At a Los Angeles Housing Project, Progress Starts by Not Settling for Less

A row of waist-high concrete road barriers topped by chain link fencing is all that separates the Ramona Gardens low-income housing complex from the I-10 freeway on Los Angeles’ Eastside. Residents there know the freeway endangers their health, and they’re taking action, organizing to build a higher wall to better deflect noise and particulates, and a park with rows of trees and shrubs whose leaves and stems can capture more of the harmful particles that blow over from the freeway.

“This park isn’t a luxury,” explained 16-year-old Josie Macias. “The park should be the bare minimum for us.”

Macias is continuing a legacy of activism begun by women in the complex. By simply recognizing their worth, generations of women are leading Ramona Gardens to a healthier future.
 

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In a place where more than 60% of the 1,800 residents earn less than $20,000 a year, mothers once hoped their children would simply graduate from high school and survive hostility from both gangs and police. Their labor is part of a larger history of Chicanas on Los Angeles’ Eastside who organized to better the future of their community: Mothers of East Los Angeles, the mothers from Aliso Pico and Dolores Mission who pushed Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest, to start Homeboy Industries and many related projects. Unfortunately, some of those stories aren’t well known, even on L.A.’s Eastside.

Maria “Lou” Calanche grew up across the street from Ramona Gardens in the 1980s. After graduating from Lincoln High, she went on to Loyola Marymount University and USC for bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She then worked as a deputy to Los Angeles City Councilmember Richard Alatorre and later taught political science at East Los Angeles College. During a visit with her mother, who still lives in Ramona Gardens, in the early 2000s, Calanche worried the neighborhood had not improved since her childhood.

“My experience in politics taught me that the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Calanche said. “There was potential in Ramona Gardens — they just didn’t know how to access resources.”

Calanche started working with 10 mothers — “the señoras” — in 2007. Their hopes were simple: See their children survive hostility from police and local gangs; see more kids graduate from high school. Their low expectations concerned Calanche, who said hope had disappeared.

“My whole model is ‘we’re going to dream big,’” Calanche explains. That year those residents and Calanche founded Legacy LA, a community advocacy organization dedicated to Ramona Gardens.

The señoras agreed to survey 10 people each — creating a community needs assessment. They found that mothers across Ramona Gardens wanted better education for their children and better communication with the area’s LAPD officers. Calanche and the señoras took those concerns to city councilmembers and the mayor’s office.

Those same mothers took over a nearby abandoned Korean War-era armory in 2007 to use as a place to meet. They talked about why so many of them and their families were sick and what to do about it.

They turned the armory into a space for afterschool programming and tutoring. Though major renovations of the building would take 10 years, tutoring for students began right away as the group gathered money and support.

The center was set up to show students that they could aspire to study in college and beyond. By doing so, they are building the community they deserve.

Today the building is brightly lit, with desktop computers and rooms for groups of students to study quietly or even play musical instruments. Students can get both mental health counseling and academic advising on-site, and there are classes in how local government works and how to advocate for change.

Artist’s rendering of a proposed recreational park at the Ramona Gardens housing development in Los Angeles. Image courtesy Legacy LA.

Legacy LA focused on youth leadership in its first year. Teenagers looked at the lack of access to fresh, wholesome foods. There is one liquor store in the neighborhood. A few fresh fruits and vegetables could be purchased at the weekly swap meet, or out of the bed of a pickup truck owned by a resident known as Don Trino. The nearest supermarkets are two miles away, too far for the many residents without cars. The lack of healthy food led to a community garden project. But when residents tested the soil they found it was contaminated. So they built the garden on elevated beds. The discovery of contaminants in the soil raised more questions about the environment.

Michelle Benavides, 27, said that when as a high schooler she sold chocolate door to door to raise money for cheerleading, her neighbors said no. Benavides noticed a pattern. Everyone mentioned diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Later, through Legacy LA, Benavides used air monitors to study pollution at the playground, the nearby elementary school and church in Ramona Gardens. Benavides and other Ramona Gardens youth visited other communities around Los Angeles, such as Beverly Hills and the parks and supermarkets there.

“We were pissed when we came back. Even the air felt different,” Benavides recalls.

After learning the pollution causes asthma, respiratory disease and premature births in Ramona Gardens, Benavides said she “wanted to tear down the freeways and factories,” referring to the nearby metal plating and chemical plants. Instead, she was encouraged to imagine a healthier community and help build that vision. Benavides is now Legacy LA’s youth leadership director.

In 2017, like the señoras before them, Ramona Gardens youth went knocking door to door to speak to residents in the 500 apartments. They prepared surveys in English and Spanish. Later, they convened a community meeting with 100 residents.

The results of the youth-led research went to technical experts who could draw up plans for a park. Their report noted: “The Natural Park at Ramona Gardens provides a model that can be replicated in disadvantaged communities impacted by air pollution throughout California.” The park’s design can lower air pollution and improve public health and be built with public funding.

“The report helped legitimize what we wanted to do,” Calanche said.

That expert narrative is helpful. But Ramona Gardens youth aren’t waiting on outsiders to tell their story.

This summer, Josie Macias and her peers produced a short documentary and video about their work. She made a zine about the neighborhood swap meet, where they get food and gather, and the future park.

“It’s the youth leading this,” Macias said of the park. “We just need to get support.”

Last year, Calanche stepped down as founding executive director of Legacy LA, handing leadership over to Lucy Herrera, who was part of the first youth leadership program in 2007.

There is still much more to be done for the park plan to become reality. But Ramona Gardens residents have already built a model for other communities: They met, decided what they needed — and won’t settle for less.

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