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Black-Asian Group Fights Poverty

BlAsian Love Perspective

Asian Neighborhood Design Practices What It Preaches
On the eve of its 35th anniversary, Asian Neighborhood Design (AND) continues to build bridges between communities of color in San Francisco. AND provides multicultural, low-income communities with housing and employment services in housing development, architecture, family support, job training and furniture manufacturing programs.

AND’s nationally renowned employment training program stands out because 50 percent of its clients are African American, 30 percent Latino, and 10 percent Asian American — a fact that may lead some to question why the group keeps the Asian part of its name.

Interim executive director Steve Suzuki says the group has not changed its name because “Asian” speaks to a history of working with Asian as well as non-Asian communities, including Blacks and Latinos. “Because many Asian American community groups began under the arms of the civil rights movement started by black people, it is politically justifiable that Asian groups like AND continue to work with everyone in the community, including blacks,” Suzuki explains. “After all, we’re living in a multicultural society, and partnerships with non-Asian communities are important to our mission of lifting people out of poverty.”

AND considers applicants for its programs according to how many barriers to employment they face, such as low income, high school completion, English proficiency, single parenting, and the juvenile justice system — barriers that Suzuki notes “disproportionately affect communities of color.”

Graduates of AND programs attest to its social consciousness as more than mere rhetoric. Dumas Bell, who graduated from the job-training program three years ago, learned of AND from a caseworker after getting out of jail for a narcotics charge. “I wanted to get out of that lifestyle,” says Bell, who obtained a job after graduating from the program.

Jamela Crayton, on probation from a drug charge when she started the program, graduated in 2004. “It felt good to know you’re doing something that’s gonna be better for you in the long run,” Crayton shares. “Hustling doesn’t do anything. Either you’re dead, or you go to jail.”

AND started in 1973 with an all-Asian staff. Today, it is more diverse: The organization’s site manager, web master, and family youth service advocate, for example, are African American.

“We have always sought to reflect the communities we serve,” Suzuki says. “And we have never stopped innovating methods for accomplishing this.”

Asian Neighborhood Design celebrates its 35th anniversary May 21 at 465 California St. Visit andnet.org for details. Sam Cacas is the author of “BlAsian Exchanges, a novel.”

Comments

Thank you for another informative article. This organization is progressive and I’ve never heard of them, but will be sure to share this resource with friends. I’m inspired by this finding, in light of the current political landscape. Martin Luther King’s dream is alive and well. Thanks Sam for this bay area find. I’ll be back for more. And thank you Asian Week for taking a progressive stance in allowing Sam to write these articles.

–sandra on May 23, 2008
Isn’t it wonderful to see two minority races working together as a collective unit to fight major barriers affecting the majority of minorities? Thank you for bringing this to light.

–Mel on Jun 09, 2008
Dear Sandra & Mel
and Sam Cacas too:
May I rejoice with all of you, and, at the same self-serving time, remind one and all that one Lester Horton, in 1950, fully “integrated” his revolutionary dance company with then-”Negro” and Asian, he had long since honored Native American and Latino-American dancers as full peers, at the cost of his own “success” AND recognition as the trailblazing choreographer/innovator he proved to be.
Out of his tutelage and creative endeavors emerged the likes of Bella Lewitzky, Alvin Ailey, Carmen de Lavallade, Joyce Trisler, James Truitte, James Mitchell, David Lober, Rudi Gernreich, plus a score of other estimable dancers and teachers and “role models.”
Not only that, Horton founded and broadcast an ambiance, a laboratory, a crucible, a veritable fount of interracial and intercultural and totally humanist creativity and expression, extending into style and theater arts themselves, from stagecraft to prop-making to costume and make-up.
In this view, Horton was THE template for today’s multicultural exfoliation in America. Including the political, which he embraced, along with Carmelita Maracci, in the ’30s as anti-Naziism.
And, aside from John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” Horton was the only American artist that I know of who honored the innocent dead in his moving dance elegy, “Memorial to Hiroshima,” danced by little Misaye Kawasumi as a solo in ‘53.
Unfortunately, that singular creative acknowledgment of man’s INhumanity to man will, likely, NEVER be seen again, even IF Don Martin today has been able to reconstruct, re-create?, in their authentic original essence, the likes of Horton’s “The Beloved,” “Another Touch of Klee,” “To Jose Clemente Orozco,” one of three “Dedications in Our Time,” “Sarong Paramaribo,” one of many Horton celebrations of Afro-Caribbean dance cultures and expressions, and, the gods willing, perhaps, some day, a resurrection of the ultimate Horton “choreodrama,” “Salome,” a choreography sophisticated and “absolu” beyond the ken and grasp of most Eastern “critics” of his day, but ever accessible -ND appreciated by “common” audiences.
Yes, dance is truly “religious” as in its Greek origins, and, likely earlier, in the Persian dervishes and the Hindu and Bali and even the stately “choreographies” of Noh? and the gymnastics of Peking Opera.
“Ballroom” gods and goddesses then were celebrated as well, and svelte and impeccable they were.
So, Winston and Lilly Chow, ENJOY, and continue to celebrate your obeisance to “God.”
Frank Eng

–Frank Eng on Jun 09, 2008
Thank you Frank for your contribution to this subject; learning more each day….

–sandra on Jun 10, 2008
Sandra, Mel, & Frank:

Thank you for your comments. I will keep writing about Black-Asian unity; we really need it at this time when we’re hearing a lot of ugly things said about Black people during the Presidential campaign. People often write or say things they know little or nothing about beyond reading or viewing mainstream media soundbytes. I just wish they would read what other media like HuffingtonPost and Keith Olbermann on CNN are saying before they make conclusions about the latest crap said about future President Obama.

–Sam Cacas on Jun 14, 2008
Thank you Sam for highlighting the positive things being done within our black and asian communities, you are inspirational.

Smiles ;-)

–Shar on Jun 16, 2008
This is a great article and I was not aware of a Black-Asian community being from PA. Is there any way I can publish this article on my blog located on http://www.culturallycool.com ?

–Darryl Hill on Jul 01, 2008
Darryl:

Thank you. feel free to republish.

–Sam on Jul 01, 2008

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