DRCC River festival and farmers' market

I attended the DRCC River Festival last Saturday, and learned a lot from putting the survey and display board into use with folks who attended. The survey questions were designed to help us connect to participants, learn more about them and see if they are interested in becoming involved with the cleanup efforts in some way. So we had three questions:

1. Please tell us - are you a resident, business owner, or otherwise use the river in some fashion (whether that's fishing or otherwise)?

2. What are your hopes for the future of the Duwamish river?

3. Would you like to be involved in helping to protect/save the river?

Each time I design surveys like this one I'm reminded to really keep questions short and simple. I could usually get people to answer question #1 easily. For the second and third questions I noticed that most people didn't go into lots of detail other than responding "a clean river", and I had to let go of my tendencies to pressure folks to sign up to help DRCC. I tried paraphrasing question #3 to explain that we are planning to have further conversations with people who live and own businesses in the area about implementing the Vision plan, and that this is also a way that they could be involved, if they didn't show interest in helping with the cleanup. I also think some attendees may have thought we are asking them to actually help clean up the pollution in the river itself. Overall I talked with two young teens, a couple of residents, one former landlord who resides on Beacon Hill, a woman who works at a social service agency in the area, an indigenous woman who lives in Auburn and several political candidates for office.

I also had a less than successful conversation with a guy staffing the "People for Puget Sound" booth regarding the information they have about what kinds of fish and other sealife animals it is risky to eat. I tried asking him two questions: what can we say to people to whom fish and seafood is central to their diets, and are they offering any information about alternatives such as the nearest safe places that people can go fishing in? His responses were short and limited to saying that it's dangerous to consume any fish and seafood caught from the river, and shrugging his shoulders at the notion of offering alternatives. I am guessing that the way I phrased my questions made him feel defensive and/or just didn't connect to his perspective at all. A bit later when I talked to an indigenous woman, I noticed my internalized feelings of trying to get her to "sign up" to be involved with DRCC in some way (such as with the Vision plan implementation conversations) coming up again. This conversation was great practice for me to learn to just listen more genuinely and let go of my tendencies to nudge people to "take action". At the end of our conversation, although she refused to sign up for any DRCC activities she thanked me for listening to her stories of her late husband who was a fisherman in the area.

Yesterday I attended the new South Park Farmers' Market in the morning and helped do outreach for DRCC. We shared booth/table space with SeaMar and I connected with three people: Steve Gisel, co-manager of the farmers' market; Ninfa Quiroz, staff person at SeaMar; and Amaranta Sandys, a local multimedia artist who makes art thru use of clay. Steve stated that the farmers' market has several objectives including bringing together people who haven't had much experience with U.S. business practices, encouraging people to support local businesses and learn to eat more healthy foods. He said that they are trying to obtain funding to hold the market more often than once a month, and they have a business co-op for the vendors who participate. Also he added that although the vendors' earnings might not be very "high" currently they see the participation of the vendors as successful because they're learning how to do business.

Ninfa Quiroz and I talked about her concerns regarding the diet of the Latino community. She expressed a lot of worry about the tendencies of Latinos to eat a lot of carbohydrates, fats, salt and processed foods including in tortillas and tamales. She added that there's ways that people can still enjoy their traditional foods but reduce the amount of fat and carbohydrates in preparing tortillas and tamales. She emphasized that addressing health issues such as diabetes isn't just a matter of getting people to change their diets, they have to change other habits such as increasing their level of activity and exercising regularly. She asked if I could help SeaMar do some health education, and is also interested in the information that DRCC has about the dangers of eating fish and seafood caught from the Duwamish river. She looked at a coloring book for children that is printed in English and Spanish, that teaches children about animals in the local area and said that she would like to see another one regarding the dangers of eating fish and seafood from the Duwamish river. I told Ninfa that if DRCC, SeaMar and the South Park Farmers' market could partner somehow to have conversations about food and healthy alternatives that would be great. I plan to talk further with Cari about the possibilities of doing my Change project around these areas. Although Cari and I talked briefly about what my Change project could be before she left, this was before I had conversed with Ninfa in detail.

I also enjoyed talking with Amaranth, she makes pottery, clay magnets, pendants, beads and earrings with her own cultural style. For instance she has some magnets and earrings that are brightly colored skulls in honor of "Dia de los Muertos", the Mexican "Day of the Dead" celebration. Amaranth stated that she helped emcee at the River Festival last week. She is also connected to local artists' groups.

Joyce

DRCC River festival interviews

I have interviewed eight people so far, seven of them via phone, the eighth responded to the interview questions I posted here via e-mail. The organizations that I have talked to people about include the Georgetown campus of South Seattle Community College, Seattle Parks and Recreation, the metro YMCA, the Seattle Maritime Academy, Got Green and Puget Sound Sage. Most of these organizations have some type of internship program designed to provide education and awareness about livable wage jobs and careers for youth between 15 to 20 years who are from "disadvantaged" backgrounds. These programs focus on helping their students learn about many occupations that we tend to look down on, including construction, urban reforestation, health care and technology. I focused my interview questions with interviewees about the programs that these organizations have that provide some environmental education to youth along with raising their awareness of the new field of "green" jobs.

The responses that I got to my questions varied, especially when it came to discussing "green" jobs, and whether or not the organization considers that its program does have connections to the EPA superfund cleanup of the Duwamish river. Michael Woo, the founder of "Got Green", a new organization dedicated to working with youth from disadvantaged diverse communities, talked about "green" jobs from an organizing perspective. He stated that we shouldn't wait for anyone else to define what "green" jobs should be, communities of color need to define what we see as opportunities and to actively create them. His view contrasts to Melinda Nichols' perspective of working in job readiness programs. Melinda is skeptical about "green" jobs and feels that not everyone will have the "glamorous" ones that the media talks about such as working on solar panels. Given what I know about their backgrounds Melinda works for a government bureaucracy while Michael Woo speaks as a former community organizer and construction worker.

Connections: the Duwamish and traditional food

In reading Dan Klempner's thesis about the history of the Duwamish tribe, I see several connections to what several others in this course are studying. The overall focus of his thesis is the history of how the Duwamish tribe was marginalized by the numerous efforts of settlers to reconstruct what we now know as "Seattle". His thesis also looks at the current efforts by the EPA to conduct a superfund cleanup of the Duwamish river waterway and asks if this cleanup can be conducted without further marginalizing the Duwamish tribe.

Dan writes about the struggles of the Duwamish tribe to regain and/or hold onto their cultural identity over the past decades. As the Duwamish have been pushed out of their traditional lands in this area they have often focused on enforcement of their fishing rights as stated in major treaties such as the Elliott Point one. James Rasmussen, co-chair of the Duwamish tribe told him that this narrow focus on fishing rights as part of their cultural identity leaves them vulnerable on many levels. One example is around the whole debate about what fish are safe to catch and eat from the Duwamish river. The tribe is constantly told that they shouldn't really catch and consume a lot of fish from the river due to the high levels of toxins including PCBs in the fish. Yet fish is so central to the traditional diets of the Duwamish. So as I read his comments I'm thinking of Jonathan's examination of traditional diets of several cultural groups in San Diego, and Jo's examination of salmon habitat restoration too.

I also really appreciate Dan's questioning about whether the ongoing superfund cleanup can be conducted without further marginalizing the Duwamish. This question could also be applied to other groups of people who use the Duwamish river and are marginalized groups. He interviewed several homeless people who live along the Duwamish river and they told him that they would like to have restrooms and facilities where they can shower and do laundry. Previous restrooms were taken away with the justification that having them just means that homeless folks would trash them and conduct illegal activities in them. From the perspective of the homeless people whom Dan talked to, having such facilities helps them maintain their own dignity. Plus, from my own experience of working with homeless families I know that having such facilities makes it more possible for people to maintain themselves and live - whether that's going to work, school, job training or whatever else people can do to get back on their feet.

Joyce

What are "Green Jobs"?

As part of my continuing outreach for DRCC's upcoming River festival, I talked with Melinda Nichols yesterday. Melinda works for Seattle Parks and Recreation in a summer youth employment program which educates youth ages 15 to 24 about urban forestry and related areas. She stated that no one knows what "green jobs" really are, but her students ask her "where's my Green job?". She said that the concept of "green jobs" is difficult because it isn't "real". She said that a first question to consider with respect to creating future "green jobs" is to ask "How can existing jobs be made greener?"

Her comments help me to remember all the many ways companies are trying to become more environmentally conscious and implement sustainable "green" practices that I learned about in Eco-sustainability last year. How can companies change their manufacturing processes so that they eliminate waste, and recycle everything they use? How can companies do the same in providing services to customers and clients?

Melinda also commented that forests in the Seattle area have been decimated by invasive foreign plants including ivy, laurel and blackberries. She said that in order to restore urban forests you can't just remove invasive plants and plant new ones. It's a process of adding back to nature, by adding in native plants and shrubs carefully. Her program gets 70,000 hours annually of volunteer time from volunteers. She also stated that the overall focus of her program is to "elevate their understanding of the world they live in, that this is their world". So part of their environmental education is to go on boat tours such as the DRCC tour of the Duwamish, and the tours by Seattle Pacific University of the Cedar River watershed. In addition her program tries to show its participants that they do have options for livable wage jobs in fields such as urban forestry, GPS, landscaping and construction.

Joyce

Updated outreach plans with the DRCC

I met with Cari and Sydney yesterday afternoon regarding my planned outreach and interviews of organizations participating in the upcoming Duwamish River Festival and DRCC's member organizations. I'm well aware of exactly why our course syllabi are "living documents" after this meeting.

Sydney is an Americorps member who is assisting Cari with the River Festival by creating a tri-fold display board about the Duwamish Valley Vision plan and organizations that are working in the following areas of implementation: policy and leadership, green infrastructure and environmental education. The focus of part of the display will be on organizations that are working to create Green jobs. In particular I am to contact these organizations via either e-mail and/or phone to discuss with them how they feel their organization's work connects with that of the Duwamish Valley vision plan. My objective with these short interviews is to obtain short quotes and photos that Sydney can use for the display. So my draft interview questions are:

1. Please describe briefly what your organization does, we are seeking quotes and photos from organizations about how your work connects to that of the Duwamish Valley Vision plan. What excites you about Green Jobs?

2. What connects Green Jobs to the EPA superfund cleanup of the Duwamish River?

3. How is the Duwamish affecting the work of your organization? As community members?

Cari was less interested yesterday in my proposed interviews of DRCC coalition members. She stated that this is a pretty busy time for them and that we need to focus on the River festival first. She also suggested that it might be better for me to find some way to talk to several coalition members at once, at future DRCC meetings instead of doing individual interviews.

I am planning to attend the River festival in the afternoon from 2:30 - 4 pm because the festival conflicts with my second residency for my Executive Coaching class. While at the festival I will be talking to attendees and conducting a brief survey to find out people's stories about how they feel the superfund cleanup and river impacts their lives. I'll be creating the questions for that short survey too.

Joyce Yee