¡Vida Sana! Pico Union Project Community Wellness

To support healthy bodies, minds and hearts

The neighborhood of Pico Union one of the most important immigrant, working-class communities in the city of Los Angeles. In the shadow of downtown and overlapped with the adjacent garment district, most of the residents of this inner-city are Central American working-class families, as well as hard-working Korean and African-American families.

¡Vida Sana! Pico Union Project Community Wellness. Giving out free fresh produce from the farmers markets and providing resources for healthy living; every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month from 2:30pm to 4:00pm @ Pico Union Project, 1153 Valencia St, Los Angeles, CA 90015.

And in this neighborhood of Pico Union, on the corner of 12th Street and Valencia there stands a grand old synagogue, the original location of Sinai Temple, founded in 1909; the oldest standing synagogue in the city. Today it is the Pico Union Project (PUP), founded by Jewish music sensation Craig Taubman, when he purchased the building a few years ago and restored it to use as an interfaith house of worship and multi-cultural community center. A community center where we bring together diverse partners from different cultures and faiths to serve the needs of the community in so many inspiring ways.

One of the events which really displays the spirit of Pico Union Projects the best is the bi-monthly ¡Vida Sana! Community Wellness events held on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month from 2:30pm to 4:00pm at the site of the Pico Union Project (get directions). Where we give away free fresh produce and fruits from the farmers markets, have arts and crafts for the children, host nutrition classes for adults, and connect people with community resources for the whole family.

¡Vida Sana! comes out of an outgrowth of the seasonal community resource fairs that PUP has hosted since it’s inception just a few years ago. Excited by the outstanding success of these events and moved by the great needs of the community we are part of, Craig recognized that we needed to hold these events more often.

So back in 2016 I was sent out to ask the community what they felt they needed from our project.

Among the most important needs expressed was that our local families wanted access to nutritious food and resources for healthy living. In Latino communities like this the rate of diabetes is at about 18%, which is over twice as high as in white communities. Many families are effected by this devastating condition, which is often exacerbated by limited access to nutritious foods and health resources to be found in this corner of the inner-city.

For this reason Pico Union Project began to regularly focus our attentions on community wellness.

One of the major successes of this program is the vision and enthusiasm of Craig Taubman, as well as his unique ability to bring diverse partners together to get awesome tasks accomplished.

First, acquiring donations of unsold food from local farmers markets and partnering with friends of his to have it kept for us in refrigerated storage facilities they own until the days of our events. Thereby allowing us to give away quality fresh fruits and vegetables to our neighbors, all for free. Eliminating waste of this fine produce and feeding so many hungry families at the same time.

Neighborhood children planting tomato plants in garden boxes built with the help of Seeds of Hope.

He also built a wonderful relationship with Seeds of Hope, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles which works with congregations, communities, and schools, to turn unused land into productive and beautiful gardens and orchards that provide fresh and nutritious foods to areas of need across the county. They have come out to help us plant trees, fruits and vegetables in the neighborhood with the enthusiastic help of the neighborhood children.

Seeds of Hope also provides nutrition and cooking classes, to discuss with parents how they can make healthier food choices, with fun presentations in English and Spanish which offer helpful tips to neighborhood parents on how to made tasty and nutritious dishes, often with the same fresh foods we are providing that day. They volunteers from Seeds of Hope are always thoughtful in providing recipes and culinary tips which are accessible and culturally appropriate to the people of our community, which are more likely to be incorporated into their lifestyle.

¡Vida Sana! even aims to provide fitness activities such as relaxing yoga and fun Latin dancing.

Though it must be noted that these events also provide all kinds of ways of developing wellness, not just of the body, but also of the mind and heart.

Our program has offered art, music, storytelling for the youth of our community. Engaging in arts and crafts with the children. We have even put together community murals with the permission of local businesses, enabling locals artists and youth to take pride and ownership of their community. And develop the creative skills and a sense of self-pride which can last a lifetime.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And that is just the beginning of what ¡Vida Sana! offers. It has hosted many resources to enrich the lives of our neighbors. Free resources that are useful for the whole family offered by:

• Good Samaritan Medical Center
• Red Cross
• Koreatown Youth + Community Center (KYCC)
• Archdiocesan Youth Employment Services
• Abraham Friedman Occupational Center
• Los Angeles Public Library
• City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT)
• Los Angeles County Health Agency
• Los Angeles Trade Tech College
• Jewish Vocational Services
• PV Jobs (Playa Vista)
• Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
• Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo’s Office (CD-1)
• Congressman Xavier Becerras’s Office (34th Congressional District)
• Consulate General of El Salvador
• Consulate General of Guatemala
• Consulate General of Mexico
• …and this is just to make a few of our community partners.

And our most important neighborhood partner is the Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), which the most important Central American social service organization in the neighborhood; which is lifeline resource for the local residents, especially the day laborers, domestic workers and garment workers that live in this community. They have partnered with us since the very beginning, always stepping up to help us with even the most backbreaking of projects.

However, the majority of the workforce for most ¡Vida Sana! events are volunteers from the public. People who come out with their temple, church or school to help us set-up and hand out fresh produce with us. And individual volunteers who engage in doing crafts and art project with our youth. And volunteers to help with planting fruit trees and flowers.

Will you consider volunteering your time and resources to helping make a difference in the Los Angeles inner-city? Will you consider donating to this important cross-cultural, multi-faith project? Will you consider volunteering your energy and resourcefulness to make a positive impact in the lives of the people of downtown Los Angeles?

All this is possible because everyday people like you give heed the prophetic call and step-up to help us fulfill the mitzvah, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

CLICK HERE TO GET MORE INFORMATION AND TO SIGN-UP TO VOLUNTEER!

Do you like the Pico Union model? Do you have a community center, church or synagogue that you would like to host community resource events like ¡Vida Sana! ? The PUP model is inspiring people all over the city of Los Angeles to consider opening up their communal sites and religious space to utilizing this model project for the benefit of their communities. Let us know how we can help you get inspired and make this happen in your neighborhood!

The Racial Politics of Americanizing the Barrio Diet (1920s)

Is what you eat political? Do you accept the claim that your food choices determine your social order in this world? And do you accept that conforming to white American norms in eating is important in transforming people of color into better citizens? Will assimilating ones food choices make people of color less prone to crime and revolutionary tendencies?

Believe it or not, this is something that has been explored and well discussed in our communities for over a century.

In the 1920s in Southern California there were social reformers who were sent on transform the eating choices made by the public, especially among the immigrant working-class.

One of the most notable reformers to arise in this era was a lady by the name of Pearl Idelia Ellis, of the Department of Americanization and Homemaking, of Covina City Elementary Schools. She was the author the guide “Americanization though Homemaking” which was published in 1929, detailing her work.

Ellis’ work was based in Southern California, which put her in contact with local Mexican American homemakers. Where she would set an agenda for transforming their food choices into ones which made them more like the Anglo Americans they were expected to model.

In 1915 the California state legislature had passed the Home Teacher Act, which would allow school districts to employ teachers “to work in the homes of the pupils, instructing children and adults in matters related to school attendance,… in sanitation, in English language, in household duties,… and in fundamental principles of the American system of government and the rights and duties of citizenship.” This legislation was largely born out of an Americanist panic which arose at that time, as nativists insisted that society demanded that these so-called uncultured immigrants be Americanized.

This legislation enabled reformers like Pearl Ellis to take her work directly into the homes of the people she was trying to effect, with the official authority of state and local government behind her. While the work of Ellis extended into modeling almost every form of homemaking, she took special attention to food. She spent much time and energy with special concern for the nutrition of families and trying to influence their food choices.

She would encourage certain food choices for Mexican American mothers: giving up tortillas, and replacing them with sandwiches on store-bought white bread, made with mayonnaise and “commercial spreads,” and minced meats. They were further encouraged to give up essential staples of their diets like beans, and replaced them with lettuce and mixed salads (example: boiled spinach with mayonnaise, mixed fruit with mayonnaise, cherry-topped banana with mayonnaise, and even “pineapple and avocado salad with mayonnaise to carry out the color scheme”.)

In this manner she instructed mothers in making what she determined to be affordable and suitable food choices. She even went as far as to provide menus for their school lunch choices: “One glass of milk; one cheese sandwich; one lettuce sandwich; one graham cracker sandwich; one apple or pear; one cooky [sic]”.

She would set for people a top-down approach in how to transform Mexican homes into Americanized homes, starting with their choice for a child’s lunch. And based on the assumption that the dietary issues of the community was not based on a lack of food, but rooted in their poor choices of foods.

Professor George Sanchez of USC sheds some light on this for us:

“Food and diet management became tools in a system of social control intended to construct a well-behaved citizenry. A healthy diet was seen not only as an essential for proper health but as fundamental for creating productive members of society. In the eyes of reformers, the typical noon lunch of the Mexican child, thought to consist of “a folded tortilla with no filling,” became the first step in a life of crime. With “no milk or fruit to whet the appetite,” the child would become lazy and subsequently “take food from the lunch boxes of more fortunate children” in order to appease his or her hunger. “Thus,” reformers alleged, “the initial step in a life of thieving is taken.” Teaching immigrant women proper food values would keep the head of the family out of jail, the rest of the family off the charity list, and save taxpayers a great amount of money.”

(Mothers and Motherhood: Readings In American History; “Go After the Women: Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant Woman, 1915-1929)

The ideas of Americanization would not just be taught to mothers, but it would carry over into the education of girls in the school system. As young Mexican American girls were taught these values in order to model them for the home. With the idea that gradually one could transform the tastes of the family into more Americanized ones; which was further reinforced by the school lunch system.

The very table and every meal plate thus became battlefields for cultural assimilation.

Though make no mistake about it, their proposed model American-style diet was even intended to do nothing less than help maintain social order itself.

In her work titled “Americanization though Homemaking,” published in 1929, Pearl Ellis contended:

“The old adage, ‘ As a man thinketh so is he,’ might be easily translated to, ‘As a man eatest, so is he,’ for his thinking is controlled to a greater extent. Than we are wont to realize by his eating and digestive processes… Employers maintain that the man with a home and family is more dependable and less revolutionary in his tendencies. Thus the influence of the home extends to labor problems and to many other problems in the social regime. The homekeeper creates the atmosphere, whether it be one of harmony and cooperation or of dissatisfaction and revolt. It is to be remembered that the dispositions, one angelic, become very much marred with incorrect diet and resultant digestive disturbances.”

Yeah… how about that take on dietary pseudo-science based in classism.

Now think about that, vato, next time you find yourself eating your bologna and mayo, on white bread, that somehow found its way into your face!

And seriously, I also hope people give this all some real good consideration before you even listen to some politicians suggest replacing a big part of our Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with “Blue Apron” type meals sent down to us from a government-based central planning, developed by the current administration and rolled-out by private corporate contractors. Think of how bad it could go, if our food is directly chosen for us by them; with food being sent to us regardless of our specific dietary needs and cultural customs.

History tell us that people who lack cultural sensitivity take the reins, they do more damage than just make culturally inappropriate food choices. They also tend to want to change our diets as a form of maintaining the social order.

Topics of further discussion:

• The social pressure to Americanize ones diet was also experienced by other immigrants as well, especially among the Jews in the “corn beef belt” of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles. The dietary choices of Ashkenazi Jews from the east were often considered too exotic and rich; they were expected to conform to a more Americanized diet. In some cases Jewish social service organizations even encouraged what they considered cheaper and more mainstream treif (non-kosher, religiously inappropriate) foods. When the Los Angeles Council of Jewish Women in 1928 published their “Helpful Hints for Jewish Housewives,” they included recipes for Virginia ham, pork chops, oysters and other non-kosher recipes as well as advertisements for Best Foods Mayonnaise, Maxwell House Coffee, and branded canned vegetables and other processed foods.

• Lunchtime social pressure to assimilate. In Fred Okrand’s interview for the UCLA Center for Oral History Research, “Forty Years Defending the Constitution, Oral History Interview” Tape 1 side 2 – Feb. 4th, 1982, Okrand speaks of his classmates at Lorena Street School in Boyle Heights: “… The kids would make fun of me…because they would be eating sandwiches on white bread, on what we would call kvachehdikeh, soft white bread. But my mother was a Jewish woman; she would go to the varshehveh bakery on Brooklyn Avenue and get good Jewish rye bread. And I remember being ashamed somehow, that I was eating rye bread and the other kids weren’t….” He was shamed for eating cheaper and darker Jewish rye bread, instead of grocery store-bought white bread.