Helping Communities Grow
Issue NO. 1, volume 2
By Seaweed, Stumpy, Mini-Sol
[ Volume 2 - Issue No. 1 | Issue No. 2 | Issue No. 3 | Issue No. 4 | Issue No. 5 |
Issue No. 6 | Issue No. 7 | Issue No. 8 | Issue No. 9 | Issue No. 10 | Issue No. 11 ]
This Episode Features 
About the Staff
C.T.A.
Community Mapping
Cebolla cartoon
CCC (Current Community Condition)
Gardens and B.U.G.s
Opinions & Final Notes (Question of the week)
Super Facts and Random Thoughts
Newsletter Quote of the Month:
“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.”
-Cree Indian saying
The CTA wants to take away our 54/Cermak Blue Line train and replace it with the “Silver Line”. The Silver Line will only go to downtown and circle back, which means they are cutting off Berwyn, Cicero, South & North Lawndale, and Pilsen from O’Hare and Jefferson Park. Whitney Young, U.I.C, and the Clinton Post Office would also be lost from 54/Cermak. The main reason the CTA is doing this is gentrification, they basically pushing African American and Hispanics out of North Lawndale, Pilsen, and Little Village. They want to let the “upper class” citizens take over our neighborhoods.
By implementing the Silver/circle Line they are making it easier for effluent people to come in and force us out of our communities and renovating it, thus driving up taxes, mortgage, and rent prices, making our working class unable to afford living here. Just look around you, its happening; new houses are getting built, new $350,000-900,000 condos are springing up around our borders and next to low income housing. Soon these neighborhoods wont be called Little Village, North Lawndale or Pilsen; they will be just another white-rich man neighborhood unless we stand together and stop it. So now the question is “Are you gonna just sit there and do nothing while our communities are getting taken over by the man or are you push back?
-Stumpy
The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) is proud to be a partner in the leadership project of mapping the Little Village community. The organization’s mission is to help the development of the individual, the family and the community and to inspire all the youth and adults of the community to realize their maximum potential as individuals and as neighbors.
The leadership project in mapping Little Village is consistent with the mission of LVEJO. The project allows students to increase their skills in information technology (IT) and they are introduced to the inventory program of the land use and buildings. The students work in teams to review the blocks in our area. They also learn about computers, manuals and other relevant aspects of technology to use in modern computer labs through out the community.
Currently LVEJO has been working with Little Village Academy, General Wood Boys & Girls Club, and a group of High School students each week to gather information of each individual house and then create a map of Little Village. But don’t think it is an ordinary map. This map will show the great assets of the community as well as new businesses and programs available in this neighborhood.
Our Community Mapping project will take three years to finish. Currently we are doing the first step. We are outlining the houses and also identifying the great assets of the community. Community Mapping Organizer Lorena Lopez and Community Mapping Coordinator/IT (Information Technologist) Kim Wasserman are doing a great job leading this project
Lorena Lopez, project coordinator says, “In three years I would like for the people to actually use our map and open people’s eyes to our community; hopefully we can use the map to plan things like a community park”
By Marisol Becerra
CCC
Do you have ASTHMA? Do you know someone who does? Do you know that Pilsen and Little Village have a higher rate of Asthma than any other community in Chicago? Did you ever wonder why you know so many people with Asthma? We will present the ANSWER to you! What’s the cause? Air Pollution!
Why do the Pilsen and Little Village communities have more pollution than others ? Don’t other communities have as many cars? Don’t they use electricity? Lets think about this, Air Pollution and Asthma...hmm? Well, the reality is there is a difference between our communities and others in the city. We have many factories in both communities. There is a coal power plant in Little Village that has been spitting out smog since the 1950’s.
Wait a second, wasn’t the clean air act updated by congress in 1977? Why does the factory continue to run? See, what had happened was: the clean air act included what is referred to as a grand father clause; which says that any coal power plant built before 1977 was exempt from complying with more strict emission standards. Whoa, what does that mean? Basically, it means since the plant was built in the 1950’s, it would cost too much money to update the smoke stacks (creating less harmful smog) and the people in charge of the act thought it was likely that the coal power plants would close down in the ten years anyway (they meant by 1987). The clean air act didn’t apply to them. But guess what? They didn’t close, in fact they grew, producing more power than ever. But wait there’s more...not only are they producing more pollution they still don’t have to update their plant. Can you guess why? because of the grand father clause. Since no one has bothered to change or update the act; these power plants continue to destroy the atmosphere and pollute the air with MERCURY (ahhh, scary!) sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. All of these chemicals are poisons to the human body.
Look at this 
Do you know how the coal power plant gets its coal? Let me tell you: A barge, just like the ones that hauls garbage, take the coal to the plant using the Chicago River. You will never ever see any vehicle taking coal to the plant. In order to get the coal from the river to the plant, a giant claw machine takes the coal from the barge to a conveyer belt (a moving ramp type thingy). As you can see in the picture, the claw drops a lot of coal in the water which I’m pretty sure isn’t good. The Chicago river gets more polluted and so dose the soil surrounding it.
But it isn’t just the coal power plant. Did you also know that there are factories in both communities that conduct their business outside the factory grounds? Such as, steel barrel melting. These places clean and melt the barrels outside. When they do this fumes are released in the air, which not only smell terrible but also give you a big headache. Since the process is not allowed inside because of ventilation problems the companies are forced to do it outside to “protect” the workers from the fumes (but not the residents? huh?). You would think because the process is so harmful to the environment they would stop doing it; but they don’t cause they want “mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!”.
I would like to conclude this article by saying: These companies and factories have pushed us around enough! The only reason they keep on doing these things is because they think that no one cares (I do!). They also think that no one will find out, but guess what? We spilled the beans! The word is out!
Ω Seaweed Ω
Oh no, bugs, run. Not bugs, B.U.G.s (building urban gardens). What is B.U.G.s? Well B.U.G.s was program which teaches its participants how to make gardens. L.V.E.J.O. took a group of people from the Little Village neighborhood to attend the program. They went for 12 Saturdays in a row from 9 to 12. They didn’t just go for themselves they went for the community. They went to learn how to make gardens all over the neighborhood.
Now my family is a proud recipient of one of their gardens. They do fabulous work but it wasn’t labor free for the house hold I Seaweed also helped out by planting and mixing the soil my mom bought (that’s me at the bottom). After we were done I interviewed some of the women from the group, I asked them questions like: What do you fell is your greatest accomplishment? Why do you choose to participate in the gardening program? All the answers that they gave seemed to revolve around beautifying the neighborhood. I think it’s such a wonderful idea that we have people dedicated in making the community better. I believe that if we work together we could beautify our neighborhood so much that it would make Lincoln Park jealous.
In closing, this group worked very hard and I ask that if you see one of these new gardens please treat it as if it were your own. If you would like a garden or if you want to know about any other projects at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (L.V.E.J.O.)
2856 S. Millard
Phone# (773) 762-6991
Fax# (773) 762-6993
Ω Seaweed Ω
By Ω Seaweed Ω
- Bush graduated from Harvard and Yale… with a D average (hah)!
- After failing all her classes with big fat F’s because of her excessive drinking, president Bush’s daughter got accepted into Yale (sounds unfair huh?).
- Did you know that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi but we went to war with Iraq because we conduct business with the Saudis for their oil.
- Every business that Bush has been in charge of has gone bankrupt but only after Bush sells his stock.
- Texas is now the most polluted state in the U.S. (more polluted than L.A.? That’s freakin’ crazy!).
- President Bush was on vacation 42% of the first 8 months he was in office.
- Why do the drive up A.T.M.’s have Braille on them?
- Bush has been in charge of several companies and is the president of the United States but hasn’t accomplished much.
- Kerry’s children are well behaved but bush’s kids act like dumb asses.
- Despite contrary belief there is no butter in peanuts!
Seaweed:
My real name is Hector, but people close to me call me Leo. I watch an obscene amount of T.V. I love to watch the Simpsons and Seinfeld reruns. I’m not really a regular teen I’m a spiritual person and I would like to create a new religion which incorporates Buddhists beliefs and Christian principles I would call it Buddhianity (Buddhism and Christianity). My first got involvement with L.V.E.J.O. when I started attending the Saturday group called P.U.D.D.J. (People United for Dignity Democracy and Justice) which was about march 2004.
Got stuff to say or if ya want us to write about something holla back at dark__cloud__@hotmail.com (two Underscores)
Stumpy AKA Roberto
I am the artistic manager of El Cilantro. I am into rock music and I love to draw and do lot of creative things. I am a bit introverted but once you get to know me I am just another dumb teenager, lol. I guess I started out here when the organization asked me to design their T-shirt logo and soon after that I got more involved, so now I work here as the most philosophical and artistic genius here (lol). Top three music bands: Korn, Slipknot, and A Perfect Circle
Any questions, comments or whatever my Email address is molechtheemperor@sbcglobal.net
Marisol AKA Mini-sol
My name is Marisol but “El Cilantro” staff decided to name me “Mini-sol”. The reasons are a kind of obvious: I’m short and they constantly kept mistaking me for a regular elementary student (which I’m not). I got involved in L.V.E.J.O. through the P.U.D.D.J. program. Eventually I was asked to be part of the youth Internship during this summer so I decided to give it a try and be an intern. When I’m not working, I like to spend my time at home with my family. I like to play the violin and I also like to read a good book once in a while. I listen to various genres of music. I have the bad habit of proofreading any misspelling I come across. Overall, I just love being part of LVEJO. To me we’re all a big family determined to make change in our community.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me at Becerra_2001@hotmail.com
Poll question: How clean is your neighborhood? Are you satisfied with the green spaces?
Places to hang out in Pilsen and Little Village!
Hmmm……………..Church??????????
Sponsored by ?? ???
(...cricket noises in the back ground...).
Did you ever notice that there really aren’t any places for the teens to hang out..any ideas?
Bye from: Seaweed, Stumpy, Mini-Sol
[ Volume 2 - Issue No. 1 | Issue No. 2 | Issue No. 3 | Issue No. 4 | Issue No. 5 |
Issue No. 6 | Issue No. 7 | Issue No. 8 | Issue No. 9 | Issue No. 10 | Issue No. 11 ]
Keep the Douglas L/54th Cermak Train Open to O'Hare Field 24/7
Other important topics
(Download as Adobe pdf):
Clean Air/Lulac Study
Healthy Schools In Latino Communities flyer
"Tips on Base Building" from LVEJO Board Member Carlos Fernandez
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