EJ Heroes: Rosa Alvarado and Miryam Aspajo
The Brightline Podcast: Season 3, Episode 2
Tune into the latest episode in our Environmental Justice Heroes series, with Miryam Aspajo and Rosa Alvarado. Hear about their more than 30 years of community organizing work around schools and community safety within the Tenderloin and South of Market communities.
This episode is also recorded and transcripted in its original language, Spanish, and can be found here.
Transcript:
Rosa: No, no, pierdas la fe. No descanses/ Don’t lose hope. Don’t rest, don’t stop doing what you believe in to help your community.
Aubrey: This is The Brightline Podcast from Brightline Defense. We explore environmental justice, or EJ, issues in the Bay Area and California, highlighting the work of community-based organizations, including our own. My name is Aubrey, and this season, we'll be introducing you to some of California's EJ heroes. These are people who are out there, working on environmental justice issues in their communities each and everyday. But today, you won't be meeting just one EJ hero, but two!
Miryam: Hola, mi nombre es Miriam Aspajo, soy de Perú,
Rosa: Mi nombre es Rosa Alvarado. Soy mexicana.
Aubrey: During my interview with Rosa and Miryam, they were both more comfortable speaking Spanish, so we'll be translating their words. But if you want to hear this story told in their voices, check out the Spanish language version of this episode.
So, Rosa and Miryam have both lived in San Francisco for decades, mostly in the Tenderloin and South of Market. Rosa arrived from Mexico nearly 36 years ago.
Rosa: When I got to San Francisco, I didn’t know about any community organizations. But when my son started school, I found out about an organization called Bay Area Women and Children. They were the first ones to give me an opportunity, as a mother, to help them with their projects for children in the Tenderloin.
Aubrey: At the time, the Bay Area Womens and Childrens center was working to create safe park spaces for kids in the neighborhood. As a mother of two, Rosa was excited to get involved. After the opening of Macaulay Park, Turk and Hyde, and other parks and playgrounds, Rosa and some other community members set their sights on a new, even more ambitious project.
Rosa: And then came this project around how the Tenderloin didn’t have a primary school. They called me and asked, Rosa do you want to help us? We have this dream, and sometimes dreams come true.” We fought for years, having meetings all over the place
Aubrey: Rosa was tasked with looking for the perfect spot to build the new school. They found one on Turk St, and that dream became a reality.
Rosa: It was called the Tenderloin Community School. We included Community in the name because it was created by the parents
Aubrey: Around the same time, Miryam had been volunteering with Mujeres Unidas y Activas, or MUA, which translates to United and Active Women. It's an organization run by and for latina and indigenous immigrants.
Miryam: I learned a ton about my rights in this country
Aubrey: After four years with MUA, Miryam had a chance encounter with another organizer.
Miryan: I was working at Target and I met Morena Sandoval, who was starting up La Voz Latina. And she told me, “Look, I want you to come join this organization.” The group wasn’t fully formed at that point. Come, you’re gonna like it, you’ll learn a lot. She brought me, and I started going to meetings and I really liked it. I also loved that they had coffee and pastries! Those early meetings were really important.
Aubrey: Rosa had already joined the group, and taken on more responsibility.
Rosa: I started to go to the meetings and from there, they asked me to become a leader.
Aubrey: This was the beginning of La Voz Latina, a community organization serving the Tenderloin. Around the same time, Rosa and Miryam had also gotten involved in a new program called Safe Passage program.
Miryam: And that program was started by the families, by the mothers who brought their kids to school
Aubrey: Back then, around 2008, a lot of families were worried about the amount of alcohol and drug use happening on the sidewalks in the neighborhood. So Miryam and a coalition of moms, seniors, and service providers came together to act almost like crossing guards along the streets, helping kids get to and from school and activities safely.
Miryam: When I told my two kids, they were like “What are you doing? It’s dangerous, you don’t know what the Tenderloin is like.” But I didn’t care. I wanted to do this because in my home country, I didn’t have opportunities to do things like this, to get involved in the community. I was happy, I told them. I am the Tenderloin, I belong to the Tenderloin because I’ve worked here, I’ve been working here for so many years.
Rosa: And from there, I started to get to know Brightline.
Aubrey: Rosa remembers the first time she met with Caro, Brightline's Program Manager. They talked about the James Cary Smith Program, which focuses on uplifting local efforts to improve air quality and public health.
Rosa: Caro talked to us about how in our neig hborhood, because of all the pollution, our homes can become impacted. And that there was the possibility of helping support families with different kinds of respiratory issues.
Aubrey: Rosa found out that as part of the James Cary Smith Program, participants could get access to a free air purifier for their home. It seemed too good to be true.
Rosa: I couldn’t believe it. But I hoped it was true.
Aubrey: Rosa knew how impactful this could be. So with support from La Voz, she got trained up on how to distribute the purifiers and teach families how to use them.
Rosa: I felt so much pride. I told myself, Rosa, look at the good you're doing, you’ve already helped give our six, seven purifiers. Something so hard to imagine had become reality. I felt so much pride in being able to help my community.
Aubrey: Miryam wanted in, too.
Miryam: The air purifier project was so exciting for me. I suffer from asthma, and so I was one of the first to sign up for an air purifier. And I’m so happy and so excited to get my clients- I call them my clients (laughs)- involved.
Aubrey: But Rosa and Miryam weren't just distributing air purifiers. They also got a crash course in air monitoring. They learned about the sensors Brightline had set up around the Tenderloin, and how to read an air quality map.
Miryam: I’m 60 years old, and I never knew what the different colors meant when it came to air quality.
Aubrey: And now, they're putting it into action, with help from Brightline's program manager, Caro.
Miryam: We have a group chat with La Voz Latina and Brightline. And Caro will send us alerts about when the air quality is low. Personally, if I have to leave my house, I’ll put on a mask, and I’ll turn on my air purifier. The group chat really helps.
Rosa: Everything I’ve learned I use at home and at work.
Aubrey: Rosa and Miryam's journeys to becoming community leaders started in a similar place. They both wanted to make their neighborhood a safer, cleaner, better place for kids to grow up. From starting the Tenderloin Community School to Safe Passages, they've done just that. And it's not lost on them that now, they're also learning from younger people on Brightline’s team.
Miryam: I’m an older adult, and I’m working with youth. Carolina, Cecilia, Cristina, they’re all quite young. And thanks to them and the time they took to help us learn, we can educate our community.
Aubrey: And this intergenerational organizing doesn't stop with La Voz or Brightline.
Rosa: I’m a grandmother of seven- five boys and two girls. And if one day one of them asks for my advice, I’ll tell them this: it is your right to fight for environmental and community justice. You’re young, so you have the energy to do it. And if you feel empowered and continue the fight, don’t lose faith or hope that one day you will accomplish what you’re fighting for. Don’t lose hope. Don’t rest, don’t stop doing what you believe in to help your community.
Miryam: Like Rosa said, don’t lose faith. Don’t lose hope that with enough effort, you can do it. We’re both adults, but the young people have to continue on fighting for the future of our community, for our country as a whole. Fight for a healthy environment, to be able to say, “wow, look what we accomplished!” Cleaner streets, and less pollution.
Aubrey: This episode was written and produced by me, Aubrey Calaway. Original music by Maya Glicksman. Thank you to Eddie Ahn, Carolina Correa, Merha Mehzun, and Jacob Linde for their support. And to Emma Reynolds and Marina Henke for their voice over work and Miryam Aspajo and Rosa Alvarado for sharing their stories. For more information about Brightline, you can visit our website at BrightlineDefense.org or on social media @brightlinedefense. You can also find a transcript of this episode on our Medium Blog. And finally, don't forget to give us a follow and leave a review if you enjoyed the show. Take care.