Many of us (activists, thinkers, or students) whom thirst for a positive change for our communities, at times get discouraged by the many obstacles life presents. As much as we try to help in whatever we are most passionate towards, a negative backlash or situation may occur, leading people to feel hopeless and give up. For the past year I have been working on a campaign that I founded based on the need of my neighbors and friends. At the moment I decided to do something about the kind of global issue we were facing, I knew immediately it will take a lot of commitment from my part. With deep faith and willingness to bring honor to my sister and her baby (who were victims of this global issue) I decided to act and be that one individual to say “#iam4 change” regardless of the kind of obstacles life will present.

Today, I will not only #write4good for the sake of the competition, but to also bring awareness. In 2013, my home became a crime scene to a horrific murder. Two men broke into our home, where at the time my sister, who was 3 months pregnant, was the only family member inside. They did unimaginable things to her and then strangulated her to death. In order to cover the evidence, my sister and her unborn child were left to burn that night. I received support from the RGVEZ Victims of Crime Program and with many months of counseling, I slowly began my journey of personal healing. One year later, since that tragic day, I got the courage to stand up against the violence piercing my neighborhood by forming the “Strides for Fany / Ascensos por Fany” campaign to give voice and strength to my colonia. This campaign was a response to the high levels of crime activity that kept happening in colonia, San Cristobal. I learned that the tragedy that my family and I faced not only impacted us, but also the people around us, for this reason I started this campaign, to honor my sister Stephanie “Fany” Gonzalez. I want people to remember her as an independent and strong person and I hope that my colonia will be inspired by her character and stand up against the existing violence that upholds our colonia.

Since the initiation of the campaign, a small dedicated team from my university and I, have brought forth the crime issues to Commissioners Court, hosted monthly meetings with residents, launched a Facebook page for the campaign and are already beginning the implementation process of a Neighborhood Watch Program in collaboration with the Hidalgo County Crime Stoppers and the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department. Despite all the incredible work, we understand that in moving forward with the direction of the campaign, it is a necessity to sustain it both programmatic and financially in order to create effective change in the long term. That is a kind of obstacle of course I was aware of at the beginning but will not permit it to be the reason we stop moving forward in the future. The mission is to decrease the crime activity in Colonia San Cristobal by building a cohesive and trustful relationship with residents and reclaiming respect and dignity in our neighborhood. Once successful, we want to become a model and resource to help other colonias in the Lower Rio Grande Valley who are experiencing high levels of crime activities in their colonias.

In late 2014, with the assistance of Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, the University of Texas Pan-American and 4 classmates, a short survey was designed and conducted to understand how residents felt about living in their colonia and what type of safety concerns and issues they were confronting. The results are as follows:

1. 64% of residents did not feel safe in the colonia.

2. 57% said they were victimized regularly.

3. 85% stated that there was lack of correspondence from local law enforcement.

Residents from San Cristobal also stated that the primary reason why they would not report these crimes was because they feared the “retaliation” or worst that a similar incident as the one that my sister endured, would happen to them. Therefore, to reduce the crime activity and elevate the fear that residents live in, the primary objectives of the campaign are:

1. Create a Neighborhood Watch Program to rebuild trust in the neighborhood.

2. Strengthen the dialogue and relationship between colonia residents, law enforcement and local government officials.

3. Involved youth through the establishment of youth programs and services. 4. Provide a leadership development platform for residents to rise and led the pathway for effective policy change through outreach and advocacy in their colonia.

5. Network and collaborate with other non-profits, government agencies and private entities to revitalize the colonia into a safer neighborhood and become a model for other colonias in similar circumstances.

Ultimately, the goal is to empower residents to take back their colonia and build a united front to combat the crime activity that penetrates their community. Since vandalism and theft happens anywhere and anytime, we encourage everyone that feels their neighborhood faces this kind of crimes in a regular basis, to reach out for help to their local law enforcement. But also, and most importantly, build a relationship with their neighbors (like us) you can create a positive change ONE STRIDE AT A TIME.

At this time, I would like to thank the time took to read my humble story and goals. As in for me, I will continue to pursue my degree in Criminal Justice to better understand the law and improve my campaign and neighborhood. I will continue to work hard to pay for college and give back to my community. This type of movement I decided to create can be yours too. You can help end this global issue! I look forward to learn about any feedback and collaboration , thank you.

P.S. If you would like to contribute or learn more on how to create your own campaign, please contact us!

Email: stridesforfany@gmail.com

Facebook: “Strides for Fany / Ascensos por Fany”

Mr. Yim's body no longer belonged to him. Against the pale pink walls of the convalescent home, his left arm jerked to and fro, a violent whip. Years before, Mr. Yim had been a school principal, but it was hard to imagine him as anything from his present vegetative state. In less than a decade, he had changed – no, he had disappeared, and in his place was this frail man in a wheelchair, a stranger. His neck deflated to one side as I slowly exited the room, an unintelligible murmur escaping from his jaw. No, Mr. Yim was gone.

Combine the cognitive decline of Alzheimer's, muscle spasms of ALS, and emotional irregularities of schizophrenia and you have a rough picture of Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder in which nerve cells in the brain accumulate toxins and die. The result is a progressive loss of control of both the body and mind, manifesting as involuntary writhing movements called chorea and deteriorating mental abilities. Typically, the first signs of illness appear around age thirty to forty, worsening until patients require full-time care. Some develop depression or unusual behaviors, a by-product of damage in multiple regions of the brain. Others gradually relinquish the ability to speak, no longer able to command their vocal cords. No matter the severity of symptoms, however, all Huntington's patients inevitably die from their disease.

Although less prevalent than cancers and less gruesome than Ebola, few disorders are as heartbreaking as Huntington's. In the hospital, I’ve watched it destroy not only the physical being of a person, but thoughts, memories, and personalities – the things that make us who we are. Losing a loved one is always painful, yet especially for Huntington's patients, death can be drawn out and humiliating. And while victims of the disease undoubtedly suffer, so do the caregivers. Children of parents with Huntington's have a 50% likelihood of inheriting the condition and may spend the rest of their lives in fear, reluctant to start a family of their own or plan a long-term career. With medical testing, those at risk can find out if they will have the disease, but because there is no cure, many prefer to not know. For these unlucky individuals, fate rests on a genetic coin flip. Half of them, free of Huntington's, will have the chance to lead normal lives. The other half, predestined, will endure the horrors of neurological degeneration.

Despite the dismal outcomes of Huntington's, I believe that there is light in the abyss. As an MD-PhD student, I've learned that the disease is caused by a mutation in a single gene, opening the possibility of repairing genetic material from patients through a process called gene therapy. There are still no treatments to stop or slow down the illness, but current research is promising. In particular, recent advances in genome editing and a technology known as site-specific nucleases could make it feasible to replace the faulty gene in Huntington's with a healthy variant, thereby eliminating the toxins potentially responsible for nerve cell death. While I have many years of clinical and graduate training remaining, I hope to one day pursue this topic as a physician-researcher and translate scientific progress on the disease into future medical care.

I stand for an end to Huntington's disease. I am only one person, but I will do everything in my power to promote awareness for patients, make new discoveries in the lab, and ultimately alleviate the suffering of individuals like Mr. Yim. Our generation is closer than ever to finding a cure. I know that we can make it happen.

#iam4#write4good

Blaxican, mutt, mixed, bi-racial, interracial, there is not a single word that can make up the sum total of me. For the better part of my life I can say I’ve spent more time explaining my genetic background than who I am as a person. I look Hispanic or black depending on your perception with a wild mane of curls that could or could not be my real hair and I sound “white.” I am a general rubix cube to most of the general population, but fortunately I am not alone. I represent a complicated past, controversial present, and for some a fearful misrepresentation of the future. A future where people are worried America will become at a loss of our identity because we are too inter-racially mixed.

I remember first experiencing racism when I was in fifth grade and a fellow classmate of Hispanic heritage asked me if I was going to be a “nigger,” for Halloween. At the age of ten I knew only that “nigger,” was a bad word used for black people and slaves in a colonial time period. I knew this because I spent much of my time in the library reading books on Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglas. At that time those were one of few books I had access to with characters that looked like me, shared my history, exhibited struggle and triumph relevant to my cultural background.

I wanted to ask my classmate why being a fellow Hispanic he saw or only chose to see my black ethnicity. What was lacking in my Hispanic side that he could not identify? Was I not being authentic to that part of me? I can say that my younger self was not eloquent enough in that moment to think on reflections like that and instead proceeded to cry in class. Unfortunately there were no children’s books or young adult books I could turn to that had any characters that could educate me or reflect who I was or could be. I searched for them anywhere and everywhere. Some text, guide, explanation or answer to mentor myself and my fellow classmates on being bi-racial.

Literature was my best friend growing up. We were so tightly wound I read myself right into glasses. Highlights magazine led me into fun adventures and puzzles that stretched my brain. The Baby Sitter’s Club took me through the pre-teen world of friendship and unity. I traveled down the educational journey into Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Beowulf and finally got to read about my first bi-racial character at age 15 in Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’. I got to see racial dynamics with a story crafted around a character who resembled me in some fashion and was not in a pre-Civil War era wearing chains and picking cotton.

I remember classmates referencing the text as a black person book and being unable to have in-depth discussions of what was in the text versus what the text was telling us. I learned early in life that racism was not just a word spewed in hate, banner, emblem or insignia. Contrary to popular belief it wasn’t buried in our past with whips and auction deals selling slaves to the highest price. I was unaware racism could exist in literature and writing. I had to accept that racism was alive and crawling it’s way to the surface of our culture at an alarming rate.

Racism isn’t just a state issue reserved just for the “south” where historically controversial ways of thinking and acts of violence have bred and boiled over from the early 1800′s till now. It’s not just a symbol or figurehead as we saw this past summer when the Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina statehouse. Organizations like the Klu Klux Klan stood out proudly protesting the decision vehemently and people argued that it was a matter of familial significance.Nor is it a simple matter of separation that comes with a border separating the United States and Mexico.

Racism isn’t just a national issue, though in the past few years tragedies like the murders of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown have brought worldwide media coverage and conversation regarding the relationship between race and justice. Even in America where our 44th President of the United States is often referred to as the “black president,” before his formal title of Mr. President or his legal name Barack Obama. Even now as we have contenders for the presidency perpetuating organized hate for immigrants. We can’t simply state that racism is just an American issue.

Racism is a global issue that has made an enormous impact on our society and day to day living as anything else. Growing up bi-cultural in with what some sarcastically told me is the “best of both worlds,“has always placed me at the forefront of discussion regarding race, relationships, and the larger context of what that means for me in the world. About 90% of the time I’m often asked “What I am,” before anything else and the “What,” always referred to my ethnic background. At a young age I decided to combat my struggles with racism through my writing and have dedicated myself to it every day of my life. I sought out writers and stories that I could find some peace in, solace, answers on how to make sense of questions and issues I face on a daily basis regarding who I am.

I come from a military background and I grew up in a small rural country town in the Texas panhandle with a population of less than 2,000 where my sisterand I were one of two mixed families in the area. I was taught very early about a “you vs. them” mentality that I never quite understood but, I got judged for anyway. I lived in the largest military base in the world where I met many children much like myself, they were mixes of several ethnicities and they were often challenged with a series of questions: What do we identify with? Who do we look more like? and why do we sound like this? I often wished I was just one race because then I wouldn’t be picked apart so much and cornered into questions I didn’t always have the right answers for. I lived in a city with one predominant race and culture. There I learned not only was I not brought up in the “traditional” sense of history and culture of my ethnicity, but that I wasn’t necessarily accepted since I wasn’t one full race.

When I began to attend graduate school in my early twenties I held tight to the fact I wanted to create literature and a stories regarding race and relationships for young adults. I was bombarded with the realization when I got to grad school I was the only hispanic in my cohort, the only mixed member, and one of four non-white students of eleven. “Eleven were picked out of over hundred of applications for this program,” our professor proudly boasted the first semester. Meeting with other students in our poetry and non-fiction programs I learned that there was even fewer minorities if any at all. I was forced to question whether minorities are running from the literary world or there was simply not a place for us in it.

I learned that in the literary world we study traditionally revered authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O’Connor, Ray Bradbury, and George Saunders (just to name a few) for structure, format, and their prose. Contemporary and writers of color aren’t historically revered for their writings and those that are had to make strong cases in the past and present for the legitimacy of their work like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Haruki Murakami. Having the opportunity to study writers like these not in the traditional literary “canon,” would benefit classroom’s that are void of culture in student writing. Being able to learn how a writer integrates Spanish or Spanglish would help writers like me who want to have bi-lingual text but no tools how to. It would create discussion and respect for a deeper insight into writing non-stereotypical characters of color.

I discovered racism within my own work when I had a peer refer to my mix of bilingual text on the page as “taco language,”a non-Spanish speaking professor tell me my writing needed more “context,” for non-Spanish speakers. Though it wasn’t malicious behavior, it hurt none the less. It brought awareness to the need for conversation within the classroom in regards to writing multi-language texts and how to read those when you don’t speak the language. I listened to classmates give stereotypical perceptions of non-white characters within their stories and observed with uncomfortable angst to the lack of ethnic characters in their writing. In one class we had a big time literary agent visit. He told us how hard it is to get characters of color brought to the forefront in the mainstream world of publishing.

When I attended the Association of Writers& Writing Programs last year I got to listen to panels discuss race in the literary world and how even in our current generation it is a long battle to get your story on bookshelves. I felt overwhelmed and ignorant of how unaware I was to these issues in a career I want to be successful in. I reflected on what I was attracted to reading, why I was compelled by it and how much of it had any characters of color. I listened to my peers discuss their struggles and frustrations on a dialogue that altogether was a foreign language nobody could translate in publishing. It empowered me to listen to fellow writer's of color seeking to educate readers and writers on the proper research needed to create dynamic characters.

Attending graduate school has opened my eyes even more to how progressive society is in areas of the world, but falls so short in so many other ways as human beings. Race is something I’m passionate about because it is who I am, years of history runs in my blood. Books are many things to people, an escape, an adventure, a learning opportunity,and I want to provide deep, insightful characters that don’t cater to one audience, but all audiences, not one city, demographic, gender or race, but everyone.There is a universal human need for understanding of our place in the world outside of our racial identity and I believe I have the power to create that change in my writing.

My experiences with racism transcends into my writing because I represent more than race. I have battled with both aspects of my culture and have received racism not only from the outside world but within my own people. Fiction writing allows me to tell my story and the story of so many others in a truthful and honest context. I am combatting racism in my writing. I want to help educate and create dialogue through dynamic storytelling about an issue we all live with on a daily basis. There isn’t a portion of the earth that isn’t inhabited by people who are seeking equality of some sort of the other, those of us just wanting to be understood, respected, and seen for WHO we are and not WHAT we are.

As president of my Graduate Student Organization here at school I hope to create a bridge of educated discussion regarding culture in literature and how to bring that to the forefront of our education. We will be holding our first “Literary and Race,” discussion in October, headed by different professors from our department and MC’ed by students. I hope to create a bridge of educated discussion regarding culture in literature and how to bring that to the forefront of our education in/out of school. Junot Diaz famously penned an article regarding the lack of diversity in MFA programs and I hope to help ignite a change for that in the future. I am a human, woman, person, activist, and author for change in race relations in education. I believe humans are beautiful people and we have the capability to exhibit kindness, understanding and respect for each other if we only given the tools to create that dialogue.

“We’re going to do it this way today.”

And so began my struggle with school.

From a very early age, we’re taught that there’s only one way to do things. Only one way to learn to read, to write, to ride a bike. Everything must be done at a certain age. Not earlier, not later. And it all must be done one way.

I remember when I was taught how to write my letters--that was the worst year of my life. There are plenty of adults I know whose penmanship looks like nothing more than scratches on paper. But my teacher criticized and marked me down for each little mistake, and by the end of the year, when report cards came out, I received a check mark for handwriting that was not as neat and beautiful as it should be. But who can dare tell an eight-year old that her hand writing is bad? That the loops at the ends of her A’s are wrong or that I’s shouldn’t be dotted with hearts, she’s just being creative.

Every year the teachers give the whole “poetry is about being creative and expressing how you feel” speech.

Oscar Wilde tells us that “to define is to limit.” Because right after they tell you all about creativity, they give you directions on how you have to write a poem, counting out each individual syllable and making them rhyme. But I want things not to rhyme. I want to make someone cry by rhyming sunshine with raincloud and summer with winter and smile with tear. I want each stanza, wait, why should I even use stanzas if I don’t need them? I can have a million lines if I wanted because that’s what poetry is.

Art doesn’t have to be in the lines of the paper. Art isn’t meant to be taught, it’s meant to be experienced, learned, felt, made. Just because they colors don’t seem to “complement” or “represent” or “contrast”. I’ll distemper you, too bad I don’t know what that means because I didn’t pay attention in your class.

They teach you to do everything in your head, so as not to speak your mind, so when you get older you can keep opinions to yourself and fall below a power that in which you should take part.

So I stand for creativity. For the opportunity that each child is endowed with to write and not be told it doesn’t fit a curriculum’s idea of education. In a world where the college majors that are considered to be most profitable are the ones that rely on concrete facts, it becomes impossible to think for oneself. Although this cannot kill the physical body, the ability to be creative is what has saved lives around the world. It is a global epidemic that we can no longer ignore.

Creativity allows us to realize our discontent: with our government, with our world, with ourselves. When this is taken away, we cannot realize what we need.

After explaining to my close friend of ten years that getting out of bed was one of the hardest tasks of the day, she laughed. “You’re just lazy,” she said, “you need to be more motivated,” and that was that. She had reduced my major depression to a simple idiosyncrasy- laziness. Unfortunately, her attitude towards mental illness isn’t new. For centuries, many people have seen mental illness, especially disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as “strange” or “taboo” purely because of their lack of knowledge. While the shame surrounding mental illness has decreased since way back when, most of society is still ignorant in regards to neurological disorders. Their unawareness contributes to the worldwide social stigma around mental illness, which negatively affects the mentally ill by causing discrimination against them and prohibiting them from receiving the help they deserve.

When one has a neurological disorder, social support is vital. The mentally ill need to be shown love and acceptance so they can feel less alone. However, many people who have been diagnosed with a neurological disorder are discriminated against daily. Some have had their identity reduced to their disease, being labeled as “crazy” due to their mental health, while others have lost the support of their family and friends. For some people, the discrimination against them can actually cause their mental health to deteriorate rapidly. For example, someone with depression will only become more depressed if they are ostracized by others. While living with a neurological disorder is a tough journey within itself, it would be easier if society was more understanding of what challenges the mentally ill face daily.

According to the World Health Organization, “one in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives,” which is around 450 million people total. However, only around 297 million will ever seek help for their disorder (“Mental Disorders Affect One in Four People”). How can one receive help if they’re too scared to ask for it? Due to the stigma surrounding mental illness, the mentally ill are afraid to ask for help because of the judgments that may occur when they seek treatment. For example, I kept my depression and anxiety a secret for years because I was afraid of what other people would think. While burying my head in the sand only made things worse, it did help me realize that I needed to talk to a therapist. My biggest fear when I told my parents I was suicidal and they sent to the hospital was how others would view me after I left treatment. Would my friends view me as weak? Would my parents see me as a disappointment? What names would I be called when I returned to school? Fortunately, many people were sympathetic of my situation; however, others looked down on me, labeling me as an abnormality. While I grew closer to people that understood my depression, I lost close friends who refused to accept me for who I was.

The social stigma surrounding mental illness causes discrimination against the mentally ill and prohibits them from receiving help. Due to the rational fears of rejection, many people with neurological disorders are afraid to seek treatment. Furthermore, the mentally ill are constantly isolated and labeled purely because of their mental health. If this issue was solved, the world population would be much healthier. The number of people with mental disorders would be drastically reduced since people would no longer be afraid of seeking treatment. Although the day is far off, my dream is that I will one day no longer hear mental disorders being referred to as “disgusting” while sitting at the lunch table. I stand for fighting the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Works Cited:

“Mental Disorders Affect One in Four People." WHO. World Health

Organization, 04 Oct. 2001. Web. 31 July 2015. <http://www.who.int/whr/2001/media_centre/press_release/en/>.

I turn to put the final rinsed off sippy cup into the dishwasher as I hear the all too familiar whomp- thud-sob trifecta that instinctively signals my mommy brain to be on full alert . My lower lip immediately juts out to mimic the scrunched and freshly tear-streaked face of my baby, while instinctively my nostrils flare as my eyes dart to my toddler. The eldest, who inherited my triangle shaped nostrils, matches my irritated nose and raises me a defiantly guilty glare. In his hand he clutches the item of iniquity. The empty water bottle my baby dug from the trash just moments before was the now coveted piece of rubbish that prompted the assault. Or was it actually my son’s greedy nature that sparked the tragedy? Regardless, it was a classic victim versus assailant case.

The adult part of me wanted to make a flippant remark about how it’s just plain foolish to fight and hurt our siblings over a piece of trash. Really?! That is completely nonsensical.

Luckily, three solid years into this parenting gig, I have strengthened my mom muscles enough to discern between a logical and passionate decision based reaction.

This was not a proprietary issue. This was a heart issue: brother against brother.

Scooping up the whimpering baby, I straddled him no my hip, and knelt down to face his, now remorseful, brother. By now his face had softened, and the corners of his emerald eyes pooled with anticipated tears of remorse. In unison, we once again repeated last month’s Bible verse from Sunday school.

Be kind and loving to each other. Ephesians 4:32

We chant these words so frequently, they have organically morphed into our home’s mantra. These words warranted reiterating a handful of times before the sun set that night.

During the long days of summer, our family had taken to playing the role of local tourists to our little slice of the world. One of our most anticipated destinations were the battlefields of Gettysburg. Only a couple hours away, we imagined an afternoon littered with fascinating historical facts and wide eyed stares of excitement as we would show our kids cannons and towering bronze statues of our country’s heroes.

Tickets purchased, we loaded onto the bus and settled into our nineties era geometric patterned seats that allude to the authenticity of the tour company. Decades have gone into mastering the perfect tour for the thousands of people who annually stream through the historical town. Our guide was masterful in painting the picture of the three day battle that tore across the now serene countryside of Southern Pennsylvania. We could soberly envision the young men marching across the fields, desperately establishing the high ground, bravely obeying their orders to attack, and valiantly laying down their lives for an ideal that was greater than one man.

My eldest son listened intently while the guide verbally transported us back in time. It wasn’t until after we strapped him into his car seat for the long ride home that the rapid fire of questions shot out from the backseat.

“Why were the Army men angry?

Why did they shoot people?

Are they all dead?“

Gulp. My husband and I locked panicked eyes and silently questioned who should take on the hard-hitting questions. I had not properly anticipated this. Give me a birds and the bees question over one addressing death and violence any day. These are the hard questions I was warned I would one day have to answer for. At the end of the three hour bus ride I had heard: bravery, altruism, determination, and national unity. My son had just heard: school aged soldiers, bloody wheat fields, traumatic injuries, mangled bodies, and shallow graves. To him, it was brother versus brother.

My mind spun, desperately searching for the right answers to help him understand. I wanted to get it right. I wanted to help him see. In the end I settled on the truth:

“I don’t know. “

It’s true. I don’t understand. How does one explain a murky grey matter to a child who innocently views the world in contrasting shades of black and white? How is killing you brother ever a solution?

I do know I am glad we live in a country where people automatically recoil in horror at the thought of slavery. I know I am glad to live in a unified country. And I know I am in complete awe of those who sacrificed their lives to live on the foundation of ideals and principles.

According to USA today, modern slavery sadly still exists in 167 countries. India has the appalling honor of being at the top of the list with 14.3 million entrapped souls. Africa boasts the statistic for being the continent with the most civil wars. Since 1960, twenty inter-country wars have endured armed conflict.

What is the cost? What are the options? Did we have to kill our brothers in order for the right to prevail? Was there some other way? Would we have be a divided country, still filled with human bondage, if it hadn’t been for the thousands of men who died? Even though these questions are sparked from my naïve three year old, they still hold profound gravitas.

If war has taught us anything, would it not be to always question violence- to shine a light of inquisition, always asking why? I certainly don’t hold the prowess of a political strategist, but I do know the world could benefit from more decisions rooted in love. Crouching down to the vantage point of a child yields a refreshing viewpoint, visible in stark hues of black and white. If I am eligible to chose a path it is this:

Be kind and loving to each other. Especially your brother.

#write4good #iam4

Brandy Martell- 37. Shot in the front seat of her car. She had ONE article written about her in the media. 2012.

Eyricka Morgan- 26. Shot by a man living in her boarding house. 2013.

Leelah Alcorn- 17. Committed suicide by stepping in front of a tractor trailer. 2014.

Mercedes Williamson- 17. Beaten to death and buried under debris at the murderer's father's home. 2015.

All four of the women above were murdered in a hate crime. They were murdered for something they can't help but feel, and caused no harm to others. It only caused harm for themselves.

Transgender and transsexual are not the same thing.

To understand the difference between them, you must understand the difference between gender and sex. For starters, gender is between your ears, or your brain. It's what you FEEL- either male or female, neither or both. Sex is, well, your sex. Your sex is determined by your genitalia, either male or female. Gender has nothing to do with your sexual organs.

Now, people who are transsexual are those who have had sex reassignment surgery. Meaning, they had their male genitalia surgically changed to those a female would have- and vice versa. However, transgender people are those that have changed their gender. So, if a person was born male, but they dress, act, or feel like a female, and they wish to identify as a female, they are transgender male-to-female. Or mtf for short.

NewCivilRightsMovement noted that .3 percent of the U.S. population openly identifies as transgender. That means out of 318.86 million people (as of 2014), 9,565,800 people openly identify as transgender in America.

Transgender people are at a 50% higher risk of being murdered than their gay and lesbian counterparts, in the U.S.

In the majority of the states, you can be fired/not hired/turned away by companies because of what you identify as.

Thank fully, however, schools HAVE to allow the students to use the bathroom of the gender they identify as. And if they don't, they're breaking a federal crime.

With transgender celebrities such as Laverne Cox, and probably the most known, Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender community had gained a lot of publicity. But with that publicity comes misunderstandings.

Many political powers have tried to pass laws where transgender people have to use the bathroom of their assigned gender. (The gender they were assigned at birth.)

This can and will cause many problems. How can you be sure someone is transgender or not? What about those on hormone treatments? Those transgender men who you are making use the female's bathroom have full on beards and those transgender women have breasts. Which bathroom do you think they should be using?

No, they are not in the bathroom to peep on your children. They are in the bathroom to do just that, go to the bathroom.

Transgender people should not have to wonder if the business they are going to will turn them away.

Transgender teenagers should not have to fear their peers at school.

Transgender people should not have to walk down the street and fear for their lives.

How can we change these things?

By educating.

We need to teach these kinds of things in school, because people fear what they do not understand.

Did you know that 41% of transgender people ATTEMPT suicide? 41%. That is not acceptable.

Set in a small church on Westwood Boulevard, just south of UCLA, Westwood Hills Congregational Church is a community of people both old and young, committed to social justice and putting faith into action in their neighborhood, greater Los Angeles, and worldwide. The sanctuary is a brightly lit room, with a symmetrical feeling that makes everything seem in place. It has high ceilings, small, stained-glass windows, and an organ that sounds as if celestial beings have come for a song. The opening song before the service sets the tone for the morning, ‘Filling the world with love’. The message is then enforced again by everyone getting up and introducing themselves, hugging the person sitting next to them, and passing on good vibes and excitement over the sabbath.

As an intern with CLUE-LA, especially one who comes from a mostly secular background, a large part of the educational experience this summer has revolved around learning what different religions believe about social and economic justice, and aiding those in need. CLUE’s motto, written on the now familiar burgundy picket signs reads: “All religions believe in justice,” and Westwood Hills Congregational is no different. Hosting what we refer to as Justice in the Pulpits, it is a powerful experience to see those most marginalized stand tall and share their story.

Reverend Samuel Pullen, guest preaching today while the Pastor is on sabbatical, focuses us with a centering song about being out of place, and opens with the words, “We are all so very far away from home.” This message is significant because before the backdrop of an involved community, CLUE organizer Guillermo Torres is translating for Sandra, a mother who is dealing with immigration courts that want to deport her son back to El Salvador.

UCARE stands for Unaccompanied Central American Refugee Empowerment. Guillermo has been heavily involved in immigration reform for most of his life, and has formed a coalition of faith and community leaders in the Los Angeles area to help these children gain asylum here in the U.S., and ease their transition once they accomplish that.

In 2014, there was a surge of unaccompanied children fleeing to the United States from Central America due to the gang violence and threats of harm. These children go through an agonizing journey over a thousand miles to get here, only to face more difficulties once they present themselves at the border. Many children, some of them with their mothers have been placed in detention centers in Texas, Arizona, and California, sometimes for months on end. Federal courts have already ruled these detention centers illegal, but enforcement is slow, if it comes at all. Most of these children have lost family, friends, their homes, and all sense of belonging on the journey here to the States, but simply crossing the border and applying for asylum is only one of many steps to gaining refuge here.

At Westwood Hills Congregational, Reverend Pullen asks people if they know of stories in the Bible that relate to unaccompanied children, or children fleeing from violence. At once a flurry of names comes forth. Moses, who was placed in a basket by his mother and sent down a river, in hopes that he would be found by someone who could take care of him. Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, a victim of human trafficking that is reflected today in many parts of the world, our great nation included. Jesus, who had to flee to Egypt, the threat of violence nipping at his heels. It was transformative for the congregation to realize that these biblical stories were not merely parables, but connected to what these children are facing today.

Sandra, mother of a twelve year old boy who is still going through immigration court in order to gain asylum here. Her son was living in an area in El Salvador where his school was located in an area controlled by one gang, but where he lived was controlled by another gang. One day, on his way to school with his caretaker, he was assaulted, and his caretaker stabbed, before the attackers told him to never come back. He immediately left his hometown, his country, to begin an arduous journey to meet his mother. He took trains, walked, evaded corrupt officials, and finally made it to the border, where he was promptly detained for a week, and then sent to a foster home for another three weeks before the government reached out to Sandra.

That wasn’t the end however. Once reunited, mother and son still needed to go to immigration court for a judge to make a ruling on whether or not her son could stay in the U.S. In 2014, the United States deported over 7,000 children back to Central America, ignoring pleas for asylum. These courts require children and families seeking asylum to get an attorney. The problem? Most of these children are unaccompanied, don’t speak English well, and if they have their parents here, most can’t afford an attorney. Sandra faced this issue with fear and trepidation.

“I was very scared about what I was going to do. I was shaking and crying because I couldn’t afford a lawyer,” Sandra shares with Westwood Hills congregation. With tears in her eyes just reliving the experience, Sandra tells us about her experience at the court. The second time she was present, this time with her son, the judge threw her out of the court for not having an attorney. Torres, advocate with an organization called Guardian Angels, approached Sandra to let her know Guardian Angels has lawyers working with them who represent cases such as hers, all pro-bono. Filled with relief at having a name to give the judge, Sandra is given another date to reappear before the court, this time with the backing of a lawyer who won’t let her son get taken away.

After the service ends, the congregation meets on their patio to share in some refreshments and talk more in depth with Sandra, Guillermo, and myself about this massive issue facing our country. I sidle up to one of the Deacons, Dr. Brad Stone, professor and chair of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount. When prompted about what he thinks about immigration in this country, he replies: “Compounded by California’s own racial history...where you have people who are after all, Mexican, and have always been here in Los Angeles, right? Here we are standing on Mexican ground, annexed in an American war against Mexico. Yet we then want to talk about who was here [first]. And I just think that’s a contradictory view.”

Guillermo Torres, point person at CLUE for immigration issues, has this to say about what needs to happen in these turbulent times. He says, “Well, I would say one of the most pressing issues is advocacy, and also welcoming these children and these families. Making them feel welcome, and showing them that there are people who are kind and compassionate, and love, and make them feel welcome.” This is particularly important amidst a backdrop of anti-immigrant sentiment that has taken the nation by storm, especially as espoused by one particular Presidential candidate who needs no introduction.

Reverend Pullen, as we start packing up, has an important message about the children, and call to action for his fellow clergy.

“We are called to be a prophetic voice. We are called to remind people of faith that the story of the Jewish people and the story of Jesus and the Christian movement is about supporting those who are most vulnerable, and remembering the times in our lives, and in our histories when we have been immigrants, when we have fled from injustice and violence.”

What is important to remember is that at one point, nearly all of us were immigrants to the land of opportunity. UCARE may represent those from Central America, but immigrants come from all over the world seeking a better life for themselves here in the United States. Our history is filled with narratives, accounts, and lore of people fleeing racial, religious, and ideological oppression. Many are vulnerable, but none more so than children. While immigration reform might take many years to be implemented, there are children here in Los Angeles who need help now. They are here, they are vulnerable, they have already been through some of the worst experiences that a human being can ever go through. All they ask is for that to not be in vain. Many organizations are working in conjunction to support these children. But organizations are made up of people, people who care and want to make a difference. Do you?

The wonder of natural phenomena involving plants and animals presented on High Definition Television overwhelms the viewer. Internet images and science documentaries hyper accentuate the reality of earth becoming warmer each year, providing proof positive that the glaciers of the Arctic and Antarctica are melting at a frightful rate.

Alarming news in a world filled with so much natural beauty and such an infinite variety of flora and fauna.

Many voices have been heard about global warming from all sources of media. Politicians have given speeches and lectures and debated the topic. Governments and even the Pope have joined in the increasing crescendo of warning and a need to take greater action. No longer is global warming so much an international controversy as it is an accepted scientific fact. The proof is irrefutable and easily accessible to all via scientific telecommunications technology.

Alarming old news: There is a hole in the ozone over the Arctic.

Think of the beauty of Arctic icebergs and creatures like polar bears, fox, reindeer, walrus, seal, ox, moose, orca, snowy owls superimposed on a super white landscape of ice and frosty snow, rich blue skies, pristinely clear above the horizon. Picture some of the world's renowned glaciers diminished in size or completely gone, while others continue melting exposing barren rock in their place.

Even more alarming old news: previously announced news, perpetually available on the Internet for the world community to observe: There is an even larger hole in the ozone over Antarctica, as there are presently other holes in the ozone layer covering the earth.

Antarctica besides the tragedy of her melting icebergs; this mighty continent supports animals like the penguin, whales, seals, albatross and other seabirds.

It seems impossible that anyone would question the reality of global warming, yet there are those who have aggressively spoken against the evidence supporting the phenomenon. The controversy continues to foment argument, but as time passes and calamities relating to rising global temperatures turn apocalyptic - dissenting voices will wane.

Take the rampant fires throughout various western states like Oregon and California, even in the tundra of Alaska. It is easy to ignore catastrophe when we are not directly connected to the event. We who live in the United States hear daily the ubiquitous adverse geologic, meteorological, and human political or religious upheavals. Our human minds often tune out excessive bad news even when great populations of human life are taken by genocide. Earthquake, tsunami, tornado, hurricane, human warfare - become sundry terms due to repetitious sound and image bites. The daily routine of personal concerns easily drowns out world environmental issues.

Global warming is hard to ignore. It daily affects us on a personal level whether acknowledged or not. It has affected the economy and supplies of fresh water. It has affected the weather. Recall three or four years ago unprecedented high temperatures in Europe killing large human populations, particularly the elderly. Summer heat in the Northern and Western Hemispheres has become unprecedentedly extreme, lingering and extending deeper into autumns.

Drought continues to linger not only in California, as we hope, pray and wait for a wet El Nino. We beseech this imaginary meteorological child as if were actually a living entity, just as we invoke the name of Mother Nature when weather affects us negatively. We sometimes combine anthropomorphic attributes to events in nature in order to appease our fears when our understanding is based on ignorance and uncertainty. And so we turn to science and do our part to try and rectify the problem by saving water, driving electric cars, recycling resources - Going Green.

Scientists report that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to global warming. Some report that earth's concentration of this gas was proportionately high in earth's past history with no dire consequences to plants and animals of that era. Some state that high concentrations of carbon dioxide are caused by earth’s natural geological events. Solutions are offered by some to capture this gas and pump it deep into the earth or to use it for economic purposes like in manufacturing or converting it to an inert or less harmful molecular product.

Force your exhalation and inhalation into a paper bag without benefit of our atmosphere’s mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and other gases and you will pass out. This foolish demonstration demonstrates that carbon dioxide can be breathed but cause unhealthy bodily symptoms and death at concentrated levels.

Plants produce oxygen in the process of transpiration involving carbon dioxide. Mammals inhale oxygen. Carbon dioxide is a human waste product involved in the respiratory process which cycles back to plants.

The astronauts of Apollo 13 improvised a solution to a deadly problem. Carbon dioxide was concentrating in their tiny space capsule on their emergency return trip to earth. The scrub filters they had on board required a square fitting in their command module which they lacked. They had round scrubbers from the lunar module. Using duct tape they solved the proverbial problem of: “How do you put a round peg into a square hole?” This procedure saved their lives from poisonous levels of carbon dioxide.

We know that Earth suffers from excessive heat due to the Green House Effect where carbon dioxide is trapped within earth’s atmosphere. Most of us are familiar with ozone? Remember that oxygen is made of two atoms and ozone has three. Ozone is harmful to the lungs and skin, but its beneficial effect is to shield the earth from solar radiation. It is found in the atmospheric layer called stratosphere, 6 to 10 miles in altitude. Scientists have determined there are holes in the ozone all over the globe and have shown that human use of fluorocarbons contribute to these holes. Solar radiation can then penetrate into our lowest atmosphere negatively affecting our health. We have bad air days when ozone layers are higher than normal.

Do you suppose leaking solar radiation into our earth's surface adds to the global warming problem? Most of us have heard Newton's classic expression in paraphrase, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Also include Euler's laws of motion which extend Newton's laws of for point particles to rigid body motion when you consider the following:

All matter, even radiation is physical and made of particles. If you study these laws and even read the layman's versions you should get a clue for a simple yes or no.

Gases are good but they are bad. How's that for an oxymoron. Example: oxygen is vital for life, but will oxidize human body tissue. Excess amounts it can lead to death. It’s clear that these some gases are essential to life on earth, but can also cause problems with living organisms. The terms used when talking about carbon dioxide gas and the greenhouse effect and the principles I have used in the foregoing, are commonly used vernacular among grade school children. Presently, this topic is often discussed in our global community and have become a global consciousness in an Internet Info-Age.

A suggestion to drive the point home as a means of educating the public for greater awareness on Global Warming might be following a simple exercise using the integration of simple mathematics and the internet for visual concepts and research. Here is one such exercise:

Using direct observation or other media means, ask students or people you know consider the amount of cars in the world. You can start by asking yourselves whether you’ve been on a trip or trips to major metropolitan cities like Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City, etc. Juxtaposition this idea with the visual of long streams of cars, often bumper to bumper on a major freeway connecting major destinations. Students will relate better if you can share your own experiences or observations. I’m sure most of us have peered to the ends of the freeway’s horizon in daylight or night driving. Long lines of assorted vehicles can overwhelm the view through the front and back windshields reflecting myriad rays of sunlight from bumpers, mirrors and windows in all directions. At night the reflections and illumination of lights is dazzling, appearing as a sort of lit, living serpent.

This amazing wonder would qualify as one added to the Seven Wonders of the World, especially if you can imagine this same sight multiplied throughout the world. This is without even considering vehicles that are not on freeways and those that are not passenger cars. Do not neglect to mention ocean or water-way machines, yard equipment – the list is virtually non-exhaustive, practically speaking. A good exercise would be to list and discuss any other machines using internal combustion technology. Everyone involved in this learning exercise would be busy.

Now for the coup de grace; besides computing amazing statistical data, everyone should arrive at one of the most obvious conclusions of the exercise, which might be: Man by virtue of his technological prowess of inventiveness; has succeeded in a highly effective means of transportation when contrasted by previous forms since the Egyptians and prior. Or, better yet: Man by his inventiveness, has created the world’s largest conglomerate machine system utilizing internal combustion engines which translates to a monstrous heater! Viola. It would be interesting to calculate how much heat our world fleet of machines emit into the Green House ceiling, or atmosphere. We need to also mention the total volume of gas this composite machine produces per second, hour . . . month . . . or year, even as the population of these cars increases daily like earth’s human population.

Incidentally, Earth Science principles in the study meteorology explain that weather is caused by the Sun. Our sun is a magnificent heat engine. Weather is driven or created by heat meeting cold fronts of air temperature. Another simple example: the sun heats the oceans of the world and creates temperature differences between land and air.

I often work outside during summer months of San Joaquin Valley heat wearing only tee shirt, shorts and sandals or go barefoot. It seems that sunlight is causing more of a burning or stinging sensation to the tops of my feet, arms and neck comparative to past experiences. After minimal time of a few minutes to direct sun posture, the pain becomes intolerable. Consequently, I apply a high SPF rating of sunscreen to help withstand our nearest star's invisible waves of radiation. I don’t recall the same symptoms of sunburn and pain while chopping cotton in the fields or going barefoot as young man. Maybe I’ve become sensitive to the sun because of being older. Maybe the sun's effect are synergized by some of the medication I take.

Two years ago, my 56 year old friend said he lay on a Mexican beach for about 2 hours. His foot was exposed to the sun during this time resulting in a severe sunburn approximately 25 square centimeters in area. It contracted into an awful looking melanoma on the top of his foot. It looked like a cancerous tumor, purplish black and raised like a boil. It was surgically removed leaving a deep indentation and remains potentially Mel anomic.

Global warming as a headline, is not usually discussed contextually with nuclear energy and its possible involvement with global warming. Based on my reading and exposure to media, I do not recall the two topics, carbon dioxide and nuclear energy being joined as a platform discussing and drawing attention to earth warming issues.

We learned in physics class that for every cause there is an effect. Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, meaning that in every interaction, there are forces interacting with objects. I think other, very significant, obvious factors, besides trapped gases and holes in the ozone are contributing to global warming. How about the burning of fossil fuels like petroleum, gases and coal? Of course. These produce toxic by- products as well as heat which are trapped within the confines of our atmosphere. Challenge: picture all of these industrial components of human use across the globe operating 24/7 year around.

Now consider a form of energy which I believe also contributes to global warming. Nuclear energy seems to be overlooked or ignored by the media while carbon dioxide remains at center stage. As mentioned above, there ozone holes in the stratosphere. These allow solar radiation into our lowest atmospheric layer. I know about it too, but forget, unless I'm writing a piece like this one or talking to a friend.

The law of conservation of mass states that for any system the mass must remain constant over time because its quantity cannot be changed. So, the quantity of mass is conserved over time, meaning that mass cannot be created or destroyed; it just takes on other forms or rearranged. Think about nuclear matter used in reactors or nuclear weapons. Think how the energy of these systems is transformed into particles like radiation, light and heat and taking on different, even exotic, invisible forms, released into space, underground, soil surface, water and . . . living things.

This law supports the fact that during any chemical reaction, nuclear reaction, or radioactive decay in an isolated system, the total mass of the reactants or starting materials must be equal to the mass of the products. An example for simplification the same number of particles in wood before you burn it, are the same after combustion - all accounted for. Except that he wood changes form. It has become fire, heat, smoke, chemicals, wouldn't a class in quantum mechanics be cool? Keep these ideas in mind as you read below.

Think about the radiation releases since the early 1950's in Alamogordo, New Mexico and Oppenheimer's atomic detonation test, precursor to the Atomic Age with the many that followed both in our United States, Russia and proliferating countries. Many were conducted on the ground and others below the ocean, remember the Navy ships and Atomic warfare test in the Bikini Atolls region? Some nuclear tests involved the neutron bomb which detonated above the ground in the atmosphere. Does most of the modern generation of elementary grade student remember the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan? These were planned, not accidental. Then came the more powerful nuclear devices, planned for warfare. The acronym MADD is interesting. Type it in your search engine. Hints of another oxymoron, or metaphor - Pandora's Box, not the radio.

Research nuclear power plant accidents when you have time. Some leaked seemingly minor radiation like the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Philadelphia, U.S.A and others across the globe. There's Chernobyl in Russia and the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan, still leaking substantial radiation into air and water according to some reports and allegedly, still major threat after leaving radioactive devastation in its wake. Refer to YouTube using the Internet and you will drive quickly get the point. Radiation is emitted by elemental isotopic decay. Some elements emit radiation for hundreds, Thousands – even millions of years.

What effect does radiation have on human beings, animal and plant life. Well, man’s contribution to nature via nuclear technology is not a natural phenomenon like volcanic activity. Manmade radiation is not star radiation, or cosmic, it is created by mankind and introduced into the air, ground and water in phenomenal quantities. Mankind’s scientific research has even produced synthetic radioactive substances that are new to nature’s periodic table of natural elements. Don’t you think radiation has an unnatural or adverse effect on our planet? Of course it does. Have synthetic radioactive by-products increased since their conception and release into the environment? Yes.

Where does radiation go in the wake of a nuclear accident or test detonation? For an indirect clue to demonstrate that particles of any substance don’t just disappear, or cannot be accounted for, just google Rachael Carson and her book, Silent Spring.

DDT a banned insecticide used worldwide. Where did the DDT particles and sub particles go? They entered the bald eagle's biome and food chain, affected its biochemistry and caused the thinning of its egg shells, resulting in diminishing populations to the point of near extinction or yet another endanged species. To this day, DDT can be found on all parts of the globe housed within the soil and the body fat of mammals.

I have striven to provide a composite of reasons in my essay so the reader is able more clearly understand reasons for an increasingly warmer earth.

PROBLEM: Does Global Warming Caused by Atmospheric Gas and Radiation Synthesized by Humans, Such as That Produced by Nuclear Technology Affect Contribute to Global Warming?

HYPOTHESIS: based on some science education, common sense, reflection and introspection borne of personal experience: There is a high probability that Global Warming is caused by the elements denoted in the PROBLEM directly above.

A solution to the PROBLEM is possible, but it is about as easy to solve as trying to provide a Unified Theory or of Relativity as Einstein did. There are not many Sir Isaac Newton’s, Albert Einsteins, or Stephen Hawkings in our global community and the PROBLEM has exacerbated during the previous 250 years since the start of the Industrial revolution to the present.

As I write this essay, images flash across my mind's field of vision. Still frames of a childhood exposure to an amazing comic book suddenly appear. My focus hones-in on one frame; a masterpiece of artwork. The comic book I first held many years ago captivated me. I knew nothing at all of environmental problems back then.

The setting of the comic book story takes place on the planet Krypton. A baby named is Kal-El, is born on the planet Krypton. Just before the planet’s destruction, his mother and scientist father, Jor-El, placed him inside a spaceship and rocketed him in an escape voyage to a planet called Earth. In the next comic book frame, I remember Kal-El’s parents standing watch as the spaceship ascends into space leaving them behind to die on Krypton. Even now, I vividly remember feeling a weight of sadness. I can still feel it today. The denizens of Krypton were a technologically advanced planetary community with planetary problems. Kal-El was the only one to survive the doomed planet and arrive safely to our Earth.

On Earth, the alien child became known as Superman with superhuman powers which he used to help mankind.

Missions to Mars are being planned. Will we curb the large scale consequences of global warming caused by mankind’s releases of gas and radioactive pollution? How will we achieve the reversal of environmental abuse? Can we regrow the deforestation of the Amazon Forest? Can we replace its forever lost species of animal and other plant life? No one has been able to resurrect extinct species. We almost lost the American Bison. We have lost many other species already.

Do you cringe at the thought: What happens if our Sequoia Giant Trees burn due to wildfires, diminishing their population, or are sent to the verge of extinction due to other secondary effects caused by drought, like insect infestations and weakened trees? This principle applies to most all other species.

. . . Go to the beauty of Arctic icebergs and the creatures that live there and superimpose these marvelous animals on the canvas of your mind’s eye and imagine pristine, clean snow white landscape of ice . . .

Our planet is beautiful beyond description. It is not too late to be like Superman and each do our part to help preserve beautiful planet Earth.

#write4good and #iam4

In the winter of 2013, during a week of subfreezing temperatures uncharacteristic to the area, four homeless men died of hypothermia in the streets of San Jose, California. When I first heard the story, I found the news disturbing—that in wealthy Silicon Valley, the needy had been ignored, denied even the most basic resources. As I continued to follow the news reports, however, I learned some important details. It turns out, the victims had been offered shelter; the problem was that none of them had accepted it. When approached by volunteers from a local charity organization, they had turned down the help, refusing to abandon their makeshift encampments on the street.

We know that people with schizophrenia see the world differently, but questions remain as to what exactly they see. What threat, imperceptible to the passerby, makes freezing to death on the street seem more bearable than a night in a county shelter? Even when we understand that schizophrenia exists in a third of the world’s homeless, a diagnosis of schizophrenia in itself will not allow us to empathize with people who are suffering.

Though it might seem counterintuitive, my family’s battle with schizophrenia made me hesitant to embrace the idea of empathy. While the bodies of the homeless men were identified and removed from the city streets, my thoughts turned to a small house in rural Hawaii, hundreds of miles away, where voices in the wall had irreversibly fractured my aunt’s sense of reality. Dependent on ineffective medication and the care of my aging grandparents, my aunt has been fighting severe schizophrenia for decades. I have never seen more than a glimpse of her at a time, yet when I visit my grandparents, I can hear her muttering from the room where she hides: “I don’t know if you’re a man or a woman. I just want you to leave me alone.”

Rather than empowered to reach out, I felt scared to imagine an illness that had caused so much devastation. I found it difficult to acknowledge the millions of people whose lives had been shattered by hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. Equally difficult, for me, was the reminder of the years and opportunities my own family had lost to the illness. Listening to my aunt’s disoriented conversations with the ceiling, I had come to understand schizophrenia as one of the most heartbreaking things that could happen to a person.

Surprisingly, it was a classroom discussion that shattered my artificial peace. During a lecture about gender-based violence, I watched in growing discomfort as my classmates—a group of fifteen of my peers, male and female—agreed that schizophrenia was a lie that rapists would perpetuate in order to reduce their prison sentences.

I had been sheltered in the past, I realized, because I had never encountered a situation where academics had clashed so profoundly with my personal views. I began to understand something important about my position: If I had witnessed even a fraction of the suffering caused by schizophrenia, then I had a responsibility to approach it on a human level. As one of the many people fortunate to live without the illness, I could do my part to advocate for a widespread unification of resources and, with the help of others, attempt to make the world a kinder place for those who are misunderstood.

Though initially scared to approach a problem I could not solve on my own, I started investing myself in personal ways. I talked to my family about the challenges they faced. I took an auditory hallucination simulation, as a way to appreciate how far we have come in understanding a human experience. (Through its limitations, it simultaneously reminded me how far we have yet to go.) I reached out to my local homeless shelter, in hopes that, together, we could find new ways of reaching out to others. Even though it made me nervous, I talked to my classmates. It turns out, not everyone saw schizophrenia in such simplistic terms, and I made friends who taught me more about mental illness than I could have imagined.

I was encouraged to find that my efforts fit into a larger network of advocates, mental health professionals, and lawmakers. Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, author of Surviving Schizophrenia, became one of my personal heroes. Like my mother, he grew up with a sister who suffered from severe schizophrenia, and, like thousands of people around the world, he has dedicated his life to mental health reform. Through the Treatment Advocacy Center, Dr. Torrey has connected people who want to bring intensive, personalized care to those who are underserved by our medical system. Many people with severe mental illness are not aware they are ill, and the Treatment Advocacy Center pushes for laws that will ensure they get the resources they need. By supporting this program, I stay current on the legislation in my state and the stories of individuals, like my aunt, who will benefit from a social movement that addresses the complexities of a debilitating psychiatric illness.

Piece by piece, we can work to build a better understanding of those most in need of our help. Schizophrenia already creates enough division—between hallucinations and reality, between the ill and the healthy, between resources and those who need them. When schizophrenia in one person is painful to accept, it can seem overwhelming to think about schizophrenia in millions of people, scattered throughout the world, who cycle through hospitals, jails, and homeless encampments. Yet these numbers also indicate to me that there are millions of friends and families who share the same hope for their loved ones. For every mind that has been shattered by schizophrenia, there is another that can help unify our efforts and, through human compassion, work toward a peace we can all share.