nonfiction – Page 2 – J.T. the L.A. Storyteller

Today, Put Your Sunscreen On And Get Ready for Another Walk, Los Angeles

June 9, 2020June 10, 2020 J.T.Leave a comment

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 83)

During a time of so much change, one is not unreasonable to ask themselves: what can I change? There is much work to do at home. Many lines to dial up, different items lying around needing to be stored in better places, handfuls of books to finish reading, and more.

But even when we see each of these tasks through, almost at the same time we close the cover on one set of interests, ideas, and responsibilities, we acquire new ones. Before we know it, we find ourselves swept by another cycle of work, traffic, and the need to slow down before it’s too late again.

Maybe that’s the single reason why death is so inconceivable: life as it moves seems like it can never be complete, even if sometimes it feels like it’s just a breath away from closing the covers on us for good.

In my own life, I believe I’ve walked through the same streets that too many young people have not had enough time to see as more than just more concrete they’re confined to.

I believe I owe it to each of them, and so many more lives that have come and gone, to continue putting together the pieces for serious visions of a better Los Angeles, one step and one breath at a time.

Here is to continue working for it, but first, to walk some more for it. The light is calling, Los Angeles.

J.T.

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Nahshon D. Anderson: Don’t Just Black Out Now; Support Queer & Trans Writers of Color

June 8, 2020May 9, 2022 J.T.Leave a comment

The recent unlawful killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other African-Americans and 40+ emails since that I’ve received from different nonprofits stating solidarity for Black Lives led me to write this.

Many organizations are now claiming to support Black people (because it’s currently convenient) and believe they are standing in solidarity with us (even as they obtain more funding and media attention since it’s currently convenient).

Yet Queer writers of color have been overlooked and under-funded for decades, especially Trans writers of color (i.e. transgender writers of color).

When it’s come time to cut checks, much of our literature hasn’t been worth bothering for. Many manuscripts, submissions, and more have been left on the curb without hope. In my own work, focusing my subject matter on social justice, economic inequality and police brutality is my form of protest.

Last December, I submitted chapter four of my unpublished memoir Shooting Range, titled “This is for Rodney King,” into a literary competition. I did not expect to win, nor did I expect to lose. I just went for it.

Over the years, in addition to my writing, I’ve also served as panelist for various arts organizations and awards and have been shocked at the absence of a relevant narrative examining police brutality in general and honoring people like Rodney Glen King. Police brutality has been an ongoing issue for years that’s only gotten worse, and Mr. George Floyd’s and Ms. Breonna Taylor’s deaths are only the latest proof. This is what made my submission to the contest, which was dedicated to honoring Rodney Glen King, important for more publications to support. But the piece was rejected.

I was going to remain quiet about not receiving the award for my submission. But when not long afterwards I received an email from the same organization behind the contest about its newly awakened principles and commitment to Black Lives, I was left shaking my head, tired of reading the same bullshit.

However, there are organizations out there committed to walking the walk. To name one example, Shade Literary Arts, a literary organization focused on the empowerment and expansion of literature by queer writers of color, is holding an excellent fundraiser that still needs help reaching its goal of $100,000 to support queer and trans lives.

Do you mind digging in your purse to support Shade Literary Arts, or do you need my help?

Moving forward, I hope nonprofits and arts organizations across the U.S. are sincere in their newfound solidarity statements, even if I know they’re only manufacturing them based on current events, which by the way all read as if they were written by the same person(s).

I also hope that future grant awards reflect diversity instead of it being just another “trendy” bandwagon. This change is long, long, long, long overdue.

N.D.A. aka K.I.N.A.

Nahshon Dion is a multi-talented, award-winning creative nonfiction writer, teaching artist, creative director, event producer, and arts patron from Pasadena, California. In June 1996, she met rapper Tupac Shakur and interned at his film production company, Look Hear Sound & Vision. Nahshon’s literature speaks to discrimination and violence many Black and Brown youth face. She has been published in several anthologies and literary journals. Since 2013, she’s received dozens of grants, fellowships, artist residencies, honors, and awards, from across the nation monetarily, totaling over $210,000 that provided ammunition and support for developing her forthcoming untitled memoir. Nahshon’s existence and resilience show how marginalized youth can reach their full potential and shine with dignity when their rainbow is blurred.

In 2020, Nahshon was interviewed by writer Sheldon Pearce for Changes: An Oral History of Tupac (Simon & Schuster). In 2021, Nahshon and talent manager Leila Steinberg hosted Tupac Shakur’s 50th birthday celebration and a 25th-anniversary death tribute. As a grant writer for over a decade, Nahshon has paid it forward by voluntarily assisting dozens of artists and entrepreneurs across the nation with obtaining tens of thousands of dollars in grants and funding. She also produces and hosts a weekly hour entertaining chat titled TRANSBRATIONS on Youtube. “It’s such a good transbration! It’s such a sweet sensation!”

Victor Avila: Hope Amid Stones both Tall and Gray

June 1, 2020April 2, 2021 J.T.Leave a comment

Infinity does not know the grave
though the digger’s hand still turns the soil.
These monuments that some think grand
only mutely invoke the names
of the long forgotten dead.

There is no permanence
as these stones hope to proclaim.
Whether we are buried over here or over there
only bones below in a box remain.

The earth gladly welcomes them.

Perhaps infinity is just a word
Like truth and God and love.
Are they just pretty syllables
for atheists and blasphemers
to ponder in their despair?

Faith is irrational. It’s the logic of angels.

No, I will never understand
the mystery of the silent mountains.
not far beyond these gray and somber stones.
All the secrets of the universe
I’ll leave for others to discover.
The unknown will remain for me unknown.
I am glad of this.

I walk among the intaglio of crosses
and joyfully accept my mortality.
It’s because of this that I do not fear
the eventuality of days.

For every story, even ours, has a conclusion.

The essence of everything
we hold briefly in our hands.
In reality though, there is nothing in between them.
I find this notion both magnificent and grand.

Dust in time will cover even this.

Nothing in life is learned
until beauty becomes our mirror.
Only then will we catch a glimpse
of all that we call immortal.
We do well when we chase the ethereal.

For it is in the chasing of it, that we find most joy.

V.A.

Victor Avila is a winner of the Chicano Literary Prize. His poetry collection, “The Mystic Thrones of Night,” was published through Vagabond Books in 2019. Victor’s poetry has been widely published and anthologized. Recent work can be found in such collections as EXTREME: An Anthology for Social and Economic Justice, and The Border Crossed Us. Victor has taught in California schools for over thirty years.

JIMBO TIMES is more than 2,100 Days Old Today

May 19, 2020May 25, 2020 J.T.Leave a comment

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 62)

JIMBO TIMES: The L.A. Storyteller completed 2,100 days around the sun yesterday. The blog’s first column was posted on the evening of August 19th, 2014. According to Google, that was exactly 2,100 days ago, with today being the 2,101st day on record. During that time, I’ve published just a little over 700 columns on the site, or just short of one writing a day for two consecutive years’ worth of reading.

When I first started the blog, it was simply an ode to mom and the rest of the community that raised me through the streets of Los Angeles. I thought I had seen much of those streets by then, which I could showcase through the blog, but I had no idea just how much more was ahead.

I didn’t know, for example, that I would write about the deaths of young Latinos through the intersections of East Hollywood.

Likewise, I didn’t know that I would write about working as a barista and server behind Los Angeles’s registers.

I also didn’t know that I would get to review what would become my favorite book ever about Los Angeles, Mike Davis’s City of Quartz.

And even if I believed I could show up to classrooms all over Los Angeles to motivate young people towards their education some day, as well as juvenile detention centers for the same purpose, none of it was guaranteed. I strove to see all of it through.

Even so, if someone had told me then that all of that work would one day lead me to feature student voices on the blog, I would have believed it, but guardedly, under a quiet skepticism.

The only thing I knew for a long time was that even if these cuentos might not have seemed like extraordinary things to much of the rest of the world around me, they still mattered to me.

Today, our blog is 62 consecutive blogs into Pandemic in Los Angeles. I know that many readers haven’t had a chance to keep up with each column, but that’s the beauty of the site: like a good book, it’s not going anywhere.

Take your time to see if you can catch up, Los Angeles

J.T.

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Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 23

April 10, 2020May 9, 2020 J.T.Leave a comment

The emotional integrity of a people is strong, and it’s a magical thing to overhear a family still chuckling during these times, chins raised in laughter, completely and uniquely forming part of a future for the world around them.

Even humans who occupy space all to themselves form part of a family, as well as a future; they carry in their hearts a kaleidoscope of personalities, moments, and far more information that inevitably needs to go somewhere to perform some thing.

I see this future all across Los Angeles, no matter what a news report to the contrary could bid me to buy about its present.

Today it’s been a full two weeks since mayor Garcetti and governor Newsom stood at the port of Los Angeles with the U.S. Navy Mercy ship docked to shore behind them. In their address, the mayor informed the public that at the rate L.A. was recording cases of coronavirus, Los Angeles was likely on a trajectory similar to that of New York in terms of its caseload and overrun hospitals.

But the mayor was wrong. And the L.A. Storyteller’s analysis of the mayor’s address that day predicted why the grim forecast was likely premature.

I’m not now gloating, but I do mean to reflect for a moment on the power of words. I heard an excellent quote not so long ago, about the incredible power of misinformation, paraphrased slightly here for brevity:

A lie can travel halfway across the world before the truth can finish putting its boots on.

The quote is a masterful summary of how often some of the greatest lies, mistakes, or forms of misspeaking are magnified and perpetuated at far greater lengths than truths, corrections, or statements of purpose or vision.

I think of two groups particularly affected by this phenomenon: the youngest among us, and the most senior among us. Just this morning, for example, I saw someone I follow sharing the link to a misleading report about some of California’s most recent responses to the pandemic.

It wasn’t the first time this friend of mine, who is older, shared this type of “click-bait,” but it did strike me that she likely didn’t pause before posting it to her profile to realize that it simply wouldn’t be a “good look,” for the click-bait revealed far more about what she was willing to believe rather than what was true.

This person is a voter. She is also a mother of two children in Los Angeles and therefore someone I have great respect for. But she, like most of us humans–including our mayor–is vulnerable to being misinformed, and to passing along misinformation to yet more people, if not for a few stops along the way to corroborate facts and distinguish them from fiction.

In the same way, in my experience working at L.A.’s schools, I’ve seen frequently the great power that words have over young people; words can be summoned to lift our young people up, or invoked to tear them down. More often than not, it’s a balancing act with little time allotted to it amid the throes of the quickly moving school-day. I would add for a moment that this is America, but the fact is that the school-day, like the work-day, moves quickly all over the world.

But whether at school or at work, balancing our words–like our actions–is something we have to frequently remind ourselves of, especially when trying to respond to the moment. I therefore hope more people in L.A. and across the world–including myself–can use this time away from rush-hour to find within all of our kaleidoscopes just what we need to restore for the sake of placing our best feet forward in days still to come. Indeed, JIMBO TIMES, as usual, will continue looking to remind the people just so.

J.T.

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