Walking ... Walking

Our message is getting stronger and so are we! On Friday, we walked with more than 20 community college students from LA and San Diego. CFT President Marty Hittleman drove up along side of us and walked with us into the town of Le Grand (population 1,700).

In Le Grand, we passed out flyers at the elementary and high schools, did person-to-person outreach and dropped literature on front porches. We spoke with the superintendent and invited teachers and students from both schools in Le Grand to join us at the plaza at 8AM tomorrow to cheer and walk with us for a few blocks as we march onwards to Planada!

Having not blogged since before Fresno I gathered up my journal and notes and hope to remember and share some amazing bits from the march so far.

For me, one of the beautiful aspects of this march is the collaboration between labor groups, community groups and individuals, religious institutions and pets -- literally…we have been visited by many dogs on the march. While our philosophies and tactics may be challenging at times, we all want the same thing: basic needs to be met for everyone, a fair and just distribution of wealth and an end to budget gridlock and non-human priorities in Sacramento. When prisons and punishment are favored over rehabilitation and health, we must speak out en masse.

In Tulare, we had a great BBQ with SEIU 521, that is where we met an amazing school board member who is also running for assembly. She invited us to the park in Cutler where she brought people from the community to meet us. We were welcomed by the boy scout troop. They played on the truck.

In Fresno we took a tour of the juvenile hall and school. It was amazing to see such an excellent educational program, with caring, skilled and dedicated teachers, probation officers, librarians and vocational educators. I was inspired with hope when I visited two classrooms with students learning real world skills such as graphic design, Photoshop and Illustrator, had access to books to open their world outside of the hall. When I asked a student what she wanted us to tell the press who waited for us outside, she replied, “Just because we made a mistake does not mean we are bad people.” These are exactly the kinds of services we need to fund across the state. These kinds of investments in ALL of our youth are good for everyone in the long run.

In Fresno we met with the Fresno Brown Berets Autonomous chapter at the Café Info. We shared coffee, cookies and poetry, spoke about our experiences so far and talked about what brought us together. Bon Bon and Maria Gomez, two ACCE organizers from LA, were amazing, honest and inspiring. We passed a few flyers we made by hand at the City College rally. It was a conversation; we listened and learned from each other about the neighborhood and Fresno Chinatown, one of the most concentrated areas of poverty in the US. We learned about their food distribution program, gardens and survival programs.

While this march is heading to Sacramento, as I have written before (see my last blog, “Building Self-Reliance and Community Autonomy), I do not believe in waiting for a handout from Sacramento. We have to use this momentum and education to activate our communities to redesign themselves to provide for their own and each other using the power and resources of the people.

In the Central Valley, a powerful example of community autonomy is FIOB, the Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indigena Oaxaqueno, or the Center for Oaxacan Indigenous Development. They are more than 3,000 strong with committees on two continents, spread across the United States. They organize with and serve one of the most vulnerable populations in the U.S. today: indigenous farmworkers. They are going to join us at our massive rally in Sacramento on April 21.

Walking, walking…from Madera to Chowchilla. A group of sisters and cousins, all under the age of 19, heard our Spanish music and ran outside to mach along with us into downtown, to the park. We were joined on the last 1.5 miles by many SEIU homecare workers and clients. We marched with blind and disabled folks into town. They marched for the more bedridden than themselves. These folks stand to lose the only thing keeping them in their home, a homecare worker who may come 20 hours a week, who is paid just above minimum wage. Aside from the moral issue of taking care of our elderly and disabled, it costs thousands of dollars more a year to put our loved ones in an institution. California does not have enough institutions to house all of the people who receive these services.

I walked with a Madera High School student and member of the Young Revolutionaries Club, Shirley. GO MADERA HIGH SCHOOL!!! I hope to go meet with them next Tuesday or see them when I am back through this area, and there is no doubt I will be back to keep working in some capacity.

There is a lot of work to do in the Central Valley, and many already doing it. The key is to “connect the dots,” connect the people, connect our movement and get ourselves to Sacramento on April 21 to show that we can mobilize, will continue to mobilize. The Fight for California’s Future has just begun!