by Maria-Jose Soerens
I live in one of the most obliviously segregated cities in the US: Seattle. With one of the highest levels of education per capita and a strong progressive identity, people in Seattle are often excited about the latest Social Justice “issue” while unaware of their own “mainstream-ness” and physical distance from the poor among us.
We not only have very defined urban boundaries separating class and race (Bhutanese people in Greenlake? seriously?) but even if we share the same block, the limits of our lifestyle and habits of consumption are not conducive to running into people who are different from us. My dear friend Halimo, from Somalia, lives half a block away from me yet she doesn’t hang out in the same coffee shop than I do, much less has a laptop to chill and do some freelance work while sipping her Americano. Our distance impoverish us all.
the 48 bus in Seattle goes through all white and multi-ethnic neighborhoods in the city
In this context of gentrified neighborhoods and segregated community spaces, I often run into the dilemma of going and meeting people “where they are at,” or crafting healing spaces in the middle of downtown Seattle so as to increase our Social Capital.
There are good reasons to “go” and meet people in their midst. Most refugee and immigrant families live in the South side of Seattle (Columbia City, Rainier Vista, White Center), and on the East side (Bellevue, Kent, etc), because rent prices in Seattle are not affordable for a family that lives on $600 per month. Many adults work up to three shifts to make ends meet therefore have no time to travel downtown to seek much needed counseling services or support groups.
On the other hand, if these families have no reason to ever leave the “ghetto,” they miss opportunities to integrate and foster relationships with people who are better plugged into the mainstream network. Hence, these families become more impoverished because they lack social capital.
Facilitating the development of Social Capital for the poor among us should be one of the paramount priorities of our advocacy efforts. It is certainly a burden to make time in our schedule to go and help immigrant families, but it may not be too bad to help your friend Hodan who needs a ride to an appointment at the the immigration office, or connect her with your small business owner friend who is hiring a position for her coffeehouse in Fremont.
This type of relationships occur when we dwell in the same physical space. Therefore our efforts should be focused on creating environments that allow for connection between people who are different, for relationships to thrive and for stories to be shared. One of the biggest struggles of our time is equal access to the city; we are losing the right to live in it. As my friend Paul Sparks says “community is becoming illegal.”
Advocating for equal housing opportunities in our neighborhoods is one of the most revolutionary, radical, and sustainable things we could do. However, as Dr. Perkins says, it needs to first become our burden, and that burden will be our own when we take the time to open our eyes and extend our hand to the poor and the foreign in our midst.