CR#4 What is equality in the American Dream?
What? (from the Context Worksheet)
Name of organization you work with:
Health Hub
Stated mission of the organization:
At our health hubs, we provide free and bilingual services such as farmers market style food distribution, zumba, nutrition education, healthy taste tests, health screenings and information about community organizations.
What are the programs/services provided?
They provide food distribution, Zumba classes, healthy food classes, and health checking such as blood pressure.
What is the targeted issue(s)? What is the target population? The target issue is to eliminate hunger for family and unhealthy food style.
The target population is for all but focus on minority such as Latino, asian and black community.
What are some identified qualities/qualifications for people to be part of the program/services? Anyone can participate.
Larger context of Marin County (or the county of your community engagement)
What is the composition of the county’s population?
Majority of the people live in Marin are White, Latino, Asian and Black. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/marincountycalifornia
According to US Census Bureau:
White alone, percent 85.6%
Black or African American alone, percent 2.8%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent 1.0%
Asian alone, percent 6.4%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent 0.3%
Two or More Races, percent 3.9%
Hispanic or Latino, percent 16.1%
However, I rarely see caucasian population at Health Hub. Though they are 85.6% of Marin population. As we can see there is a contradiction there, 85.6% of white who live in Marin but only a small percentage that ultilize Health Hub.
So What? (From the Context Worksheet)
What are some discrepancies/differences between your engagement community and the general Marin county community in terms of privilege and access to resources?
Every time I go to Whole Food or Traders Joe, I see a big population of White, Asian-Americans. However, when I go to Health Hub, I see a lot of Latino and Black-Americans; I do see Asian and White-Americans but majority is older people who come for the food. A lot of people who live in Marin are working for tech company or big executive in a company, they have access to great food, recreation sports, healthcare and housing but for the other unfortunate communities, they don’t have that luxury even healthy food; in the poor community, they typically have food dessert where people cant buy healthy or fresh foods. For example, in the canal district, it is very difficult to find a grocery store even if you find one, it is will be hard to find parking.
Any findings on the history of how the discrepancies/differences came to be?
The canal area is separate from the rest of San Rafael by a highway and water. The Marin City is a poverty area in Marin that go isolate financially and racially by the rest of Marim.
Is there anything in your findings that is emotionally charged, or could potentially cause resentment and/or harm in certain populations?
In my finding and experience, low-income school, the students will be more likely to be suspend or expel for unimportant reason. However, in upper socioeconomic school, the students will get counseling instead of punishments. With that unfairness, the students will be more angry and will cause more trouble. Also, the students at the low-income school will face troubles at home such as no foods, domestic violence, unemployment and they have to work such as young age.
According to ed-data.org in 2015 there are 103 students got suspended from Marin schools. In that numbers, there are 62 hispanic and latino, 1 asian, 14 black or african, 3 two or more races, and 23 white. We can compare the suspension number with the population number, we can see the percentage of suspension of people of color is higher than the caucasian population.
Now What? (From Census 2020 Make Marin Count)
According to the panelists at the Make Marin Count event, what are some of the key issues related to Census 2020 in Marin County? What are some solutions offered by the panelists? How would these same issues impact the community/organization you are working with this semester? Are these issues in the community you work with that you noticed or know but were not addressed by the panelists? Please explain and try to give examples from your organization/community’s website and/or your GivePulse impacts to support.
The issues relate to the Census 2020 are some people will be affraid to answer, or lie, and it is hard to count homeless and undocumented immigrants due to the distrust against the government. The solutions offered by the panel are census education with community partner and sending counter to home. I believe if the Census 2020 miss some people in Marin, Health Hub will suffer from funding because the organization depend on volunteer and local government funding.
