As a child learning about my family history, I learned how my father and his family were refugees from the Vietnam War, and how there was never enough money to go around, despite how hard my grandparents worked. My mother, who used to teach elementary school in the Meadowview area of Sacramento, a disinvested low socio-economic neighborhood, would add on her own stories of her students whom she used to teach, to try to help my brother and I to understand how lucky we were. She would describe how a student would go to school with shoes falling apart, only held together by rubber bands, or how another student couldn’t finish their homework because there was no electricity.

As I grew older, I began to notice differences everytime we drove from our house to visit my grandparents in Meadowview. As we passed over the Interstate-5 freeway, the roads became rougher with less trees, and the street was only two lanes, one lane in each direction. Although I realized this difference, and I made the connection that the Meadowview area was a marginalized community, I never realized that there was a historic reason for this. I also never truly realized the impacts that an environment like this could cause.

When I joined the Youth Leadership Academy, a program for young adults created by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, I learned about a practice called redlining, which had been used in Sacramento. Redlining was where real estate companies and banks would give out unfavorable loans to people of color, and they were forced to live in certain areas. Although decades ago Meadowview was around 90% white, today it is 80% people of color. Besides my Chinese grandparents, many of the Asians who live in Meadowview are Hmong refugees displaced by the Vietnam war, and these are the families that my mother had taught as a teacher at Susan B. Anthony Elementary school. These families, and countless others, are the ones affected by decades old racism.

During my summer internship, Summer @ City Hall, I learned about the importance of civic engagement and activism. I decided to start this non-profit organization to help bring awareness to this issue. Looking at maps, it is obvious that the most disadvantaged and disinvested neighborhoods in Sacramento house mostly people of color. This is a result of the systemic racism that took place years ago, and unfortunately, these impacts are still felt today.

The purpose of this 501 (c) organization is to bring awareness to these inequitable impacts on marginalized communities and highlight the need for systemic change in a sustainable and equitable way. Awareness is the first step to bringing change in our society, in order to make a more just and inclusive community. Education will assure that this will not happen again, and instead, people will be able to live a better future.