Photos By Jay ClarkSome of the Hmong who live in Hawthorne gathered at the HNC Office on Friday night to discuss neighborhood issues. Hawthorne's ubiquitous Housing Director, Jeff Skrenes, was there and provides the following account...
There's a history between the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council and the Hmong in Hawthorne that hasn't been told very much before. Here's some points and I'm not even knowledgeable enough to know if you could call them "main points," but here goes.
Jay Clark at CURA has helped create a Jordan-Hawthorne Hmong youth soccer team (I know, I've TRIED to get it changed to the "Hawthorne-Jordan" team, but the uniforms were already made.) which has been quite successful. The soccer program has led to the ability to do some sneaky organizing, getting folks connected and talking to kids and families about issues when they
don't even realize they're talking about neighborhood issues. Jay doesn't speak much Hmong, of course, so he works with Yia Yang, a Community Programs Specialist with the U.
Well, one day over the summer they were dropping the kids off at one of the kids' homes at 29th and Aldrich, and Jay saw some other teenagers hanging around the property. It didn't look like they were friends, so Jay asked the kids if the other youth were there because they were friends or not.
(I'm making the details a little hazy in order to protect the family and kids who were part of this, by the way)
With a little more prodding, Jay found out that the youth were gang members who had pretty much claimed the entryway of the place the Hmong family was renting as their "territory." They spray-painted obscene pictures on the walls, kicked holes in the walls, and intimidated the Hmong whenever they were stood up to.
It doesn't take much understanding of Hmong culture to know that 1) calling 911 presents a MAJOR language barrier, and 2) calling a uniformed, armed government employee didn't do a heck of a lot of good where they came from. So we had a big job ahead of us.
Jay and Yia worked with the Hmong families on role-playing and calling 911, and I started barking up some trees (nicely) with the MPD. Together, we got some police to sit down with the family that was being victimized and that helped resolve the situation at 29th and Aldrich.
But like any good community organizer, Jay didn't stop there, and like any good organization, neither did Hawthorne. Jay speculated that the number of Hmong police officers in Minneapolis was not proportionate to the number of Hmong represented in the general population. I know, I know, easy to figure out. But this is where a partnership with the University really helps. They can do research that empirically validates what we know as a community and then with the weight of academia behind us, we can use that information to bring about policy changes.
So Jay came to our Crime Prevention and Family Safety meeting in the fall and asked for neighborhood support of a CURA study about minority police officers in Minneapolis and St. Paul and to what extent that mirrors community demographics in terms of numbers of minority officers and where they are stationed. Results of that study are coming soon, but north Minneapolis has two more Hmong police officers than one might expect. Both of them patrol at night, however.
So, anyway, this Friday many of the youth and some parents came to the Hawthorne offices for a pizza party. I have to admit, I was NOT looking forward to working until 8 pm on a Friday. I had sleep to catch up on after achieving geek Nirvana at a midnight showing of Watchmen, sleeping for four hours, and then coming to work for 11.
But this turned out to be FUN, and not just because of the free pizza. Jay's energy is always contagious, for one thing. But whenever there's community changes happening, that's almost as good as caffiene when it comes to keeping me awake. Jay asked questions about the neighborhood, Yia translated, and I took notes and answered their questions. We talked about what kind of behavior is a strong indicator of drug activity at a house, and how calling 911 repeatedly really helps bring about change - even if it happens slowly.
I talked about how making a personal connection with the police and our residents was crucial to changing the EcoVillage, and I said that we ought to do the same thing for the family that parks their car far away from their house because they're worried about it being broken into a third time. Then the police aren't driving or walking through our neighborhood thinking about 23rd and Aldrich (random intersection, not a place identified by the families), but instead are relating to our community on a personal level with Mr. and Mrs. Xiong and their kids.
We promised to have more meetings, including one where the Hmong families in Hawthorne can meet our Hmong police officers in the 4th Precinct. And then I went home and slept.
There's a history between the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council and the Hmong in Hawthorne that hasn't been told very much before. Here's some points and I'm not even knowledgeable enough to know if you could call them "main points," but here goes.
Jay Clark at CURA has helped create a Jordan-Hawthorne Hmong youth soccer team (I know, I've TRIED to get it changed to the "Hawthorne-Jordan" team, but the uniforms were already made.) which has been quite successful. The soccer program has led to the ability to do some sneaky organizing, getting folks connected and talking to kids and families about issues when they
don't even realize they're talking about neighborhood issues. Jay doesn't speak much Hmong, of course, so he works with Yia Yang, a Community Programs Specialist with the U.
Well, one day over the summer they were dropping the kids off at one of the kids' homes at 29th and Aldrich, and Jay saw some other teenagers hanging around the property. It didn't look like they were friends, so Jay asked the kids if the other youth were there because they were friends or not.
(I'm making the details a little hazy in order to protect the family and kids who were part of this, by the way)
With a little more prodding, Jay found out that the youth were gang members who had pretty much claimed the entryway of the place the Hmong family was renting as their "territory." They spray-painted obscene pictures on the walls, kicked holes in the walls, and intimidated the Hmong whenever they were stood up to.
It doesn't take much understanding of Hmong culture to know that 1) calling 911 presents a MAJOR language barrier, and 2) calling a uniformed, armed government employee didn't do a heck of a lot of good where they came from. So we had a big job ahead of us.
Jay and Yia worked with the Hmong families on role-playing and calling 911, and I started barking up some trees (nicely) with the MPD. Together, we got some police to sit down with the family that was being victimized and that helped resolve the situation at 29th and Aldrich.
But like any good community organizer, Jay didn't stop there, and like any good organization, neither did Hawthorne. Jay speculated that the number of Hmong police officers in Minneapolis was not proportionate to the number of Hmong represented in the general population. I know, I know, easy to figure out. But this is where a partnership with the University really helps. They can do research that empirically validates what we know as a community and then with the weight of academia behind us, we can use that information to bring about policy changes.
So Jay came to our Crime Prevention and Family Safety meeting in the fall and asked for neighborhood support of a CURA study about minority police officers in Minneapolis and St. Paul and to what extent that mirrors community demographics in terms of numbers of minority officers and where they are stationed. Results of that study are coming soon, but north Minneapolis has two more Hmong police officers than one might expect. Both of them patrol at night, however.
So, anyway, this Friday many of the youth and some parents came to the Hawthorne offices for a pizza party. I have to admit, I was NOT looking forward to working until 8 pm on a Friday. I had sleep to catch up on after achieving geek Nirvana at a midnight showing of Watchmen, sleeping for four hours, and then coming to work for 11.
But this turned out to be FUN, and not just because of the free pizza. Jay's energy is always contagious, for one thing. But whenever there's community changes happening, that's almost as good as caffiene when it comes to keeping me awake. Jay asked questions about the neighborhood, Yia translated, and I took notes and answered their questions. We talked about what kind of behavior is a strong indicator of drug activity at a house, and how calling 911 repeatedly really helps bring about change - even if it happens slowly.
I talked about how making a personal connection with the police and our residents was crucial to changing the EcoVillage, and I said that we ought to do the same thing for the family that parks their car far away from their house because they're worried about it being broken into a third time. Then the police aren't driving or walking through our neighborhood thinking about 23rd and Aldrich (random intersection, not a place identified by the families), but instead are relating to our community on a personal level with Mr. and Mrs. Xiong and their kids.
We promised to have more meetings, including one where the Hmong families in Hawthorne can meet our Hmong police officers in the 4th Precinct. And then I went home and slept.
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