Could you tell something about yourself?

My name is Mitch Johnson, I'm the youth education employment supervisor for the International Rescue Committee in San Diego. The IRC is a global NGO. In IRC San Diego we are a resettlement agency that is also very involved with the City Heights community offering financial support, English classes, and youth programs.

How long have you been working in the City Heights community?

I've been working in City Heights for five years, but I've been volunteering two years before that, so seven years I've been involved with City Heights youth specifically.

How do you like the neighborhood?

I find City Heights to be fascinating and beautiful neighborhood. I love the multi-cultural components, I love that there's so many different restaurants, so many different types of people walking down the street. Obviously there are neighborhoods in City Heights that I would try to avoid, but overall I think it's a beautiful community, and I'm happy that I get to work here.

What is new in the neighborhood in the past few years?

Some things, so, what does that mean?

I do see there's a larger sense of pride in the people that I come across. I also feel like a lot of the communities, they now have confidence in their voice, and I see more City Heights community members speaking up at board meetings, or with the school, and becoming more involved politically.

Please could you tell, how does it feel to work with youth from different cultures?

I mean, I got my degree in Critical Intercultural Communication so it's always been a passion of mine to work with many different cultures and many different languages. It's really nice, it's like being able to visit the world in one place. I get to learn about cultures, music, language. Every day I learn something new from the youth, and I'm always interested to learn about these different ethnicities and these different cultures.

How safe do you feel when you come to work?

I feel very safe coming to work. I don't feel like there's any issues, where I'm located or at Crawford High School or at Mann Middle School. You know, I think that, as I said before, there's certain neighborhoods past dark that I would probably try to avoid, but overall, I think I feel pretty safe.

Where do you organize events with youth in the community, like outside of school and office building?

We've had like different community service activities like, cleaning up City Heights, and we choose a street, and have youth go and clean the streets, and pick up garbage, and help make the community look nicer. We'll also have events at Colina Park, it's a really nice place for everybody to meet, different barbecues, or we've participated in Somali family services, police enrichment community, where they were outreaching to all the different community members, different cultural celebrations.

What is the most interesting thing you find in the neighborhood?

I feel like I'm being redundant, but the beauty of City Heights is that so many different cultures, so many different types of people live here, and you could be having a conversation with a Somali person on one block, and with a Burmese person on the next block, and then a Sudanese person on the next block, and it's beautiful. There's definitely not another place like this in San Diego, I feel like, it's very unique in terms of having this many different cultures when you compare it to any other city or any other community, probably in the US.

What are the cultural event you have seen around this City Heights community?

The different New Years, the Vietnamese New year, Karen new year, Eid, breaking the fast of Ramadan.

How would you describe the City Heights Community to someone who had never been here before?

I'd probably say, you've probably heard of City Heights community before, and you probably have a negative impression about that, so I would tell them that that's not what City Heights is. City Heights is beautiful and most of the people are really good people and are really sweet and kind and welcoming, and have beautiful cultures that they would love to share with you. Don't think that just because you see a few news stories about a few bad people that happen to live in this area, don't let that deter you from coming and visiting and meeting these wonderful people.