Post-election Vigil Brings People Together in Boyle Heights

Faith communities of Los Angeles come together in resistance after the Trump election

Shmu and Squared at the I Am America Vigil at Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, on this rainy day we packed into the parsh church and sat on the floor with the other people coming in to be part of this time of inspiration and renewal.

On Sunday morning the people of the city of Los Angeles came together for an interfaith vigil at Dolores Mission Catholic Church in our working-class neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Hundreds of people came out and lined the pews, the walkways, floors and spilled out the door of the church despite the cold rain pouring outside.

People of all backgrounds came out this day to unite and join our voices as one, to find strength in faith and in each other, to overcome the fear that has gripped us in the post-election season. To unite as one as we see the rise of Trump and racial nationalism threatening the security of us all. We came together – Latino, African-American, Japanese, Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish and LGBTQ – to stand united. Standing with all our brothers and sisters who feel threatened.

This event was organized by LA Voice – a local interfaith and community based organization. Dedicated to giving voice to all people of faith and advancing the pursuit of dignity for those in greatest need in our community. Co-sponsoring and in attendance at this event were the people of:

* ACLU Southern California * All Saints Church * American Muslim Professionals (AMP-LA) * Asian Americans Advancing Justice LA * Bend The Arc * Beth Shir Shalom * CAIR-LA * CLUE * Guibord Center * Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace * Islamic Center of Southern California * IKAR Synagogue * ILM Foundation * Islamic Shura Council of Southern California

* Jewish Voices for Peace * Japanese American National Museum * La Asociación Latina Musulmana de América * Little Tokyo Service Center * Muslim Public Affairs Council * Muslims for Progressive Values * New City Church of Los Angeles * Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress * Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center * Pico Union Project * Temple Isaiah * Sahaba Initiative * South Coast Interfaith Council * St. Camillus Catholic Center * Steven S Wise Temple * Temple Israel of Hollywood

As we joined in prayer and song, gave testimony and spoke of resistance, we also committed to doing more than just cry out. We committed to organizing together as one people.

As I came in out of the rain dripping eves and slipped in through the crowd I heard the words of Deacon Jason Welles of the Dolores Mission Parish: “We are here today to lament, and to share our lamentations together. We are here together to form solidarity. We are in solidarity to encourage each other and to ignite a new work. Because our work did not end of November 8th, our work begins now in solidarity.”

This event was also joining in solidarity with other communities across the nation who were also holding #IAmAmerica rallies in their hometown.

Haru Kuromiy spoke of her memories as a 12 year old girl of being interred with he family at Manzanar during the detention of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. She spoke in “opposition to the proposal to register American Muslims. I do not want to see any community suffer like we did.”
During this meeting people of all faiths and backgrounds vowed to in the face of Muslim registry, we will ourselves register as Muslims.

As I looked across the crowd I was touched by the sight of people I know from across the city, who instinctively came out to join in solidarity. Though I was even more deeply moved to see walls of people who I have never seen in my neighborhood before, all coming out to give and find strength in each other.

Seated on the floor in front of me was Eric A. Gordon, author and director emeritus of the Arbeter Ring (Workmen’s Circle) in Southern California. He wrote an excellent article about the event, in which he rightfully mentions the contributions of each faith community to this event, titled: “Faith communities find a new voice in resistance after election.”

In his article Gordon, an expert on leftist organzing, described this event as filled with “courageous, militant speeches and songs.” I wouldn’t say “militant,” but maybe “radical.” And even then the only thing radical about this event was that it drew people together from across all ethnic and religious lines to stand together against injustice; much like the early political organizing of Boyle Heights from the 1930s through the 1950s. Congregates committing to unite as one people and as part of a single goal, to protect the rights of each person in America. And vowing to neither stand alone nor leave each other alone in the struggle. Something that has been so lost for almost two generations, that it may again seems radical at this point in history.

However, Gordon did a great job on detailing this event journalistically.

So I just want to take a few moments to point out what really touched me and what I felt as member of this very community of Boyle Heights.

Crouched on the floor right next to us was Craig Taubman, Jewish sing-songwriter and founder of the Pico Union Project, who I have worked with for the past year in Pico Union. I was so surprised and glad to see his presence in my own backyard.

When LA Voice had begun to plan the event they had first considered using the fascilities of the Pico Union Project (the oldest standing synagogue in Los Angeles) and the Breed Street Shul (the historic “Queen of the Shuls in Boyle Heights), both located in historically significant, multi-ethnic, immigrant communities. Before choosing Dolores Mission, which would normally accommodate a larger crowd, had it not been for the rain.

As we embraced Craig asked, “Hey, I’m in your hood right?”

I responded, “Yeah. Actually my family was one of the first Mexican land owning families here in the Flats. My great-great-grandparents had their market at the end of this block, at First and Gless, when this neighborhood was still known as Russian Flats. I’ll tell you the truth though, I’ve never in my lifetime seen this diverse of a crowd coming together here in this neighborhood before. This is inspiring!”

Shortly after Craig would be called out of the crowd. He would get the congregation engaged with asking: “How do you say love in Spanish? Amor. How do you say love in Hebrew? Ahavah. How do you say love in Russian? Just checking!” Long had the Russian community left the area and our Mexican families taken root, but he just had to check to make sure no one was left out.

And in the way that only Craig can do, he got the crowd joining in song and motion to the words: “We can build this world with love.” Leaving the crowd glowing in inspiration.

Rabbi Ron Stern from Stephen S. Wise Temple addressed the crowd next. Gordon notes that Stern took to the podium: “remarking about ‘a lot of Hebrew being spoken in Boyle Heights,’ a reference to the fact that this area was at one time the largest Jewish community west of Chicago, and the epicenter of much social activism. He taught the audience the importance of the line from Deuteronomy, ‘Tsedek tsedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue.’ ‘We’ve always said that,’ as he recalled not just Jewish history but the history of all oppressed people. ‘We’ve picked ourselves up, buried our dead if we had to, and we’ve said Tsedek tsedek tirdof. We will not stop. History tells us we cannot give up. We want to make sure that the world we dream of is the world we will live in.’”

I’ll tell you the truth. Rabbi Stern’s astonishment at hearing Hebrew words being spoken in Boyle Heights that day was none less than my own. And it was really moving to me. Though my amazement was more related to seeing people from the Jewish community coming out to be more that just tourists of their grandparents history, but to actually be part of a living movement and to join in direct social action in the present; and that was something I had never experienced like this before in this neighborhood.

This neighborhood of Boyle Heights is one of Los Angeles’ most historic immigrant communities. And as a large immigrant community of mostly Mexican-Americans today, this community is feeling even more vulnerable and also fearful in the wake of this election.

Though this event had deep impact in that it brought to the forefront the struggles of so many of our other neighbors and friends we need to be mindful to support in the face of Trump’s demagoguery.

Marta Galadery, from La Asociación Latina Musulmana de América.

People like Marta Galadery, from La Asociación Latina Musulmana de América. As a convert to Islam, who helped found the association decades ago to find fellowship among other Latina Muslim women. I’m glad that she was there to speak up for Latina Muslim community, which is most vulnerable in that many people in our community don’t even know they even exist. It was important to hear from her. She spoke of finding herself in fear of discrimination on two fronts, as Latina and as a Muslim. Addressing the crowd she asked and asserted, “How are we all together going to help each other?… G-d has the last word, but we have to act.”

And she’s right we as people of faith and social action we need to act. And we need to consider how we are going to do it, and do it together.

And that was really the important thing about this event, it was all about doing it together as one people.

Rahuldeepgill of the local Sikh community addressed the crowd. Talking about how in his tradition, they had faced the rise of tyrants and persecution. And in the early days their leaders were even eventually put to death for standing up for the rights of others.

Rahuldeepgill passionately stated, “But that is the lesson of my tradition. We take it for one another. The days of standing up for ourselves are long gone. The days of standing up for each other are our future. We need to continue to act.” He words met with cheering and thunderous applause.

He made an even deeper point. That many “confused people” tell him that in the wake of hate crimes that turban wearing Sikhs should go out of their way to let people know that they are not Muslim. So as not be the victims of mis-direct violence, but that it isn’t right. We are in it together.

Preacher André Scott also spoke, saying “Donald Trump, if you make us rally together. G-d bless Donald Trump!” Scott was a former gang banger and also faced the corrections systems, and now ministers to those who are also coming out of those hardships.

Though what gave me the chills was to hear Brother Scott say these words I’ve been waiting for any community leader to have the courage to say: “It’s not about black power, or any of that anymore. It’s about us power!”

That needed to be said. Especially here and now.

One of the realities is that this most vulnerable neighborhood of Boyle Heights has long felt isolation because of prejudice and injustice, but also because it has long been obsessed with simular “brown power.” A neighborhood which has all but forgotten their rich history of inter-cultural social and political activism, and has long been gripped in sole pursuit of our own ethnic and nationalistic self-interests ever since the Chicano rights movement.

The fact is that we can’t counter the rise of the white nationalism as seen in this election with any other form of racial nationalism. We cant counter white power with brown power. In fact it is plainly obvious that all racial nationalism only feeds into the likes of racial separatism and exclusivity. That all needs to end.

So I now repeat what needs to be stated, what is long overdue to be said: It’s not about brown power. Those days are over. It’s about us power now!

And that was the power of that event, to me. That on that day we came together to commit to stand as one. We have risen above self-interest and divisiveness. Above religious, racial and nationalist exclusivity. Not about brown power or black power anymore, but about us power. We stand united.

From the front of the church, a view of the crowd that packed in to the parish church.

Facing the back, from my vantage point on the floor of the church. Individualsd from the audience sharing with the crowd.

One thing that the locals and even the organizers of the event didn’t know was that they vigil they were having that day mirrored another monumental event in Boyle Heights history, which had taken place almost 78 years ago to the day on November 22, 1938. When Los Angeles groups organized a parade protesting the Nazi’s rise to power and their wave of violence against Jews in the events of Kristallnacht. And to raise their voices on behalf of  Jewish refugees, who were being denied entrance by the US and the world powers.

On that night came together people Jewish and non-Jewish, brown and white, black and Asian, adult and children; to show support and stand in solidarity with the Jews who were facing Nazism not just in Europe, but also in Los Angeles.

I had many times heard first hand stories from my friends who were there at this most notorious protest parade. At that key moment in the advancement of social activism and civil rights organizing, which would directly inspire inter-community and interfaith cooperation for decades to come. I often wished I had myself been so lucky to see such a diverse movement of people come together and rise up as one. [“The Anti-Nazi Parade of November 1938. – Local civil rights activism born out of the Jewish refugee crisis.”]

I think in this event I got a prevision of that experience. It’s now up to us to continue to come together to make our actions into a movement, in our days and in our time.

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Check out these videos of the event, posted on Facebook by the Dolores Mission. They capture about the first two hours of the event.

Some of my favorite footage is from when Pastor Delonte Gholston of New City Church of Los Angeles address the crowd and lead us in songs of resistance. I was deeply moved by his song based on the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “Night cannot turn back the night, only light.” That is also the right message for these darkening times. I’ve had this inspirational melody stuck in my head ever since.

Enjoy!

Video #2:

Related articles:

• “Latino-Jewish Relations: Rooted in a Shared Immigrant, Working Class Experience“
• “The Anti-Nazi Parade, Boyle Heights (1938)” – Local civil rights activism born out of the Jewish refugee crisis

Jewish-Latino Relations: Rooted in a Shared Immigrant, Working-class Experience

A brief history of how Jewish immigrants lent their acquired experience in organizing to more recent Latino immigrants.

Two girls wearing banners with slogan “ABOLISH CH[ILD] SLAVERY!!” in English and Yiddish (“(ני)דער מיט (קינד)ער שקלאפער(ײ)”, “Nider mit Kinder Schklawerii”), one carrying American flag; spectators stand nearby. Probably taken during May 1, 1909 labor parade in New York City.

During the 1920’s, many workers such as fieldhands, miners and fishers went on strike because of huge pay cuts. They also weren’t happy because their pay was being lowered but they were still forced to pay the same amout of tax. This led to huge strikes and many of the worker’s families were starving because they were not being paid at all.

After an initial period in East Coast and the mid-west cities, significant numbers of Jewish immigrants and their families drawn by the economic boom, move to Los Angeles, eventually making Boyle Heights home to largest Jewish community west of Chicago.

“Under the direction of Israel Feinberg, the Los Angeles ILGWU membership rose from 30 to 2,000 between 1930 and 1935, making it one of the larger unions in Southern California. Part of the growth resulted from the 1933 strike by Latina dressmakers. By 1938 the ILGWU’s Spanish-speaking branch had a float in the city’s annual Labor Day parade, and Latinas were active within the union.” – Kenneth Burt

In 1933, the Los Angeles garment industry employed nearly 7,500 workers, half of which were scattered in an estimated 200 small sweatshops in the downtown garment district. Latinas comprised nearly 75 percent of those workers, with the rest consisting of Italians, Russians and Americans.

“Under the direction of Israel Feinberg, the Los Angeles ILGWU membership rose from 30 to 2,000 between 1930 and 1935, making it one of the larger unions in Southern California. Part of the growth resulted from the 1933 strike by Latina dressmakers. By 1938 the ILGWU’s Spanish-speaking branch had a float in the city’s annual Labor Day parade, and Latinas were active within the union.” – Kenneth Burt

(Revised November 2015)

Jewish-Latino relations in the US are built upon a legacy of recognizing a shared immigrant and working-class experience. We have a long history of being natural allies in promoting social advances. And it all began with organized labor.

At the start of the 20^th century an influx of impoverished Eastern European Jewish immigrants provided this country with a desperate and eager labor force. Many of these new immigrants going into the garment and dress-making industry. However, the working conditions in this era of the industrial revolution were terrible and even deadly. Women laborers such as these were among those who organized as early as 1900 in New York City, founding the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU). Often holding meetings in Yiddish.

With immigrants venturing west and industry taking off in the booming years of Los Angeles, ILGWU became established here in 1910.

However, by the 1930s the largest growing group of new union members were Spanish-speaking Latinos. Saby Nehama – a Sephardic Jew, a Jewish person of Spanish descent – first organized efforts among Spanish speakers on the east coast. And then whole Spanish-speaking branches were soon established in several major cities. [see “Memories and Migrations: Mapping Boricua and Chicana Histories,” p. 130]

In Los Angeles, the work of organizing would be most fearlessly taken up by Russian Jewish immigrant and political anarchist Rose Pesotta [See: Jewish Women’s Archive: Encyclopedia; also see Wikipedia.] As stated in this account published by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324:

“On September 15, 1933, a young, New York labor organizer by the name of Rose Pesotta landed in Los Angeles. Pesotta once worked in Southern California where she had been discharged from a garment factory and blacklisted for union activity. Now Pesotta was returning at the request of garment workers to organize their industry. Within one month a new International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) local was formed and the garment industry found itself in the middle of a bitter strike with Rose Pesotta leading the charge.

“In 1933, the Los Angeles garment industry employed nearly 7,500 workers, half of which were scattered in an estimated 200 small sweatshops in the downtown garment district. Latinas comprised nearly 75 percent of those workers, with the rest consisting of Italians, Russians and Americans. Nearly half of the female dressmakers made less than $5 a week, which stood as a clear violation of the $16 a week California minimum wage for female workers and National Industrial Recovery Act’s (NRA) Dress Code, which set standards in the industry. Workers who attempted to organize were routinely fired and blacklisted by the employers. The local leadership of the ILGWU, consisting of mostly white men, had no interest in organizing female dressmakers, feeling that most either leave the industry to raise their families or shouldn’t be working in the first place.

“But Rose Pesotta refused to buy into that dismissive attitude. With the ILGWU International’s approval, she began laying the foundation for a new local (Local 96). She reached out to the Latina community through a bilingual radio program and a weekly paper called, The Organizer.”

This work of organizing would not just be expanded into other cities, it would also result in cross-cultivation in other forms of civil rights organizing. As historian Kenneth Burt wrote:

“In sections of the Bronx, in the West Side section of St. Paul, Minnesota, and in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, Spanish-speaking Latinos replaced Yiddish-speaking Jews as the newest immigrant group.

“Organized labor often served as a bridge between these working-class, ethnic communities. Unions also provided a political voice for the emerging Latino community.

“The International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) served this function on the Eastside of Los Angeles. The ILGWU engaged directly in civic life. It also helped establish and worked through a variety of Latino and Jewish and organizations, as well as broad-based civil rights coalitions.

“The groups in the ILGWU’s sphere of influence included the Jewish Labor Committee and the Mexican American-oriented Community Service Organization (CSO). Early CSO leaders included Maria Duran and Hope Mendoza from the ILGWU.

“Directly and indirectly the ILGWU played a key role in the election of Edward Roybal to the Los Angeles City Council in 1949, and to the adoption of fair employment and fair housing laws in California in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”

The historic influence of the Community Service Organization (CSO) in Latino civil rights and politics cannot be overstated.

Founded in 1947 in the Los Angeles eastside, CSO was envisioned by Fred Ross, while inspired and funded greatly by Saul Alinsky. As well as later receiving essential financial backing from allied Jewish organizations – most notably the Community Relations Committee (CRC) – a Jewish organization founded originally in the early 1930s as an anti-fascist organization; dedicated to fighting antisemitism, pro-Nazi outreach and organized racism. [also see, “Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles. Community Relations Committee (1933-), Special Collections & Archives”]

The Community Service Organization (CSO) was uniquely created to be a “Mexican NAACP.” Ross and Alinsky took notice that Mexicans were by far the largest and yet most ill treated minority. Mexicans still being the only minority group to not be widely organized. And also standing alone in having no political power or decision-making, with less than 10% of Latino citizens being registered to vote. [see “The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights.”]

In the words of Scott Washburn of CSO:

“In 1947, in direct response to rampant police abuse, a lack of educational opportunities, widespread discrimination in government services, a strong culture of bigotry that allowed even people of good conscience to turn a blind eye to the suffering of their neighbors, and ultimately, to the Zoot Suit Riots and Bloody Christmas, the Community Service Organization was founded by Antonio Rios, Edward Roybal, and Fred Ross, Sr. Quickly, the CSO became a training ground for the first generation of Latino leaders, including Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Gilbert Padilla. Recognizing the need for a unified Latino voice and for some semblance of political representation, the CSO initially concentrated on organizing voter registration drives in Latino communities all across California. In 1949, the CSO‘s efforts culminated in the election of Edward Roybal, the first Latino to serve on the Los Angeles City Council.”

Royball would ride a wave of crucial Yiddish speaking political support in Boyle Heights, backing his ascent to City Hall and further still. The future Congressman Edward Roybal would later take his social causes to the halls of the US Congress with him as well.

Fred Ross would continue to expand CSO at the behest of Alinsky, helping establish their presence first in Oxnard and later in San Jose.  Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, trained by CSO in Alinsky style protest, would then take the cause directly into the local fields; thus founding the United Farm Workers, which is widely considered the most influential and visible Latino organization to date. The UFW is the primary historical and still active model for Latino activism to this day.

[Learn more about the discipleship of Cesar Chavez under the tutelage of Saul Alinsky’s, and the rise UFW as an outgrowth of CSO. See “Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa.”]

While today American Jews might not be the face of the working-class anymore, many Jewish community leaders have made it an activist goal to fight for workers rights and better immigration reform for Latinos. Maintaining a legacy of support for these and other progressive causes, due to the similar collective memory Jews have of their grandparents and great-grandparents being exploited as poor immigrants.

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For more information, I highly recommend Kenneth Burt’s unpublished paper, “Garment Workers as Bridge Builders: Immigrant Radicalism and the Search for Economic Justice.”

For further information regarding the UFW and Jewish activism, see a wonderful piece by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz: “The Forgotten Story of Cesar Chavez and the Jews.” (HuffPost)

Related articles:

• “Cesar Chavez and the Community Service Organization” (with documentary video)
• “Yiddish Boyle Heights and the Birth of Latino Politics“
• “The Los Angeles Jewish Community: An Examination of its History of Activism for Human Rights.” (Brief Version)