Stanford University Urban Studies &
Urban Summer Fellowship
Student perspectives of community-engaged learning and research across the United States
This summer, I worked for Causa Justa::Just Cause, a Bay Area based nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting for housing justice and political unity between Black and Brown working class communities. The majority of my time was spent doing client intake work in the Fruitvale Tenants’ Rights Clinic. My daily responsibilities when working at the clinic included welcoming tenants into the clinic, referring tenants to legal resources, especially Centro Legal de la Raza, educating clients on Oakland city ordinance pertinent to tenants’ rights, making appointment reminder calls, advising walk-in clients on whether their landlord has legal cause to evict them, calling tenants to learn more about their situation and scheduling appointments with our tenant counselors when necessary, sharing letter templates with tenants to help them communicate with their landlords in case of an unlawful eviction or refusal to make repairs in a timely manner.
In general, I’ve always thought of organizing as something that must be done on the streets at a large scale, talking to dozens of people a day & hoping to strike a chord with some of them when discussing the issues. I never considered that while providing an in-office service, such as what we do at the Tenants' Rights Clinic where I spent much of my time on the job, can be an ideal opportunity for political education because you already have knowledge that the community member you're speaking with has personal stake in x issue. For example, when tenants come into our clinic & do not qualify for just cause for eviction or rent control for some reason, tenant counselors take the opportunity to ask tenants whether they have interest in getting involved in political campaigns that can benefit them personally such as closing the just cause for eviction loophole in the Oakland city ordinance that excludes duplexes & triplexes or the fight to repeal Costa Hawkins, which limits the scope of rent control for many. I definitely expanded my vision of organizing after spending so much time in the tenants’ rights clinic this summer. In addition, I gained a newfound knowledge of Oakland tenancy law and a clear understanding of my working style (I do best with teamwork/constant human interaction). My supervisor, Molly, pointed out that collective rather than an individual outlook to completing projects is a strength of mine since I was constantly looking for ways to share work with my two fellow interns & remain accountable to one another. One of my favorite project assignments outside of the clinic this summer was collecting signatures for the 2020 ballot initiative Schools & Communities first, which would get rid of Prop 13 property tax exemptions for corporations & reappropriate them to schools, libraries, hospitals, homeless services, and other public benefits. It felt meaningful to go out to the community and talk to folks about this immensely important measure. It gave me the opportunity to look people in the face & connect with them based on the shared understanding that public works, especially in a barrio neighborhood like Fruitvale in a city like Oakland, are underfunded & undervalued, while wealthy corporations reap the benefits of lavish tax breaks. Some people seemed skeptical of my intentions when I first approached them, but almost immediately became supportive & grateful once I explained the cause I was working for was better-funded schools & libraries, etc. In my experience, Latinx folks really value education & rightly view it as an investment in their children's future. Signature gathering in the neighborhood was one of the most fulfilling parts of the summer, and reaffirmed my desire to go into a career that will allow me to work towards empowering working-class Latinx people on a daily basis. The work I did for Causa Justa was not without its challenges, though. As much as I enjoyed contacting and coordinating local immigration experts on behalf of the Oakland Unified School District for their Sanctuary district event, I found it quite challenging to work offsite from the other people engaged in the same work. Many times, I was in the Causa Justa office doing OUSD work, and that felt alienating. On the other hand, I felt much more fulfilled and empowered when doing work that involved interacting with people face-to-face, such as working with clients in the tenants’ rights clinic or signature gathering on the streets of Fruitvale. Confirmation that the type of work that I find personally fulfilling involves meaningful interpersonal interaction and has to do with helping working class Latinx populations is one of the most valuable takeaways I’ve gained from working at Causa Justa, as it will serve me well when I am thinking about what career path I want to go into. Getting a stipend to live independently in a brand new city over the summer was an invaluable learning opportunity. As much as going off to college is lauded as a young adult’s first undertaking of adulthood and independence, it cannot compare to living and working in a much more unstructured environment. This summer helped me to understand the level of responsibility, planning, and funds that it takes to live independently. The chance to fend for myself and figure out my own housing, food, & transportation is something I’ve never had the opportunity to do in the past given that I was raised in a household that attends to all my needs and attend an institution that also makes sure I’m provided for. I learned firsthand that adulting is no joke and that it takes a high level of dedication and intentionality to plan a life that doesn’t feel chaotic. A reflection upon this summer would be incomplete without mentioning my unique & special housing situation that was a learning experience in itself. During the second month of my internship, my roommate Annie & I stayed in an amazing attic full of native relics and hundreds of books related to countless social justice topics belonging to an indigenous Mexica man named Samuelín. Samuelín truly made us feel like part of his family and even allowed us to participate twice in the community sweat lodge ceremony of which he is the spiritual leader. Taking part in the sweat ceremony was an extremely intense and deeply impactful experience Hello everyone, my name is Sefa and I am a rising sophomore hoping to study racial capitalism in whichever major will allow me to do so. I interned this summer with SF Rising, a coalition of community organizations based in San Francisco that largely represent working class San Franciscans of color. Most of the organizations deal with housing and labor rights. They are depicted below: Depicted below are images from their General Members meeting that they hold every month with leaders of all of the community orgs to discuss action items moving forward. At the GM meeting I attended, they focused heavily on their campaigning strategies for San Francisco mayor and discussed both what worked and what didn’t work. As a staunch anti-capitalist, I have thought rather often about the best mechanisms to approach radically reshifting society and how we dismantle the logic of capital and capitalism from our psyches. My internship this summer has demonstrated to me these various approaches. Civic engagement, the focus of my organization, seeks to place voting power in the hands of working class people of color and thus shift the political terrain. Yet many of the people I work/organize with are also communists/socialists, and understand that capitalism does nothing but systematically reproduce and produce oppression and thus is not sustainable. In more granular, less abstract wording, the civic engagement I have been partaking in has mostly been collecting signatures for various ballot measures. One ballot measure entitled “Our City, Our Homes” would seek to “house at least 4,000 homeless people and expand shelter beds by 1,000 within five years, fund legal assistance and rent subsidies to keep San Franciscans housed, and fund intensive mental health and substance abuse services.” I also collected petition signatures for a measure that would repeal a part of Prop 13 which allows corporations to pay property taxes at below market rate, which lost the state millions of dollars which could have gone towards public services. Currently, I am working on the College for All campaign, which would make public college tuition free in California by imposing an estate tax that would tax the 4,000 wealthiest billionaires and millionaires in California. It previously existed yet California chose to repeal it. During the Reagan era, tuition for students was no longer funded by the government as it was not viewed as a public good. Furthermore, many argue that universities became privatized as a way to combat leftist thought and protest that was occurring on many campuses in the 60s. As Silvia Federici writes in her article From Commoning to Debt: Financialization, Micro-Credit and the Changing Architecture of Capital Accumulation, "There is a broad consensus that the institution of a debt-based economy is an essential part of a neo-liberal political strategy responding to the cycle of struggles that in the 1960s and 1970s put capitalist accumulation in crisis, and that it was triggered by the dismantling of the social contract that had existed between capital and labor since the Fordist period." An incredibly interesting part of this internship has been to witness how intimately intertwined Stanford is in many of these systems. Stanford is the heart of the industrial-university complex and the corporatization of universities in the ways that its knowledge production is for the benefit of companies. Furthermore, the “culture wars” and discussions of the “politically correct liberal turn” of the 60s were located at Stanford. Considering that this fellowship is regarding urbanism, I also feel it is important to discuss cities themselves in relation to capitalism. The process of deindustrialization and divestment from cities (predominantly affecting working class black people), followed by speculative investment in cities is incredibly visible in a city like San Francisco. The abstract logic of capital expresses itself in physical locations, such as cities or universities. My internship addresses both of these through working to mitigate gentrification (in the case of cities) or privatizations (in the case of colleges/universities). Working in the Mission, I witness daily the effects of speculative investment and gentrification. Homelessness is rampant in San Francisco and I am daily in shock by how we have all seemed to accept this as a reality. Most unhoused people in San Francisco were renters at some point but were evicted. Fighting for Prop 10 (which would repeal Costa-Hawkins and ensure rent control for tenants), would help to mitigate these issues. I had an incredibly meaningful experience this summer, both as an intern for SF Rising and simply being immersed in San Francisco organizing spaces. For example, I attended an event held by the Center for Political Education about protests held in 1968 and a workshop held by the Anti-Police Terror Project that discussed alternatives to calling the cops. All of this outside learning intertwined with the work I was doing as an intern at SF Rising. I was skeptical at first about the work I was doing signature gathering and collecting surveys. It felt incredibly tedious and arduous and I could not see the mass impact. I spent a lot of time phone banking and outreaching to people who did not respond to me and it was frustrating at times. However, one of my supervisors told me that this type of one-on-one work is important to her because it enacts into being the world that she is looking to create: one that is premised on collectivity as opposed to individualism and really grounds itself in the community. I definitely plan on continuing my work with SF Rising over the school year, considering that their campaign College 4 All is still working to be placed on the ballot. Additionally, I would like to volunteer with the Our City Our Home measure that is working to eliminate homelessness in the coming year. Voting really does matter, as I learned in one of my preliminary training sessions for this internship in which my supervisors discussed the YVOTE campaign: As the first image depicts, although white people are 40% of the SF population they are about 64% of the voting population, whereas groups of color consistently have a smaller voting population than their actual population. There are many reasons why this is the case (general distrust of government, voter suppression, language inaccessibility, voting only happening at inconvenient times for workers, etc.) The second image depicts the potential that young voters of color have, especially in California. I recently listened to a podcast that discussed the importance of logistics to capitalism, and understanding how the mechanisms to distribute products can be profitable. At times during this internship I did not enjoy doing the logistical work. I have learned that I more prefer research, such as when I was researching which businesses profit from ICE or the history of student debt and debt in general. However, logistics are just as important because the content, if not framed and delivered well, does not have meaning. Organizing is a simultaneous process of building relationships and spreading information. I want to implement that more in the work I do this upcoming school year. In considering mechanisms and how things are framed, I want to be more creative this year with the activism I do. For example, when my fellow interns and I presented our findings about student debt and how it impacts students at the City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University, I did a skit about how school privatization and massive amounts of student debt even came to be. It was an interesting way to deliver information. At the end of the presentation I concluded: Education has always been a political, economic, social project. It is a site in which the desires of those in power can be activated through the implementation of policies that benefit them. Education is not a neutral, apolitical space, it is a space that both reacts to and propagates the current political, economic, and social landscape. Studying student debt in general proved to be incredibly interesting to me as I was able to learn about how essential debt is to the capitalist project. For example, in a book I am reading entitled Policing the Planet, scholar Vijay Prashad writes “When governments are lended money it is not for “job-creating productive investments, but to inflate asset bubbles such as the housing debt market, the credit card market, and the college tuition debt market...the growth rates in the United States since the United States have been substantially debt driven.” Through my research, I began to think more about how there are many different geographies and sites in which capitalism expresses itself, which was made clear to me in my studies of universities, but this can also be applied to cities, bodies, prisons, etc. Here is one of the slides from the slideshow of our presentation: Many of the people I worked with throughout the summer always included a strong internationalist framework in the work that they did and sought to understand how tactics of the Cuban Revolution could be applied to the College for All campaign, which I greatly appreciated. I want to more thoroughly study the history of activism and revolution this year and will be sure to implement it into the work I do. Additionally, SF Rising as a group greatly values popular education and they always made sure that community members were informed about upcoming ballot measures, such as the ones depicted below: At this GM meeting, the SF Rising coalition also interviewed potential District 10 Supervisors. Their interviews were very much centered around community needs and addressing specifically housing and homelessness, as well as how to address policing in communities, specifically solutions and not suspensions.I was inspired by how much SF Rising and its coalition members prioritizes community needs at a grassroots level. Here are a few images of my fellow interns and me, either at our final presentation or at various campuses collecting surveys about students’ experiences with debt. I greatly appreciated being surrounded by (mostly) queer people of color for the summer: Moving forward, I want to continue to think about different approaches to organizing, whether it be more transformative organizing or organizing that follows Saul Alinsky’s model of organizing without ideology. I also want to envision alternatives to capitalism at a more granular level as opposed to solely criticizing capitalism as it exists now. In my work the upcoming year I also want to think more deeply about how to link policing to housing to education.
This summer, I have been working at the Noble Network of Charter Schools on the External Affairs team. I worked specifically with the Community Organizing team where we worked to connect community organizations, parents, and elected officials with the campuses that we oversee. During the past nine weeks, I have worked on numerous projects for multiple teams at Noble. I have called parents and community organizations to encourage their involvement at school events and throughout the year. My largest project of the summer has been updating all of the data fact sheets from last year. People on the EA team meet with the elected officials that will be affecting policy that will affect our students. The team brings these fact sheets to the meeting in order to show how many of our students are actually the official’s constituents. The data shows the successes of the campuses as well as where the schools could be supported. I spent most of the summer updating these fact sheets so that we could take them to meetings with elected officials. We have gone too a lot of community events to try and connect with community organizations and people in the community. A lot of our work is focused on making sure the communities that we are serving are getting the necessary resources to support the students that we are serving. A student’s education is much more likely to be successful with their community there to support them.
I do not know if I see myself working with charter schools in the future, but I see myself working in education in some capacity. I think that community organizing was a lot different than I had imagined. It required a lot of extroverted interactions that I don’t know that I would be ready to engage in everyday moving forward. Regardless it is very necessary and we need more of it in our education system. My main passions revolve around creating accessible resources for everyone, so whether that means working in education, or working anywhere else, I hope to focus on making necessary resources accessible. Hi my name is Katie Lan and I'm a rising junior studying Urban Studies and Earth Systems. I worked at the Center of Urban Pedagogy this summer. I assisted with a youth education program on environmental justice and helped with the different programs that CUP creates. TL;DR: This is my love letter and hate mail to New York. These are my future hopes and aspirations for myself and the city. I initially chose The Center of Urban Pedagogy as my community partner because I was interested in learning about how the power of art and design can be used to increase civic engagement. I was especially excited to learn more about art and design because I’ve been interested in the role that art plays in activism. I finished my internship a week ago, and I’ve left the internship with a deepened understanding of the aforementioned role, but also ways that civic engagement can be embedded within furthering the justice and liberation work in frontline communities in urban spaces. There are many questions that my internship at the Center of Urban Pedagogy made me ask, including ones about what my life is going to look like in a few years and how the city interacts with its people. Some major ones relating to urban studies include: What role does advocacy play? How do we make the complex processes within the city accessible to communities? How do we root empowerment in urban education? How do we effectively engage all stakeholders and create a process that doesn’t enforce existing forms of oppression? One critical question I learned to ask myself this summer is: how can we begin to see the city as a series of decisions? In my work with CUP, I and the high school students in the Bronx learned about how decisions about where parks exist and where infrastructure that might block access to those parks are very deliberate decisions. On my walks throughout the city, I saw both the good and bad. I lived in Brooklyn Heights for a week while I had a dog sitting job; on one side of the street was 15+ story tall luxury apartment buildings while on the other was public housing. The granite road separated poor from rich, communities of color from white communities. The granite divided conditions of visible trash and cracked sidewalks to manicured landscaping. I get really frustrated at New York City sometimes. Everyone who’s been there knows that it is both the best city in the world and the worst city in the world. I finally understand Tina Fey’s jokes in 30 Rock about how the city can be somewhat of a hellhole sometimes. But I’m frustrated at the city for more reasons than the heat and occasional filth and rudeness. I’m frustrated at New York City for the lack of accessibility and for its clearly visible violations of environmental justice. Most disabled and elderly folks are not able to use the subway system fully because there are so many stairs. It’s hard to be an immigrant here because the language isn’t accessible. Public housing is placed in the worst places in the city, where pollution is visibly worse and where trash isn’t taken care of as well. Those who are poor live in fear of gentrification and poor living conditions. Many apartments are not upkept well and many homes are unsafe. These frustrations at the city makes me and members of the community sometimes think that those who are burdened with the oppression of being poor and or a person of color will always be neglected when it comes to the city’s decisions. And I really hate the city for this. New York, I hate you for your embodiment of capitalism and your oppression of supremacy. I hate you for how your roads and highways divide communities and how you concentrate poverty. But I also am deeply in love with the city. I love New York City for the most beautiful interaction of nature and built form at parks. Standing in front of Washington Square Park at dusk, I am grateful for this beautiful, wild, and curious city. I think to myself, there is no other city, nay, no other place on earth, where this beautiful symphony of human interaction exists. The beat of the performing artists seems to lay out the rhythm of the space. It’s not dark out, but the arch is completely lit. At this moment, I think about Jane Jacobs, who I’ve read about so much in my classes and whose prose in The Life and Death of Great American Cities has influenced so much of how I think about urban planning and urban life. I’m thankful for Jane in this moment and for how she was a badass woman who stopped Robert Moses from completely destroying New York with highways. I also think about the success he did have, especially with the Sheridan Expressway blocking a primarily community of color from the Bronx River, one of the crown jewels of New York City. I’m grateful for Jane, but sad that her work didn’t fully reach communities of color. Both these problems and examples of beautiful urban planning that I brought up have all brought me back to CUP’s work.
Many of these problems exist, but it’s important to think of them as a series of decisions by the city and its people. Many of these decisions are unfair, racist, and classist. Living in the shadow of these unfair decisions can make you feel like a helpless victim in the process and the people really shouldn’t be blamed. I want to continue figuring out how to organize communities to develop their own tools to be apart of the decision making process and to help define the city for their own means, even though history hasn’t always allowed them. I’ve begun to see community organizing in a different light; it isn’t always an uphill battle against a known, capitalist enemy fat cat, but sometimes it’s about thinking about the grander systems of oppression and what tools exist in the urban system that can help us make decisions that will better the community. I know this reflection is very late, but at the same time, I’m glad I didn’t write it until tonight. I haven’t really been able to articulate my thoughts until now because I’ve only been really able to define my relationship with New York City as a profound love and immense frustration, but it’s so much more complex than that. Today marks 11 weeks that I’ve lived in New York City. The first time I really left the Bay Area. The first time I lived in my own apartment (and dealt with the mice that also might live with me) The first time I felt truly on my own. The first time I truly felt okay about that. New York, I love you. I love you for the activism that has shaped the most beautiful parts of the city like the parks, the ethnic enclaves, and the community institutions that help preserve the culture in the city. I love you for the resilience that exists in communities that are consistently impacted by unfair decisions and their ability to develop their own tools to pursue justice. I love you for your vibrant energy and for reminding me of why I’m studying what I’m studying. New York, I’ll see you again. Big Goals, Big ThoughtsHi everyone! To reintroduce myself, my name is Abby Bauer and I’m a rising junior at Stanford studying English Literature and Creative Writing. This summer, I am working at Robin Hood Foundation, NYC’s largest poverty-fighting organization that finds and funds some of the most effective, impact-driven nonprofits in the city.
What I’ve Been Working On My summer here at Robin Hood has taken some unexpected turns. During the first five weeks, I was part of a formal internship program, rotating through each of Robin Hood’s teams (Program, Development, and Blue Ridge Labs) along with a cohort of interns to gain a holistic overview of the organization. Each week consisted of a more informational-focused program, wherein we had the opportunity to converse with the incredible staff members on each team and learn about their work, as well as a more hands-on project that corresponded with that team’s mission. For instance, during the week we spent with the Development Team, we learned about the value of corporate partnerships to the organization, and then were tasked with researching prospective corporate partners and “pitching” to the team how our respective partners would be an asset to Robin Hood, what their point of entry into the organization would be, among other logistical details of building and sustaining a key partnership. I really enjoyed this structured internship program, because it enabled us to understand how, in a rather large nonprofit organization, teams work on very different projects but are united by one shared, overarching goal of improving the lives of New Yorkers in need. During the second part of my internship (which I’m more than halfway through), I have divided my time between helping the Development Team with their strategic planning process (identifying new fundraising initiatives to engage both current and prospective donors) and designing marketing campaigns for one of Robin Hood’s community partners, Up & Go. I had expressed my interest in economic security/opportunity and workforce development to the team here at Robin Hood, and they let me help out on a project that aligned with this interest. Up & Go is a web platform that enables users to book home cleanings with a cooperative worker-owner (a home cleaner who also has equity in the business). These worker-owners, who are predominantly women from disadvantaged backgrounds earn a livable wage while developing business skills. I have been working closely with the Center for Family Life (CFL) in Brooklyn, NY, which houses Up & Go and functions as an “incubator” to help these worker cooperatives to grow and sustain themselves. I have thoroughly enjoyed helping CFL on their marketing efforts to spread the word about Up & Go (which just launched in 2017), since it has allowed me to work more closely on an issue I am eager to learn more about – an opportunity I did not expect to have while working at a foundation. My Thoughts on Philanthropy After spending two summers working in the philanthropic sector, I wanted to share some thoughts on this field. 1. Foundations should encourage their staff to leave the office and seek proximity to the issues they are trying to solve. Some of the most personally impactful experiences I’ve had this summer have been outside of the Robin Hood office and out in the community. I have realized that nonprofits are the true experts – the keepers of the depth of knowledge on social issues – as well as philanthropy’s only real point of access to the people. If I ever do pursue a career in philanthropy, it will be a personal priority to be out of the office more than 50% of the time, having frequent conversations with both the nonprofits funded by the foundation and the people who benefit from the services of these nonprofits. 2. Foundations should not seek to bandage society’s worst sores, but aim to be an effective and lasting cure to social ills. Philanthropy has routinely shied away from engaging in policy initiatives, which is a problem because it doesn’t dismantle any of the underlying systemic barriers that require its existence. The field of philanthropy as a whole should not be simply focused on handing out money and creating tiers of dependence, but inciting policy-level change and creating more democratized opportunity for all. 3. Foundations should take advantage of the freedom they are granted to take risks, and dare to do what government cannot. Philanthropy has been disparaged in the media on more than one occasion for its lack of accountability – while the government is held accountable to taxpaying citizens, the decisions made and actions taken by foundations are not held accountable to anyone. This can be seen as a point of caution (see: Gates Foundation’s Small Schools Initiative); but it can also be seen as an opportunity. The absence of accountability in this sector gives foundations the ability to take risks and be powerful catalysts of social change. With no corporate board or tax-paying constituents to report to, foundations can fund things that are riskier, but may yield a much greater social return. It is important that foundations recognize this opportunity – which could ultimately bring about systemic, crucial change - and seize it. Hi, I'm Ethan Chua, a rising junior majoring in anthropology. I'm also a spoken word poet and comic book writer, and I'm spending this summer interning at the Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit based in Oregon that provides legal services to immigrants and refugees.
A few weeks before I began my internship at the Innovation Law Lab, I was both nervous and skeptical about beginning the work. Nervous, because I was an undergraduate majoring in anthropology who knew next to nothing about refugee law; skeptical, because, in the few years I’d spent in the United States, I’d learned how the rule of law is often employed as a smokescreen for institutionalized racism - from Nixon’s targeting of impoverished communities of color in his war on drugs, to the systemic brutality black men face at the hands of police today. But the day I began my internship, I watched as the Innovation Law Lab scored a major legal victory in its suit against the Department of Homeland Security, winning a temporary restraining order that granted it access to the federal prison in Oregon where over a hundred immigrants were being detained. That day, I saw the rule of law being applied to ensure the dignity and security of over a hundred men who had been treated by the current administration as less than human, incarcerated without trial or conviction in blatant violation of their constitutional rights. And after that day, I worked with the Law Lab and saw several of those men through from their know your rights training, to their credible fear interviews (where their eligibility for asylum is determined), to their eventual release. My internship is coming to a close, and I’ll admit I leave with a continued ambivalence towards the institution of the law in the United States. Its founding principles, couched in a language of equal rights and humanism, also effectively excluded indigenous and black Americans from its protections; nevertheless, those same principles have been rearticulated by activists of color to actually stand for the defense and dignity of all human beings. And with respect to immigration - on the one hand, the continued jurisdiction the executive branch has over immigration courts in the US allows decisions such as who qualifies for asylum to be swayed by the whims of whichever administration has power; on the other hand, the very principles of international refugee law were a powerful response to the atrocities of the Holocaust, holding nation-states accountable to ideals larger than the span of their individual territories. But I’ve realized, too, that I started this internship missing a key point - forgetting that, as indomitable and opaque institutions such as the justice system may seem, they are ultimately forged from social relationships, and thus within our power to change. I think of Marx’s concept of alienation, where relationships between people are reinscribed as relationships between things, and where we subsequently forget the ways we are involved in the systems we inhabit. It’s this same alienation which prevented me from imagining the rule of law used as a tool for compassion - as a way to guarantee the safety of immigrants and the rights of refugees. I’m frustrated, now, when headlines refer to the massive movement of migrants in response to persecution and strife as a “crisis” with murky origins - frustrated at the way it renders mass swathes of human beings into a problem to be solved or a security issue to be dealt with. And with the turns in the United States towards nativism and jingoism in response to the continuing arrival of refugees, I see a profound alienation at work. Because it’s not about the dilution of an abstract national identity or the supposed influx of a wave of criminals - no, how we respond to those who arrive at the border seeking safety and refuge is not a question of security, but a question of humanity. So I guess, in other ways, immigration is a crisis - but a crisis of compassion. It’s a challenge to us to imagine a world where one’s fundamental rights are not dictated by the borders of one’s nation-state, the language on one’s passport, or the color of one’s skin. And it’s a challenge to the way we envision the institutions we hold dear - do we continue to employ the rule of law as a thinly veiled instrument of racism and sexism (as in Jeff Sessions’s decision to make it more difficult for Central and South Americans fleeing domestic violence to seek asylum), or do we fight for its just application (as in current litigation to have a private prison in Oregon stop its detainment of refugees) and for its empathetic reform? Moving forward, too, we will have to confront the inadequacies of international refugee law, even as its just application has safeguarded millions from persecution. Can we, for example, recognize the ways in which economic disparities are also forms of global violence - say, expanding the current call to reunite families separated at the border to recognize the trauma faced by families also torn apart in places as varied as Nicaragua and the Philippines due to the demands of a remittance-based economy? Can we begin to prepare - with compassion - for the mass migrations that will result due to extreme changes in climate throughout the globe? Perhaps much of this reform seems beyond imagining. Meaningful change in immigration law has stalled consistently in the United States due to partisanship and political polarization. But to say it is impossible is to forget that we are both participants in and drivers of social institutions; it is to resign ourselves to the way things are; it is to refuse to dream. And in the wake of an increasing cynicism at the failure of globalization to deliver on its supposed promises of equity and prosperity; in the return to a rhetoric of racist nationalism among many countries in the West; international refugee law still stands as a powerful testament to our ability to imagine a humanity larger than ourselves and our borders. But we can do better, still - for today’s refugees and for the refugees of the future - so dream we must. Hello all! My name is Sarah Sterling and I am a rising junior at Stanford University. This summer, I was lucky enough to be a recipient of the Urban Summer Fellowship, which allowed me to spend nine amazing weeks at Sequoia High School. As my summer comes to a close and I am getting ready to get back into gear for school, I wanted to reflect on what my work at Sequoia meant to me and what it means for my future. This summer was one of incredible learning opportunities that answered and raised an innumerable amount of questions about education, poverty, social justice, and opportunity. My Journey to Sequoia High School... I am proud to be a first generation, low-income college student at Stanford. And while that is a huge part of who I am, it poses its own challenges. One of those challenges that I face is an immense pressure to make money. To my family, going to college, especially Stanford, is a way to climb the social ladder. My family often pushed me to become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer so that I would never have to worry about money. And when I arrived at Stanford, I was determined to follow that advice. But it didn't take long for me to realize that my passion lies in education. But, because education, and teaching especially, is not a field known for its high wages, I felt really guilty. I wanted to push myself to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer so that I could support my family that worked so hard to get me to where I am today. But it didn't take long for me to realize how unhappy I was pursuing a life in anything other than education. The fellowship this summer gave me the opportunity to exercise my passions and discover what kind of teacher I wanted to be. The Moments that left me Smiling... This summer was filled with fun. Not only did I grow incredibly close with my mentor teacher, my coworkers, and the students that I interacted with every day, but I also found an amazing community at Sequoia. Over time, it began to feel like home. One of the main sources of my daily smiles was my mentor teacher, Danesa Aureli. Danesa is a credentialed teacher employed by Sequoia High School. For six weeks, I assisted her in teaching a summer school accelerated geometry class. The students in the class elected to fit the entire year of geometry into a six week summer course. And even though we had to start class at what felt like the crack of dawn, we had great fun teaching geometry together. I got to see how a classroom functioned day in and day out. I learned that class almost never goes to plan and improvising is inevitable. Nonetheless, the greatest joy comes from watching the students grow. Seeing friendships develop and kids learn was amazing, and I was honored to be a part of it. For all the good times we shared, I have Danesa to thank. She created the most loving and understanding culture that I have ever seen in a classroom. No matter how great my mornings went, my afternoons were always just as spectacular. Summer school ran from 8am to 1pm, which left my afternoons free! Instead of going home early, I worked with a program called Team Ascent. Team Ascent is a four-week long summer orientation program for incoming freshman that is focused on mentoring and fun! We feed the students lunch, then spend the afternoon getting to know the freshman and helping them get to know each other. The goal is that the students feel the same sense of community at Sequoia High School, and know who to ask if they ever need support. Spending time with the Team Ascent freshman and staff members was almost always the highlight of my day. They are an amazing group of intelligent, passionate, and funny people. I was having so much fun that being with Team Ascent barely even felt like a job. We got to accompany the students on a field trip to Stanford, kayaking at Shoreline, and cheering on the Giants at AT&T Park. The Questions I Never Answered...
Despite all my fun, this summer raised a lot of questions for me. Some, I feel will be answered with more time and more experience. But there are some questions that I worry will never have a clear or easy answer. These are some of the questions that came to my mind most often:
The end of the summer was very bittersweet. On one hand, I was excited to head home to see my family and begin my vacation. But, it was also really hard for me to leave Sequoia and the students and teachers that I had grown so close to. And so, it seemed to me a very easy decision that I would return to Sequoia this academic year. I am not sure in exactly what capacity, but i can't wait to find out. My Future in Education... If anything, this summer taught me the importance of schools. Whether it is something to do all day, a space to learn, a free lunch, a kind face, or a place of friends, schools have something to offer everyone. I really got to understand and appreciate how critical Sequoia is to the community of Redwood City. Having the privilege of working with people who share my passion made every day at work enjoyable. I honestly looked forward to going to work every day. And I want to chase that feeling for the rest of my career. I plan to continue my studies in chemistry and education and one day teach my own high school class. I pulled my mom’s 30-year old, practically unused baby blue Trek bike out of the garage before my first day of work. It was dusty, the mirror was cracked, but it still worked like a charm when I first took it out for a spin. To be fair, the decision to bike to work was more out of necessity than a commitment to sustainability, as I had sold my car two years ago. Still, after having become a confident critic of the American auto-centric lifestyle and development history, I was excited to finally walk the walk and find an alternative way to get to the office. What I didn’t foresee, however, was how commuting by bike would reinforce what I learned with the Downtown Davenport Partnership this summer, and help me think more broadly about how change happens in a city. Heading down the hills of my neighborhood (yes, Iowa has hills!), I was soon on the Mississippi River bike trail, from which I'd slowly see our small downtown skyline come more clearly into view with each passing mile. I would get to the office, helmet in hand, greet my smiling colleagues, and get to work. The bulk of my focus has been on “complete streets,” a concept made popular by New Urbanists since the ‘90s, referring to streets that accommodate a variety of users (pedestrians of different ages and abilities, cyclists, along with the usual motor vehicles). The feeling was that urban planning had been hijacked by car interests and traffic engineers since the 1950s, and that the effects of these changes on the environment, public health, suburban sprawl, and inequitable economic development have been disastrous. This history has consistently been reinforced in my classes. Now, amidst a nationwide movement calling for Complete Streets, it's time to see what Davenport can do. My main project explores how we can adapt the downtown streets to be more livable, safe, accessible, as well as conducive to economic development. In particular, I was looking into how and whether to convert two of the downtown’s main streets from one-ways to two-way streets, complete with bike lanes and parallel parking. In doing so I’ve examined many case studies of other cities who have made these kind of changes. I’ve talked to city officials (traffic engineers, economic development chiefs, city planners) in these cities to ask them about the effects. I even walked around much of downtown talking to business owners about their thoughts. The case study results have been overwhelmingly positive, though it quickly became clear to me hard it is to draw a clear causal connection where there are so many other variables that affect economic growth, safety, and a city’s image. But every city official I talked to soundly endorsed the policy, saying retail benefited from increased visibility, slower traffic speeds were safer, navigation was less confusing, and people felt more comfortable. When it came to Davenport business owners, however, the response was quite mixed: equal numbers supported, opposed, and were ambivalent about the proposal. I wasn’t trying change anyone’s opinion necessarily, but when I offered some facts and counterarguments, hardly anyone budged. People are dead-set in their opinions, and especially the West Enders of west side of downtown are quite distrustful of any changes proposed by the city government. They feel like their voices are usually ignored and that while someone likely benefits from these policies, it’ll never be them. The animosity of some folks surprised me, especially towards bikers and bike lanes. Here I was, a student collecting opinions on what I saw to be a commonsense, win-win intervention, but I was rebuked by a third of the people I spoke to. I’ve heard a number of people in my organization and the city government gripe about how people can’t handle change, I’ve even said so myself. But there are some very valid reasons for folks to be distrustful. It’s true that the city government could have done more throughout the decades to support the West End, for example. There’s also a justifiable fear that business interests would wipe the urban landscape clean and rebuild it in their own image if they could. These are certainly the interests that lead the Downtown Davenport Partnership, as board members and business partners. At some point, revitalization turns into gentrification, and gentrification turns into displacement when spaces fill up.
This point about neoliberal restructuring of urban spaces, and its relevance to complete streets, are reinforced strongly by “Incomplete Streets” by Stephen Zavestoski and Julian Agyeman, who bring together a collection of essays to “problematize the Complete Streets concept” by pointing out how the movement treats streets as purely physical spaces, rather than also social and symbolic spaces, which can lead policies and practices to perpetuate certain historical injustices and urban exclusion, especially when they focus on more privileged “users” of streets. I’ll certainly continue to come back to this work as I reflect on my experience and finalize my report for DDP. As of yet, very few people bike in the streets of downtown Davenport. Cars sometimes don’t know how to share the road with me, but most respect me as another rightful user of the road. I like to imagine people’s reactions to seeing me, some positive, some annoyed, some surprised. I’ve come to realize over time that while my efforts of advocating for complete streets might have a limited impact, will take time, and might not even be the ideal approach, it’s the everyday decisions we make about how we live our lives that are key. The example of me biking to work is a bit silly, I’ll admit, but I hope it’s clear what I’m trying to say. While most people don’t pay much mind when they see me bike by, maybe some will decide it isn’t so bad after all. Maybe others will even be convinced over time to do the same. Our behavior and our routines are ways of advocating for a certain future we want to see. And sometimes leading by example through action speaks much louder than any words or reports. I am very committed to this idea and approach, which recalls “the right to the city,” a reminder that we have the right to remake our city and ourselves at the same time. It’s an ongoing, self-reinforcing cycle. So let’s not sit and wait around for change to happen. Let’s get rolling! -Pablo Haake P.S. I want to thank Deland, Valerie, and Hilary, the Urban Studies program, and the Haas Center for making this opportunity possible. The last two summers have taught me so much about how to be a change-maker in urban planning and economic development spaces, how to explore new cities and my own hometown, and how to ask important ethical questions about the work I’m contributing to. No matter where I end up in the future, I’ll take the knowledge I’ve gained and these skills and experiences with me. by John Okhiulu, Sophomore Human Biology and African & African American Studies major, Pre-Health
My experience at DEED this summer has taught me a lot of lessons about community service and my life that I feel could be valuable others, so I will do my best to tell my story and summarize that wisdom here for you. Here goes Doing good as a community isn’t as simple as 1-2-3, and that’s a problem. Allow me to explain. As an average person living in a city like NYC or SF, we're bombarded with chances to blow our hard earned cash on entertainment or material things, but when it comes to chances to serve the community, we're mostly uninspired. Maybe if you're a member of a church or you have a friend who's into the whole "social good" thing then you hear about community service opportunities but other than that its a small population of people who dedicate meaningful time to doing good. The CEO I worked under made it his goal to change this and the team has built up a great platform to make this societal shift. The more time I spent working on the platform and the more time I spent volunteering for the non-profits we partnered with, the more I realized that society needed an app like this: something to motivate citizens to integrate community service into their regular week. I'm all for this idea, and I'm so honored to have helped push it along this summer. While DEED's app isn't available everywhere, I still encourage those who want to find meaningful opportunities to make a difference to go ahead and actively seek them out. You never know how far a simple google search will go. Find non-profits in your area doing big things in the community and lend a helping hand. I loved working with KEEN and Children of Promise NYC this summer. No matter what skills you posses or obtain, you can always use them to make a difference, and this summer was an example. When I was looking for summer opportunities as a freshman, I made it my goal to use my computer science experience in this manner. Achieving this goal was affirmation that my aspirations and my wishes paint my path. Never be discouraged from doing something because you haven't seen it done before or there's no precedent, maybe you were meant to be the trailblazer? A lot of people struggle with complacency in unfulfilling careers and my experience with DEED as well as a lot of listening to Oprah's SuperSoul podcasts have taught me that we as people determine if we reach our dreams and highest potentials. Don't box yourself in. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows working at this startup, don't get me wrong. My coworkers and I weren't always presented with the best working situation or environment. However imperfect the situation was, the team of interns and a couple of the full-time employees knew that we could confide in each other. Specifically one friend felt she was being ignored and disrespected on a few occasions. I allowed her to vent her truth to me and replied with my support of her voice. She decided her best action was to voice her feelings in a feedback meeting near the end of the summer and I stood by her in that decision. Our relationship grew stronger and the work environment felt more welcoming because she was able to talk about her concerns with other people. One of the easiest ways you can help others is providing a listening ear, a lot of us just want to be heard. Finally, this summer taught me something major: I don't like CS. I came into Stanford and had all but declared computer science as my major. I took a couple courses and they weren't cakewalks by any standards. But still, I pressed on and I really gave CS a fighting chance, and for all the wrong reasons. Because I was decent at the skill, because I knew I'd be able to make a good living off of it, because so many of my friends were doing it, etc etc. I wasn't honest with myself about what I really wanted to do with my life, how I actually wanted to seek fulfillment. I treated this internship as my "first date" with CS in the real world. And I learned from the experience and made connections, but it wasn't for me, and I'm okay with that. My final point is to do some good for yourself: test the waters, be okay with change and misdirection, find your direction - divine or otherwise granted - and run towards it (doesn't have to be a straight line either). In the words of Sterling K, don't be afraid to let your light shine. This summer, I’ve worked at Quill.org, an education nonprofit in New York City which serves students all around the country. Quill’s mission is to close the gap in writing proficiency between wealthy students and underserved students in America by providing free software tools to help students develop their writing skills. On Quill, students proofread passages, work through diagnostics, and follow along with a teacher’s class lessons. I was drawn to Quill by its broad vision and scale, with hundreds of thousands of students having used the site. I hoped to tangibly contribute a new feature to the platform, something that students could use to bolster their own skills (and have some fun doing so). Reflecting on this summer, though, I think the most important journey I’ve taken is a deeply personal one.
|
AuthorThis blog is authored by Stanford University students engaged in summer fellowships through the Cardinal Quarter and the Program on Urban Studies. All writings and thoughts belong to the Fellows and do not represent the opinion of the sponsoring programs. Archives
September 2018
Categories |