In San Diego, Two Different Paths to Change

Reprinted from The Institute for Comprehensive Community Development, Article By: Patrick T Reardon

Two neighborhoods, just four miles apart in the vast sprawl of San Diego’s ravines and canyons, are walking two different paths toward community improvement.

Greater Logan Heights, a largely Latino neighborhood that was once mostly African-American, is methodically bringing together community groups that have never much worked together before. Colina Park, a polyglot of immigrants and refugees where language barriers and distrust run high, is finding ways to communicate and build a culture of activism.

They’re both part of theNeighborhoods First Initiative organized by San Diego LISC, and they’re both moving into implementation of their quality-of-life plans.

Different challenges

A store in the Vietnamese shopping district in Colina Park. Colina Park's ethnic groups are just learning to communicate with each other. Courtesy San Diego LISC

Colina Park brings together people from virtually every corner of the world – Vietnamese, Mexicans, Sudanese, Karen people from Burma, Somalis and other East Africans, to name a few. An estimated 40 languages are spoken at its kitchen tables and on its sidewalks. The average household income is about $20,000, and roughly one in three households doesn't own a car.

Located in a far corner of San Diego's City Heights  area, Colina Park has often been overlooked by   programs aimed at the larger area. That's not  surprising since it has no community organization to  lobby on its behalf. And because of its transient  population, it has a weak identity among residents  themselves.

"When you ask people in Colina Park where they live,   they say City Heights," said Sakara Tear of the City  Heights Community Development Corporation  (CDC), the convening agency for the area's  Neighborhoods First program.

By contrast, Greater Logan Heights, which includes  five communities and similar income levels to Colina Park, has a history of activism dating back to the 1960s. For much of the 20th century, it was an African-American enclave. Today, it is 85 percent Latino. And it has a multiplicity of neighborhood groups, many of which bang heads over what needs to be done to improve the community.

Many do agree, though, that the redevelopment of downtown San Diego will spill into Greater Logan Heights in the form of gentrification, forcing long-time residents to move. Distrust of outsiders is high.

"We get organizations all the time coming here. We call them grant-sucking agencies,” says one community leader who requested anonymity for fear of alienating funders.

Teaching community activism

Two years ago, when LISC and the City Heights CDC began working with Colina Park residents to create a quality-of-life plan, they knew the diversity of the neighborhood would make the process difficult. It was even harder than they expected. 

Tear, who oversees the area’s Neighborhoods First program, says plans for simultaneously translating the planning meetings for everyone in the room were quickly dropped because there were just too many languages represented. So organizers relied on images.

"When we said, 'housing,' we didn't just say the word, but reinforced it with a picture," said Tear, the daughter of Cambodia refugees. "When we said, 'bad housing,' we showed a picture of a house with peeling paint. When we talked about 'walkability,' we showed a crowded sidewalk."

Many of the immigrants were shy about expressing their opinions, Tear says. "So if they didn't want to raise their hand, they could put it down on paper."

For many, the democratic concept of community activism was scary. "The refugee population – they're new to this country, and they don't come from places where acting collectively is allowed, so there's a psychological barrier to organizing," said Kerry Sheldon, a planner who coordinates the Neighborhoods First programs for San Diego LISC.

National Night Out was a pivotal event, bringing out a large and diverse crowd. Courtesy San Diego LISC

There is also a general distrust of government officials, particularly those in law enforcement, said Amina Adan, an emerging community leader who was born in Somalia and spent time in Kenya before arriving in the U.S.

"Immigrant people, they think if they talk to the law, it will affect their immigrant status," she said. "They think, if you have trouble, you don't run to the police. You run away from the police." 

Even so, one of the first efforts at community action during the planning stage – participation in the National Night Out on Aug. 5, 2008, in support of anti-crime efforts – was a resounding success. "We had 300 residents out walking," says Tear. "I've been here my whole life, and I was shocked at how many people came out. I've never seen 50 people doing something together in this neighborhood."