Assignment #1:
The readings on California’s sundown towns and the 1992 Los Angeles uprising changed the way I previously understood racism in California; the South is usually notoriously known for racism that I had no idea about California’s history of racism in terms of the African American community. Learning that cities like Glendale, San Leandro, Hawthorne, and Burbank actively enforced sundown practices makes it clear that racial exclusion in California was not subtle, but intentional and violently maintained. What stood out to me most was how recent this is, and how the impacts are still felt today. Black residents describing hate crimes show that these places are not just places of harm from the past, but places where exclusion continues to shape everyday life. Understanding this context feels necessary for doing meaningful and impactful community based work because it changes how we interpret people’s distrust of institutions or discomfort in certain neighborhoods. As a MAPS intern, this knowledge reminds me that communities carry generational trauma tied to place, and that engagement requires humility, listening, and awareness of histories that institutions may not openly acknowledge. I know that as an intern who primarily goes to ISLAH sites (a mostly African American Muslim school), I must be aware of the histories of the children that I’m mentoring. The article on the 1992 LA uprising deepened this understanding by showing how unresolved racial oppression can erupt into moments of uprising. I wonder how these generational traumas and histories in Los Angeles have anything to do with the mass incarceration of African American youth we see in LA nowadays. I feel that today police and gang violence are so bad, and that African American youth find themselves caught in the gang and prison systems at a young age and so it is hard for them to leave this system. What challenged me most was recognizing the harsh and unfortunate realities of California’s racist history and even present day discrimination, especially because California has a more liberal reputation.
