AmeriCorps: Walking The Walk in Coachella Valley

coachella valley

Beautiful Coachella Valley

As the Women’s Marches continue around the world following Trump’s inauguration, and I lament the fact that I cannot join my fellow feminists, I have to remind myself that I am doing good in my own way here in Coachella. I say Coachella, and people think of white girls in flower crowns and culturally appropriating garb. Every year during the music festival, the Coachella Valley’s population surges, but days after the festival is over the community is back to living with the socio-economic struggles that the festivalgoers don’t experience or even notice.

Coachella Valley is an area that consists of many towns, the largest being Palm Springs. It lies between the Santa Rosa Mountains and the San Bernardino Mountains, also lying directly on the San Andreas Fault. The population is mostly migrant farm workers of Latin American descent, and since farming is not a lucrative job these families struggle to make enough money to afford decent housing in an area that already has an affordable housing shortage. The shortage is a result of the socio-economic disparity between Palm Springs, the playground of the rich and famous, and the rest of the Valley where the service and farm workers slave away at minimum wage jobs. The residents of the richer areas typically don’t want their gardeners and housekeepers living in the same town as them, fearing that the integration would lower the values of their homes, thus forcing them into substandard housing in the poorer neighborhoods. It’s a microcosm of the racist mortgage policies of the Federal Housing Administration. It’s a microcosm of a lot of things happening in Trump’s America right now.

However, conditions are improving due to an organization called The Coachella Valley Housing Coalition. In short, the organization functions like Habitat for Humanity. It gives homes at low-interest mortgage rates to families who wouldn’t be able to make the payments with a regular high-interest bank loan. The families have to put in a certain number of “sweat equity” hours working on their own homes or the homes of their neighbors. The organization has more than 32 housing complexes, including apartments, condos, townhouses, and single-family homes. It also provides a variety of community services including afterschool programs, music lessons, and ESL lessons for adults. My team is working with this organization until mid-March for our Round 2 project. In the morning, we help build homes, and in the afternoon, we tutor children in one of their afterschool programs. The hours are long; we work from 7am to 6pm. I fall asleep every night at 8pm, sore and exhausted, but I have a little peace of mind in knowing that I am doing something to actively combat the racist, sexist, and elitist society that elected Trump.

If we are to survive the next four years, we must be activists in our communities. It is not enough to post on Facebook that you detest Trump and his policies. To be a real ally to the oppressed (people of color, the disabled, the impoverished, women, the LGBT* community, immigrants—I could go on), you must actively fight against the injustices. Not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. I am no hero. I am no saint. I do not claim to be the “white knight” here to solve all the social injustices, but I am proud to say that I am doing something more here in Coachella. And you should too. You could start by making a donation to the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, to support the organization, which stands to lose much of its federal support under the new administration.

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