experience

This was my first time meeting with Liz Ames and we talked about our plan to overcome this problem. We discussed how we could meet halfway and get the youth involved. Liz informed me about the layout of the highway extension and how this would not be beneficial to Union City residents. Maria informed me about the environmental aspect and how the aquifer could be affected as well as the pollution aspect because of the heavy traffic expected. I feel like this meeting definitely gave me a sense of direction and helped motivate me to move forward with my project knowing I had them two for support. I think this meeting also gave me a lot of new insight into the farm and what I can do to help. After this meeting, I felt further prepared and started taking my first steps in order to make a change.

During Maria's and Liz's presentation, they talked about where the road would be built, starting on 7th St and Mission and ending by Paseo Padre. They also mentioned that part of it would require underground building and some bridges over the creek. They mentioned the cost of this highway extension and how the city has already started to push forward this plan. We discussed some history on the land and what we can do to help the youth and the new generation make change. I think this was definitely something the class needed to be informed about and now that we are further aware of the situation we can focus on how we can help. I also feel like having two of our elders be so inspired by us and willing to help us every step of the way is really beneficial because we are not alone. Now I feel like we can start to educate others outside of our senior class and get other students involved in different aspects.

Maria had an engaging presentation where she discussed a lot about mother earth and also about our indigenous roots and how we are all connected as one. I heard her do some freestyle rap to discuss how we are damaging our planet. I saw her act out many roles to help us visualize and take in large amounts of information. I think this presentation was so amazing and it really puts into perspective where we fit into all of this going on around us. It inspired me to keep going with my project despite all my self doubt and it made me realize that I want to be like Maria when I grow up and continue to pass down that torch to the new generations. By hearing the history of our ancestors it fueled me to keep going and work towards my goals. I think these types of presentations can be really good to the youth to get us inspired and get us motivated to make change.

At the event, me and a couple of classmates helped out by informing the community about Ramirez Farm and the highway extension. We went around the event talking to anyone willing to listen and informed them about the farm and recruiting for signatures for our upcoming rally on May 24th. A lot of people are not aware of the situation and a lot of them are also not willing to be informed because they aren’t Union City residents. I feel like this experience definitely helped me and also made me become stronger as I experienced a lot of rejection from people. It is not a bad thing as now I feel better prepared to approach a similar situation and communicate better with others about the farm. It was like feeling the water before jumping in. I think this experience also helped because seeing the youth willing to make a change can help us save the farm as it shows our power.

In this experience, I helped table with Maria and Liz Ames about saving Ramirez Farm and we got to inform logan students about the current situation. we had posters to hand out and we also went over a quick summary of why the farm holds so much value and to why this highway extension will do more bad than good. I think this just like the earth day tabling helped me realize that getting the community to genuinely care about the farm will be tough but it gave me insight into what we can do better. We also came up with a day for our rally and started informing students about it. I feel a little bit more prepared to take on these next steps and I am prepared to keep coming forward with this project. I do recognize that students at Logan have a hard time being involved and especially informing themselves but with the help of Maria and Liz I am confident we can have a good outcome since they are very knowledgeable.