designs the entirety of the magazine: managing content, finding photos, doing layout, editing stories to make them fit, designing a cover and each subsequent page. He is the one that gets the magazine to press each week and makes sure it’s good. While other people handle the selling of ads and the vendor aspect of the publication, Ben is the reason that there is a magazine to sell each week.

At first, the office was quiet. We smiled at each other, he got me set up with an internet hook up and gave me a few directions. It was peaceful. Often, besides Ryan, the desk attendant, we were the only two in the office so early. I enjoyed his presence as I spent my mornings researching. But one day we started talking and after that, we never wanted to stop.

Since then, Ben has become my unofficial guide to the city, to StreetWise, to working with the homeless, to the Chicago Center, to life in college and after college. He gives me the inside scoop on the dealings and the people at StreetWise. I have started to him each time I formulate a suspicion or an observation. I begin my sentences with “I have noticed Grace…” or “I was talking to the vendor…” or “When I am on the bus, I feel…” Inevitably, Ben has an explanation and has stories and understands completely where I am coming from. Yes, our backgrounds are similar. He, like me, is from Kansas and remember, he first came to StreetWise as an intern with the Chicago center. I have began to trust him like no other to understand where I am coming from and to explain what I am seeing. When I mentioned to him one of my worst realizations in Chicago—that I am prone to revert to close minded stereotypes about people—he even had a name for it: Oh, he said, like it was utterly natural, something we all went through, you are just Caucasian-ing out.

That’s it, I thought, so simple and so true.

With him, I also have the remarkable friendship that I have with other journalists—friendships that I have found with my good friend Sonya, another journalism student, or John, a photographer. It is a friendship of people who love people, love their stories and are incredibly eager to share them. Ben wants to know about everyone that I have met and tells me incredible stories about the woman with the cigar store he wrote a story about once or the vendor who began to tell him about seeing Jesus in a cemetery. I return to the office bursting with new information and experiences and know that Ben will love to hear it all.

He and I also share a loving way of noticing other people’s quirks and loving the stories they create. He uses this loving sense of humor to let me know how to deal with the people around me. We laugh together when Suzanne, our editor, arrives in at two pm (Ben has been there since 8.15 am but accepts that Suzanne is just like that), when Greg talks about StreetWise TV (the weekly public access edition that has about two viewers but Greg adores), when Grace arrives with her perfectly coordinated outfit and perfectly portioned yuppie sack lunch or when I engage in a long, winding conversation with a vendor who normally does that, according to Ben.

Ben’s friendship with his restaurant recommendations, 411 on the workings of StreetWise, brilliant sense of humor and ear ready to listen has been an incredible part of my summer in Chicago. Yes, it has meant hours of office time spent in conversation and not necessarily in research. But at the same time, the knowledge I have accumulated could not be found anywhere.

INTERNSHIP 5: A Routine is Born

2009-07-12T21:42:00.000-07:00

Or, The Self Indulgent Part you would probably skim in my autobiography where I record the minute details of my daily life that I will revel in reading in later years and will bore you to tears presently (You may skip this entry).

Most week days from June 18-July 3^rd, 2009

My first few weeks at Streetwise were spent in easy rhythm. While I love to explore and love adventure, there is a wonderful feeling to establishing a routine—especially one that makes you excited to get up every day. I’d get up at six and pound along the lakeside, then loop behind the museum, through the ivied University of Chicago campus, then up shady residential streets back to Blackstone. A shower, the making of tea, the spreading of peanut butter on a banana, the frantic reading of as many news stories as I could fit in before I inevitably ran for the bus, clutching my pink mug, spilling hot tea and banging my laptop painfully against my hip. Sometimes I’d run, and just barely catch it. Sometimes I’d run and then wait for what seemed like hours and once was upward of twenty-five minutes. I used to question each bus driver—is their a scheduled time you come to this stop? No, was the general consensus.

The bus was usually pretty full and demographically consisted of entirely African-American passengers and me and maybe one other white person (usually a weird looking University of Chicago student or one of my fellow classmates at the Chicago Center headed to their respective internships.) At the 51^st Street Greenline stop, I’d hop off and ride the shaky escalator up to the platform.

I soon learned to stand pretty far down on the platform, because trains are shorter than you might think and I’d have to run for the very last car. There was another reason too—my first few days, I’d run to the last door of the car and it would open to reveal an emerging man-- a mountain of a man, slobbery and strange looking, in an electric wheelchair. He would rant loudly as he bumped onto the platform, looking like he might pitch forward and be left beached on the platform. I’d watch, breathless, hoping he wouldn’t fall until it got too disturbing for me. I haven’t seen him since, but then again, I make sure to stand farther up to platform. It may be a cruel choice but I was too disturbed by his angry talk and precarious bulk.

The ride is always smooth and lovely. I read my book—Always Running by Luis Rodriguez (a tale of barrio gang life in LA), The Autobiography of Malcolm X or Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama. Each one of those touches Chicago in a major way and in haunting prose helps me to understand my surroundings. My train passes Bronzeville—which is Chicago’s own version of the Harlem of New York and birthed and nutured such figures as Gwendolyn Brooks. I then enter the loop; tall buildings springing up on either side of me. The tea is finished, banana is consumed and I have moved on to scrawling in my journal when the train pulls into Ashland.

As I hop off onto the platform, I call my mom (it’s routine) and chat with her as I walk the four blocks, once sketchy which have now become familiar. I pass a park often filled with yelling children enrolled in summer sport’s camps, then enter a desolate stretch of warehouses populated by a strange assortment of people. I see dogs bathing in a pool in a dog daycare. I see the occasional business professional. I see a place to buy wholesale meats and outside of it is a truck where a Chicano couple sell breakfast to the workers there. Our conversations are often interrupted by a speeding train going over head. I have learned to keep talking

Soon, I arrive at the StreetWise Office (or warehouse), give my mom love, and buzz to be let in.

INTERNSHIP 4: On the Beat at StreetWise

2009-07-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Working at StreetWise equals fulfillment of my own idiosyncratic dream: I am their immigration beat reporter. My editor let me develop my own series on homeless immigrants and the stories that I am writing now will become cover issues in the next month. Everything is self-initiated; I can call whomever, go wherever. I have the freedom to research and really know my topics and the freedom to travel the city and interview people from all different organizations and walks of life I have the press pass of being with an actual magazine. I only have to check-in occasionally with my editor. I have utter support from my editor and my co-workers and StreetWise is a base of incredible knowledgeable people from which to work.

I spend most of my time in pursuit of the stories I am writing, but when I am not doing that, I am taking the amazing assignments and opportunities handed to me by my editor. My third day, my editor had me connected to a phone conference with national advocates from immigration reform. I researched each participant beforehand and took frantic and voracious notes as I listened to them speak. After they spoke, the floor was opened for questions. The first question came from a reporter from NPR. I couldn’t believe it: I was in the same phone conference as NPR. The story I wrote about Obama’s meeting on immigration reform was spiced with quotes from these experts and was turned in the next day, for publication in the issue going to print early the next week.

And my stories, oh my stories. I have traveled the city, uncovering truths and hearing people’s stories. I am writing about what happens to the homeless in the three largest immigrant communities in Chicago—Mexican (Chicago is the third largest Mexican city after Mexico City and LA), Polish and Indian. The more I discover, the more important these stories seem to me.

Yes, she trails off… it is a dream come true. And now that you all have the basics of what I am doing down, I can start describing the experiences I have had there.

INTERNSHIP 3: Interview #3, In These Times

2009-07-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

It had been roughly thirty seconds since the confirmation call from StreetWise to say that I would indeed be their intern and my phone rang.

Chicago number.

Hello? I said.

This is Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, said the deep voice at the other end.

In These Times had been my number one place to intern. I had discovered this publication when first looking at Chicago internship sites back in February. I had been wowed immediately by their all star staff—Barbara Ehrenreich, my personal hero and author of the book Nickel and Dimed, all about minimum wage jobs in America, had started out writing for them. In These Times was Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite magazine. And the articles? Wow. Cleverly and articulately written, they were all about the issues in the world and in this country that I care most about—politics, injustice and the human casualties of it all.

When I had arrived in Chicago and contacted them, Mr. Bleifuss had apologetically told me that they already had enough interns for the summer and they wouldn’t be needing me. I was devastated. I e-mailed him my resume, all the same: Just in case, I said.

And now, it was Mr. Bleifuss on the other end. One of our interns had to leave, he said. Would you like the position?

I was shocked. This was not just an offer for an interview. This was an offer of a position at my dream internship. And literally thirty seconds before, I had accepted at StreetWise. My initial response was to thank him, but to explain the situation. I expressed regret, he sounded sad. I hung up.

I started to pace. Had I really just hung up on In These Times? I called the Chicago Center and asked for their advice. See if you can interview there all the same, Althea said, Go check it out.

I called Mr. Bleifuss back. When are you free? I asked. Can we talk possibilities?

Anytime today, he said.

I hung up, rushed to get ready, looked up directions and I was off.

When I arrived at the site, I called my journalism advisor at KU before I went in. I also called my mom. I agreed to call them back after I had interviewed.

I entered the dusty hallway sandwiched next to a discount clothing store. I almost missed it, except for the peeling letters that said In This Times on the glass door. Surrounding me were large cardboard boxes, stuffed with copies of the magazine. Up until now, I had only seen it online. Now, I saw the beautiful copies in person. They were wonderful, so much prettier than StreetWise, I thought wistfully, flipping through one.

I climbed up the rickety stairs and entered a space just like how I imagined it would be. Shelves were stacked with books I lusted after: alternative titles, journalistic accounts of injustice and human rights cases. Other shelves held copy after copy of the magazine. Someone’s bike was parked in the corner. Incredible posters of past events and local art shows graced the walls. I wandered the sunlit corridor until I stumbled upon Mr. Bleifuss’ office.

Mr. Bleifuss is an academic, a former reader from Colombia, Missouri, where he was a sociology professor. He became editor several years ago. He spoke with a slight lisp and seemed eager for me to start as soon as possible, barely skimming the resume and work samples I handed him.

He spoke of the magazine’s projects—a companion magazine about immigration and worker’s rights in Spanish (my eyes lit up—I’m your girl, I think I said—exactly what I said at StreetWise.) He spoke about the other interns—assembled from the best schools in the nation. I was a little awed to be counted among them.

But, all the same, I had a little bit of a sinking feeling. I wanted so much to intern here; to be amongst the other hotshot interns and to have In These Times glowing on my resume. But at the same time, the more I talked to him, the more I realized that the kind of work I would be doing, while it would be for an exciting magazine, would not be inherently exciting. I’d be reviewing books occasionally, but mostly, I’d be proof reading the work of others. I’d be expected to blog a little, but I doubted very much that anyone would read it. Even Mr. Bleifuss himself seemed to only be including the blog component to keep up with these modern times, he even said he didn’t care much for it.

When I talked to another intern, she confirmed this thought.

I wandered away, shocked at the feelings that were swirling in my stomach. I had been offered my dream internship and my heart told me to take the one at a low-budget street paper instead.

I had the weekend to decide. I flirted with doing both for awhile—one day a week at In These Times, just to be in that climate and to get the name on my resume. But in my heart, I knew that wasn’t the ticket. I had a learned a hard lesson about overbooking myself last semester and I didn’t want to let anyone down again. I needed to throw myself into whatever internship I decided to do. Philipp, my room mate, counseled me to do the same, pointing out that if anyone asked, I would have to explain how little time I spent at each site.

And so, Monday morning, I called Joel Bleifuss at In These Times and my friend Gabriel Piemonte at The Hyde Park Herald. I left messages and penned a e-mail to each. I’d be going with StreetWise, I said, but it was a hard decision. Neither of them ever got back to me and I don’t really blame them. One little intern who says no isn’t that important in the long run to the running of a magazine. I am sure they were each a little bit miffed and each very busy.

And soon, I’d be busy myself. Because I had just made one of the best decisions of my life.

What I see at the 51st Street Station, Green line

2009-07-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

23 June 2009

what I see at the 51st street station, green line (southside chicago):

one empty vodka bottle

an abandoned toy car, flipped over in the dust

one naked, baby bird, sprawled on its stomach on a railing, blind eyes staring at me. dead before it had a chance

What I’ll remember from Graceland Cemetery

2009-07-06T09:59:00.002-07:00

5 July 2009

On the Southern edge of Graceland Cemetery, you asked me: “What about you and boys?” and I told you about me and boys as we trudged across a gravel parking lot and found no entrance through the chain link fence, entwined with weeds.

On the Eastern side of Graceland cemetery, we passed a tiny playground where a little girl played against a backdrop of tumbled weeds and you said: “It’s just so different here. They want to get as many partners as they can. They just don’t understand. Like the more girls you can get, the better you are. Try in the middle of one of their brag sessions to say that it’s always better with that one person you really care about—when you know each other-- they don’t even stop to listen.”

On the Northern side of Graceland cemetery, as we walked a broken concrete path past rushing cars, you told me about the girl you were with in Nebraska, and how you were the first boy this awkward, Christian girl kissed, then the first boy she slept with and how before you first kissed her, you told her—“I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t know what we can have, I’m leaving no matter what after the school year” and how she said, surprising you: “I can imagine a pretty physical relationship.” You shrug. “She was amazing, the best girl I ever had. I truly believe when people are ready, they just are.” I walked and I wondered if from her side, it was as easy to walk away from their relationship as they agreed. Somehow, I guessed not.

On the Western side, we found the entrance and we wandered in, you reading the tombstones in German of Vater und Mutter, Alina und Otto. We ate impossibly sweet mulberries, juice staining our fingers as I told you about my grandmother, buried under the same tombstone as the man who abandoned her: Rest In Peace.

Where my Momma Walked

2009-07-06T09:59:00.001-07:00

Corner of Grace and Janssen

5 July 2009

Here I sat, on the sun warmed curb at the corner of Grace and Janssen—the street sign said so. Behind me, just like my mom said, there was an elementary school. I gazed in front of me at the house on the Southwest corner. It had obviously been rebuilt recently, changed since the days when my mom lived here. A pretty, purple and grey brick, yuppy kind of house stood behind a classy iron fence. I tried to picture what I guessed had been a ramshackle student dwelling. I pictured my mom, looking out of her window, and writing a poem about the elementary school. These days, she only remembered one line, something about Crossing Grace Street. I thought about how we’d have been friends, I’d have read that poem, hung out on shady steps with her, talking and having tea like we do now. I got up, took a few photos, left a message on my mom’s phone and went to explore the cemetery where she used to walk—that, I was certain, wouldn’t be gone.

The Apple of Despair

2009-07-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

5 July 2009

The man pounds up and down the aisle of the red line train, talking fast, frantic.

“I’m just askin’ for something, some change for my daughter. Anything, some food, anything. We ain’t got nothin’. I tryin’ to get the money to go to court, see I used her momma’s Link Card when she was alive and then, they said I owed $685, ‘cause it wasn’t my card. We don’t got anything.

Please. I just tryin’ to raise my daughter right, just tryin’ to keep her fed. We ain’t got nothing.”

‘A Link Card is food stamps,’ Philipp whispered.

I turned around in my seat and I saw a tiny girl, too small to even reach the seat, watching her Daddy, her eyes wide, confused. She had an oatmeal cream pie in her doll-like hands and there was something scary in the way she ate it, so focused on gulping it down.

My heart broke.

You can’t, just can’t give money to people who ask you on the street; especially a to men. I had been swindled too many times by sob stories; been cornered by women asking for money to escape from their abusive husbands, who produced real tears, then became hard faced as they counted the money you gave them and asked for more.

But the little girl. I couldn’t bear it. Hadn’t he asked for food, too? I’d do that—at least I’d know where it was going to. I found an apple in my purse, newly purchased, shiny, mottled yellow and red. I wobbled down the aisle, clutching it.

‘I don’t have any change but… can I give her an apple?’ I asked.

‘Anythin’, anythin’’ her daddy said.

I knelt down by her. She was so small. I placed the apple in her tiny, outstretched hands. It seemed too big, too shiny, too beautiful for the context. It was an apple for a fairytale, not for this story. It dwarfed her, making her look like a little, fragile Thumbelina.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked. Something to remember her by.

‘Janeshka,’ she whispered, mouth still full of oatmeal cream pie.

‘Her mouth full,’ he said.

‘How old is she?’ I asked, straightening.

‘Three,’ he said.

The train jolted to a stop and the man yanked on her little arm, darting out of the sliding doors and onto the next car. She seemed to fly behind him, like he was a child dragging behind him a little, lost doll with a shiny apple in her hand.

At the Magic Box Theater

2009-07-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

5 July 2009

This would be a fun place to work, I say to the woman at the Magic Box, a movie theater.

You know, she says from behind the register, I got this niece and nephew in Colorado and now they’re married but it’s this joke they still say. You know, when they were kids they’d always say, just laughing, just crackin’ up ‘Auntie—teeheehee—hey, Auntie?’ ‘Yeah,’ I’d say, rolling my eyes. ‘-teeheehee—doncha work in a movie theater? Do you still work in a movie theater?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘And you doncha—teeheehee—doncha NOT like movies?’ I’d sigh—‘No, I don’t like movies!’ ‘Teeheehee, teeheehee--- Auntie works in a movie theater and she don’t like movies. That’d be the joke, they’d say it all the time. They still say it, say—‘Auntie, doncha work in a movie theater but you don’t like movies?’

It’s like tamales. When I was little, we’d have them for Christmas and New Years and they were special. Well, then, my dad lost his work and my mom and I went to work selling tamales. We used to sell them. Well, at first, I’d pinch a little here, a little there—a little meat, a little onion-- but soon, I just didn’t want ‘em anymore. They just lost their taste. Every once and a while, but no, nah, not all the time.’

ASSIGNMENT: Architecture, or The Enchanted Urban Jungle

2009-07-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

5 July 2009

Philipp and I exited the theater and into the city magic of downtown Chicago. It’s breathtaking to cross the river, look at sparkling water below and flashing cars alongside. Your eyes slide up the tall buildings, examining black, white, grey stone. The ornate, like the Tribune building adorned with a gothic chapel, stand next to those sleek and modern. In the dark, the urban jungle becomes an enchanted forest arching into the night sky. And then there are the lights—millions sparkling against the black; workers working late suddenly becoming bright as Christmas lights, little jewels in the darkness. The air was warm, yet fresh, and I spun around on the bridge, watching the urban landscape already so strange and magical, twinkle.

Struggling to Grow at Altgeld Gardens, Chicago

2009-07-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

The nasal voice of the goofy man with thick glasses and a Tuskeegee airman shirt was touting the dangers of environmental hazards to the only five kids in school on a Saturday. For a Saturday class, they were pretty decently behaved. Granted, Diamond looked bored and shrugged her shoulders when questions were asked and Maqueze, a whale at twelve years old, was probably thinking about lunch. Alisha, however, and the sweet-faced brothers Charlie and Malcolm, were doing their best to come up with the answers that their instructor was fishing for.

It wasn’t the type of scene that you would guess would evoke grim fascination or a weighty sense of dramatic irony in any bystander.

That is until the assistant teacher piped up from the side of the room something the students may or may not have known.

“Did y’all know that you have one of the highest rates of PCB’s in Cook County?” he asked. “You know that lot over there by the closed General Foods? They left a bunch of transformers there for years. The chemicals in it leaked into the ground. Kids used to play there until they started coming to school with their hair falling out and somebody finally got it tested. Levels out the roof. Right here in Cook county.”

A few minutes later, on the subject of air pollution, the helpful assistant mentioned the nearby factory and the fumes fill the air the students breathe. And following that, in a discussion of how burning waste produces toxic ash, the assistant discussed the nearby dump, which still burns methane each night.

The lesson was taking place in the decrepit high school in the Chicago housing projects located in the far Southside of Chicago. The projects, so long established they are considered a historic landmark, lie so far South that it took me two hours to travel on public transit there. Needing to travel for an hour just to reach the nearest Red line stop, the residents are cut off from grocery stores, drug stores and any economic opportunity the city might have to offer. There’s no jobs here, just a boarded up store, a library with the doors locked and several charities located in isolated buildings with torn blue awnings.

The name of the projects evokes a kind of irony—Altgeld Gardens. For the three to four thousand residents crammed into several blocks of public housing , it’s less like gardens and more like a forgotten hell on earth. The warnings the assistant teacher gave were no joke. On one side of the high school and elementary school are blocks and blocks of shiny, new projects. On the other side, the brick buildings are closed—haunting rows, their windows like eyes with patches over them.

“They closed because people got sick,” our tour guide told us when I first drove through the projects. He spoke of people getting cancer and mysterious illnesses. Children are born without genitals, a little boy goes blind after playing in the grass. Residents complain of the drifting stench from the landfills, nauseating on a warm summer’s day.

I couldn’t face being a voyeur on the situation. Sitting in that van, I vowed to go back. I wanted to see what life was really like in the projects. I wanted to meet the people scraping out life in impossible circumstances.

I signed up to tutor the kids at Carver High in French and on a Saturday morning, in I walked on this lesson.

The kids were now trying on gloves and masks. There were giggles from some, and from all when Maqueze couldn’t get his mask to stay firm over his double chin.

Charlie had his pushed up like a crown, then flipped it down and to the side like a baseball hat. When he walked out of the room to the bathroom, he strutted like a king.

I smiled with the kids, laughed with them, and put on my own gloves and mask at their urging. I looked at these sweet-faced kids and wondered how these flowers could grow in such a toxic place. Those who should have been caretakers and gardeners—the government, social services, the privileged, you, me—had mistaken these bright little seedlings for weeds, lacing their home with chemicals and for the most part, abandoning them in a garden without water or sunlight.

Isaiah and Cornelius: A Love Story

2009-07-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

The impossibly tiny little boy glared from his seat, seeming to send angry lasers out at everyone on the bus. His gaze seemed to rise up from the center of his being and shoot out from his eyes over the sippy cup of pink lemonade he was drinking. I had never seen a baby as cute, nor as intense. His dad, a skinny man with snaggled teeth and the look of someone who had been through hard times, was talking about the little boy in an amicable voice to the woman across the aisle.

His mama as black as I am, he said.

Really? ‘Cuz it look like you got a white baby. She laughed.

I know!

Nah, but you can tell, ‘cuz his hair, he ain’t white.

The man looked down adoringly at the little boy’s soft black curls. If the little boy was projecting a death glare, all things good in the world were encompassed in this one man’s glance. Love showered down on the imp in radiant beams.

He may look cute, but he bad. The man grinning, seemed oblivious to the little boy’s death stare. I had no trouble imagining he had some tricks up his tiny sleeve.

Somehow, at this point, we got invited into the conversation.

Terrible twos, Peggyjoy commiserated.

That’s right! The woman answered. I ain’t never had that with my boy, ‘til now, she said, indicating a sullen little boy of about seven sitting next to her.

What’s his name? Peggyjoy asked.

Tavian, the woman answered. I noticed that she had My son, my heart tattooed on her arm and even though her son was in a sultry phase and she might complain about it, her love was apparent too.

What’s his name? I asked, returning to the tiny little man still glaring from his seat.

Isaiah, the man said proudly.

How old is he? I asked.

He be two in a month, the man said. He been with me seven months.

He’s not yours? PJ asked, surprised.

Nah, the man said, but then added, beaming all over, But I in the process of adopting him.

You with his mother? She asked.

He shook his head. We both free. Nah, I just took him on to raise him. Couldn’t deal with him bein’ fatherless. And besides, his mama—she a good mother—but she slow. She do things that no mother, no woman with sense would do. I’d go over and be like—Nah, did you just…? Stupid things.

Like what? I asked.

Like… like, she’d leave the house—leave the house—with his face all dirty. Or put him in dirty clothes. And when I first gave him a bath, he just screamed and screamed.

Oh, like it was his first one? I said, horrified.

Yeah! He exclaimed.

You think he slow, too? The woman asked.

Nah! Nah! The man said. He so smart. He beamed at Isaiah, just smiling with every fiber of his being. He so smart. He gave him a squeeze, then looked at us. When I decided to take him on, I changed my life around. I was a mess seven months ago. Wasn’t I different seven months ago?

You was different seven months ago, the woman agreed.

But when I realized I’d be taking care of him, I had to get my life together, he said. I quadrupled my salary since I had him. I had to! But he just gives me joy, he just my life now.

He scooped little Isaiah onto his lap, wrapping his arms around him. The little boy relaxed into him, still glaring out at the world, but obviously in the safest space in the world.

He not gonna fall asleep unless he on someone, the man said, looking down at Isaiah’s soft head.

Make Way for Ducklings

2009-07-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

One minute, we were chatting and the next minute, Philipp was running into the middle of the street, flapping his arms and yelling.

What the hell? I thought. Then, suddenly, eight little strangers appeared from in front of the car he was charging at: a mama duck and seven ducklings. As Phil shouted, they waddled frantically across the road, and then staggered back; seeming to have no idea what was going on. All was chaos as the ducks ran, Philipp ran, and soon Becky, Lauren and I ran, too; shouting and throwing our hands up at the cars and trying as best we could to get the bewildered mother and her snaking tail of babies out of the road.

It was soon apparent that the mother was leading all of them on a haphazard waddle of death. From the center of the road, she charged towards the busy intersection at Lincoln and Halstead. The babies followed in chaotic tandemn, one of them almost falling down a grill. Becky covered her eyes. Philipp threw himself in front of the mama’s path into the crossing and next thing we knew they were back in the middle Halstead again; this time running under the rickshaw of a driver who tried to block their path with his vehicle. Frantic, the mother turned back towards the sidewalk.

Just then, Becky shrieked. One of them fell down the grill!

And it was true, upon doubling back, the last one had tumbled through the grate.

Oh, god, I said, listening to the frantic peeping from within and imagining it’s fright. What do we do? What do we do?

I called out to the passers by, who were by now watching the scene. What is the number for the Chicago police? Finally, someone called back 311, it’s 311! I dialed and feeling a little silly, I shouted the situation to the operator. In between transfers, I shouted the situation to the others. And one is down the grate! I shrilled. Just as I said that, a heroic man stooped and in superhero mode, pried the top loose with a few good tugs and scooped up the crying peeper. It scuttled away to join the family.

We half herded, half trailed the ducks into a bank parking lot. They waddled all along the fence, but, finding no exit, the family grouped up by a concrete wall, seemingly traumatized, exhausted and in need of a rest.

Establishing the Duck Guard

We took up posts on either side of the resting ducks. Moments before, I had finally reached a sympathetic operator at the police who agreed to forward my message to animal control. We agreed to camp out here and prevent the ducks from moving back out.

As some sort of peace prevailed over the situation, we were able to look at our new feathered friends. We were enchanted by the adorable, fluffy little beings. The babies were absolutely tiny and covered all over by downy, fluffy yellow and brown feathers. We were enchanted. We couldn’t stop the awwwwwwwws that kept rupturing from us; the minute one person stopped, the next one started. Phlipp took out his camera and started filming the babies from all angles. I gasped at a particularly cute one who was head bobbing like someone in an achingly dry history class—he would fall asleep, his tiny head would roll forward and then, suddenly, he’d jerk awake again. Though resting in a little clump, they were constantly in motion, clambering over one another and then falling asleep; wiggling tail feathers, peeping and then dozing.

We could have watched them for hours, but when the time literally seemed to turn into hours, I decided to call the police again to check for animal control’s status. Contrary to the first report, this operator said that they had no idea what animal control had done with the message or even if the office was open.

We decided we’d have to try and move them ourselves. Philipp went to hunt down a box.

On the Move Again

As soon as Philipp left, the crazed mama duck decided it was time to move her troops out. Oh no, Oh no, said Becky as they evaded our attempts to block their path and started waddling frantically towards what Mama thought was freedom and what we guessed was death.

At this point, I had determined the mama duck to be off of her rocker. She had no symmetry or reason to her path, simply charging on ahead as her babies struggled along behind her. If she had seven babies now, I guessed she must have started with about fourteen so terrible was her parenting. I really felt like duck welfare needed to be called in.

Somehow, we kept them in the lot until Philipp returned with a box. I had found an old blanket heaped in the lot’s corner. Ready? I asked.

We went for the babies first, all of us a little terrified of the deranged mama and secretly overjoyed we had given ourselves permission to scoop up the tinies. They were fluffy, wriggly and adorable. We scooped up five pretty quickly, but the last two, by now severely worked up darted in and out of our legs. At this point, a group of drunk partiers on a balcony had began to watch our chase. Duck kidnappers! They yelled alongside play by play—oh, now it’s through the legs, oh, now it’s escaping—it’s free, fuckers! Take that!

When all the babies were finally captured we realized Mama had vanished through the fence shortly after Phil had thrown the blanket in her direction.

Fuck, Phil said.

We can’t separate them, Becky said.

Mama quacked from the other side of the fence, the babies peeped piteously, the drunk audience hollered insults and the four of us stood immobile. What the hell do we do now?

We aren’t going to catch the mom. That much was clear.

We’ll have to let them go.

There was nothing else to do. We admitted defeat. We’d have to leave the family to fend for itself in the alley in the middle of Chicago. We tipped out the box to the audience’s wild whooping. Then, one of them called down: What? Now you’re letting them go? What the hell? What was all that for! Duck abandoners!

Soon, all had joined in. They thought they were hilarious.

Phil turned on them as we began to walk away from the situation. He threw his arms out at them and yelled up at the balcony:

Why don’t you catch them yourselves! Come down here! Yeah—come down!

He then took a different route. You know what? Your advice cost me my dinner! I was going to eat them! He shouted. In fact, I already ate the Dad!

And with that, what else could we do but walk away?

neyo's gift to chicago

2009-07-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

July 1, 2009.

Something very good happened to Chicago today.

Ne-Yo happened to Chicago today.

And it wasn't just a good thing because, let's face it, this crooner can dance and sing until even I am crying "Closer!" and I am ready to trade in all of my independence for one little swivel of his hips.

It was a good thing because in one evening, the entire clientele of the Taste of Chicago changed. I wasn't looking around at the middle and upper class white residents and vacationers. I was looking at a group of people that actually did represent the diversity of the city. At one point, I turned away from the magic on the stage to look at the magic around me. I began to count. Without moving my feet, yet turning 180 degrees, I saw black, white, Latinos and Latinas, Indians, Chinese and Southeast Asians. I saw uppity, fashionable college students whisper to each other intimately and junior high kids in bright colors and skin tight jeans gather in posses. I watched a beautiful African-American woman in cutting edge business clothes and stilettos start dancing with a group of reefers. I was intoxicated by an amazing family next to me. The little, caramel colored boy, age five, moaned and begged to leave. The chubby, eleven-year-old girl with the same caramel skin, sang into an imaginary microphone without ever lifting her eyes from the stage. She knew every word by heart. Their mom and aunt alternated between rocking the boy and rocking out-- but no one rocked out as hard core as the white as wonder bread Granny in blue leggings and dorky glasses.

Thank you, Neyo, I whispered instead of lip synching. We needed this.

Exploding Fireworks

2009-06-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hyde Park's mirror of Navy Pier is Promontory Point. Like the Pier, it is an extension of the land that juts into Lake Michigan. But the similarities end there. It is quiet and shady, speckled with trees and firepits and criss-crossed with running paths. A light house like building sits on the very tip. Off of 57th street, it is within walking distance of Blackstone. One Wednesday evening, PJ, Curtis and I decided we'd go there to watch Navy Pier's weekly Wednesday fireworks.

We arrived just in time to perch on the big rocks lining the beach and watch the faraway fireworks explode. As we watched, the three of us sat together reminiscing over 4th of July's past. The fireworks, twinkling against the dark sky and dark water seemed impossibly small to me like trivial little jewels sparkling in the distance. The sharp cracking noises reached our ears after the fireworks had long since exploded-- making me realize just how faraway they were.

I recognized familiar patterns-- they shot off my favorite, gorgeous, trickling, shimmering sparkles. We Ooohhed and Ahhhed for old time's sake.

As we walked back home, we discussed the magic we had witnessed.

Plopping onto the couch at Blackstone, I tried to describe the fireworks we had just witnessed.

"Even better," I continued. "They are two times a week!" I was still basking in a post-firework glow.

"Yeah, I saw them, too," he said glumly. "Do you know how much each firework costs? think how many of the social services cut that that could pay for..."

"Thanks, Phil," I said. With one statement, he had extinguished all of that joy. I limped away, back to thinking about everything that is wrong with this city-- and the horrible budget cuts that would soon slam into all of our organizations.

The next day, Philipp followed up on the previous conversation.

"I talked to the guy at work," he said. Philipp works with homeless veterans in the Southside in a program called Featherfist. We respect everyone there immensely. "He actually said that he thinks its a good thing because it gives people something to do with their families that is not drug related. It is free. It gets them out of their hoods."

From the soggy, tear-stained ashes of the fireworks inside of me, I felt a small, but resilient warmth-turned-flame begin to glow.

Internship: Interview 1

2009-06-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

All signs said no when I left Blackstone for my first interview. It was starting to rain and you could practically see steam rising from me I was so upset. I had spoken to my top three internship sites earlier that morning and each one had told me they were full up to their quota of interns-- paid or unpaid. Most let me know I was late in asking, which was the most frustrating part because I had been advised by the staff at the Chicago center to wait until now to contact anyone.

The storm clouds were as dark as my mood and flustered, I had left the house with neither coat nor umbrella. I stood at the bus stop in heels and dress, ranting my woes to my sympathetic mom. The phone was getting poor reception and I had to practically shout to make myself heard over the rowdy crowd of high schoolers. Just then, something other than raindrops fell from the sky. Bird shit, landing squarely on my bag.

Just then, the bus pulled up and I jostled on amongst the high schoolers. Plopping into a seat, I found a wet wipe and began furiously scrubbing the white smear off of the black bag. A sinking thought invaded my inner dialogue-- was it on my back, too? I looked around the bus. Well, I concluded grimly, at least I'll make some kids laugh.

"'Scuse me," I said, tapping the shoulder of the nearest fifteen-year-old. "Do I have bird shit on my back?"

"Nah, nah," he managed before exploding into laughter.

Things Can't Get Worse

At the train station, rain began to fall in sheets. As the rain fell, I decided just to enjoy my luck. I mean, it'd make a good story, right?

The train ride was uneventful, until I descended at my stop. Could this be real? I wondered. A man leered at me as I maneuvered the steep metal stairs in my retro heels. I was in what looked like an industrial wasteland. But the intersection seemed right. I walked along under the El tracks. I was in a meat packing district and it was mostly abandoned-- except for 25 dogs who charged at me from behind a fence. Luckily, the motley crew then bedan to wag tails and I saw a swimming pool, reassuring me that it was a doggy daycare and not a training facility for killers. It was still raining and my delicate sweater and curled hair were damp and lank. Finally, on a warehouse not unlike the others I walked past, I saw a sign for Streetwise. I rang the bell. Here goes nothing, I thought.

The Clouds Dissipate

From the second a smiling man welcomed me in, things took a dramatically different course. I was ushered into the office of Ben Cook. He had originally interned with Streetwise as a student in the Chicago Center program. Now, he had a full time position there.

Ben had brown eyes and a friendly manner. We got to talking and soon learned that the Chicago Center was far from our only connection. We had the same home state and when I confessed my rejections from the other sites, he nodded. "That was me, too," he said. "I wanted to work at In These Times."

That had been my No. 1 choice, too.

After chatting with Ben, I felt considerably better. Flipping through old issues of Streetwise, I thought about how similar Ben and I were. If he had liked the internship so much that he had accepted a job here, it could be great for me, too. I began to absorb my rather unconventional setting. The office was wide and spacious, constructed by thin walls and dividers set up in the open space of the warehouse. The mixed crowd reflected the paper's mission. While Streetwise has a professional staff, its vendors are homeless or those at risk of being homeless. There was a vendor's meeting going on in a big room next door, so while half of the people I saw looked like typical office staff, dressed up in business casual, the other kind were (literally) off of the streets.

I continued flipping through the magazine with a rather critical eye until my editor burst in. Her huge, circular glasses and frizzy hair gave her a kooky, unkempt appearance. She started chatting right away and I couldn't deny she was friendly, even if I wasn't exactly sure what she was saying. I nodded and smiled. After getting me a glass of water from a kitchen where huge, steaming trays of lasagna were currently being dished out to vendors and finding me a chair, the interview began.

You know the type of interview, or indeed, conversation where you want so desperately to like the program-- you feel like you are trying so hard to meet them halfway and you feel like you should like it and yet, they offer absolutely nothing to make you excited about? Well, the first part of that was true. I was trying so hard to like it, but just not convinced. Then, the editor, in her goofy way, starts flipping through the list of potential stories. We need a person to write a story on... homeless immigrants.

The magic key. I could not fully express my joy, my enthusiasm, my shock. This presented the chance to actually write about my idiosyncratic field-- my dream is to be a reporter on issues of immigration. And even better-- Streetwise would let me write about these topics AND to be published?

The answer was yes right then but I listened joyously as she went on to explain how certain ethnic aid groups provide special services to their populations-- some are given special holiday food, etc. Many of the immigrant homeless are manual laborers, cut in the recession. Some, however, are driven to drink by loneliness. Sometimes, Suzanne told me, the aid societies even send an immigrant home.

I was sold. The chance to report a story like that? Once in a lifetime.

And so I left. As I walked past the dogs, I waved. I took photos of the El clattering above me. Well, it wasn't how I had envisioned an internship-- but it would make a good story.

Assignment: Response to the DuSable Museum of African American History

2009-06-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

June 13, 2009

Response to DuSable Museum of African American History

I used to live for the Art Institute right in the center of downtown. For me, it was one of the best things about Chicago. This time, this time, however, I didn’t feel it. Something about the museum didn’t click with me. I felt the opposite in the small art gallery at the the DuSable Museum of African-American History.

Each picture was strikingly different and each one captured my attention. They were filled with color and emotion, raw and real and fantastic. One showed the bustle of a snowy winter evening, another a street corner, lit by milky, golden street lights. Another was a strong black man staring the viewer down—in the caption, I read that his strength and capability was meant to challenge stereotypes of the typical black man in a servile position. I couldn’t tell you which was painted by who, but I was introduced to the work of William Carter, Charles Dawson, Walter Ellison, Archibald Motley, Jr., Marion Perkins, Augusta Savage, Bernard Goss, Charles Sebree, and Elizabeth Catlett. I learned that Bronzeville, the area just north of me (it encompasses North Kenwood, and I am situated just below Kenwood proper) was the Harlem of Chicago—a place of black artistic and cultural renaissance during the same era in Harlem.

Not only is emotion captured in these pieces, but a shared historical narrative is as well. The cornerstone of the museum is a giant, wood carving illustrating African American History in one interwoven, winding narrative. As our guide pointed out, it is a fantastic teaching tool for history. I saw both familiar stories and new stories in the wooden figures. The room housing the wooden panel was also filled with portraits of American Blacks—historical figures that I had, sadly, never heard about.

One more surprise—on my way out, I stopped by the bathroom. Coming out of the stall and preparing to wash my hands, two paintings on the wall caught my eye. They were amazing and I know that I was floored, though right now, I am not sure exactly what was so magical about them. I liked them just as much as the art I had seen in the displays. Even the bathrooms here, I thought in wonder, have great art.

Assignment: Response to the Art Museum

2009-06-28T22:16:00.001-07:00

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Response to the Art Institute

I lost my group early on and so, for the next two hours, I wandered alone up and down the sparkling new modern wing. It began as a campaign to find a piece I that liked, one I could write a journal entry about. But as I wandered up and down the hallways, nothing really spoke to me. And so I continued, covering almost the entire modern wing, liking some but always pressing on.

In retrospect, my strategy was completely wrong. I probably could have written about several of the pieces that I quite liked but I had developed a rhythm at that point of moving on after a quick survey. When I got home, I realized that foggy impressions of several paintings remained, but with the memories of only a minute or two of scrutiny, I didn’t have enough substance to write about it.

Only one painting stayed in my mind; a familiar friend, one I know well and visit each time I go to the art museum. I first discovered the painting when I was in Chicago for Model United Nations in High School. After seeing it, I sat through a council of African States (I think I was a representative of Mauritania that year) and wrote the best poem I have written in my life.

What haunted me first was the correlation between the date (1916) and the subject, a beautiful dancer wrapped in lace. World War I was ravaging Europe when Goncharova painted this. In the caption, I learned she had spent the war in Spain, making costumes for a ballet.

On Seeing Spanish Dancer (1916) by Natalia Goncharova at the Chicago Art Institute

While Europa was soaking herself in red,

red blood,

she painted white lace.

In a picturesque Spanish villa

she studied lacy intricacies—

woven flowers and

patterns of tiny holes—

the perfection of beautiful texture.

She couldn’t watch Europa tear herself apart in the mud

so she pulled the lacy curtains shut

and instead

watched Spanish dancers

whirl and twirl

oblivious.

CONTRACTED OPTION 1: I saw it happen before it did...

2009-06-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

June 26, 2009

Response to Heads by EM Lewis, directed by Jessica Hutchinson (Part of the Alcyone Festival 2009 at the Halcyon Theatre, June 26, 2009) and “Iran Escalates Its Fight With Britain; New Clashes Erupt” by Michael Slackman (Published New York Times, 28 June 2009)

The headline in the New York Times said that British Embassy Workers in Iran had been detained. I read it and suddenly, my mind was filled with vivid images—the chafed wrists and bloodshot eyes of the people who hours before had thought themselves invincible, the damp mold expanding across a prison wall, the stained mattress on the floor. I had seen the one of the detained embassy workers in her cramped cell, shared with an American engineer who had been missing for months. I really had, only two nights before.

My window into their prison cell was a small stage in a dark church basement on Leavitt Street. The combination of incredible acting and a room so small I was practically sitting on the stage transported me into the midst of their incarceration. I left the play haunted, with the grim realization that I had probably seen something very close to what was actually occurring a world away.

But as I read the Time’s article this morning, the similarities between what I had seen on stage and what was being reported made my stomach twist. The article mentioned two journalists, one who worked for the BBC, another of British-Greek heritage, who had been expelled from Iran. Creepily, they had been in the play, too—only in the stage version, they had been detained, not expelled. The two characters in the cell next to the embassy worker were a free-lance journalist with an accent, who could have easily been Greek-British, and a young man working for a network—in the play’s case, NBC.

Since I left the theater, I have had flashes of scenes play through my head—the way the embassy worker compulsively tugged at her clothing and the way her hands shook; the way the freelance journalist bloodied his hands trying to sharpen a piece of wire; the regime the engineer had constructed for himself where he allowed himself to think of his wife only once a day. It has been uncomfortable, haunting, to think of events like that happening. But to think of them happening in real life is a million times worse.

Assignment: The Themes of the Pilsen Mural Tour

2009-06-26T11:20:00.001-07:00

Pilsen Mural Tour, June 2009

Life is color. Life is pain and joy, heritage and future. In the neighborhood of Pilsen, all of that is evident. The neighborhood is a testament to reality—to life. Lives happen in the streets and restaurants, churches, schools and little homes. Then, the stories of those lives are splashed on the walls in the form of Pilsen’s famous murals.

As we began our mural tour on a baking summer’s day, I reveled in the humanity around me. Everything that is important to people surfaces in this neighborhood. Children play in the hoses, neighbors and friends grill hotdogs. Vestiges of home in a predominately Mexican neighborhood are evident. Spanish rolls from people’s tongues, street side vendors peddle exotic fruit and spicy treats. Still, I felt a shadow over all of this color—many of these people are incredibly poor. A giant smelting factory spits toxic chemicals into the air and strange diseases strike those living there. Many of the residents are undereducated, don’t speak English or are illegal—and so the illnesses continue.

Jose, our guide, led us down winding streets to stop us by walls popping with color. The murals were beautiful, thrown on to the walls of tortilla factories and churches, schools and homes. Many of them featured portraits of the community members below; grinning children, wizened grannies, and scolding teachers. The murals celebrated the communities heritage with a backdrop of the Puerto Rican flag, words in Spanish or portraits of leaders like Cesar Chavez or Rigoberta Menchu. They were playful—coloring in shadows and creating puns with words. They were sad, showing disintegrated families and loneliness. Ultimately, they were filled with the dreams of immigrants—that their children would rise up—that they would one day read, would graduate, would embrace the future.

Spud Wars

2009-06-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

I had offered to make the team baked potatoes. To tell the truth, I just had a hankering for them myself, but when I found out that 2/4 other housemates also thought that sounded good, I was on it. I like making food for people and the fresh tomato pasta sauce I had spent several hours making yesterday had been a disaster. It was all cooked, looking (and smelling) delicious when Bryan announced he didn’t like tomatoes OR squash, Lauren quietly sprinkled parmesan on her plain noodles and Danny was no where to be found. So I really wanted a take two at preparing dinner. Plus, potatoes are easy-- my recipe was simple—seven minutes in the microwave and voila—a meal fit for kings.

Or so I thought.

Midway through Potato One (Lauren’s), the power in the kitchen went off. This happened to us on the first day, when it was just Lauren and I at Blackstone. We had been extremely proud of our problem solving abilities—the two of us had gone down into the basement and flipped the switch on the fuse box. It had worked and we gloated (neither of us are adept at all at solving those kind of issues). So, I trotted down the stairs, through the boys bathroom, a storage room, the communal laundry room and into the dark, damp and dank basement room where the fuse box is kept. I flipped the switch a couple times for good measure, and a few others just to be sure (and heard a yelp from Danny), and then I headed back up and restarted the microwave.

Two minutes later, all stopped again. I rolled my eyes and went downstairs, unlocking bolts and latches as I went. Flips switched, I traced my footsteps, securing the doors behind me.

Up in the kitchen, I started the spud baking again. A minute later, all was dead. I checked and the potato was almost done. I was going to cook this sucker no matter what.

“Your potato is almost done,” I said to Lauren, “I’m just going to flip the switch again.”

“It’s ok,” Lauren said. “You can have my potato.”

“No, no,” I said gallantly. “I said I’d make one for you. This one is yours.”

I traipsed back down to the basement and flipped the switch. Lauren waited in the kitchen to start the nuking process the minute she saw lights blinking on the screen. A minute later, hers was done. I was triumphant. One down. Mine went in.

Towards the last few minutes of cooking, Bryan had began to pace hungriliy around the kitchen. I made a decision at that point, however—this next potato was mine. I had been noble enough with Lauren’s potato. Bryan would have to fend for himself him for his own potato (I was still a little sore from his refusal to eat last night’s pasta sauce.)

The power must have died three or four more times in the seven minutes it took to cook my potato. I began to leave the doors downstairs open and unbolted, expecting to return in a few seconds. We got a system down-- Lauren stood guard in the kitchen, finger poised over the start button to expedite things. One minor glitch when Danny went into the bathroom and access to the fuse was cut off, but roughly fifteen minutes and fifty sprinted stairs later, my potato was done. It emerged—soft, perfect, warm, and smelling delicious. Bryan’s went in and was done roughly nine minutes and one trip (which I made) later.

My potato seemed to glow—it was like a golden nugget, I thought to myself as I added butter, salt, tomatoes, lettuce, hummus. Never had I worked so hard for a meal. But oh boy was this spud worth it.

The Kids at Blackstone

2009-06-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

There are three components to this program, Emily said. Three ways to learn. One is the seminar—in which we are introduced to ideas and venues all across Chicago. The second is, of course, our internship. And the third is living in Chicago—that includes who we are living with.

The crowd at Blackstone could not have been better chosen by a casting director for the Real World. As we came together on the first day, my jaw dropped with the diversity amongst us.

Lauren is my roommate, quiet and elegant. We met on the first day when it was only the two of us and passed a companionable day in mostly silence; reading, checking our e-mail and occasionally taking little walks together. Since that first day, we have become closer—having many chats about life, the boys we live with and the people we meet. I watched her dream come true—she is working a PR internship in the John Hancock building. She dresses up each day for work, looking immaculate in stilettos and silk skirts, and has her own, lakefront office on Michigan Avenue.

Danny is the baby of the family, only eighteen. He is a business major from Wilbeforce University, an all-black college in Ohio. My suspicion is that his friends and family in the city drew him more than anything else—his boys come over nightly to hang out. He offers sudden and unexpectedly perceptive reflections on life ad the rest of the time baffles me with his diet of oatmeal, mcdonalds and ego waffles and yet-- immaculate physique.

Bryan escapes easy description. He is majoring in Criminal Justice and Japanese. He’s got wings tattooed on his ankles and a lip ring, likes anime and is in a frat.

Philipp is twenty-four, a tall German exchange student who plays Mexican acoustic guitar and heavy metal—a leftover from the days when he had long haired and lived for the heavy metal scene. He is working in the most dangerous neighborhood in the city and in him, I find sound advice, intellectual conversation and a penchant for obscure European foods.

None of us judge each other, except for minor infractions like leaving unwashed dishes or buying the wrong kind of hot dogs. Instead, I live in a remarkable environment where we occasionally eat dinner together and embark on conversations on the people we meet and our relationships of the past and where we go grocery shopping and laugh the whole way about our broken shopping cart. Even after two weeks together, I have concluded only two universal truths amongst us. We all like bananas. A lot. We all like T-Pain’s On a Boat. A lot.

First Few Days: Cold in Chi-town

2009-06-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

The coat I brought to Chicago was a last minute decision. I stood, looking at my overstuffed suitcase, and wondered if I really needed it. I was already bringing so much shit. Finally, I gave up and tossed it in.

Good thing.

Since my arrival in the Windy City, Chi-town has been just that—windy. Oh, yeah, and cold, and rainy. As we traipse around the city, experiencing art and culture, I am a little sad that I am not dressed the part. All of the cute little dresses and nice shoes are still stowed away in boxes as I grab yet another sweater.

We are sick of it, but we all giggled together as we shivered on a street corner waiting for the bus to arrive.

“At least we aren’t here in January,” someone offered.

Simone, who is from the city, offered another tidbit. “Did you know that gang violence decreases during the winter?”

We all loved that one. Sarah imagined the scenario.

“Yo, you know you my boyz and I got chour back, but I’m just gonna stay here by da fire, make me a s’more,” she said.

Assignment: Revelations about the Southside

2009-06-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

The first neighborhoods we passed broke any stereotypes I had about the Southside. The areas were entered were all black, but middle class. Places of cared-for yards and small businesses. Places that looked safe and were community oriented. Arvis told us about their history—many areas had been built for whites but when the first black people moved in, the whites fled leaving the community to grow and develop on it’s own. The shady streets are well cared for; block clubs post warnings about being noisy and parking.

Our tour shows me that the South side cannot be characterized in one generalization. It includes our safe refuge of Hyde Park, where the average level of education is seventeen and a half years and professors stroll down shady streets coffee mugs balanced on the handlebars of strollers; it includes the wealthy black neighborhood of Kenwood where Obama lives blocks from Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the nation of Islam; the middle class blacks of farther south. It includes Englewood, the second most dangerous place in the nation, a place where a nine-year-old girl was shot yesterday while bathing her dogs with her dad. It includes parks, cemeteries, Chinatown, the White Sox, and the ritzy apartments that house Mayor Daley and his cohorts. For this summer, it is my home.

Trapped in Hell's Garden

2009-06-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

We drove back up Dan Ryan highway and I cried. I didn’t want anyone to see me, but I felt angry, nauseous. We had just visited Altgeld Gardens—less like gardens and more like hell on earth, these public housing projects fester in isolation, miles from any sign of humanity.

The projects are located off of 130^th street, a street that juts out from one of the busiest highway in the nation. Cars zip by, in and out of the city, the people inside oblivious to the hell that is these people’s reality. We drove, passing gentleman’s clubs and megachurches. and listened to Arvis talking about the methane that still burns in the nearby dump each night, forty years after the dump shut down, sending poisonous fumes to the Gardens.

We turned off into an area of fields. We pull in and see a boarded up store. Then, we see homes. All along the east side, the brick buildings are closed—haunting rows, their windows like eyes with patches over them.

“They closed because people got sick,” Arvis says.

The projects are toxic—people get cancer and mysterious illnesses. Children are born without genitals, a little boy goes blind after playing in the grass.

The few buildings on the east side that are open have broken blue and white awnings and signs. They are charity centers—there are no stores in Altgeld.

We pass family services, Catholic charities. And then we see an elementary school. We see new houses.

A shiny new school? New, red brick houses?

Arvis says it before I can notice it for myself, but they closed the toxic homes and built new homes literally feet away. If that ground is toxic, how the hell is that ground not toxic?

Beyond that are more projects, rows and rows of new buildings, custom made. Two shiny, new Laundromats sit at the corner. There are lots of little playgrounds, yet all are void are children. It is sickening. I stare in awe at one some politician thought was a good idea—revamp the projects. Build them new homes. No one seems to notice that it’s the location that is toxic—not just because of the horrible chemicals but because of the location. Three to four thousand people are trapped here in an impossibly small amount of space. One bus arrives every day. There are no jobs, no hope, no escape. Nothing.

Arvis points to police cameras on every street corner—installed to watch for drug deals. So the people there are ignored—except when they are caught doing something illegal. I can’t believe it.

Later, someone, blinded by the new buildings, commented that the projects weren’t that bad.

They were the worst place I have ever seen in my entire life.

One hope: This is where Obama did his mission work. I have hope in the fact that we have a president who worked there.

arvis adjusts my lens

2009-06-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

Slowly, throughout the tour, we found out about our tour guide’s incredible past. In his younger days, he knew Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Harold Washington and scores of others who I know deplorably little about but who constitute incredible figures of Black History. These days, he is a friend of the Obamas. He has lived in Chicago for many years and has been involved in all aspects of the Black community. It was with his perceptive lens, knowledge base, wicked humor and cynicism that we saw the Southside of Chicago. It was an exhausting tour—three hours in a van with only one stop. Each place we were had a difficult history for us to understand. We were pummeled with painful statistics and a bitter history of betrayal by our government and our race. Arvis never let us forget our position—no one could escape the fact that we were white voyeurs, driving along in a huge, red van with tinted windows. He never let us forget that we were the only white people for miles and miles. Everything we saw illustrated a painful past and present marked by death, poverty, broken promises and no hope.

By the end of our tour, I felt physically sick with my race and our history.

After three hours, it got to be too much. We pulled into the Art and Culture Center at Southport and saw the sleek steeds and cowboy hats of folks gathering for a rodeo. All the cowboys were black. That wasn’t too much of a surprise for me. I had read or seen photos somewhere about a black rodeo culture. But Arvis figured no one had. “A Black rodeo!” he exclaimed over and over. “I bet you all can’t believe it! A Black rodeo! These folks here ain’t heard of a Black rodeo!”

I wanted to protest—I don’t have those horrible stereotypes that you think I do! I am here because I care—because I want to know. That’s why I am in this program! That’s why I am on this tour!

It only got worse when he explained his decision to live in South shore. South shore is an all-black community just south of Hyde Park that is economically integrated—the poor living right alongside rich people like Reverend Jesse Jackson. “I gave up on race integration,” he said, “And just went with economic integration.”

I felt hopeless, hopeless.

He talked about how for years in his education, he had been the only black student in his school. He talked about moving to South shore because it was easier, because he didn’t have to answer stupid questions asked by white people when he came home at night.

An incredibly intelligent, well-educated man. A man who was friends with some of history’s greatest. And my race had made him so uncomfortable that he no longer wanted to live with us.

Arvis lays down the law

2009-06-18T09:39:00.001-07:00

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

We had just eaten in happy oblivion at a Soul Food restaurant called B.J.’s Market when Arvis Averette arrived. The professor of economics at Columbia College was eager to go—ready to take us in the infamous Southside, a place we were all fascinated by and yet terrified of after years of hearing nothing more than stereotypes about it. After we had all piled in to the tan van, he lay out the rules. “I know you all think you all that and a bag of chips. Well, I don’t want no texting,” he said, looking back at us. “Otherwise, I put your lil’ happy ass out in the hood.”

Race in the City

2009-06-18T09:38:00.001-07:00

The city is exhausting. Everything has a racial undertone. I became especially aware of it after our tour of the Southside. But everyone mentions black and white, white and black. I’m on the bus and a man boards, screaming to anyone that will listen that white people are committing genocide, that Black Americans will soon be extinct. Beggars call you on it—“Oh, you ain’t giving money to a black man?” and people casually comment on it “I wad wid a white man and hid wife found out and she woulda beat my ass cuz I’m black.” Again and again. For a white girl from Kansas, it slams into me each time. Does everyone have to talk about it.

At the Corner Café, our group represented the only light faces in the establishment. It never would have bothered me before; I come from a liberal place and have never questioned race relations. I have always judged people on their character, not their skin tone. But after everything that I have learned about and seen in the past week-- the hate, anger and bitter history still present in this city, I suddenly feel unsure about my relations with people of other races. I felt cut-off, like an outsider, an observer, who loved it all, but who didn’t really belong. Did they all hate me? Was I welcome? I felt like there was a huge chasm between me and the regulars. Our lives, our experiences were so different simply because of our skin tones.

Thus, after the performance, I am ashamed to say I was shocked when a black man struck up a conversation with me while we waited in line for the bathroom. He was smiling from ear to ear, he loved the performance just as much as I did. It was both of our first times and both of us wanted to come back. He was so kind, so genuine, so friendly; that I felt my old comfort returning. He went in to the bathroom and the man behind me struck up a conversation, too. He, himself, was a performer and he introduced himself, saying he hoped I would come back.

It was then that I realized I must not let myself be poisoned by this city. I must continue to believe that racial integration is real and people are people. I must continue to believe that I am not the only one who believes that.

Joe rocks his kicks... and describes the dangers of clubbin' and leg braces

2009-06-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

Verbal Balance/SpokenWord. Wednesday, June 17, 2009. PART THREE.

Next up, the Emcee announced, was Joe. “Our Joe?” I swiveled around to ask the director, Scott, seated behind me. Scott shrugged, nodded and a second later, Joe, an employee at the Chicago Center, struggled up from his seat. His leg braces clanked as he jolted to the front of the group assembled.

“Has he ever done this before?” I asked Scott.

“I don’t think so,” Scott said.

“I’m going to do a stand-up routine,” Joe said. “It’s my first time, so, uh, bear with me.”

And he began. His entire routine was based on his disability and it was one of the funniest, bravest things I have ever heard. I took notes, even while I was shaking with laughter and I’m jotting them down here.

First topic? Goin’ to the clubs.

Joe said: “The problem with clubs—they combine two things I hate more than any other. Dancing and moving in crowded spaces….

“So, I’m standing at the bar, talking to a girl and things are going well. I mean, she even looked over my kicks. Some guys have the, uh, Air Jordans and I am rockin my Kmart special. (Joe shows off his super supportive white shoes, the type worn by old ladies.) So things are goin’ well. And then she utters those two horrible words: ‘Wanna dance?’ It’s then that I remember the movie Hitch and the wise words of one character. Women equate dance with sex and I think… oh, shit…

“The problem with dancing is you move your arms, and then you move your legs. Well, I can do one of them, but the combination just… stumps me. It doesn’t work. So, it’s a little like… DJ, hit me up with some music!... (DJ obliges and Joe does a cute, awkward dance with all of us cheering him on.)

Next topic? 4 am bars.

“Three bad things about them—there’s dancing, I got my leg braces and by this point… I’m fucked up…”

Joe continues to tell about the time he arrived at one, hammered, and fell down. After that, the bar tender refused to sell him drinks. Joe was livid—“You don’t understand! I’m not drunk!” he yelled, “I’ve got a disability!” When the bar tender still refused to sell him drinks, drunk Joe yelled: “I’m gonna sue your ass!”

A Soul Speaks

2009-06-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

Verbal Balance/SpokenWord. Wednesday, June 17, 2009. PART TWO.

His name might have been Big Owie or maybe it was Big D. In any case, “Big” was certainly the adjective. When they announced his name to resounding applause, I turned around to see one of the largest human beings I have ever seen amble slowly up to the stage. He was like a human block, and I looked at him with a little bit of awe. He seemed to be made of mountains of flesh.

He seemed shy and awkward and once at the microphone, he spoke softly. His baby face was turned away from me and I strained to hear snatches of what he said. It sounded like he said he had just been released from the hospital—the applause must have been a welcome back to a good friend. What I did hear him say was: “Well, you know, I at a high risk for diabetes. It on both sides of my family.”

My heart broke for this soft-spoken giant. Did he really think that the only reason he was at risk with diabetes was because it was in his family? It was probably in his family because of their situation, their family style of eating, and probably, because of their poverty. It used to be poor people were skinny, nowadays, it seems the poorer, the fatter.

He couldn’t have been older than me, but he already had so much working against him. To me, he seemed trapped—in poverty, in a certain lifestyle and in a hot, uncomfortable, awkward body suit.

He paused, breathed and then drew the microphone close. And something escaped, flew free from that prison. His voice, gentle and sweet, rose up and filled the café. His song was of beauty, heartbreak and a peaceful place he’d escape to. A peaceful place, he repeated, a peaceful place. He spoke, then, his words rhythmic and strong. But it was the melody that haunted me. He sung it again and all I wanted in the world was for him to have that peaceful, beautiful place always.

I knew the thin, haunting melody was his soul. All I could hope was it wouldn’t be crushed.

i find myself on an island in a dark sea

2009-06-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Verbal Balance/SpokenWord. Wednesday, June 17, 2009.

The café we sat at was lit with soft light, made cozy by the bright yellow walls. An audience dressed in bright colors milled around, chatting and laughing and eagerly anticipating the SpokenWord poetry we were all getting ready to see. People ordered lattes and chicken salad sandwiches so good that one man turned to his and said, “Baby, you the best.” There was laughter, reunions of old friends, smiling and shuffling of chairs.

Placed in the walls were huge windows, looking out on the neighborhood beyond. That’s where the coziness stopped. The cold windows looked out into an industrial wasteland in the heart of a the South side of Chicago. One streetlight lit a corner. If I glanced outside, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. My eye would catch a car driving slowly by and my heart would pulse a little faster. Every time I saw a shadowy figure appear from around the edge of a building, I wondered if we were safe. But a moment later, they’d enter the door and warm light would illuminate their grins. They’d become human, a friend, part of a safe space.

How this place, The Corner Café, existed I don’t know. The darkness outside might have hidden a more residential area, something to explain the café’s survival or something to explain where to people inside eked out their existence. But there were no questions to be answered in the dark beyond. It was blank, scary. What was evident, however, was the light within.

One Week in Chicago: The Introduction

2009-06-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday, meaning that I have been waking up in this city for exactly a week. Last Sunday, I was in a hotel next to the lake. I woke up and went for a run with my Dad and my sister before they dropped me off at Blackstone and my Chicago program began. It feels utterly impossible that it has only been a week. I have met so many people, seen so much, created the beginnings of an entire life here. I haven’t had time to breath. But I think it is time to introduce you to exactly what I am doing here, in the city.

I am spending the summer studying at the Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture. The Center, located in the now-famous Hyde Park (where Obama is from), runs an urban plunge for college students. This summer, there are roughly thirty of us living in six apartments. We are an incredibly diverse group—we are from all different parts of the country (and abroad) and all different walks of life. Together, in the summer session, we will explore every fiber I can of the city: visiting museums and neighborhoods, festivals and restaurants, parks and monuments and communities. We will read about issues plaguing the city, art that breathes in the city and the people who live here. We will also all work different internships; an incredible draw for me as the city is filled with publications a young journalist with a social conscience might aspire to work with. The final component will be living here—learning first hand not only what living in an urban environment is like, but also learning to live with people incredibly different people.

I am to journal throughout. I will write about my internship and about the people I am with. Moreover, I will try to capture the city as I discover it on my own and with the help of the Chicago Center. As I am writing about this first week retroactively, it is going to come out in a jumble of experiences; not necessarily in chronological order. This past week has been filled with the exploring the tastes and sites of Chicago, the stressful search for an internship and much more.

I once studied a French artist who, in his life, had taken one monumental trip to Egypt. He later wrote that that single trip could give him enough material to paint for the rest of his life. That’s how I feel about this past week.

Blackstone Base

2009-06-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

We turned the corner and I saw our house first. I didn't let myself think for a moment that that was the one. Then Lucy cried: "That's it! That one is yours!"

a tale of two groceries

2009-06-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am intrigued by the differences between the grocery stores that I visit on my first day.

Treasure Island really is such. I walk in and want to gasp at the shining apples stacked in pyramid form. I pick up vegetables-- some spiky, some impossibly small or wildly colored-- I have never seen before. Friendly samples-- cool melon, spicy chips and salsa, greek delicacies galore-- line the aisles. For a foodie/for a lover of grocery stores, it is heaven. The clientele is mostly white. They are healthy and most probably well-educated. They, like me, love their food and will pay the extra bit for the taste and the ethics behind their food. I leave hungry, inspired.

Later that day, we stop to get quick supplies at Village Foods, a local grocery closer to our home. Before we go, I read the reviews online. Wilted produce, one says. I give it one star, says another. I am excited to go.

Hungry for dinner, we enter the glass door plastered with hand-written sale signs and immediately see uninspiring aisles of cans stacked high. The minimalist produce is tucked in the back, only to be found by a little searching. The layout speaks of the customer's desires. While Treasure Island entices shoppers with a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables, Village Market doesn't expect the average shopper to worry much about them. They grab mac-and-cheese flavored crackers and Doritos instead of hummus and organic grapes. The talk is loud, rough. The people are mostly black or hispanic. The customers are wearing scruffy clothes and hunting bargains. Shopping here is about getting something done, it's not a pleasure cruise for the senses.

As I hover over the dinner I am cooking later that night, I ruminate over the first class division I see in Chicago. Food is at the heart of our society and it is fitting that my observations start there.

Establishing Home

2009-06-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

The majority of my first morning at my Blackstone Avenue is spent unpacking. I packed hurriedly in the two day window between my arrival from England and my departure for the windy city. Even though I know full well that Chicago is not the end of the earth, I wanted to make sure I had everything.

As I unpack, I suddenly panic. After rooting around in the crumb-filled interior of my velvet messager bag, relief. The old cassette tapes are there. I do have them after all.

I realize I transport home almost mechanically. I live out of bags. It comes first from divorced parents, from shifting back and forth every Wednesday and Saturday of my childhood. It also comes from summers spent abroad, when I squashed my whole world into a tiny suitcase or later, a trusty travel backpack. It comes from living in a different place each year of college.

My transportable home is comprised of things, beloved material goods that keep me company. Clothes are hung, the bed in made. And soon, my familiar relics and everyday goods spread across this unfamiliar place. I glance at the bed, now covered by my green bedspread; the closet, newly populated by a familiar, well-loved wardrobe. White polka dots on grey, delicate florals, careful knits all arranged just how I like make this strange, shadowy space my own. It is a new kitchen, but the purple stains splashed the white stove are remnants of a dinner all my own-- red cabbage soup, warm and filling, made with the same recipe on this windy Chicago night as in my Lawrence hometown.

Arrival

2009-06-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

It was a strange sensation that I had as I drove into Chicago last night.

The city skyline was hazy yet imposing on the horizon ahead.

"Just look," my dad said, peering up from behind the wheel. I did look. And what struck me more than anything else was that I wouldn't see that sight again for two whole months. Two whole months of being inside the city.

During that time, I am supposed to get to know the city, to understand its dynamics, people, neighborhoods. It will be my home.

This isn't a few days. This is an entire summer.