Moving Forward on Several Fronts
Dear Tim [Jackins],
It’s good to be in touch with you again as we approach the end of a full and busy year.
Over the past year some of my neighbors and I have formed a Tenants’ Association in our apartment building. It has helped us prevent illegal evictions from our rent-controlled apartments and get some of our repairs done. It has also helped us get to know each other. We meet weekly and take actions together.
At work, the e-mail list I’ve developed for my direct-production coworkers is up to twenty-seven, and I’ve started including in my occasional mailings my Tenants’ Association e-mail list (a few of my neighbors are also direct production workers).
In July I started accepting online fundamentals students into my Global Majority fundamentals classes. We have four new people now—from Washington and California (USA); the Virgin Islands; and Toronto, Ontario (Canada). They all joined at different times, and it’s taken flexibility and creativity to keep things organized. My two assistants have become much more active in helping me. It’s great to see them moving forward in leadership, even taking responsibility for the class when I’m unavailable.
In September I led a one-day Area workshop on ending classism. It focused on economic exploitation and “internalized capitalism.”
I continue to do regular Co-Counseling sessions with several people in El Salvador. The one-to-one teaching and men’s group in Morocco also continue. A Lebanese young adult in North Carolina (USA) joins us sometimes, and at his suggestion he and I have started doing almost weekly two-way mini-sessions on all things Lebanese. It’s wonderful to have someone who speaks fluent Lebanese give me patient, undivided attention to learn more of my family’s language. My best direction is “It’s my language too!”
Los Angeles, California, USA
(Present Time 202, January 2021)