A year later, still standing.
This is what strength looks like. This is what resilience sounds like when it doesn’t need words.
My parents have endured loss, delays, and uncertainty—but they never lost hope.
Altadena is home, and they are rebuilding it with faith, patience, and unwavering love. We got approved for the permit it’s time to build!!! Thank you @kcrw@romalc.pcd for the photo shoot 📸 and especially @mbjamerson for amplifying our story and staying down since Day 3. We love you !!!
#beautifulaltadena #eatonfire #rebuildaltadena
When I learned that the family that owned Skid Row People’s Market for the last 29 years was selling the convenience store to a community nonprofit, I was immediately curious. This felt different than all the stories of families losing businesses in 2023 due to rising rents and gentrification. Once I spoke to Danny Park, the current owner, I realized the sale represented a much bigger idea. Since 2018, Park, a second-generation Korean American, ran the store with a social justice bent, and now he was handing things over to a Black-led nonprofit. It felt like a small important step toward healing long-standing Black-Korean tensions in LA. 🎧 Listen at: /news/shows/greater-la/creating-justice-la-northridge-quake-beware-elements
Unionized workers at Medieval Times Dinner Theater are back to work at the castle after nine months on strike. They were in deadlock with management over a new contract and will start rehearsals without one. Earlier this month I reported about how it can take years for new unions to win their first contract. Collective bargaining is a federally protected right, but labor scholars told me they can link negotiating delays to illegal union busting. Both the Medieval Times performers union and the National Labor Relations board have accused Medieval Times of breaking the law to stop the union campaign.
I hung out with Del Howison earlier this month. He and his wife own and operate the horror themed bookstore Dark Delicacies. They were the first spooky themed small business to open in an area of Burbank that nearly 30 years later is known as “horror row”. Thanks to Howison, I have a new appreciation for all things spine tingling. 🎧 Link in stories.
After the least active year of my adult life, I finally laced up my sneakers and went on a run with the South Central Run Club @southcentral.run . For @kcrw I interviewed the club’s co-captains, Zaakiyah Brisker (left) and Jazmin Garcia (right), about using running to reclaim and redefine what it means and looks like to be healthy in South Central. Link to 🎧 in stories. 📸 by Zaydee Sanchez.
June 4, 2020. Scenes from a candlelight vigil in Downtown Riverside to honor George Floyd and all victims of racial violence. An incredibly diverse crowd of hundreds gathered near city hall. One woman told me to see so many ethnicities in support of Black lives moved her to tears of happiness. She said the anger is still there but she hopes this means change is coming and her kids will be free to define their blackness however they choose. Faith leaders from Christianity, Islam and Judaism offered prayers and elected Black officials spoke. One Moreno Valley City Councilwoman, Dr. Carla Thornton, told the crowd that California is not as racially inclusive as we would like the nation to believe. The closing message was to take the movement to the polls and vote change in. Reporting in two parts online at @empirekvcr .
June 2, 2020. Moreno Valley, CA. Scenes shot for KVCR-FM's coverage of the Rally for Justice organized by Black Lives Matter Inland Empire. Full report by Benjamin Purper at kvcrnews.org.
What do we do with coal ash? A familiar question for folks in East Tennessee, but one communities across the Southeast are increasingly dealing with as coal fired plants shut down. Coal ash the byproduct of burning coal for electricity contains lots of nasty toxic stuff known to cause cancer and other chronic diseases and no one wants it in their backyard. In Claxton, TN arsenic is leaking into groundwater near the coal fired Bull Run plant(seen above) where five million tons of coal ash is stored. The rural commmunity is putting pressure on the TVA, a federal utility, to clean up it's coal ash and stop a proposal to place a new coal ash landfill closer to homes. The TVA says they are following regulations and just need time to finish an environmental study. Meanwhile the the EPA is proposing rolling back coal ash regulations designed to protect groundwater. Story for @southerly_mag and link in bio.
Earlier this month while on assignment for Scalawag Magazine, I attended a conference in Nashville about reproductive justice and white supremacy. It was a heavy day, but I left with a new understanding about institutional racism and how it shows up in legislative policies around reproduction and health. So I wrote a story about the discussion these organizers had, how reproductive justice is not just about abortion and what kind of state level policies to expect in 2020. Link in bio.
A story I wrote for @southerly_mag about how microplastics are changing the Tennessee River is now live(link in bio). I spoke with researchers, environmentalists and politicians about what is at stake for the Southeast--a region recognized as one of the most ecologically diverse in the world.
