Hello friends! We welcome you readers to yet another fabulous double issue, 24.07/08, of writing and art from the inside and beyond. Mark our words, what you are about to read is like no other publication. In our eyes, this is as important of a read as any, especially given the times we find ourselves in, as these thoughtful writers (young and old), free and incarcerated, give it to us straight and on point, their stories and truths as they see fit. If you like what you read, please have a heart and share The Beat Within with a friend or family member who can benefit from hearing these contributors. We are always open meeting new friends and allies. Encourage your friends who have not done so to pick up a pen and write a few lines to The Beat Within. You never know who your words will touch, but they will touch someone, that is guaranteed. Since 1996, we have stayed true to our mission, running our weekly writing workshops and publishing this one of a kind publication that is like no other in the whole USA!
All right, lets hand over the keyboard to our dear friend and long time colleague, Simone, who kindly steps up to the plate to write this week’s editorial note. We love the creativity and message she shares. Tell us what you think! Read on….
In 2012 my mother lived in The Jungle, the largest homeless encampment in the country at the time, located in San Jose, CA. I took apart an article written by media company Business Insider (quoted on the right) and put it in conversation with my own interviews and observations (written on the left) to show how Business Insider failed to tell the whole story of The Jungle. I encourage you to think critically about the news and ask yourself: Who has the authority to tell my story? How is my story being told wrong? What stereotypes about my community are being created or maintained by the news?
Sidewalk Commandos
It’s the year the world is supposed to end and it doesn’t, 2012
In autumn, in the Santa Clara Valley
There is a body of water named after the coyotes that went with the fire four years ago
Coyote Creek, all sixty-three miles of it
Winding from northeast Morgan Hill to west of Milpitas
The Valley holds a million people, and four miles of this creek hold one hundred of them
“Deplorable,” says Business Insider
“Home,” says my mother
We are in the backwoods of Phelan Avenue in East San Jose
Soon Chinook salmon will be spawning upstream
And in late summer the Copperheads will be mating in the underbrush
(Something to watch for)
From kids to convicts to moms and dads and the mentally ill
The Jungle is a desperate mix of people
Out of whatever options they might have once had
This is an incomplete truth
There’s Patty and Steve
Here for ten years, homeless for twenty-two
Who supervise this part of land my mother lives on
Owned by a guy in the hills with a horse ranch
Empty rubber housings from old power lines are all over The Jungle Everything is brittle and dry
Their radio, DVD player, and cell phones maintain life
Via a rechargeable car battery
Wind chimes adorn their tent awning
And a path of potted flowers maps a walkway to their front yard
Mended tarps and old sheets and blankets
Offer at least the illusion of privacy
There’s Patty and Steve’s daughter
Amy, she lives down the trail
Thick panels of bamboo shoots, grown fervently throughout the creek
Make perfect load-bearing walls
For those that can’t get help
Refuse help
Or simply aren’t in a position to take back their lives
They still find a way to make the best of their surroundings
By crafting homemade “comforts”
Like a shower
There’s a communal showering area
A bag of solar-heated water and a faucet attached that hangs from a tree
People take their garbage up to the nearby dumpsters
Keep their belongings to themselves
People here feel any type of barrier
Protecting them from their more unstable neighbors
Is simply a good thing
In 2000 a rude and unsuspecting settler
Wasn’t abiding by Patty’s standards of conduct
She took both his bikes to the nearby tracks
Threw them over just as the train passed through
“Street justice, he got the message
We have our own laws down here”
“Sidewalk commandos, they call us”
There is not much residents here can find for work
Aside from collecting cans and bottles
“We sell and trade stuff we find, we dumpster dive
You wouldn’t believe what people throw away!”
Through years of winding in and out of places and relationships
Patty and Steve have acquired numerous keys to dumpster locks
“We get everything we need, and we make sure others have what they need, too”
Latisha’s been homeless for 13 years
And as she speaks
There’s little doubt that her family’s ignorance
— and her dignity —
may be the only things she has left that mean anything to her at all
“Homeless don’t count on anyone because
We’ve been promised
So much
And it’s never happened
If something is going to happen, you’ve got to make it happen”
On the Fourth of July I bring down pounds of marinated chicken
But my mother’s grill is faulty
Even with the attempts at creating normalcy
Desperation is the prevalent mood
Amy digs us a pit, lays our coals in the earth’s pocket
Patty and Steve bring us bricks that we balance our cast iron grill upon Another has lighter fluid
Another gathers dry leaves to maintain the fire
Another brings lanterns when the shadows begin to stretch
“Homelessness has everything to do with intergalactic travel”
Dan tells us
A fantasy that provides him a mental escape
From the harsh realities he lives in
And another, someone my mother isn’t speaking with
Brings a watermelon
We smoke cigarettes to ward off mosquitos
And sit together eating, without saying a word
And sit together eating, without saying a word
In a time when so much information is being shared on so many different platforms, the importance of speaking your truth, and talking back to the assumptions society makes about you, is crucial for us to build a better world, based in understanding and compassion. Each publication of The Beat Within does just that – it publishes your truths, and breaks down the assumptions we have about each other. Thank you, readers and writers of The Beat, for the work you do to change our world, one truth at a time.