Poverty in our own backyard
By Pearl Wong
Over spring break, I participated in Santa Clara University's first San Jose immersion: finally, a glimpse into our own backyard. Many people here probably believe, as I had, that we need to leave Santa Clara and San Jose in order to find "real" poverty, as in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.
However, the sad truth is poverty surrounds our campus like moths do a light. A worse truth is that poverty had balefully stared at me for months prior to the immersion, and I could never bring myself to look back.
Located 25 minutes from campus, Sacred Heart Community Services provides basic needs to over a thousand people every day. From Louise's Pantry to JobLink, the center faces the challenging task of fighting poverty. While we performed traditional charity work, such as giving out food and organizing clothing donations, the Service Plunge gave us a unique opportunity to truly understand the challenges of the poor and homeless.
Perhaps the most transformative experience for me came on the third day, when my group and I spent the day in ragged clothing posing as homeless people. In pairs, we wandered the streets of downtown San Jose, our arms laden with clothes and canned foods, which we weren't allowed to eat. Carrying the food was meant to be part of the experience, since the homeless have to carry their entire lives on their backs every day.
Our Sacred Heart director, Rebecca Cole, had provided us with a list of tasks we could pursue in order to fully immerse ourselves in our environment. Some of them were various locations around San Jose where we could eat lunch, like Salvation Army or St. Joseph's Cathedral. Other tasks were to collect recyclables, find shelter and pan-handle or sit on the sidewalk with signs asking for food.
One of the most moving occurrences was when my partner, Maria and I conversed with random homeless men and women. We were at a loss as to how to find a shelter called Little Orchard. We ventured over to St. James Park in search of the local homeless, and met Stacy and her friends. I cannot fully express how open and friendly they were to us; I can scarcely imagine how we must have seemed to them.
Although she now lives in an apartment with a friend, Stacy had been a homeless woman and knew exactly how to get to Little Orchard. Turns out, Little Orchard was in South San Jose, several miles from downtown. Since we didn't have any money, I thought we would have to walk.
Almost immediately, Stacy exclaimed, "Naw, all you gotta do is ask the driver. Just say this: 'Hi, I'm tryin' find a place to stay tonight, and I wanna go to the Little Orchard Shelter. Could ya please give me a ride?'"
Then, before we bid our new friends farewell, Stacy asked me one last question, beginning a conversation I will never forget, "Do you turn tricks?" Excuse me, tricks? "Ya know, dates. Do you turn dates?" Prostitution, I thought. Is she really asking me if I was a hooker?
"No, I don't do that. Do you turn dates?"
"Yeah, sure. All the time."
I must have looked shocked.
"You girls, if you turn dates you could have a roof over your heads for the night you know. Just think about it; sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. And I gotta do what I gotta do."
Stacy's words, to say the least, rocked the core of my being. Could I have said something to her then that would change her mindset? Her words broke my heart; her situation makes me ashamed of the privileges I take for granted, such as the privilege to feel safe whenever I walk from Dunne to Campisi at nighttime.
As many people say, we become too focused within the Santa Clara bubble that sometimes we forget the world outside. Unfortunately for us, the world doesn't stop and wait while we catch up to its realities. This story isn't a call to action. It is a call to become more aware of our privileges, where we are, where we come from and where others may come from. Too often we rely on what we see rather than what we hear, and when we do hear sometimes we don't really listen.
Pearl Wong is a sophomore economics major.