Non-English advocacy

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Paulus

Conductor
Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
1,469
Do we have any rail advocacy groups which are either non-English language predominately or at least bilingual in their efforts and communications? Might not be an issue for say MinnARP (which I'm not sure actually exists for that matter), but given demographics in other areas (50% of the San Joaquin's population is Hispanic for instance), it doesn't seem possible to have significant success, especially for grass roots mobilization, if all there is is a group of old white guys. And come to think of it, I'm not aware of any organizations that might fit the bill. So does anyone else know of any organizations that are actually conducting outreach with the non-English only folks?
 
AFAICT none of the NYMA groups are racist. Indeed since the whole notion of red lining and "transit will allow them to get to our homes easily" has a negative and NIMBY effect on transit development. So almost as if of necessity Transit advocate have to be anti-racist , even if just for the sake of advancing transit.

But in general I have found the members of the community ion this area to be very open minded and generally very heterodox in their attitude towards race and such anyway, irrespective of the transit angle, sometimes quite militantly so.
 
Just a thought here.

But for a group to be genuinely grassroots, doesn't it have to be initiated by the people concerned rather than by outsiders setting up an advocacy group for them and expecting them to run it.

So if said minorities are not already doing something, maybe that is because they see their priorities elsewhere.

If outsiders create a group and set its agenda and maybe even fund it, then they are (and rightly so) exposing it to all sorts of criticism of just being a front for another organisation. That can be counter-productive in the bigger picture.
 
Just a thought here.

But for a group to be genuinely grassroots, doesn't it have to be initiated by the people concerned rather than by outsiders setting up an advocacy group for them and expecting them to run it.

So if said minorities are not already doing something, maybe that is because they see their priorities elsewhere.

If outsiders create a group and set its agenda and maybe even fund it, then they are (and rightly so) exposing it to all sorts of criticism of just being a front for another organisation. That can be counter-productive in the bigger picture.
More of expanding the current grassroots efforts than setting up something new. So, for example, I've seen TRAC put out their newsletter in LA Union. At a minimum, it could be as simple as putting it out with an extra few pages translating it into Spanish.
 
Minorities often feel too downtrodden to advocate. Certain types of poor blacks feel that way, for sure- they don't think their 'betters' will even listen to them so they don't talk. Poor Hispanics don't, because they are either illegal immigrants, or improperly classified as such. Poor Asians are almost always illegal immigrants, brought here and for all intents owned by criminal organizations. How do any of these people find a voice?

The dangers of them doing so are just too high.
 
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