Gratitude

For a little over a month I've been keeping a gratitude journal. Every night right before I turn out my light, I write down at least three things I'm grateful for about the day I just had. Some days I write a lot more than three things and other days I have to write things like “I'm grateful there are only two days left in the workweek” (and the next day followed by “I'm grateful there is only one day left in the work week”).

One thing that keeping a gratitude journal has taught me already is to look for things to be grateful for in my day and make a mental note of them. Even if they don't make it into the actual gratitude journal because I don't remember by the end of the day, making a mental note of the good things that happen helps me stay positive and in a state of gratitude throughout the day.

I plan on making the gratitude journal a part of my regular spiritual practice because I really think it's made a difference in the short time I've been keeping it. Gratitude isn't just for Thanksgiving, though it's great to have a whole day full of gratitude too.

Asking For Help

There are a lot of things that are hard for me, and asking for help is one of those things. It's something that's never been easy for me, but that I didn't see as a problem until I decided to live in intentional community during my CCSC year. I struggled to both ask for help when I needed it and to voice my needs to my community, especially if I thought my needs might be difficult for community members to understand or meet. However, I came to place a high value on my community (and community in general). Part of community is being vulnerable, taking risks, helping others, and allowing others to help me, so towards the end of the year I began to get a little better at asking for help and voicing my needs.

Still, I have a long way to go. Recently, I had car trouble and my initial thought was that I had to figure out how to take care of it by myself (not fix the car—I know I can't do that—but get it to the mechanic and get myself home). Really, I was perfectly capable of calling AAA by myself. However, a friend offered to try to jump my car so that maybe I wouldn't have to get it towed and go with me to the auto shop and give me a ride home.

I didn't even ask her, but it was even hard for me to accept help that was offered freely. Partly, it was hard for me to accept help from my friend because we have only known each other a very short time and I don't know how I can return the favor, but—as my friend pointed out—doing nice things for people shouldn't have to be “paid back” and I certainly wouldn't expect anything if the situation was reversed.

Jumping the car didn't work so I did call AAA, but I was very thankful to have someone wait for the tow truck with me because it was dark and I had to wait for over an hour in a parking lot in downtown Buffalo. Also, having someone fun to wait with made it the most enjoyable car trouble I've ever had.

This experience made me question if I changed in my often stubborn refusal to ask for help over the past year as I hoped I had. I may not have. Instead, I trusted my community enough to do something outside of my comfort zone and that is a different kind of progress and demonstrates how wonderful my community was.

Even if I couldn't ask for help, a year ago I might have refused the help that was offered and then sat in the parking lot very bored, slightly scared, and wishing I would have accepted help, so maybe there is some progress after all.

VOICE Buffalo's Public Meeting

Sunday afternoon I went to VOICE Buffalo's annual public meeting. VOICE Buffalo is a faith-based community organization that is working on projects many projects in the community. I wanted to do a write-up about the meeting, but my thoughts don't seem to be coming together on it, but I wanted to write something...

I am interested in safe neighborhoods, education, public transportation, transitioning former inmates (particularly youth) back into the community, and extending the millionaires tax cut; however, I work with National Fuel Gas every day so that's what I found most interesting.

One of the things they talked about was the “National Fuel Campaign For Fairness” with the National Fuel Accountability Coalition. I've recently had a small a run-in with NFG and I have lots of clients who have big problems with NFG, so this was something I was quite interested in. At the meeting, I learned that the CEO of NFG (David Smith, in case you care) makes about $3,500 an hour. Yeah, an hour. That's double what I make in a month. Last winter, NFG ran over 2,000 adds on TV in the Buffalo area about their winterization efforts even though last year they didn't spend a single dollar of their profits on winterization. NFG's winterization efforts are funded through donations they ask for in their customer's bills. I don't have a bill yet, but I did receive something asking for money for different programs they have (also, they spelled my name “Maty,” so that's one more black mark against them in my book).

Think of all the winterization NFG could do with just one hour a week of their CEO's pay check. Of course, that wouldn't really be to their benefit since it would lower heating costs for the customers who had their homes winterized. On Tuesday, I went to a utilities workshop for work that was sponsored by NFG. The representative from NFG who spoke talked about how little profit they actually make because of how much they help people who have trouble paying their bills (I don't see this happening much at all--what I see is NFG cooperating with non-profits like Catholic Charities and government-funded programs to pay the bills for the clients and sometimes forgiving a small amount of the bill as long as most of it is paid for by the programs). I know that a lot of their profits come from places other than customers, but they can't be doing too poorly if their CEO makes about 7.1 million a year.

Back to the VOICE Buffalo meeting—VOICE is working to organizing meetings with community representatives and National Fuel. Recently, they have also successfully pressured NFG into increasing their winterization efforts by 50% (and this includes using some of their own money).

Some other things I learned at the VOICE Buffalo meeting:

--Buffalo's High School graduation rate is 50% and for black males the graduation rate is only 25%. This is embarrassing for Buffalo and if the Millionaires tax is cut, funding for schools will be cut by 20%, which certainly will mean nothing good for those percentages.

--Eliminating the Millionaires tax would decrease funding to Medicaid by 25%

My favorite quote of the meeting was “love is the only force capable of turning enemies into friends.”

I learned a lot at the meeting and it certainly made me want to get more involved in my community to help creative positive change; however, they didn't offer any volunteer opportunities except one that took place during the day on a week while I'm at work. They did give the opportunity to donate money, but I don't have a whole lot of that.

End Domestic Violence

As you may know, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and tomorrow, Wednesday October 19th, is the day to wear violet to end domestic violence. But, don't just wear it--talk about it, to to a speak-out, go to Take Back the Night, stop victim blaming, stop thinking about DV as "just another women's issue," and hold criminals responsible. Change the culture.

Needs vs. Wants

One of the things we did early on in CCSC was separating our "needs" from our "wants." In American culture things that are really "wants" are often perceived as "needs." These needs and wants can be material things or they can be other things like having free time or being in a romantic relationship. Differentiating between needs and wants helps when living on a small budget, and it also helps keep life simple. Sometimes when something stays on the "wants" list long enough, I decide I don't really want it that much after all.

There are a lot of things that I need and a lot of things that I want right now as I move into an apartment, start my new job, and shop for a car. Most of the things I'm worried about right now are material things because these are more basic than having my emotional needs met (basic Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) . So, I made a list of "needs" and "wants" (both lists are pretty long) and then I put the needs into two categories: things I need right away and things I need, but can wait a little while. This is helping me to prioritize since I have very little money right now and, even though I have a job, I won't have a pay check for a while and even once I start getting paid, I won't be paid much.

A year ago I would have made a list with needs and wants all mixed up together and I might have gotten things in the order of how much I thought about them. For example, I really really want a haircut because my hair is driving me crazy, but I don't actually need one, so I'll wait until September or October once I get everything on my "needs" list. Although it's annoying to live with bad hair, it's more important that I get things like a bed, rain boots, and a sturdy umbrella that can handle the Buffalo wind (the wind broke two cheap ones last year).

It's interesting that one of the first things we talked about in CCSC is one of the first things I'm using post-CCSC to keep with the Simplicity pillar in my life.

Life Update

I am happy (and relieved) to report that I have been hired at Catholic Charities as a Case Worker. I'll work with individuals and families who are at a high risk for becoming homeless. I'm very thankful for everyone who helped me get this job and all the positive thoughts, advice, and prayers I've been getting from family and friends.

I start work on Monday—which is good because I need the money and bad because I have so much to do. Even though I have a lot to do, I wanted to write an update.

As promised, my year of service changed me. Probably the most obvious/measurable way that I've changed is how I've changed my plans: I decided not to go to graduate school right away (I applied to five schools, got into three, and was offered a Graduate Teaching Assistantship that would have covered all tuition costs and provided a stipend). There were a lot of reasons I decided not to go to graduate school—one of which was that the school where I was offered the GTA was in Kansas—but probably the biggest reason is that I want to continue to serve the poor and vulnerable for a year or two or maybe even more. I still see myself getting a MFA one day, but it might not be for a while.

For a few years I've seen the connection between my faith/spirituality and social justice/service. This year I've grown in my faith, expanded and deepened my spirituality, gotten to know myself better, and learned more about the systems of poverty and injustice. Now, I cannot separate spirituality and social justice. I think if I stopped serving others and engaging in different aspects of social justice my spirituality would be empty and weak. I'm certainly not a perfectly just person, but I want to do my best to make the world a more just place. I've enjoyed putting my faith into action and doing that is largely why my faith has grown so much this past year (it's also grown because I've taken the time to explore my spirituality and reflect).

The work I will be doing is more charity (it is Catholic Charities, after all), but I'll be continuing to serve those in need. I also plan on seeking opportunities to work for social justice both within my work and outside of work.

I'm excited about my future and nervous about paying rent, student loans, buying a car, and all the other financial and logistical things I have to figure out that I haven't done (or done much of) before. That said, I'm happy to have this to report: so far, so good.

The End.... sort of

My year as a Catholic Charities Service Corps Volunteer has officially been over for one week. I'm still living in the house with one of my community members for another few days.

Tomorrow, I'm picking up one of the new CCSCVs for the 2011-2012 year and driving her to orientation. I'm excited, but that might be a little bit of a strange experience since it was only one year ago that I was going to orientation.

I'm planning to write more later about wrapping up the year and my future plans (working...I hope) and staying in Buffalo (if I find a job within the next month).

For now, all I'll say is that CCSC is defiantly the best thing I've ever done in my life (I know, it hasn't been that long yet, but still...). Also, as promised at orientation, I'm forever changed by this experience and I'm certainly changed in a good way.

But, for now, I say "goodbye" to CCSC.

Sharing is Better

While helping a client fill out a Change of Address form, I asked him if he liked his new apartment. He said, “yes,” but that the old one was a nicer place. However, the new apartment was “better” because he shares it with a friend.

“Sharing is better.” He told me.

He said it was better for economic reasons, but also because it’s better not to be alone (he’s currently waiting for his wife and children to join him in the United States) and that it’s good for people to share.

“Sharing is better” is so simple, but something that is so often overlooked or even looked down on in this country. We seem to ignore the fact that we depend on one another and that what we do has implications for others, whether we like it or not. We like to think we got that job all on our own and that what we bought we deserve because of our hard work. We forget that we’ve had good mentors and that a friend put in a good word for us with our new boss and that there are people who work just as hard as us—or harder—but don’t make as much money and can’t buy what we can.

Sometimes I think that the sharing that goes on in our individualistic American culture never goes much further than learning to share crayons in kindergarten. I wouldn’t be surprised if even that kind of sharing is going by the wayside because parents are probably sending their children to school with their own, individual 24 pack of Crayolas. What happened to the person with two tunics giving one to the person without a tunic?

Sharing is better—one simple economic example of this is sharing grocery money in my community. CCSC volunteers have a $100 stipend for food each month. It would be hard for one person to buy food for themselves for $100 a month, but it’s pretty easy to feed four people with $400 a month because it’s possible to buy things in bulk (and we eat at lot).

As my client pointed out, the only good kind of sharing doesn’t have to do with money. It is better not to be alone—to help others with their struggles and to allow others to help us with our struggles (not to mention that good times are so much better and so much more fun when shared with others). It is better to share your love and yourself with one other person or a community of people than to stay inside yourself.

I’m still learning to share myself with others rather than to hide within myself, but this year I have come to the conclusion that sharing is better and that community is better—and that’s a big step in the right direction.

Fire Preparedness We Are Not

We recently had a fire drill at Refugee Resettlement. This was the first fire drill since I started working there in August of last year. This drill taught me that after ten months of working with refugees, I still assume a few things I should not (or maybe a lot of things).

I did not realize that the clients who were in my office during the fire drill wouldn’t know to leave the building (but really, why would they know what it was and what to do?). I our defense (mine and the client’s), no actual alarm was going off--someone was blowing a whistle. After the person blowing the whistle was someone else saying “this is a fire drill.”

I got up to leave the room, but my clients did not. I stepped into the hall and was about to start walking to the door, but then realize my clients were still sitting in my office. I had to tell them a couple of times that we had to leave the building before they got up and followed me to the hall.

Had there been an actual fire alarm going off, I would have known what to do, but would my clients? And if I simply assumed they knew what a fire drill was, what else am I still assuming after ten months?

Victim Blaming in Reporting on Sexual Crimes Against Women

There always seems to be some kind of sex scandal going on with politicians whether, it's affairs or prostitutes or lewd photo sharing. A you probably know, a few weeks ago Dominique Strauss-Kahn the French chief of IMF was accused of molesting a housekeeper at the hotel where he was staying. This may be the start of a new trend: on May 29th , an Egyptian bank executive, Abdel Salam Omar was also accused of molesting a housekeeper in his hotel room.

The media loves these types of stories and I generally like to ignore them, but of some reason while I was at the gym last week I watched the CNN report on the latest hotel indecent. Of course it concerns me that this type of thing happens, but what really caught my attention was how the media covered it.

While the little bit I heard about the first of these two events focused on Strauss-Kahn, his questionable past, and how this would cost him politically. The CNN report I saw on the more recent even focused on the housekeeper (though they kept referring to her as the “maid”).

Apparently, Omar called room service to bring him tissues, and when the housekeeper brought them he tried to molest her. The reporter said something along the lines of “it isn't clear why she went into the room in the first place, but when she did he shut the door, blocking her escape” (read: she should have known better and did something wrong; therefore, she holds some of the blame for what happened to her).

Victim blaming is an old favorite when it comes to assault, molestation, and rape—as well as many other crimes, but especially those perpetrated against women (why was she out alone at night? She shouldn't wear such a short skirt. She was asking for it by showing so much skin and flirting so much. And on and on and on, I think we all know how a lot more similar lines).

The next part of the report said that the housekeeper immediately reported the attack to her supervisor who told her to report it again in the morning, which she did. The supervisor is now under suspension (why not fired?). As the CNN report said, this delay could compromise potential physical evidence. It was probably an attempt to brush off the indecent or protect the hotel from bad press, or maybe the supervisor didn't believe the woman as happens so often in cases of sexual assault and rape or maybe he didn't see it as that big or a deal.

The reporter then went on to ask why, if these incidents are so common, don't they get reported more? The answer they came up with was that many hotel housekeepers are immigrants and are afraid to say anything. I believe that is probably a big part of the answer since it's true that many (if not most) housekeeping jobs in large cities are held by immigrants (many, many of the female clients at Refugee Resettlement work as housekeepers at various hotels in the greater Buffalo area). I would be afraid to report an assault too if I didn't feel confident in my English and was afraid to lose my job that wasn't easy to get in the first place. Many immigrants are also often unaware of their rights.

However, I think it's more than the simple story of a scared immigrant. Who will believe you? Maybe not your supervisor who you report it to. If he or she does believe you, then what will you have to do? I going to the police is scary, overwhelming, and a violation of its own kind. Then, what if you have to go to court with people scrutinizing you and questioning if you were really molested, raped, or assaulted (that's not to say that men and women accused of this type or crime are always guilty, but it's an extremely difficult thing for a victim to go through). And then there is the victim blaming again. Also, victim blaming is often internalized so victims come to believe that what happened to them actually is their fault. Even all of these things are still a simplified, short version of the long list of things that could keep a victim from reporting a crime.

That was basically the whole CNN report and the whole thing stunk of sexism and victim blaming—it's the kind of news story I've heard lots of times before, but it never stops angering me. The way news stories are reported on is important and has a huge effect on how the consumers of media feel about the events and the larger issues they're related to. For a person who hasn't thought about what victim blaming is or the implications of language (“maid” vs. “housekeeper”), this type of reporting sends a strong sexist message that women are to blame when they're assaulted or raped and that keeps the focus off their perpetrators, who are usually men. This type of message contributes to the attitudes that allow these assaults to happen and contributes to the low rates of reporting when it comes to sexual assault and rape.

So, why did the housekeeper go into Abdel Omar's room? Answer: It doesn't matter. No one should ever be molested or assaulted or raped. Period.

My Musings on Lenses

A recent Cultural Competency training made me start thinking about the lenses through which we look at the world. Whether we realize it or not, we all have them, but most of the time it's unconscious. By the lenses through which we see the world, I mean things that are a huge part of our identities and that frame our lives and influence how we interpret what we observe and experience. Some examples are gender, race, class, sexual orientation, our level of physical and mental ability, whether or not we are employed (and if this is by choice), how old we are, and other experiences we've had that are important to our development such as what kind of education we have, if we've experienced some type of abuse or neglect in our lives, and if we were raised in a religion.

The lenses a person could have aren't necessarily positive or negative—some might be more challenging to have or need to be challenged at times and some people might want to work to change how they see the world. However, certain lenses may hurt us or help us to find justification for doing things that hurt others. Still others might make us more inclined to see the world as a hopeful place or influence us to make an effort to do good.

It's important to become aware of the lenses we have—even more so if we are a part of a majority group that's been taught that their lenses are neutral, normal, natural, or right compared to people not in the majority. Once we become aware of how and why we see and experience the world the way we do, we can understand ourselves, other people, and our interactions with other people better. For an extreme example, a rich, white, straight male could have a hard time seeing the difficulties of anyone who isn't rich, white, straight, or male, and have a hard time leaving his place of a whole lot of privilege (he also might feel like he’s being picked on—I don’t know since I’m not a rich-white-straight man). However, I think that if he's able to become aware that there is a reason he sees the world in the way he does, that will go a long way to help him see around his golden glasses and come to understand other people better and it will improve his relationships with people who are not like him.

From a less privileged position (but still pretty privileged), as a white woman, it is helpful to me to remember that I should not expect that women who are black or any other race or ethnicity have been taught the same things I’ve been taught or have the same opportunities and advantages I’ve had. It is also important to keep in mind that they may not see me the way I see myself.

I started thinking about which of my lenses is the most important or influential in my life. I came up with a few big ones, but I wasn't really sure which one was most tied to fundamentally who I am.

If all of the lenses I have were going to be thrown in a bag and scrambled around with all kinds of other lenses and then I’d draw out of that bag (and maybe pull out some of the same lenses and some different ones) and I could only keep one of my current lenses for sure, I'd keep female. Even though it would be most beneficial to keep white instead of female—if by beneficial I mean having the most privilege—and even though I'd have a chance of getting female again, it's so central to my identity that I cannot imagine parting with being female. I would not be surprised if many people would choose to hang on to their gender, if only because of how important gender and gender roles are in our society.

It's interesting (but not surprising) that one of the most important parts—if not the most important part—of my identity is something that is socially constructed. Then again, so are many of the other major lenses a person can look though (such as race).

It also occurred to me that we might not like all of our lenses: someone may not like seeing the world through the lenses of someone who grew up in poverty or the lenses of someone who has lived for thirty years with depression. I suppose I'm lucky in that all of the lenses I identified as major ones for me, I either feel positively towards or feel only a slight dislike for. I wouldn't necessarily choose all of them if I had a choice at the beginning of my life, nor would I want to throw any of them away if I had the chance now. Some of them I think help me see the world more clearly, while some may often obscure my vision of reality.

Once I start thinking about things like culture and privilege and how those things interact in the world and in the lives of everyone, it’s hard for me to stop. There is so much to consider and there are always new realizations that I hope are leading me in the direction of better understanding and cultural competency. I could probably write a book-length work just on my own personal musings and what I’m learning, but I don’t really have time, nor am I an expert so doubt it would be worth if for anyone to read.

What I do believe is worth it is for everyone to educate themselves on these topics, to figure out what lenses they look at the world through, and to do their own musings.

Citizenship, John Jay, and No Religion

Yesterday I went to a citizenship class. Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement recently received a grant to start a citizenship program and the class I attended yesterday is one of the things we're doing with the grant. Tomorrow I'll start spending some of my time working with people who are applying for citizenship.

In the class, we played bingo with words that are on the test for reading and writing. The words are also included in the 100 questions so it's easy to incorporate the vocabulary into studying for the civics test.. Some examples of words/phrases we used were Washington, Maryland, The Constitution, Adams, 1787, freedom of religion, and John Jay. I did not know who John Jay was, but apparently he was one of three men who wrote the Federalist Papers (the other two are Madison and Hamilton, which I did know).

The class only had seven people in it and the age range was somewhere from around 20 to 60. Everyone in the class had obviously studied from the week before (this was the second class out of five) and were working hard to learn. I don't know if I've ever been in a class with such motivated students. I was surprised at how motivated they were considering it was a Saturday morning and the room we were in was about fifty degrees (everyone wore their jackets the whole time). Then again, maybe I'd be motivated too if I'd been waiting to apply for citizenship for five years and wanted to have some small say in how the place I was living was run.

To me, the most interesting thing that happened was when we talked about freedom of religion and what it means—freedom to practice any religion you choose or to choose not to have a religion.

While I was pondering how I'd missed ever learning about John Jay in my seventeen years of formal (I swear I'd never heard of him until yesterday), there was a young man who was pondering something much deeper. He was maybe a year or two younger than I am and sitting directly across the table from me. He was frowning and he said, “excuse me, teacher, there are people who have no religion?”

“Yes, some people don't have any religion,” said the woman teaching the class.

“No religion? None at all? How can that be? How do they live?”

I think I was nearly as surprised by his his confusion as he was that some people don't have a religion. I was also sad because of how confused and sad he looked. He kept shaking his head and after the class had moved on, he said quietly, “I didn't know it was possible not to have a religion. How is that?”

His neighbor—a lady who was probably about his mother's age—said, “why don't you ask them?”

“Oh,” he said, “I've never met anybody like that.”

Even though I didn't know how he could live in the United States for at least five years and not realize that not everyone is religious, I could imagine the confusion he felt. After I thought about it for a little bit, I found myself sharing some of his wonderment: I understand not believe in anything specific or having any particular religion, but I find it hard to imagine not having any type of spirituality. When I look at the beauty of nature or witness someone doing something truly kind for another human being I don't know how anyone could look at that and see only a beautiful coincidence.

I know that not having a religion is different from not having any kind of spirituality, but what I started thinking about was kind of an extension from the young man's reaction.

With all of the violence in the world, all the hatred, all the poverty and oppression, and all of the random natural disasters it's easy to see why someone might not believe in the loving God that I believe in. Still, not to believe in anything at all? That makes the world seem even more hopeless. Of course, then it can be argued that people believe in God only to make themselves feel better when things go wrong or to explain things they can't explain themselves. Even if that's true and people live happier, more hopeful, and more generous lives because of those false ideas, is that such a bad thing?

A Nourishing Lent

This lent, I'm going all out--in fact, I may have bitten off more than I can chew: I've given up everything that doesn't nourish me in some way. I'm not just talking about food that doesn't nourish me physically because we need much more than food to nourish us. People need social, mental, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual nourishment. This means that I'm giving up food without nutritional value, yes, but I'm also giving up other things that aren't good for me such as wasting time (with things like solitaire), complaining about nothing, negative self-talk, and anything else I deem not to be good for me.

Some people say that it's better to add something good during lent rather than give up something bad--making lent a positive instead of a negative. I've done this in the past and I've found that it takes more energy to add something than to give something up (which, of course, is part of the point). I thought about adding something this year, but lately I've found myself so tired and worn down that it's overwhelming to think about adding something new. It will take a lot of energy to give up everything that doesn't nourish me and I'm sure I'll have my slip-ups (I already have). Still, I hope the end result will be that I feel refreshed and have more positive energy to share with my community, my placement, and on my relationship with God.

I hope everyone has a nourishing Lenten season whether you're giving something up, adding something, doing both, or haven't yet decided to do anything at all.

Please Take Action

I’ve been trying a lot of new things lately. Until Wednesday, I never used the forward button on my email and until yesterday, I never called a senator’s office. Yesterday I forwarded an email asking that people sign a petition to save AmeriCorps and today I forwarded an email asking people to contact their senators to keep funding for refugee programs.

I’ve sent many form letters and signed numerous online petitions in the past year or so, but today I also wrote my own personal letter and emailed it to Maine senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

Many things will be cut in the new budget for our country and I agree that we need to spend less money, but I’m not sure all the cuts are from the right places. The two cuts in funding that I asked the senators not to support in my calls and emails are the potential cuts to Migration and Refugee Assistance and the Office of Refugee Resettlement as well as the proposed cut in funding to the Corporation for National and Community Service (which includes AmeriCorps).

Congress proposed that we completely cut the AmeriCorps program and reduce funding for refugee assistance programs by a huge amount. Both programs are extremely important. As much as I hate the idea of cutting funding for either of these programs—I can understand the need to cut some, but all of the funding for AmeriCorps? And half of the funding for refugee programs?

What I am including below is part of an email the director of my program sent to all Catholic Charities of Western New York employees.

“On Saturday, February 19, the House of Representatives recommended massive cuts to various humanitarian assistance programs, including:
45% cut to Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA);
10.4% cut to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR); and,
67% cut to International Disaster Assistance (IDA).

"Since we are already five months into the federal fiscal year those cuts would basically shut down the refugee assistance program within the US and severely reduce refugee processing overseas. There would not be money available to resettle more refugees until October 2011. Since our funding is per capita performance-based, no new arrivals equals no more funding.”

I understand the desire to cut programs that serve non-Americans, but refugees are some of the most vulnerable people in the world who have experienced great violence, oppression, and human rights violations in their home countries, as well as in many of the refugee camps. In addition, refugees bring important diversity to our communities, rent apartments from Americans, work, pay taxes, start businesses, and by cars and homes in the United States. There are also many refugee resettlement and assistance programs similar to the one where I work that would either shut down or have to lay off many employees.

When our director told us of the possibility of these cuts, I felt sick to my stomach, but I’m sure my feeling was nothing compared to many of my coworkers who are themselves former refugees and many of whom are applying to bring their family members to the United States.

Especially in this economy, volunteers fill needed positions in many jobs that directly serve the most vulnerable Americans. Agencies that serve the disadvantaged are already under-funded and under-staffed and often rely on the help of full-time volunteers. Not only would fewer services be provided without AmeriCorps, but more people would need those services because at least some of the volunteers would be unemployed if they were not in full-time volunteer programs. AmeriCorps provides important job experience to More than 85,000 young Americans a year. I know that AmeriCorps is an expensive program, but it is far less expensive than having a regular, paid employee and paying for all the consequences of less services to those most in need.

Again and again programs that help the poor and vulnerable are the programs that are cut by the government because the people don’t have a voice and are forgotten. I disagree with the Catholic Church on many issues, but I strongly believe in the Catholic Social Teachings that tells us we need to have preferential options for the poor. Cutting programs for refugees and AmeriCorps (as well as other service programs) do not follow with this social teaching.

Please sign a petition, send a letter to your senator, or call your senator to help protect funding for refugee programs and AmeriCorps. I believe it is our moral obligation to help those most in need, which includes Americans and non-Americans.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we have to take action and fight for justice for things that directly affect us and for people who are poor and marginalized. We are all in this world together and, as much as we might want to ignore people who are easily forgotten, there will never be peace and justice if we don’t include everyone.

Same Old Sad Story

Last Friday a few of the other CCSC volunteers and I went to a program called “Telling Stories” at the University of Buffalo which was about sexual assault and domestic abuse/intimate partner abuse. The program consisted of an original play about campus sexual assault, a panel discussion with people associated from the university, a documentary called Telling Amy's Story which was about a woman who was murdered by her husband in November of 2001, and a panel discussion by people in the Buffalo community who work with victims of domestic violence.

The program went exactly how I expected (except for a fire alarm at the very beginning which I thought might be apart of the play until everyone started evacuating). First, it was very upsetting. Second, there was a lot about where a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence can go for help and almost nothing about prevention. Only one man on the first discussion panel briefly mentioned not being a passive bystander.

Don't misunderstand me, it's extremely important for victims to know where they can go for help and I'm glad there was education about that at this event, but it would be better for the assaults and abuse never to happen in the first place. This is another example of the relationship between charity and social justice: we need both until the actions for social justice work, thereby making the charity no longer necessary.

I want to go to a panel discussion on how to stop these things from happening in the first place. Sexual assault and domestic violence/intimate partner violence is something that's very scary, complicated, and difficult to prevent. Prevention is more difficult than helping victims after/during the abuse (though that's far from easy), so maybe it's too hard a subject to touch and people would rather not go there. A big part of it is a problem of culture, society, and gender expectations/norms and those are things that are not easy to change and the thought of changing them is very scary for some people.

Until the shame and stigma moves off the victim on to the abuser we'll have domestic violence and sexual assault. Until we stop simplifying these issues as women with low self-esteem staying in bad relationships and men with anger problems abusing their girlfriends/wives we'll have domestic violence. Until we stop shrugging and saying there is something wrong with men we'll have domestic violence and sexual assault. Until it becomes easier for victims to leave their abusers we'll have domestic violence. Until we start believing victims who speak up we'll have sexual assault and domestic violence. I could go on and on.

I don't know the solutions, but I'd like to have an open, thoughtful discussion about possible solutions.

Happy Year of the Rabbit

As you may know, today is the Chinese New Year and it's now the year of the rabbit. I also realized that I was born in the year of the rabbit, not the year of the dragon like I always thought. Since the Chinese New Year starts in February (or sometimes the very end of January), it was still the year of the rabbit when I was born even though most of 1988 was the year of the dragon.

A rabbit makes much more sense for me since the characteristics of a dragon are that they are aggressive, loud, dominating, ambitious, and a risk taker (also independent and passionate--which does actually fit me). A rabbit is compassionate, peaceful, creative, a good student, intellectual, reserved, self-critical, sensitive, avoids conflict, values relationships, is prone to depression, can be self-centered, and holds in emotions. The only characteristic of a rabbit I don't have is that rabbits usually don't like to be alone and I value the time I have to myself. In addition to the 12 animals that define years, there are also 5 elements: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. 1987 is a fire rabbit, which means that in addition to the above characteristics fire rabbits like adventure.

What is even more exciting than finding out that the year of the rabbit is supposed to be a year of respite from war, peace, persuasion and knowledge over force, and calm. I hope this year of the rabbit is just that.

Peace.

Search Away

A week or two ago one of my community members/housemates told us about http://www.goodsearch.com. It's a search engine that donates money to a charity or organization of your choice each time you search for something. Goodsearch donates half of the revenue it makes from advertisements, so it's at no cost to the person users.

I know it's been around for a few years and maybe a lot of people already know about it, but I never used it before because I didn't realize it was free. Yesterday I used goodsearch for the first time and now I just want to search for things randomly so money will go somewhere good. Of course, only a small amount of money goes to the organization, but—like everything else—if enough people use it enough times it adds up and that's why I'm writing about it.

My only problem now is choosing from the many worthy charities and organizations out there. The good thing is, you're not locked in to one organization—you can even change where your money goes every time you search.

A few of the organizations I've been using/I suggest are...

Catholic Charities of Western New York (which sponsors CCSC and which Refugee Resettlement is under—or you could find your local Catholic Charities)
Harvest House (where my housemate who brought goodsearch to my attention does his service)
UNHCR
American Heart Association
American Cancer Society
NOW (National Organization for Women)
HRC (Human Rights Campaign)
United Way

Of course, you can search for your favorite charity/organization on goodsearch. I know I sound like a commercial, but goodsearch is powered by yahoo, so it's just as useful as any other search engine.

Maybe you could do double good by searching for a place to volunteer or educating yourself about different social justice issues and what to do about them.

Happy Searching.

Solidarity

One of the four pillars of CCSC is simplicity. This year has been the opposite of simple for me.

We don't have internet at our houses, we share a car, and we're asked to be mindful of how we spend our time. This isn't too awfully hard for me, though I do like to spend my free time reading and listening to music—which is a good use of time—but can sometimes serve as a distraction from problems or just from living life in the present moment. The part that is hard is not being able easily look things up on the internet.

What's hard is that my life has been complicated by things such as health insurance, a car that seems to get a lot of flat tires and has a few other problems, my gym closing not long after I finally found one, all the computer issues I've had, and my student loans (which were supposed to go into deferment this year) haunting me.

So far, of the three lenders I have student loans with, only one has granted me forbearance, another is still pending (for three months), and another was denied. I sent an official AmeriCorps letter from the myAmericorps website, but they didn't accept that.

When I called the lender and explained that I'm in AmeriCorps and am living on a very small stipend, the woman said in a condescending tone, “oh, we don't work with AmeriCorps.” She said it as if AmeriCorps is some shady organization that's under investigation for human trafficking and tax evasion.

In the past week, I've gotten two letter and three phone calls from the lender about an unpaid bill (even though it was, in fact, paid). Two of the calls were within ten minutes of each other. My parents have also been getting these letters and phone calls because they're co-signers. I wasn't surprised at how rude everyone on the phone was, but I was surprised at how rude I was back. I'm usually pretty polite, but I certainly wasn't to them. I blame it on the stress and annoyance.

Being harassed by my lender has made me think about people who have late credit card payments and how the credit card companies call them. I feel annoyed and stressed out about these phone calls. I'm also very worried about this loan and the other loan that the forbearance request is still pending.

Another way we use the word simplicity in CCSC is to mean solidarity with the poor and the populations we serve. I certainly feel solidarity with the poor worrying about money all the time and getting annoying/harassing phone calls from the loan company. It's only been happening to me for a week and will hopefully end soon, but I know that for some people it goes on for years. Maybe they become indifferent about it after a while, but then again, maybe not.

What I hate about my job

I like my job, but there is one thing I hate about it and it's not even the paperwork (though I greatly dislike the paperwork). What I hate is telling people they can't bring a loved one to be with them in the United States. I had to do that this week.

There is a very sweet woman about my parent's age from Burma who arrived in Buffalo a few months ago. She left behind her husband and two daughters. She came to file for her family to come, but using the I-730 form (the only form someone without a Green Card can use) she can only bring a spouse and unmarried children under 21. This woman's two daughters are 20 and 23, so she can only bring one of them.

When she came to the office she showed me the pictures of her two beautiful daughters. She said, "I made a mistake in coming. I should not have come without my family." She told me that every day she is sick to her stomach without her children.

I am helping her apply for her younger daughter and husband, but she cannot apply for her older daughter until she has her green card. She will probably have her Green Card in a little less than a year (as long as there aren't any problems or hang-ups getting it). Once she has her Green Card she can file an I-130 for her older daughter. That application takes longer to process and is expensive (the I-730 is free). Hopefully, her daughter will join her and the rest of her family in the United States, but in the meantime she has to wait for potentially a few years.

I had to explain this to the woman and all I could do when she cried was listen and offer her a tissue. The daughter that she cannot bring is my age. I can't help but think about how it is for me to be away from my family and how it is for them to be away from me. I get to see them every few months and we're in the same time zone (not to mention the same country). If suddenly I was stricken with a homesickness that made me physically ill, I could go home. Sure, her daughter is an adult, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to be with her mother and that her mother doesn't want to be with her.

In other news...

USCIS is now on twitter. I'm not sure what could possibly be exciting enough for them to twitter about. The new fee waiver --form I-912?

I took the practice citizenship test on the USCIS website and got a 96%. I'm in, yessssss.

Tomorrow (January 17th) is MLK day and "A Day On for Service." Most of my community members and I will be helping to winterize low-income housing.

Two Fire Alarms in One Day

I was going to write about how there wasn't much going on and I was too tired to reflect, but then things started getting exciting.

On Saturday morning one of my roommates was making scones when the fire alarm went off. The scones were not burning, but some stuff on the bottom of our old stove was smoking. Since the house we live in is owned by Canisius College, we cannot turn the alarm off by ourselves. Instead, we waited for the campus safety to come. We had all of the windows and the door open, but the smoke stayed around for a while.

Later that night, I decided to make myself an egg and some tea. We have a gas stove and I noticed smoke coming from the burner that had the tea kettle on it. I turned it off and opened the windows so that the fire alarm wouldn't go off again, but there was still a tall flame coming from it so I turned off all the burners, but the flame kept getting higher. I didn't know if there was some way to turn the pilot light off that I didn't know about, so I called my parents. My dad suggested I turn off the propane at the tank, but we don't have propane tank.

The flame kept getting higher so I used the fire extinguisher. I'd never used a fire extinguisher before so I wasn't expecting the huge mess or the toxic smell. The fire alarm started going off because of all the dust and white stuff that comes from the fire extinguisher. My poor roommate was in the shower and one of my other roommates was asleep.

When the campus safety came they told us to clean it up with soap and water, but one of my roommates had to clean up from a fire extinguisher before and she said the insurance company told her it was toxic and she needed something other than regular household cleaner to clean it.

Apparently, the best way to clean up all that white dust was with vinegar water. It took 16 collective hours (with three people cleaning) to clean the entire stove, oven, counters, everything on the counters that we didn't throw away, scrub the floor and do a lot of cleaning in the rest of the first floor in order to get all the toxic dust out. That description doesn't do it justice, but my recently-turned-23 knees sure know that they worked today and are well on their way to becoming old lady knees.

I was very happy to have two of my community members to clean with because, not only did it mean I didn't have to clean 16 hours totally on my own, but we also entertained each other while we worked. This is only one way that I'm finding out how good it is to live in community.

There is a silver lining in this dusty, toxic cloud: our entire kitchen is now probably the cleanest it's been since the house was built.