Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I was living in Manhattan in the months leading up to
Occupy. I kept seeing it on Facebook. I had witnessed so many people end up flat broke or falling apart after the economic crisis. When I started to see the things what Occupy was about, I saw the possibility of an
action that was going to speak out against that, not having any idea that it
was going to be a full scale occupation. I went and joined everyone at Bowling
Green on the morning of September 17, 2011 and marched over to Zuccotti. I had
a backpack, a jacket, a bottle of soda and a couple sandwiches, and I stayed
there for a week. Once everything got started, there was no way I was going to
walk away. It was unlike anything I’ve experienced. I’ve been involved in a lot
of protests. You get together, hold some signs, take some pictures on a
Saturday, but this wasn’t that. After we
were able to stay there the first night, I was like, “This is something long
term. These are people who are going to stand up and not just walk away.” At
that point, I just decided that I was going to stay with it. Here we are almost
two years later. I worked that first week with Occupy Wall Street. I was with
Occupy LA the entire time we were camped out at City Hall and everything
following that, and then after Hurricane Sandy, I decided to come and help out
on Staten Island.
I got back to the Los Angeles area on September 24th,
the week after Occupy Wall Street started. On the bus back, I stayed attached
to Zuccotti through the livestreams. While still on that bus, I found out that the occupations
were going to spread. Back in LA, some
people had started to organize, so I jumped on Facebook and found out the
people who were involved in that right away. They were having the general
assemblies at Pershing Square in the days leading up to when we started Occupy
LA. Since where I live is 45 minutes outside of LA, I was just getting the
information over the phone. I joined them at the start of the occupation at City Hall on October 1st, and I
stayed the entire time. A lot of my friends there had places in the city, so I
would go and shower at their places and get a little rest and relaxation from
time to time there. I got really comfortable living in a tent on City Hall’s
lawn. The weather is nice there, so we didn’t have any real big issues with
that.
One of the things that was really interesting at the beginning of the occupation was that some of the members from the city council actually came out and gave us rain ponchos one of the days it was raining. First, there was a sense that we had their support, and we did. One of the council members was someone who had tried to push through some banking regulations, so he was on board for that. We’d have problems when we would go out on marches, but it was never the same type of resistance that I saw happening in other cities. Then, when they actually did decide to push us out, it was a good clean sweep, within a day. They startled us. They got us worked up a couple days before they actually did the raid. Then, they came through and put up these huge fences around City Hall. Nobody could get in there for months.
One of the things that was really interesting at the beginning of the occupation was that some of the members from the city council actually came out and gave us rain ponchos one of the days it was raining. First, there was a sense that we had their support, and we did. One of the council members was someone who had tried to push through some banking regulations, so he was on board for that. We’d have problems when we would go out on marches, but it was never the same type of resistance that I saw happening in other cities. Then, when they actually did decide to push us out, it was a good clean sweep, within a day. They startled us. They got us worked up a couple days before they actually did the raid. Then, they came through and put up these huge fences around City Hall. Nobody could get in there for months.
We had a huge amount of space. We had the north side of the
lawn and the south side of the lawn. Then, the west side was a place where we’d
gather on the steps. We had the different sections. The north side was the
quiet side. That’s actually where I stayed, so I could get sleep. Then, the
south side was a huge ball of energy. There was always something going on over
there. There was the drum circle and all sorts of entertainment.
Different people came to speak—Danny Glover, Tom Morello of Rage Against the
Machine, comedians, actors. It’s LA. We had a whole bunch of people come by and
show their support. People from a lot of different angles and perspectives came
by and shared their views on it. That was something that I really loved about
it and am really happy to have experienced because I don’t see too much of that
happening very often.
It got a lot of people in that community involved, especially since we have such a big homeless population. We worked hand and hand with a lot of Skid Row people. We helped them out, gave them food, gave them tents, gave them shelter, let them have a voice. If we had done just that, I would have walked away from it 110% satisfied knowing that we made these people feel better than they have been able to feel possibly ever. They’re used to people walking by and shouting things at them or not really caring. That population on Skid Row has been really marginalized, and they don’t feel like they’re part of their community anymore. One of the things I was happy to have done there on that lawn in Los Angeles was provide them with a meal, a tent and let them know that we cared. That’s just one of the many things that I felt we accomplished there. There were a lot of great things.
It got a lot of people in that community involved, especially since we have such a big homeless population. We worked hand and hand with a lot of Skid Row people. We helped them out, gave them food, gave them tents, gave them shelter, let them have a voice. If we had done just that, I would have walked away from it 110% satisfied knowing that we made these people feel better than they have been able to feel possibly ever. They’re used to people walking by and shouting things at them or not really caring. That population on Skid Row has been really marginalized, and they don’t feel like they’re part of their community anymore. One of the things I was happy to have done there on that lawn in Los Angeles was provide them with a meal, a tent and let them know that we cared. That’s just one of the many things that I felt we accomplished there. There were a lot of great things.
Occupy LA is still active. I still get tagged into a lot of stuff. I see the messages going back and forth. A lot of it good. Some of it bad. There's some of the same old people arguing. It gets a little old. At the same time, I still see that a lot of the people who are focused on fighting against injustices are still working together, are still getting things done. There are a lot of people who are still working with the foreclosure actions. In California, they are taking people out of their homes left and right. We have one of the highest homeless populations and one of the highest foreclosure rates. Figure that out. That’s a big issue over there. There are a lot of people that are becoming homeless, families that are getting kicked out. One thing we did on Valentine’s Day of 2012 is we interrupted a foreclosure auction that was going to put the family of the military personnel who was fighting in the Iraq war out on the streets. While the soldier is in another country fighting a war, you can’t kick him out of his house. Because of the disruption of the foreclosure auction, it extended the amount of time they had to straighten it out, and eventually they figured out they were not supposed to be doing that. There are still a lot of people who are fighting against those foreclosures. I see myself going back and forth and continuing to work with the people making changes in Los Angeles.
We see on multiple levels with society where it’s a
downward spiral. Compassion, love, generosity, those things are becoming more
and more rare. People are focused more on money/ greed. People think that if
there is one flower on the ground, they think, “This is my flower.” Why not
have it be our flower? That’s what I think we need to move towards,
understanding that we can actually progress as a society by working together
instead of being so self-centered and thinking that everything is mine,
mine, mine. A lot of the people at the
top of the money chain think that way at this point in time. It’s just that when you don’t have to
experience it or live it, you don’t see it, and you forget that it exists. You
forget what it’s like to help someone else in need. I think it’s important that
we really get more people involved and understanding that the only way that we’re
going to progress in a way that’s gonna have everyone in the same boat together
and happy is if we work together. It’s really important that we’re doing it for the sake of the future,
for future generations because the way that we’re going, we’re going to have a
toxic dump land. There’s no doubt about it. We’re going to run out of
resources, and it’s not going to be fun that way for anybody.
I want to see a world where people aren’t afraid to put
their arm around their neighbor and help them out when they’re hurt, a world where people know when their neighbor is
hurt. People know what’s going on in their own
household, and they don’t really care what’s going on next door or the next
block over or the next city over. I live over on Staten Island now, but I’m
here in this section of the Rockaways to fight for the people who live here and their environment, so that they don't have this pipeline going through, which will
be a major toxic hazard. There are so many ways that this pipeline
is going to endanger this neighborhood. There is not enough awareness of that
going on. People are just thinking about the short term energy supply and the
money that is being made with it. They’re not thinking about the long-term
environmental hazards.
I want to see more compassion in the world. I think when people are so concerned with what’s going on in their immediate life, they forget about the people that don’t even have a quarter of the comforts that they have. I grew up in an impoverished area of Mexico. The main goal was having enough to eat, having enough for the whole family and making sure the neighborhood was fed. It was normal to Sleep on a concrete floor. If somebody got a Christmas present, it belonged to the whole communities. I grew up experiencing this in my childhood. When I got to the states, it was an entirely different thing. People didn’t have to worry about food. If somebody got a soccer ball, it was their soccer ball, but in Mexico, you want to make sure your neighbor has something to eat, too. You want to make sure the kid growing up down the street gets to play with that ball too because he likely doesn’t have one. Here in the states, there’s a lot more comfort. We forget about people in third world countries and say, “Oh, they’re on that side of the border.” That’s kind of heartbreaking that we’re so obsessed with what’s going on in our own backyard. Sure, they say it starts with your own backyard, but we have to find better ways to be able to help out other areas of the world where there’s so much suffering going on. I think that’s an important thing for us to move towards. Instead of being divided by borders and nations, we need to be a joined world, a global community.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
I want to see more compassion in the world. I think when people are so concerned with what’s going on in their immediate life, they forget about the people that don’t even have a quarter of the comforts that they have. I grew up in an impoverished area of Mexico. The main goal was having enough to eat, having enough for the whole family and making sure the neighborhood was fed. It was normal to Sleep on a concrete floor. If somebody got a Christmas present, it belonged to the whole communities. I grew up experiencing this in my childhood. When I got to the states, it was an entirely different thing. People didn’t have to worry about food. If somebody got a soccer ball, it was their soccer ball, but in Mexico, you want to make sure your neighbor has something to eat, too. You want to make sure the kid growing up down the street gets to play with that ball too because he likely doesn’t have one. Here in the states, there’s a lot more comfort. We forget about people in third world countries and say, “Oh, they’re on that side of the border.” That’s kind of heartbreaking that we’re so obsessed with what’s going on in our own backyard. Sure, they say it starts with your own backyard, but we have to find better ways to be able to help out other areas of the world where there’s so much suffering going on. I think that’s an important thing for us to move towards. Instead of being divided by borders and nations, we need to be a joined world, a global community.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/