[muffled sounds]

TS: Is it recording?

JA: Yes, so Terry, can you tell us something about yourself?

TS; Alright, so, my name is Terry Stanley, I am the youth organizer at mid-city- CAN. I grew up in City Heights for over 20 years, um, I went to Central, Wilson, went to Hoover, I didn't graduate on time. I graduated high school actually at 20, right there at youthville charter school, which is right by Colina Park. Growing up, I'm in a community of City Heights, a lot of people see as ghetto, a lot of people see as a bad neighborhood, but, in reality, its home. It's home for a lot of us. I was bullied throughout sixth grade and ninth grade. When I got to become a high school student I thought being cool was all that. Became a skater. Became rude to people. Didn't care about my grades. I was on probation between the ages of fifteen to eighteen, so I was on probation for three years. I was part of the youth council so as well as being the youth organizer I was actually a participant in this non-profit, volunteer for four years between the ages of seventeen to twenty-one before I got hired. I was also a coach, so I coached sports at Park and Rec, so I coach over at Azalea Park, I coach baseball, football, basketball, and soccer. My family, I'm Mexican and American. My mom's from Guadalajara, Jalisco, my dad's from Oregon. Yeah, I mean, is there anything else you guys want to know?

Student: How did living in the City Heights area help you like, change your attitude, get better, and become the person you are today?

TS: City Heights is- I got asked when I became a youth council by the youth organizer before me, and he asked, he goes, “If you lived in a suburb community, if you grew up in a better community, that already has privilege, that's already been laid out, you have a future, do you think you would act differently than you are from growing up in City Heights?” and a lot of people don't ask you that. But reality, yes, it makes a lot of difference. Those that are privileged, those that come from a nicer area and stuff, they don't feel the experiences that we all deal with, and it doesn't make who you are now. So, it changed my attitude a lot. Growing up in city heights I've dealt with low income, where my family was struggling paycheck to paycheck, I've dealt with being bullied and I've dealt with being harassed by cops all the time. It changes your attitude a lot as you grow because of all those experiences. You learn from them. We're all human, we make mistakes, and you just grow from there.

Student: You said you consider City Heights as home, like, do you have like a specific place in City Heights that's home to you?

TS: From point A to point B in City Heights, I would have to say around, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Rosa Parks, Jeremy [muffled] memorial park, around that area is home to me. I grew up in actually the house I'm living at, I've been there ever since I was a baby, so it's been twenty-two years I've been living there. I work actually down the street from where I live, so how many of you guys know the Price Building, right there on 4305 University Avenue, it's uh Denny's, you guys know the Denny's on Fairmount, that glass building [Yeah] So I work there, which is only like four blocks from my house. So that area is really, all my life revolves around that area. Ever since I was young, til even now, I still go to the park to skate right there Rosa Parks. I'm still a skater in the neighborhood. It's just home.

If you had a choice, and someone said you could live in those rich people neighborhoods, now knowing how City Heights is personally, which would you choose?

I'd rather be where I'm at now. Kensington, so that's one of the rich neighborhoods behind El Cajon Boulevard, right there on the other side of Hoover, we're actually doing a lot of voter registration right now. What I've found out was a lot of the stuff that gets done in Kensington is because a lot of them are voters. And when you come over across the El Cajon Blvd, you can see a complete difference from one side to the other. And I wouldn't change that because I don't want to be in a neighborhood where the values of their neighbors is based on their votes, based on not because what their community needs are, but based on their biased needs. So, in City Heights, where I live at, we don't get a lot of stuff. If you see down the street, there's a lot of potholes, there's a lot of housing problems, when it comes to affordable housing. You see a lot of cops in our neighborhood and everything, but it doesn't change the fact that I want to be in a nicer neighborhood. It changes that fact that I need to make the change in it. It changes the fact that I need to do something about it, not just run away, but stay.

As a kid growing up, what kind of people did you surround yourself with?

Elementary school, we had our little kids on the block, you know, we had our own, like, my house was like the playground for the neighborhoods, so we would have like a pool table, we would have video games. Middle school started getting to more of the older kids, my brother's four years older than me, so I'd hang out with his friends. Once I hit high school, I was hanging out with gang members, I was hanging out with a lot of skaters, bikers, athletes. I'm pretty well known on that side of City Heights. And I know a follow up question you guys are probably going to ask is well, how does that affect you? Hanging out with those kind of people got me on probation, got me those three years of being, having my rights totally waived from me. So I was a fourth waiver. Cop stops me, they don't even have to ask anything they could just search me. They could just bust in my house anytime, look in my room. Seeing my parents had to be zipwired down on the couch while they searched my room hurt. And it was because of those people I'd hang out with that got me in that situation. I mean, I still say hi to them when I see them on the street, but to actually hang out with them, I learned from that. And sometimes, for me, I hang out with them because I needed that comfort, I needed support, I needed real friends, but when you grow older and you realize, you look back, like these were the people I was hanging out with? They're not really the friends, if something went down, they weren't going to be there. When I got, when I was fifteen, skateboarding, eastsiders actually went in the SUVs and searched for the skaters and shot at me and my friends. One of my friend's brother, little brother, was shot in the leg. And I had to duck down, everybody ducked down. Do you think they were there at the moment? Only one that was there was the one that got shot in the leg. Everybody else, they were gone. And I stayed because I wanted to help them out. 

Were you in a gang or something?

No, I wasn't in a gang, but those I affiliated with, since they were, or since they were known to be a gang member, all because I hang out with them, I was a target as well. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a gang member, it's more of, oh well as long as I see you with them, we're going to go after you. And that's what happened. Like I said, I just say hi and bye to them now, and I'm on my way. Simple as that.

What are questions you give to kids, and advice?

Advice I would give to them is [pause] give yourself more opportunities, don't be afraid to join organizations, don't be afraid to join sports, don't be afraid of what people think of you. We are born pretty much based on what society sees us as, not as who we see ourselves. Growing up everybody thought I was just white. That I was privileged, that I had money. But in reality, I had the same struggles [as] everybody else. Even worse, because everybody thought I was different. And, I'ma throw a term out there, it's called systemic racism. Environmental racism. So, it's pretty much a system that's in place for people of color to not succeed. School to prison pipeline. I fell in that category. Like I said, I graduated at twenty rather than at eighteen. My SAT scores was a 2320 out of 2400, but I didn't graduate because I didn't have the right grades. And what happened is there's a belief that people, communities of color, they'd rather incarcerate rather than educate. And, if you think about it, above the north of the 8 [Interstate 8], it's a lot different than south of the 8. Crawford, Hoover, Lincoln, even San Diego High has probably the most diverse schools in San Diego. But in reality, we have bad test scores, right? We have, apparently we're ghetto, apparently we're portrayed as thugs, we're portrayed as bad people, but a lot of people, Crawford has a lot of refugee community. Hoover has a lot of Hispanics. English learners. And they get the same tests as everybody else and it's not fair. So that's why, growing up for me, that happened too. And I fell into that category.

Would you ever move away from City Heights? Or would you still stay?

At the moment, I want to stay. I do my work so that one of my youth council members becomes, goes to college, or they do their thing and they come out of high school, they could take my position now. I plan on staying because I have a son now. My son's going to grow up in City Heights, I want him to be able to experience the neighborhood that has family came from. Maybe later on when I'm older and I'm done, I want to retire and stuff, I will move out, but I do want to keep a house here in City Heights. But that's something I would have to, even my own self I ask all the time, like when's the right time to leave and when isn't? 

Is there a time that, when you go to another neighborhood, you don't feel safe?

So how many of you guys know Barrio Logan? [I've heard of it] So, a lot of people say City Heights is bad, right? But when we did our skate park campaigns, so we actually got two skate parks here in City Heights through the youth council, I would skate to Logan because that was the closest area to skate, it was Memorial Skate Park. Half an hour getting there on a board, half an hour back, but by the time you get there you want to rest a little bit, then you skate, alright, so by the time you leave, its already dark. So I'm coming down that area, I've probably almost been stabbed a couple times because of coming down the streets on my board. So yes, there is other neighborhoods I feel unsafe in. Do I blame that neighborhood, do I blame that person that was trying to stab me, to portray that neighborhood as bad? No, it's just more of at that moment I don't feel safe. So some neighborhoods, it depends, City Heights, sometimes I don't feel safe, but it depends on the situation. I think every neighborhood has its own way of safety, or its own way of viewing how others see their neighborhoods. 

What do you mean by every neighborhood has its own way of safety?

So, like, for instance City Heights, we have a lot of cops. So they'd rather have overpolicing a neighborhood that instead of needs police rather more counselors or more of a community feel rather than just a military approach. If you look at Kensington, that's right behind YMCA, they don't have a lot of cops, it's more of a community. Everybody's always out, they have a lot of nice neighborhood cafes, those kinda things, it's a safe feeling. So if you look closely in neighborhoods you guys walk around and stuff, you can actually see how they place safety there. 

How about some other questions you have?

I'm an open book.

How would you describe the neighborhood to somebody that's never been here before?

If you asked me that ten years ago I'd have been like everybody else: it's ghetto, it's a horrible neighborhood. If you ask me that now, I'd say it's diverse, it has over twenty-six languages, it's probably one of the most populated youth community in San Diego, and it's probably the most powerful community because of the amount of youth doing work in the community. So, that's how I view it now.

How would you tell the people that have never been, never been around here?

What I would tell them is experience it before judging. Um, I've had friends that lived in National City, like right by Sweetwater, and I said hey, come over to City Heights so we can hang out and they were like, I'm not going over there? Like, why? Cause it's ghetto. Like, you've never even been here. How can you say something without even knowing what it is. I go over there all the time to Sweetwater, do I think it's ghetto? No. Do I feel like it's safe, no. They have their own problems too. So I would just tell people that haven't been here, experience it. Walk around, go down the street, go into one of the diverse cafes or restaurants that there is. Eat some pho, have some sambusas, don't be afraid to be different, like it's alright. 

If you had a second chance as a kid, would you like, change what you would have done? Not like be affiliated with like gang members or anything like that?

When it comes to that, I [pause] not gonna lie, saying I wouldn't want a second chance to change all that, but at the same time I wouldn't be where I'm at if I didn't experience all that. I know a lot of people say that you shouldn't, oh we regret this and that. I'm the person that used to be like that. I regret not being good in school, I regret not going to college, I regret all this stuff, but in reality, I don't regret the choices I make because like I said, it is who I am and it is who I'm going to be growing up. But a lot of people have different views on that, and that's my take. 

You still have a world of possibilities ahead of you, that you could go in any direction you want. So, do you have any like, far-out things that you might want to try?

So I do want to go to school, I plan on going in fall. I want to double major in poli sci and international conflict resolution as well as minor in sociology. I want to go into politics hopefully one day but instead of changing it where they play dirty politics, I want to be the one that actually came from the community I'm going to represent. Probably a lot of you guys don't know who Todd Gloria is down in downtown, I'll put him on blast, I don't care, like, as much power as he has, he came from our community, he fought for rights in our community and stuff, but he doesn't want to support the initiatives we're doing? Like, it's not fair. He's encouraging others, his model is that he wants to leave a place better than it was before but yet he's not doing that, by not supporting his own original home. He actually grew up down the street from me. He grew up there right by the old YMCA site. So yes, I do want to become either a city council member one day or a mayor one day. If it don't do that, any job that would make me know that I'm helping others, or any job that I know that wants to create change in the community is something for me. I'm not really too specific on that part, but I just don't want to go too far. And a lot of the work I do is, like I said, for my son, so all these policies and systems changes I do, so when he grows up he doesn't have to face the same struggles I do.

Are you one of the people like, most teachers like, they have kids, they teach here in the City Heights area, but they send their kids to those schools in La Mesa or something?

Oh no, he growing up here. He's going to Central or actually Central's going to be moved with Wilson, but probably Central, Central or Cherokee. He's going to go to Wilson or Clark and he's is definitely going to Hoover or Crawford, whichever he prefers, but he's staying in City Heights. I mean, I'm not the type of parent that's like, I want you to go to a better school, like I said, better schools are because they push out the minority, they push out the people of color, they push out the refugees and the undocumented, and I think that is where my son needs to go, those kinds of schools, so he gets to experience what is happening, what his family's been through and all that, and he can help others as well. 

That charter school you said, across from the park?

Youth Build, yep. I was there, so after Hoover, I was supposed to be class twelve, I skipped a whole year, I was like alright I didn't graduate, like, I don't want to say I was depressed but I was like, ah man, I'm not going to do anything no more, like there's no point. A counselor approached me like hey, we have this program, just starting it this year, so I went there and I did, I only was missing, so this is how bad I didn't graduate. I was only missing two credits. Two credits and my SAT scores were high and I played baseball and I would have gone to college to play baseball too. So only by two credits I didn't get to achieve what I wanted to. So, Youth Build helped out a lot. It's a leadership school, but I was already in a program, so right now I'm actually working with Carlos to figure out when that Youth Build gets closed, how can we keep it sustainable with a different affiliate, and bring youth organizing and social justice change on that campus.

They're closing Youth Build?

They're closing it this year, due to the guy, Mark Hanson, the one that owns Heartland, he's not being cooperative with the actual Youth Build, and has been taking money away from Carlos instead of spending it for the students. So Carlos wants to get away from that. And so, he's going to team up with some other organizations to keep Youth Build. Youth Build is a program that's a second chance program for ages sixteen to twenty-four, for those that don't graduate, or aren't going to graduate on time, they do a lot of, Carlos does a lot of life skills, which is focused on preparing you guys for college, preparing you guys for a job, bringing me in to talk about this kind of issues like what's happening in our community, how do you change it, what do you guys want to see changed on campus, those kind of things.

Growing up here, what changes have you noticed in the neighborhood, for better or for worse?

What have I seen change? For better, I have seen a lot of organizing going on, I have seen from the youngest, a ten year old that was in youth council, that went to city hall and spoke to the mayor and everything. A little ten year old going in front of over three hundred people telling them that we need a skate park in City Heights, that it's not safe going to another community to skate. We have two skate parks being built in City Heights, I've seen the 15, so you guys know the freeway, the 15, by Chevron and all that over there? Growing up that was dirt still. I used to go-kart down the ramps. I was technically the first rider on the freeway. That was good. I think what had happened worse now though is just too much more support on police rather than community feeling, community relations. I feel like also that there's not as much opportunities for youth that there should be and that needs to be changed too.

At Crawford we have like a [?] and like every Thursday there's, I don't know if you know this but this lady named Kathy and Ronan come and they work with like real life and stuff and they do [?]

Ronan was part of urban life for a little bit, went to their camp in 2012 at Big Bear, so I spoke to him, I know Jake that used to be the basketball coach, and JP. I'm trying to, I'm going to be talking soon to get some youth involved with the organization, see what ways we can help you guys, what ways you guys can help us. But that's a great program. If you don't know it, Urban Life is great. Trust me. A lot of camp opportunities and they do help you with college readiness, and it's a great space for high school students. How many of you guys know of youth empowerment focus on campus? [Response] Yep. You know Ido? You know Ido [name]? Yeah she does great work. She came to our meeting last week for the youth council to talk about life skills. How many of you guys know food and social justice club? [I'm in that too] Guadalupe Peron and all of them? [Yup] They helped out with our food justice team over at Mid-City CAN. They brung a lot of change in the community. Got halal chicken on Crawford, knowing that a lot of people wouldn't eat, and this is actually a way to build up that attendance of students that were eating. We've had Crawford students that participated in our organization that create a sustainable change. And you guys got the resolution over at the school board. That was probably powerful, that was probably the first resolution to school lunches in so long there. And that was because of Crawford students. That was because of parents from Crawford students, and also the support of some teachers and other organizations that helped out with that too. 

J.A.: We were talking a few weeks ago about top ten landmarks in City Heights, and we divided into groups of I don't know, three or four, and each of us came with our top 10 landmarks in City Heights. What would you say, we were asking how would you describe City Heights to somebody who had never been there but let's say someone tells you “I'm going to City Heights. What should I see?” What would be the top 10 landmarks? Maybe you don't have to say top 10. Top 4 or 5?

Hmmm. I would have to say a landmark that would be worth seeing, especially now they've just opened Silverado Ballroom, which was actually recognized by a historical community committee, that stated that was probably the most historical thing in City Heights. And City Heights area planning Committee got an award for that. But the Silverado Ballroom which is on Euclid and University, they just remodeled it, I don't know that you guys saw it was under construction, now it's like that big white building with yellow trim and all that. That would be a good place to go. History has said that used to be a ballroom place where they had plays and they had dancing and stuff like that. Another one I would say that you guys should visit, I think even just walking down Fairmount, Fairmount Avenue, the Price family, so the building that I work for, or I work in, the owners of that owns pretty much almost, a lot of the land on Fairmount, they used eminent domain to obtain the land, so like where El Super and all that's at, it's owned by them, the police station came out of their project, the library, Rosa Parks came out of them, those clinics, everything came out of the Price family, I think even walking down that, and if you were to google like Fairmount maybe ten years ago, a lot has changed. A lot. I think another good landmark too would have to be [pause] I would say, well now they're destroying Hoover, well, they're going to reconstruct it, but, the auditorium, if you go in there, it has a first floor, but about twenty, thirty years ago before the earthquake, what do you call it, the earthquake standards where they had to destroy stuff, at Hoover, the auditorium took two big wrecking balls to actually tear down, that's how strong the walls were. Hoover has a lot of historical stuff there.

We're doing a remodel too. 

Yeah, I saw that over there on the field. Yeah, how long is that for, do you guys know?

That whole front, they're breaking it down, and like by the middle of next year the football field should be done before we leave.

See, even Crawford's a historical landmark. It's been here for a long time. Even just walking down the street in City Heights is a historical landmark. Fifty years ago it was a lot of farms, a lot of pure roads and hills, I wish I knew a lot more about City Heights, I only know a few things, but even like, my family has been here since the 60's, so they probably, if I ask my mom she probably knows everything. Just walk around, enjoy it, enjoy everything. Landmark or not you'll like it.

Crawford's older and they can't tear down the cafeteria because the walls have lead in them and it'll give us cancer.

Yep. Which, if that's the case, it was built before the 70's, and that's true. Central too. Central there's an illegal pipeline under the school, right? Or a gas pipeline under the school, and so they couldn't reconstruct it out of the proposition that's doing this, the construction at Crawford, so they had to actually tear down Central and combine it with Wilson now. So Wilson's going to be two schools now, K through 8th pretty much, so yeah, I mean, I say just walk around, you'll like it, you'll like City Heights a lot.

JA: Do you have any more questions?
EP: So you mentioned that you would interview your mom, or that you would talk to your mom to get information about the history and culture of the neighborhood. Besides her, who else in the community might you interview?

There's a group called City Heights area planning committee that makes decisions on what comes in City Heights before the city puts stuff in here. I sit on that board, a lot of the members on there are community residents, so those that live in the community for maybe ten, twenty plus years. And we also do have youth seats on there, so I think the one's open if you guys want to sit on that board, but it's a great opportunity. You have non-profits, so Mid-City CAN, for example, a lot of, our ED, our Executive Director, knows a lot about City Heights, grew up in City Heights too, SAY San Diego, SAY San Diego is another organization that does a lot of work in City Heights and families, Youth Empowerment Focus, on here Ido knows a lot, Ido knows a lot about City Heights, um, I'm trying to think of who else. You could go, I mean, talk to some city staff members, if you guys want to contact Marty Emerald's office, Rudy Vargas, he's the City Heights rep, he could tell you a lot of information. Maybe you guys get him to present here, something like that, but Rudy Vargas is a good one. He actually grew up in City Heights and now represents, a rep for City Heights. He's done a lot of work. Go to Kensington, if you want to walk around, ask, go to Kensington, be like hey, a lot of residents stayed there for over forty years and stuff. They would be good to talk to. If you guys want to interview some other Hoover students or something like that, a lot of Hoover students, most of them know the history of what's around Hoover. They do some teaching there at Hoover. There actually probably is teachers here that's lived in City Heights or done work in City Heights for a long time. Hoover has like three actually City Heights residents who went to Hoover and now are teaching at Hoover. Make phone calls. Phone calls to a lot of places that lives here and works here in City Heights. That does work here. They have to have some history of City Heights if they're going to be working here. 

The Kumayay Indians own quite a lot of the downtown area, do they also own some of the City Heights area?

That's a good question. I wouldn't really know. I wouldn't doubt they don't, because I mean, it was a lot of hills and a lot of farmland here. But, I don't really know for sure on that. That's something that'd be interesting to look into. I'm probably going to look into that now.

Because I know they own Petco Park.

Yeah

They own the, they bought the property in the last couple years

I want to look into that now. That's something to look into. I got new homework now.

Anybody else?

How would you help kids get involved in like, changing the City Heights area?

Don't be afraid to be empowered. I think the first step to getting involved is just making sure that you're doing it because of something you went through. Everybody here dealt with something in their lives. Whether its youth empowerment focus, food and social justice club, which is focused on at Crawford, or like, joining Mid-City CAN where we have five different teams plus youth council, that does work all across the city and we even go to Sacramento to lobby with our representatives, our governor, all of them. Have you guys ever heard of the term “adultism”? [pause] Well adultism is pretty much when the idea that adults talk down on youth rather than empower. An example of this would be more of like, don't you do that, instead of why are you doing that? An example of this is also more of, well, you're not going to go to college, like they, so the idea that we use at Mid-City CAN is youth-adult partnership, the idea that youth share power with adults, that no adult is more powerful than a youth but you have equal voice. An example of this, Todd Gloria, like I said, when he showed power, all because he thought he was a city rep, and all because he thought that he was sitting on the board that was making decisions in front of us, that we weren't going to speak up, or we weren't going to talk about it. I went up there and I called him out. This was when I was seventeen. So I wasn't allowed to vote at that time. And I called him out. But the idea was, be smart about what you say also, and make sure that what you say is what gets into their head. People don't know, people only know what you do and how you do it, they don't really know why you do things, and the why is really important. So if you want to get involved in organizations like this, you want to create change, don't do it because of what it is, don't do it cause of how it is, do it because of why. Why do you want to do it? Why, particularly, do you want to say, for example, a lot of my families are, some are undocumented, and some been deported, so when I've done immigration work, why I did it is because of my family. The reason I'm doing my work now with the youth council, why I do it is because of my son, I want to see him grow up and be a great person, I want to see him grow up to not struggle. Everybody has dealt with something here in their lives. Some have dealt with more than others, some have dealt with maybe, very few, but everybody has something that they want to change. Everybody has something that they're passionate about. And that passion is what's going to create you to make that change. It empowers you. It sparks you. It's the feeling, emotion. So, the youth council right now, we're focusing on school to prison pipeline, the idea that there's a systemic racism that communities of color, communities of low income, they would rather incarcerate than educate youth. Examples of this, our juvenile justice system, when I was on probation, three out of four youth between the ages of fourteen and eighteen in City Heights were on probation. That was the highest rate, a high rate, so that could have been like, I tell my youth council, look, one two three four, yep, you three are on probation. It was bad. That's why a lot of cops just stop them and they search them because they already assume, with the statistics that had been put in place before, alright, you're on probation, let's do this. So we're focusing on school to prison pipeline. We have four paths we're looking at. One is life skills. So, how do we change the policies in the schools to make sure that every student is required to take a life skill class, which is financial stability. How many of you guys are ready to be an adult and know how to handle your bills? Handle balancing college and work. How many of you guys think you are ready for that?

Like, business class?

Not business class, well actually it could be in a curriculum for business class, yes.

I think they take it senior year here at Crawford. 

Do they teach about financial stability?

I don't know – do they teach you that?

[unintelligible]

So you guys have that. Hoover doesn't have that. Lincoln doesn't have that. A lot of other schools don't have that. But wouldn't be awesome if everybody knew how to handle their money? I'm twenty-two and I still don't know how to handle my money that well [laughs] I mean like, it happens. Another one is counselors. How many of you guys feel like counselors are there for you all the time.

They're never in their office!

So I actually looked at their policies, there's so much responsibilities they have to do.

Three and four counselors.

And how many students are there?

Like 900.

So, counselors, that's another thing. How do we make changes that counselors, what do they need to be trained on, so that they meet your needs and you can support them as well? SROs, school resource officers. How many do, you guys have an officer on campus, right?

We have Bob the Builder.

Bob the Builder [laughs] 

Security guards, they're not like officers

We actually have a San Diego Police officer in his own office, in an office building, and he's there all day.

With his dog that smells [?].

So when I spoke to the youth a lot of them were like, well, why do we need police on campus, and there's some good ideas, like oh, they keep safety and all this stuff, right? But what they had said, the youth was like, why do they need to be on a uniform, with a uniform, why do they need to have a gun? Why do they need to be more in a military approach rather than hey how you doing, how's school been, how's life been? Hall monitors, right?

They're basically hall monitors. [Unintelligible] Always in his car, Mario's a weirdo.

So what if somebody was dealing with something one day and they didn't want to be in class and they needed a break to walk around and stuff and that police is like, hey, you need to go to class, you need to go to class or I'm going to suspend you, instead of hey, what's wrong? Do you need time? Do you need to relax, what's happening? Let me get to know you more. Wouldn't that change your view? Do you think the school would feel better? So of course we can't eliminate police officers on campus, they've got a good support system, trust me, I've looked. But it's more of, how do we have that relationship with them, how do they have a relationship with us. So that's another path, and restorative justice. So how many of you guys have heard of RJ, restorative justice, restorative practices? How many of you guys have heard of Crawford Five? Law Academy? 

Oh, Ms. Adrian makes us have like school spirit and stuff.

Crawford Five, the law academy, there's five [unintelligible], there's Larissa, May, you have Edith, you have Allen, and you have I believe its Phong? So those five are leading the efforts for restorative justice in all of San Diego Unified School District. Um, so when there's a wrongdoing, in the punitive system, the traditional system, there's three ways to look at it. Who committed the crime? What crime was committed? And How should we punish them? In the restorative approach, it's more of, who committed the crime, how do we repair that harm, and who's obligation is it to fulfill those needs? So it's a restorative way. Those are some of the campaigns we're doing, I do have a sign-up sheet here if you guys are interested in joining the youth council, we meet at 4305 University Avenue, I'll leave some business cards if you want to take one down, and we do have camps in the summer. We have a girls, women of color, and a boys and men of color, and lobby days. Girls and women of color is just a space where women come together to empower each other, to see what change is happening in their community, and what is happening, and this is with fourteen other sites across California. You'll have fourteen, LA, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, all these other cities that bring out young women as well. Lobby day, it's, everything's paid for too, with those trips. Lobby day, we take twenty young people up. How many of you guys know who our governor is? How many of you guys would want to meet the governor one day?

What does he do for us?

He's the one that makes all the decisions that happen, so, health for all, they just passed something that, starting I think in May, actually this month, if you're undocumented, you should be able to still receive health. How many of you guys heard of assembly members? Representatives? Senators? Congress?

Yeah

So now we're getting there, alright. So these trips in August, you guys get to meet those congress, those people that are always on TV and stuff. You guys get to meet the big shots. And you guys get to say and voice your opinion on what should be passed. Bills that are affecting your lives. 8953, racial profiling bill that we passed last year was stating that if a cop stops you on campus, and you've been searched, or you've been detained, then you should be able to receive a record, publicly, and be like, who got caught, what is their ethnicity, so you could kinda see an idea of is this cop just targeting this population. Oh, is this cop just targeting this youth? And a lot of cops do that without realizing it. This is a transparency (sic) built to better understanding what's happening on campus.

Why do they have that rule that if somebody hits you, you can't hit them back? Like, if someone hit the principal, you think he's just going to stand there and let them hit him? Like obviously you're going to hit somebody back that's just the dumbest rule ever. 

[crosstalk, laughter] So the question for that would be more of, how do you prevent somebody hitting somebody in the first place? What's the root cause of that? Too much stress? Are they dealing with something at home?

There are a lot of instigators at Crawford though.

They do. But how do you deal with it. That's the question, how do you deal with it? And everybody has different ways to deal with stuff, but do I agree violence is the answer? No. Is there ways to prevent it? [crosstalk] If you guys want to join, there's a sign in sheet, as well as like, as I said, I have some business cards, it's a great opportunity. I have a lot of Hoover students, I'd like to see Crawford students come out and represent. My youngest member is thirteen. We have a couple middle school students, and it's a space for all your voices to be heard. I'm not going to be someone who's like, “I don't like that idea, we're not going to put it up” or nothing. No it's like, we'll take that idea and does it match our campaign and we'll keep moving forward with it then. It's also a space for you all to interact with each other, like you probably think, oh, they're from Hoover, oh, I don't like this student, the next thing you know, a couple months in, you're like best friends with them. I will bring out food for the meetings and stuff cause I know a lot of people don't eat school lunch and you guys need to eat. I don't know if you have anything else you want to say.

JA: Thank you. So the reason why we asked Terry to come to our class, we thought this week would be really appropriate because last week we tried to figure out who we could interview, and one of the roles in the community we had down there was community organizers, and Terry is organizing, so it fell perfect to have him, and interview him as a group, and talk to him, and obviously there are so many organizations working on these issues, and [unintelligible] but it was nice to hear this, and to interview, and I think we got some great stories and great answers, and you had some great questions. So, thank you. [Applause] Like he mentioned, if anybody wants to join the youth council or other initiatives that Mid-City CAN is doing, where is the sign in sheet, sorry? 

It'll be right here.

Do we have any other questions for Terry before

Do you come here as like a club, like how they come every Tuesday, Wednesday?

So, we meet every Friday from 3:30 to 5:30 in the Price building in the basement, so we have our own little area. Hoover, some of our students are creating a student action committee, it's a committee that's going to make decisions with admins before letting go coaches, on dances, all this stuff. The youth have a voice now, so like Laura did with food and social justice club, if Crawford students want to start getting involved in the youth council, and we could figure out a way to keep it on Crawford campus, then I'll create a club with you guys and we'll figure out a way to organize around it.

I'll be the president.

[laughter] If you want to create it you could. And I'll come work with that, once a week, I do not mind, and if you need more support, always give me a call.

JA: Also, you had mentioned the Crawford Collaborative, so [unintelligible] was saying a bunch of organizations come to Crawford once a month during the school day.

It's usually during the morning.

So if you want to interview somebody from the community, working in the community, on campus, pretty convenient, could we have some more information?

Yeah, I could send it out to you. I don't know on top of my head, I know they meet once a month. But the guy who runs it is Dan. [crosstalk] The Crawford Collaborative usually highlights one organization in the community that's done work, or if you want to be the speaker, guest speaker, as well as everybody that attends the Crawford Collaborative are representatives from different various organizations as well as some parents and community members, so that's a great place for you guys to try to do interviews and stuff. That would be like a hot spot.

Do you guys know Daniel?

Yeah, so he's in charge of the collaborative. 

JA: So if somebody wants to interview this Crawford Collaborative, you'll just email the information? Okay and then I'll share it next week. It's on campus, you can go there, I don't know what hours it is, ask them if you want to interview, take a tape recorder, ask some questions.

You can go to them anytime, [unintelligible], if you email any time you can just go there. Like dinner, lunchtime, [unintelligible].