Liz

The below interview is with Liz, one of the volunteers at the Westlake Community Table.

Liz-Hello, my name’s Liz. Is that all you wanted? (laughs)

Eduardo-Yeah

Liz-So you could keep track?

Ed-Yes

Liz-Cool (laughs).

Ed-Ok, thank you for this interview. I guess like--what I’m curious to know… first off, what do you do every day besides the table?

Liz-Um, right now I’m working from home. Yeah, mostly working remotely. I do occasionally have to go to work on site. Unfortunately, I work in Torrance, and I take public transportation. Um… And I’m pretty sure that--I don’t think it was on my way to work, but I think definitely on my way to store or something when I did take public transportation--I do think that’s how I got covid, the last time I got covid. So it’s no joke trying to take public transportation right now, especially all the way to Torrance. So I’ve been kind of like trying to do all my work roles and also kind of like slowly advocating for myself to not necessarily return to work on site full time, because… yeah (laughs). So that’s kind of occupied quite a bit of my time. Apart from that I have multiple hobbies. I have my plant babies. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen my instagram, but I have a whole bunch plant babies… in my stories.

Ed-I’m kind of starting one too, yeah!

Liz-Yeah, so yeah right now I’m like… so it started off with more like vegetables and herbs, and then I started getting into indoor plants. So now I’m trying to make sure that all my plants stay alive and I’m learning how to take care of each plant, because they all have different needs. I’m learning how to position them with lighting, and stuff like that--obviously some plants need more lighting than others, so--

Ed-That’s dope.

Liz-And I paint, and do other art stuff, so that occupies my time as far as hobbies. And then there’s a whole bunch of organizing for the table.

Ed-When you come to the park, what are you doing and what are you seeing here?

Liz-I feel connected. I’ve never lived in Westlake for too long; I did live here for a bit. Yeah, my parents, actually, when they first immigrated to the states they lived in Westlake for a really long time. And my mom has always told me crazy stories; they kind of joke around but it’s like “oh, hey--your first apartment was like a one bedroom where like six people were living and it was roach infested”... and those were the living conditions, and they make jokes like that. But obviously Westlake is an area where a lot of new immigrants come in. If you look at demographics, a lot of them are foreign born, and I don’t think it's a coincidence that it’s not an area that’s overflowing with resources.

Ed-True.

Liz-And the resources they do have are kind of sketchy or it could be a scam or it could be run through the Church--which then you’d have to go through the Church and become a member and stuff like that. So there’s not a lot of resources and there’s clearly a lot of need. So the resources available and the needs don’t match up at all.

So I guess what I envision for our table is to help try and meet those needs, but more than just that--to raise people’s political consciousness and class awareness through the ground work. Because what I’ve seen is a lot of protests and that’s great, but it doesn’t get people organized or understanding in depth. Not only that but sometimes it does seem like they very easily get co-opted, right? All of sudden you have very clear activist figures--all of a sudden working with or posting for really big corporations that potentially have a really long history of racial insensitivity or just plain racism. Or, if they don’t, they are very much capitalists with very clear, exploited labor not just in the US but in other countries where it’s even worse, because there are far less--

<(more hearty laughing)>

I guess if it's a foreign nation company, they have more ways to exploit things. So yeah, as far as I can see, it is important to lay out the groundwork by talking to people.

Ed-You think that the table is building up like an organization, or--

Liz-I don’t really think it’s going to be an organization, because we’re still really young, and since I’ve been to other organizations and other projects, I feel as though a lot of them don’t have a direction and they get way too big and way too ambitious and it kind of starts falling apart or it becomes very co-opted or it gets very diluted to the point of where all they are doing is engaging in electoral politics--engaging in electoral politics in the worst way possible: where they are protesting day in/day out but the protests are not particularly effective unless you are already involved within these activist groups. Like, you know, your average worker who is doing customer service or an office worker are not thinking of these protests. Whatever message they’re trying to get across <in these protests>--it doesn’t reach people.

Ed-It sounds like it goes back to what you were saying: building up the political consciousness of the workers and the people here, yeah.

Ed-When you’re doing outreach here for political purposes, how do you reach people here who aren’t housed. What’s different?--that education.

Liz-The table mainly revolves around housing issues and immigration rights, because I do think that it’s something that will appeal to people in this area. And it’s really easy to talk to them, and a lot of times when I have a conversation with them--and they immediately say I’m not undocumented, I’m not this or that--and I’ll engage with them and say “Yeah you know sometimes la migra comes in and they take people. Those people have families too. They don’t even know they’re taken; all of sudden they’re just disappeared, right? And so we as a community can do this--” And so then they are more receptive and start thinking about it are like “Yeah, you’re right.” So I think even if they won’t be with us organizing, that’ll be in the back of their mind like “Yeah, that’s not right.” You slowly need to start talking like that.

Ed-What kind of relationship do you think you have with the residents here who are undocumented and unhoused. How would you describe that?

Liz-I think it depends. I don’t think--as with any demographics in all populations--eventually you’ll make people who are very clearly friends and who are regulars and who you talk to often. And there are people who I may only see once, and that’s it, who are just passing by. Yeah, so, it just depends. (laughs)

Ed-I get what you’re saying. It’s just (sighs). I was talking to Dana about that--about how even though he’s here consistently, he’s also mobile and that’s the situation for a lot of folks here--they’re passing through, or they’re here for necessities, and they bounce back to wherever they need to go. I think that’s the situation for a lot of people here. Now it’s complicated with covid. In your eyes, how do you think covid has impacted the table? The table started when the lockdown happened, right? How do you think the table would be different if the table wasn’t in these circumstances?

Liz-We’re actually excited at the idea of not having very strict covid regulations as far as perhaps moving onto the next state of the table where it becomes more community orientated. One of the ideas we were throwing around was having the wood block or linoleum block where people can do crafts, like print, and it can be really interactive and people can put down political messages.

Ed-Oooooh.

Liz-You know things like “Security is Health” or like “Fund our communities/ Defund the police”

Ed-Yeah! Ohhhh shit.

Liz-And stuff like that. You know and yeah have it be more interactive with artwork, and people can make it their own. Stuff like that. Yeah, maybe even like--when covid regulations ease up, and people can sit down at the table and eat the food we make and we can talk and stuff like that and again, because as we were talking about raising people’s political consciousness, it’s sometimes limited by time. As you see, sometimes we have a line, right? And it gets stressful having so many people, and some people don’t want to follow the rules and come in and there’s all of a sudden way too many people for covid regulations, so we have to tell them to back up, and we don’t get a lot of time to talk!

So once we have people sitting down at the table, we’ll be able to talk longer, and be able to create a community and a safe space where there is food, medicine, and hygiene stuff, and people to talk to so people don’t have to feel like they are left out. At least twice a week, to have a space where people can sit down, talk to somebody, and have a good time… and again, get politically engaged.

Ed-So that’s the next move.

Liz-That’s one of the goals. I think it’s limited by our capacity, though.

Ed-What do you mean? The capacity.

Liz-Well, for example, this week--I made the pico de gallo and I also worked, and was also pretty tired, went to sleep really late, and I woke up early to roll the burritos and came to the table. And if I’m being honest with myself, that’s a lot of my time, time that could probably be better spread out. So it’s dependent on volunteers and to pick up loads so it doesn’t fall on 5 people. Otherwise, people are going to get burned out. There has to be time for people to rest and take care of their own personal stuff.

<turns from interview to serve at the table> “Hola, buenos tardes… de cúal? Ouh! Y un agua si te gusta.

Ed-Is there a specific kind of volunteer you’re working for? That’s committed and disciplined?

Liz-Committed and Disciplined. I think it’s regularity--on a weekly basis they can pick up some of the labor. It doesn’t have to be all of the labor, it just has to be a small part on a regular weekly basis. Because for me it’s a lot better having ten new people who are doing a little bit each time, than having 3 people who are doing a whole lot of labor, because eventually those 3 people will burn out, and we need people to feel like they can rest, they can take care of their own personal business and have their life so they can continue in the long run. It’s a marathon.

Ed-Yeah.

Liz-<steps aside to serve at the table, laughs>

Ed-The last thing I want to ask is--everything you’ve told me; you’ve really summarized the situation at the table and some of the pivotal things the table needs like capacity, shared labor and hopefully covid regulations and covid dying down so there can be a space for people to sit and talk--so I’m curious how would you define the shared motivation of everyone who is at the tables, the members. What do you think is the intent in mind? What’s the end goal?

Liz-I think… I mean I don’t know for everybody, but I do feel for Linh, since Linh is my roommate, and so of the people I talk to more--I think we see the inefficiency of some of the activism/organizing that in some ways is protesting--I don’t have anything against protesting, I think it’s great; especially really big marches and impactful small marches; they do make an impact--but it you’re always chasing the protest and doing that on a regular basis… I’m not sure… I think that labor can be spent in other, better ways… I don’t know. I think we’re trying to do things differently than what we’ve seen done. I don’t think it’s necessarily new. We have a friend--her name is Ornella--and she was telling us that parts of New Orleans organize, and how it’s very community-based. They have Carnival-like things and other ways that people get political consciousness or education or discussion and it’s also a community because people are having fun.

I’m pretty sure it’s happening in LA, and there are some organizations that are doing that, but I don’t think they get as much attention or as much resources as they should. It does seem as though a lot of the organizations that are doing more “activist” things do seem to get more attention…