May Our Light heal our Hoods
*All images shot by Nadia Elhawary
Graduating with my Master in Social Work, I received intentional texts like “You have a real as* story, you didn’t have nothing given to you or any guidance on how to alter your future for the better, you did all that on your own periodddd!! Folks really don’t understand!! Cus some people don’t know how it feels to be reading facts [statistics] that say the likelihood of you finishing is low asf. Cuz that sh*t don’t make me feel good at all and makes it seem like the road to success is so dark, but that’s what’s so amazing cus I know you read the same and graduating as the first generation, is CRAZY out this world and then coming from a single- parent household, poverty, and all that.. You had hella sh*t stacked on you” - Sarah Owen (I appreciate you so much for how seen you made me feel within this message).
This written piece is dedicated to people who have hella sh*t stacked against them in a society that blindly ignores it. The road to success shouldn’t be a dark one and we are changing that, but only if we do so together. Because there is no valid reason that explains why many of us are reading these statistics while chasing our dreams and are forced to move with self-doubt and imposter syndrome. Therefore, this accomplishment is bigger than a personal achievement, it's an opportunity to use the skills learned and to apply them back into our hoods in order to advocate for change. I am confident that this written piece will inspire many to become lights in any dark path for we are more than capable of succeeding (even if school is not your route towards success). Also, yes I have a Master’s degree, but I like to remain authentic to myself, so I’ll be using urban slang and not following any structures or rules of writing. I promise, it’s much more creative and real this way.
Who is Deziana Torres?
I am a courageous daughter to Carmen Castaner (Mama Carmen) and Raul Torres. Two strong individuals who brought me into this world as teen parents; sacrificing their youth in order to cater to my growth. Mama Carmen’s roots connect to the tropical and colonized land of Puerto-Rico where our family members were a mixture of Taino Indigenous Peoples and others were slaves themselves during and after slavery. The slaves in my family were the descendants from the Congo and Western Bantu Peoples who were forced over during the slave trade. In addition, my father, whose roots I am still currently learning, connects to the Cora Tribe in Mexico with some unconfirmed mixtures of Filipino (still have to explore this more). So here is a little about the blood that rests within me for I am a mixture of many beautiful yet oppressed groups. A combination of generational trauma and privilege, as I have more access towards liberation than my ancestors did. This is critical in understanding because if you can understand the brutal history of oppression my family has faced and continues to face, then you will understand why I move with so much intention. There’s more to my story though, it gets deeper.
My Upbringing
I was born and raised in the rough yet beautiful streets of East Oakland, California (where the youngstas get hyphy) haha those who know, KNOW. In Oakland, I personally witnessed the lack of opportunities existing in my hood as well as the survival tactics our people are forced to engage in just to make it another day. Like man, we really out here scavenging for very little in order to survive and people act like we ain’t. For instance, growing up in a single parent household as the oldest played a major role in my character today. After my parent’s messy divorce, themes of domestic violence and trauma already began to wrap around me. With the absence of a parent in the household, my role was to be a second-caregiver, sacrificing my childhood to step up to a plate way bigger than me. At the young age of nine, I knew how to bathe my youngest three siblings, dress them, feed them, help with homework, and keep them safe from harm when Mama Carmen was away trying to“make a dollar out of $0.15.” How many of you understand this pressure? It’s a heavy one: learning to cater to others while normalizing putting yourself last, all to help your family survive.
To sum it all up, I was taught at a young age that my siblings will follow in my footsteps, so it was crucial to be the one to break through generational barriers in order to provide a “Way out of the hood.” Something that I later learned is a non-progressive approach as many leave the hood and never look back to help. As I witnessed hell in my household growing up, I would walk out the door to the struggles of my city, where it felt like there was no source of light, hope, or a map to help me navigate through. I guess that’s why Mama Carmen would preach that “Education is your key out.” My family, my hood, my friends, and strangers with a similar or different intersectionality, are all silently crying out for help and no one who holds power to bring change is listening. So, here I am: a young girl from Oakland, CA exercising my voice by illuminating my experiences in order to advocate for the change I still believe in.
Inspiration Behind my Grad Photoshoot
Everyone knows that graduating from any school is such a huge accomplishment. It is something that makes us feel capable of achieving all that we put our minds into. Although this is true, we must acknowledge the barriers placed before the BIPOC community that limit such opportunities for us in higher education. You see, having to endure being a grad student during the pandemic forced my eyes open to the harsh reality of the world's current state. We are not in a place that has moved progressively to dismantle the oppressive systems that silently cause harm to all living in these hoods. How is it that a field like social work can exist with thousands of people as advocates for change, yet there has been almost little to no change in our society on macro levels. I’ve always questioned that. Are we learning to disrupt oppression? Or are we taught to adapt to the very oppression we currently face? We must also ask ourselves, “Why are oppressive barriers still existing in our hoods today? While it is easy to blame others, we must also hold ourselves accountable for allowing such systems to limit us and convince us that we are powerless.
From here on out, you will be reading about the problem areas in our hoods that need to be addressed and acknowledged. Ya ready?
Addictions in our Hood & Food Deserts
Addictions
In our hoods, we experience an alarming amount of trauma. Sometimes this trauma is experienced in our own homes and/or in our hoods. (Trigger warning) Walking down E-14 in Oakland, I witnessed my first murder at nine- years old. A man and I were walking towards the local liquor store. He was in front of me by some feet but he acknowledged me with a wave and a smile before confidently saying, “It’s a beautiful day.” Not even a minute passed by before this same man was shot in a drive-by shooting that instantly took his life. A child, walking throughout life in war zones that caused me to have symptoms of PTSD. Can we imagine how many others walk without knowing that they, too, struggle with similar impacts? Imagine if many of us knew that we aren’t “Crazy” for flinching and reacting quickly at loud sounds and bangs but instead that it is an actual disorder that we blindly struggle with. Wow. I know this hit deep for someone. After this, the countless amounts of death and violence I witnessed became a normal part of my life experience; as it does to many from similar hoods which add trauma on top of trauma and often leave our mental health in damaging situations. Can neglected traumas cause addictions?
Everywhere in Oakland, we can see so many "crackheads" drugged up wandering the streets in ways that immediately push us to say, “Damn, they are on one.” Some are seen yelling or talking to themselves, some punching air or even walking dangerously into traffic. We look down on them and label them with names that are dehumanizing to their true struggles. You see, when we walk down our rough streets, we also see dirty needles and empty alcohol bottles that decorate our streets with silent screams for help. On the weekends, you can also hear music from parties where family members bond deeply over alcohol and other drugs. We all know that one family member or friend who gets hella faded at every function. Have we ever explored that? Asked them how life was? Asked how they are doing, emotionally? For those who did, was it connected to some adversity they faced?
The addictions in our hoods are such a true struggle as people can’t carry the heavy pain from all that is experienced and witnessed here. With various barriers impacting our ability to experience therapy and heal from these traumas, we are left living and dying with this silenced pain. Pain that often consumes the peace of our people by pushing us to depend on drugs and alcohol as coping strategies. We are addicted to feeling numb and addicted to the things that keep us from living through the pain. Truth is, we are hurting. When we have more access to liquor stores (that exist on every corner) than we do to resources that help us cope with all we carry inside, it's a problem worth advocating for. More questions to reflect upon: Why do we find liquor stores all over hoods and in wealthier neighborhoods, this same access is limited? Why are our people struggling with addictions? What's the root cause? I know for everyone it is different, but with my experience in this field and with my personal experience raised in the hood, the root seems to always play as an escape from our harsh reality. Here’s a deeper question: even if we (people from the hood) could cry and have space to feel, would we already be too numb? May we love and support our people who struggle with an addiction, even from a distance. May we also create a world that grants them the opportunity to heal from their mental wounds that unconsciously bleed into the next generations. Mental health in our hoods must be acknowledged and we must advocate for the spaces of healing that are needed to liberate many from their addictions. May we also receive help from trained professionals who are passionate about helping us heal from the trauma instead of prescribing medications that keep us chained to the pain. My soul sister, Shorty Rodriguez mentioned, “They keep tryna put bandages on an open wound instead of finding the root cause to stop the bleeding” after talking about how professionals mainly only rely on medications as forms of treatment.
Mental health in our hoods must be acknowledged and we must advocate for the spaces of healing that are needed to liberate many from their addictions.
Food Deserts
Growing up, my mother would ask us what we wanted to eat for dinner. Fast food was always our go to since it was affordable. McDonalds had the specials of 2 burgers for $3.00. For a single mother with four children, this was a deal as grocery stores were too far from us and too expensive to afford. Home cooked meals were rare since my mother also worked so long and would be exhausted by the time she came home. As children, we learned to love the foods that were making us sick and causing health issues as we grew older. Foods that surround us everyday like: Jack in the Crack, I mean Box, Taco- Bell, Carl’s JR, Burger King, and many many more were foods we depended on the most growing up.
Many of us also depended on free-lunch school programs for food outside of home. Even if many of us were too ashamed to stand in the lunch line, sometimes we did because it was all we had access to. We were hungry and lacked food. Imagine how many students who don’t have food at home sit throughout class. For me, I would struggle paying attention as all I could do was watch the clock and wait for lunch time to come around. Why is it that hoods have more access to fast food locations than healthy and organic grocery foods? Where is our Whole Foods? Our Trader Joes? And don't get me started with the ones that exist in areas of gentrification because those weren't placed there for our benefits. (I'll touch on this more later) Why is it that fast food prices align more with our insecure pocket change? Coincidence? Reflect on that some more if you lived through it and research on it if it's a struggle unknown to you.
Food deserts along with food insecurities are other forms of oppressive structures in places to keep the poor people from having access to healthier and affordable food options. We deserve the same access to healthy foods and affordable prices as others. I plan to also use my degree to create more spaces where we can instead teach our people how to grow their own foods as well as replacing fast food locations with grocery stores. Mark my words, we are changing the way we live in the hood for our next generations.
I can always tell when our hoods are being prepared for gentrification by the random coffee shops that appear in spaces that were once abandoned or neglected. Spaces that we (people in the hood) could have utilized as buildings for our own dreams and desires; however, we couldn’t afford the means to do so. Coffee shops are not something we are used to seeing everywhere while walking down our streets.. Gentrification is the act of colonization in a more professional and “legal” way. Don't @ me, this is my strong opinion. I know some are like, wow that was intense...yup imagine living through it, it’s even worse.
Growing up in poverty you can drive by and see all the rundown buildings we learned to decorate with graffiti and other forms of art. These became our creative visuals that surrounded our home. So, when wealthy individuals move into these poor urban spaces in ways that replace our run down buildings with apartment complexes that are unaffordable for us, we have to ask ourselves, who is this for? We demanded that the potholes in our city be covered, and we are still left swerving and dodging them on our way home. So, who are all these updates for? If none of us from these hoods can access or afford the innovative projects, then for who? I can mention who it is not for because after the coffee shops and the improved community projects, we then see a dramatic raise in rent prices that often push poor people out. Or, our neighbors are offered money for their paid off homes in amounts that seem profitable, but are only used to to remove the history and foundations of their existence. Go visit an already fully gentrified city and let me know if you can experience what life was like in those same streets prior. What about the culture? Can you sense the difference in diversity as you cross from one street to another? The diversity of our towns slowly fade away as the property value increases in rates. I’ll wait, oh and I bet many didn’t know why people in the hoods were suddenly crowding and living under bridges. Homelessness is at an all time high in our hoods. Therefore, it’s bigger than our graffiti buildings being replaced by coffee shops because soon after, our people from the very marginalized spaces designated for us to exist in, are being stripped away from us.
School-To-Prison Pipeline
I attended Fremont High School on High Street in East Oakland. A highschool where you walk through metal detectors and endure random pat downs/searches in order to enter campus in the morning. While I stood in line, I would gaze at the police cars parked in front of the campus. Their lights flashing brighter than the morning sunrise as the officers stood outside of their cars with their arms folded and eyes pierced on us. Ya know what it’s like to be watched like that all the time? Sometimes you’re left feeling like a criminal without being guilty of anything. Criminalizing and convincing us that we are those labels and more are tactics used, you feel me?
One day, I was about to walk through the gates of campus after an off campus lunch when the bell rang; I can still hear the sound it left in my memories. The police officers who were on duty outside the school that day, came and grabbed my cousin, a close friend and me, in an attempt to handcuff us immediately. Of course, my loud mouth began questioning, “Where are you taking us? Why are you detaining us? What did we do wrong,” - all questions they ignored. So, here we are, all students who held a gpa over a 3.5, detained in a police car. The view as we drove down our city in the back of this car was traumatizing. We were informed later that we were detained for being a minute late after lunch. Yes, I said that right, ONE MINUTE granted us a free, humiliating ride to a detention center. Our working single-parents had to leave work to get us and take us back to school. Other tragic impacts of “zero- tolerance” policies even fail to protect elementary school students from being arrested and criminalized. I still wonder why more money is invested into prisons instead of schools, don’t you?
Police presence on any school grounds should be limited and school securities should be trained and well prepared on how to manage school related troubles on their own. What we are allowing instead by upholding these policies, is the criminalization against our students. It’s oppressive and our students only learn to view themselves as criminals and a danger to their society. Why are we stripped from the ability to believe that we are anything other than these things? With my degree, I plan to analyze the policies in place in education systems in order to discover if any are negatively impacting our students rather than helping them. If we are not aiming towards student success as a priority in any form of education, then we are choosing to fail them. May we learn to unlearn that we are not criminals, not a danger to society, but so much more than those things. May we also remove oppressive barriers that exist in our education systems, so that these paths towards success aren’t so dark anymore.
Okay, if you made it this far, I appreciate your entire existence. I am almost certain that this is the last dedication piece.
Mass Incarceration and Police Brutality
Why is robbery high in our hoods?
When you are raised in the streets, you learn to see that violent acts like robbery are often engaged in due to a lack of financial security. There isn't enough money for many of us to afford to keep roofs over our families’ heads with jobs that only pay enough to live check by check. What I’ve noticed is that some cases like robbery are never really personal; people are just hungry for the peace that comes after bills and rent are paid for. Tupac explained it in his song Changes. It reads, “My stomach hurts, so I’m looking for a purse to snatch.” It’s bigger than the material things, people are hungry. I can recall my friend in highschool, who is no longer living, (rest in Peace homie), telling me that he would rather sell drugs to help his single mother with bills rather than to pursue an education that would take so many years to access a career through. He looked at me and said, “How can I wait four years after college to find out how to feed my family when we are starving and facing eviction right now?” A question that forever challenged my perspective. Took me a while to reach this point though, as I learned to view these acts for what they truly are; a means of survival. I bring this up to help others from the outside looking in to see it from the perspective that is hardly analyzed behind some of the crimes committed. I wonder if we increase opportunities for success and financial stability, will crime decrease dramatically?
Why is robbery high in our hoods?
Hoods similar to East Oakland are full of people who are struggling to survive. While some blame us for our poverty, we from the hoods blame the government for their known involvement in this. With hidden agendas like the war on drugs' as targets for our people to be criminalized and placed into private prisons for profit, we find ourselves suffering greatly. Mass incarceration and police brutality can be two most debated topics in society and I can’t fathom how this is even up for discussion when research and statistics have proven they are oppressive and damaging to our members in the hood. We grant permission for officers to criminalize and hold harsh punishments for non-violent crimes. Some are punished worse than actual murderers. How can this be? We are often seen as guilty until proven innocent… Wait, no, let's try that again. It feels like we are guilty even when proven innocent, always in the wrong. When Black and Brown people are being targeted, incarcerated, and killed at much more alarming rates than any other person, it deserves light and acknowledgement, periodddd.
Fear Of Police Presence
Prisons are designed to keep BIPOC communities oppressed through acts of dehumanization, marginalization and criminalization and it is working wonders for them. Because safety is not what we experience the majority of the time with them, we are often found fearing their power around our existence. While driving in the car with my man who is Black, I shouldn’t have to whisper, “Babe, police on your right-side coming up” in order for us to both sit up while also forgetting to breathe as we drive past the hidden police cars. Nor should we have to keep teaching our children how to behave during an encounter with police in order to make it back home safely. Fear in our hoods around police officers is so real because they hold so much power over something we are often mad at God for and that’s the power to take life. Do we still think it’s a coincidence that when we watch a member from the BIPOC community die in the hands of police, others try to justify ways that we actually deserved it? And not the officers using the same “I thought he had a gun” excuse that seems to validate and protect any against accountability. Candy, cell phones, car fresheners, and hair brushes are not weapons. So these senseless killings must come to an end while also letting out our brothers and sisters who are behind bars for the same “crimes” that are now legalized all over California, due to benefits like state profit.
So I personally stand on abolishing the entire institution. I have seen and researched enough. I promise you with my life that many of us want the same thing regardless of race. A system that really protects us ALL. So when some are advocating to abolish the one we have now, what we are saying is “Hey guys, can we create a better one that works from the ground up? This one sucks and it can't be reformed; the roots are rotten with signs of white supremacy, racism, bigotry, and more.” The Goal to abolish and replace with something more progressive can do a lot of good for our society. A system that doesn’t work for all of us, isn’t a system that we should all be depending on.
Conclusion
Our hoods are hurting more and more everyday and while many do make it out the hood, not many turn back to help on a macro scale. Addictions, food deserts, gentrification, school- to- prison pipeline, mass incarceration and police brutality are all oppressive structures that must be looked further into. Their influence over our harsh conditions truly impact our mobility out of poverty and oppression. So that’s it for now, as I am barely scratching the surface to the reality we really face in our hoods. May we recognize these struggles and begin working together to dismantle each. The moment we discover that we are fighting the same storm but riding on different boats, is the moment we can tackle systemic barriers in a way that can bring change. May we patch each others’ boats when they sink in order to stay afloat long enough to conquer all forms of oppression together. May this piece also remind those who continue to live in the hood during all of this, to know there is power in us all. Power to truly disrupt and bring forth a great change to live a life that is safe and secure. May we stop depending on those in power to answer our cries and begin to liberate ourselves and each other by discovering the light that lives within us.
Challenge many of ya to read up on the following resources as they may help many better understand each form of oppression. Also left them here in case shared life experiences weren’t enough to convince us of the reality of each system in place. In order for change to occur, we must remember it’s not the knowledge that breaks invisible chains of oppression, it’s what we do with this knowledge that empowers it.
School-to-prison pipeline
Addictions
Gentrification
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.368.8033&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Mass Incarceration
Police brutality
Food deserts
Deziana Torres is a young and inspiring creative who was born and raised in the rough yet beautiful streets of East Oakland, CA. Although she is a newly graduate with her M.S.W, she is not new to speaking and fighting against the oppression existing in all hoods similar to hers. She is a board member of Hood Liberation. Deziana is a visionary, a story-teller, an artist, and a community healer who aims to help others discover that they too are lights in the midsts of their adversity. Find her on Instagram @confi_dez.