General Reflections: Personal and "Public" Health

I'm sitting down to write again, after a long day of wrestling with bills. Did I get paid for my teaching assistantship and the research? (Yes and NO!) Did I put together all the tax information for that infamous up and coming day? (No.) Did I clear the library bills? (Kind of). Did I clear all the medical bills? (HELL NO.)

The student health insurance plan is covered through United Healthcare. I know that other healthcare providers in Los Angeles are really difficult for people outside of this insular university sphere, such as Kaiser. I used to think my plan was "good" -- I get a fellowship, and that pays for the Graduate Student Health Insurance Plan. Great. Fees to see a nurse practitioner -- none. Rates of accupuncture for post-accident therapy - $25 a session. Nice. Co-pay for Eye-visit - $10. Wow.

Shit. I shoulda read the fine print. Emergency Room visit, 15 other random lab tests, and a CT scan - hella co-pays. Now, many people have written about the "medical-industrial complex,"

The medical-industrial complex (MIC) refers to the health industry, which is composed of the multibillion-dollar congeries of enterprises including doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, hospital supply and equipment companies, real estate and construction businesses, health systems consulting and accounting firms, and banks. As employed by the Ehrenreichs, the concept conveys the idea that an important (if not the primary) function of the health care system in the United States is business (that is, to make profits)

the perils of the privatization of health care insurance, and the overall lack of competency in the U.S. medical public health institution in understanding the ways that race, class, gender, sexuality and immigration play into health care access, services and navigability. Today was another opportunity to witness that garbage.

Something about, being charged an amount I currently cannot afford, explaining it on the phone to my mother, and listening to my father, made me cry. I was on the shuttle, and just sort of, broke down. She calmed me, told me not to worry, and we'd figure out a way. Fax the information to her. I'm such a kid still, I guess. She told me about when she had her first C-section, her first hospital trip in this country, and saw all the medical bills then, she too cried. She really worried and wondered how they were going to get it together. I guess she had really good insurance then, because she told me that she was able to get it covered.

That was the first time she told me a story like that. How isolated she must have felt. She told me they didn't even have a penny at that time to give to the medical industry - the hospital, the medicines, the ER, the surgery. Then, of course, she told me to pray and that it will all go away. I think for now, I'll still resort to organizing as a means of "praying," but walking down the extra street instead of immediately going to the next location did give me a sense of space from these worries. Just gotta keep sensibility in our day to day. Lesse what momma gots up her sleeves.

New Salon, More Gender Justice: WOW Beauty Opens on Washington

I have to speak on the radio tomorrow for KPFK’s Feminist Magazine about NAPAWF Los Angeles. I’m not nervous but I’m curious as to what will come out of my mouth. The topic of course, is about NAPAWF’s work, particularly on a local, chapter level. This is tough because it has been slow and growing – and mostly policy. Honestly, I don’t know much about the policy.

But the manager of the show wants us to talk about IT issues ---- you know, NAPAWF’s engagement with Trafficking, about Nail Salon Workers. The condition of the workers.

So I decided: perfect time to plug SAN’s actions with “the ZIBA five.” On January 15^th, ZIBA fired five of its women from their threading salons because they had been protesting a decrease in wage and commission. Most of the women at ZIBA are South Asian recent immigrants and dealing with the harsh working conditions at such salons -- the constant repetitive motion of threading in the neck, plus continuous hours on their feet, all while bending over. The women were able to stage a walk out, along with over 20 other employees, against the previous Ziba contracts requiring a decrease in their wages, despite the growing number of ZIBA locations (and thus profit) throughout Southern California! They even got to negotiating a contract with better working conditions for those who continued at ZIBA.

But I'm also writing because, I spent my evening NOT writing.

Instead, I attended the opening of the women's new Salon; it's called WOW Salon. Located at 10836 Washington Blvd (just added it to google maps- woot). It was a celebration involving friends and family. A, sort of, immigrant's dream, right? Minus the exploitation! But really, what a great example of gender justice -- the process of empowerment, self-determination and economic development. Tell your friends, ladies, gents and gender non-conformers - plenty of opening sale coupons and the prices are reasonable!

I hope the show goes well tomorrow. But more so, good luck to the WOW women in their new salon.

p

The Acknowledgments Page

I find myself writing in here again today. A good friend is in town. Someone I grew up with, from our community. We lost touch somewhere in middle school years but reconnected through temple activities in high school. We ended up traveling together at one point to an unspecified location in the third world, where she was getting her degree in social work. So here I am, again, repeating and rediscovering Los Angeles through my personal tour.

And I come here, because I steal away from those geographical travelings, to some internal border crossings.

I might have reminisced last week to the educational systems and processes, because I started writing my thesis acknowledgments. It is to remind me of where I came from and to project where I am going with my writing. Last week, it was not so much to celebratorily claim that access to graduate school is simple, but rather to demystify the process a little. Applying to a program the day before, is a way to recognize that those who "made it" are just as haphazardly unconfident, confused, perplexed and inundated with the university. And to keep it real -- it is a place that could be full of twists and turns, but applying to a place that will support you is very important to your health as a student.

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In my acknowledgments, I spanned from roots in high school mentors to college co-organizers to friends in my program to my current advisors. It felt good to thank them this early on, in writing.

This is how we do it... on a Tuesday night

[I began writing this last Tuesday... ]

My sister's in town. I've been "showing" her around. All the places of tourism that I perhaps would not necessarily label as the subversive version of Los Angeles. Yet, as a graduate student in finals, I found that I planned some okay places: Diddy Reese, In-N-Out, a consciousness raising art performance for the undergrad, the Venice canals/ Venice beach. I also trekked to those otherwise, not so fun, but somehow always visited places: the Chinese Mann's theater, Santa Monica Third Street Promenade, the Grove. And yet, places that could otherwise be digested as the Disneyland of Los Angeles, I tried to "historicize" with subversive comments... another post... another tour...

And so, why am I writing, right now? Because, as graduate student in finals, this is how we do it on a Tuesday night. I am writing for an assignment, stuck in my writing process. [enter self-reflexive moment].

It was the day the before the applications were due: I rushed to the post office and paid the extra "next-day" fed ex fee. [Skip a few.] When I got in, I didn't know what my project was, other than, a grand comment on women of color feminisms. [Skip a few]. Higher education really is out to get the P/W/Q of color, I believe. Intellectual paradigms constructed around colonization in the enlightenment period really did organize the university system! Thoughts, projects, theories then, were and are constantly terminated because of the origins of specific academic disciplines!

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renovating, remodeling, (recolonizing)

while i did not grow up here in southern california, and i oftentimes make home out of its people of color spaces, ethnic towns, and resources, i struggle to know its history the way someone does who lived their past 10 years in echo park, pilipino town, or koreatown.

when i moved here, phantoms of possible displacement and gentrification were already mocking me. gray buildings with neon rice bowls stare back at me on wilshire and vermont. i can't know what existed before there.

starting my part time work, this is part of the process. we went to one building, out in "the field" and we came across a phantom. it was an already remodeled space. the story comes out that this was a place where management had paid former residents a sum of undisclosed money (seemingly a lot, but still researching how ill-legal) to move out, so they could renovate. whereas the original guess was 10-12 families we once knew there, now there were about 5 families.

we went to another street. and its starting to come alive. i've heard about echo park. and we've been talking about koreatown now. (wealthier) people who commute want to live closer to work, and so these places have become their prime new location and playground. oftentimes, then, the (poorer) communities who have been living there for 10 to 15 years are being pushed out with silly evictions, false charges or unfixed, soon to be unhabitable buildings that landlords hope to condemn, to rebuild.

today, on this one unnamed street, i saw it. one, two, three, four buildings being remodeled. i wonder what are the stories there. if its like other cases, other clients, at other community based organizations, then, i'm sure it wasn't pretty.

a fresh new gaze

this is my new blog, with the same lens, the same magic.

its about seeing the world from our eyes, seeing the world with a critical lens.

while initially, this seems like an upgrade from a xanga to a blogspot, its more than a page change - it is a continued, but fresh vision to look at this place we inhabit glocally. it is random chat in lowercases and missing punctuations, it is intentional analyses of what is going on, it is creative responses to our everyday, our day to day.

its time, its necessary, its now. let's record.