Breathing In LA: SEEKING ALTERNATIVES: FROM NUTRITION TO IMMIGRATION POLICY

The following post is from YouthNoise Play City—a community dedicated to changing the world through sports and play. PLAY ON!

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW
Nutrition is key to the athlete who wants to be on top of the game. Our bodies are like a high-performance vehicle, and what we put in--the quality of food and the amount of nourishment--will affect our performance during the game.

First Lady, Michelle Obama, knows the importance of eating right and providing heart healthy food for the family. She recently brought a group of fifth graders to the White House to plant a number of vegetables in the new White House Garden. Some of the crops planted include a variety of herbs and lettuce, onions, cucumbers, peas, and shallots. She'll add tomatoes later and hopes to gather honey from a beehive located a few feet away.

My easy windowsill garden

Unfortunately, fast food such as burgers, fries, soft drinks, so-called energy drinks, and chips are often the fuel of choice for many Americans young and old. Even fast food giants saw profit increases last year while the rest of the world was is in a recession. We love us our fast food!

ALTERNATIVES IN ACTION: STRUGGLE FOR SELF-SUSTAINABILITY
Now, this post is about ALTERNATIVES -- alternatives that our communities and people like the First Lady, have brought forth. It's about alternatives that you and I and our communities need in order to sustain a healthy and happy livelihood.

One such example of self-sustaining alternatives is the South Central Farm that was located in South LA. The farm sat on 130 acres of land in an industrial and residential area of LA. It was home to approximately 100-150 different species of plants and vegetables. But, after a long dispute with land owners and other stakeholders, the farm was relocated out of the city (oooh, just about 100 miles away). I can only imagine how this movement posed numerous challenges for the families that farmed there, but some of the farmers have continued farming and providing nutrition for others. Today a few of those farmers will be at a local Whole Foods in Pasadena to share the food they've cultivated on their new and distant land.

The "Milpas"mural near El Sereno, created by Los Diegos

WORKING LOCAL, CONTRIBUTING TO THE INTERNATIONAL
History has taught us that land and people, especially those that tend the land, are often expendable especially in relation to profit increases, costs, and benefits. The phenomenon of day laborers and guest workers exist because there is a demand for low-waged workers in many of our staple industries such as farming and agricultural work, construction, and infrastructure maintenance. We even rely on these same groups during catastrophic events like the clean-up and rescue efforts post 9/11.

Economics and policy often keeps these workers on the margins, many of them of Mexican and Central American descent and a variety of other nationalities. These groups work in the US, pay taxes here, and contribute to the US economy. And even though they earn meager wages in a worsening economy, they do not forget about their transnational neighbors, often choosing to send portions of what little they have to communities abroad, which often live well below US standards of living. Still to this day, a large population of the immigrant community is mistreated and denied citizenship status.

Many immigrants migrate to the US to survive economic hardship or to flee war-torn realities. In this process, they have also added to a transnational community that's continually being interwoven and grows mutually dependent. So I say, in our effort to be game changers:

we need to eat healthy and find alternatives like gardens and farms that link community to home-life and health;
we need to acknowledge the efforts of others to bring alternatives to our lifestyles, like the South Central Farm and farmers, and learn how to support their efforts before they are lost;
and we need to support those people--the men and women, Mexican and Central Americans alike and others who are often demonized with labels like "illegal aliens"--by supporting President Obama's push for a workable and humane immigration policy.

Our Country depends on diverse investments and--just like the body where what you put in determines what you get out--so too does the health of our beautiful democracy.