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Amazon plans to keep Southern California from unionizing and fighting more warehouses in Latinx Communities by placing non-profits and other “Barking Dogs” on a charitable leash

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According to AFL-CIO Union Leader and former State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, this leaked document from Amazon shows that the company has invested at least $80 billion in the Southern California region over the last 13 years, where the company maintains “the largest concentration of FCs (Fulfillment Centers) in the country,” and where 40% of Amazon’s packages go through the L.A. and Long Beach ports before reaching the Inland Empire and subsequently the rest of the country.

However, there are just a few “dogs [not] barking” the company is looking to put on a leash before they become larger threats to the bottom line, including growing efforts to halt more warehouse development in communities of color, or a “Warehouse Moratorium,” Labor-Organizing efforts, and a growing number of elected officials steering away from the company’s “charitable contributions.”

Naturally, this is a developing story. Subscribe to J.T. the L.A. Storyteller for more updates soon.

J.T.

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Here are all the areas in the city of L.A. still zoned only for Single-Family Homes

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In a study conducted by the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley last year, researchers found that “78% of residential land in the Greater Los Angeles region and 74% in the city of Los Angeles itself was zoned exclusively for single-family homes, prohibiting apartment buildings and other multifamily developments.”

Image/Map/Data is courtesy of the Othering & Belonging Institute of UC Berkeley, California.

Additionally: “Consistent with prior research, which we summarized in our report, we found a disturbing relationship between the degree of single-family zoning, racial demographics, and racial segregation. In particular, we found that restrictive zoning had a strong exclusionary effect. We found, for example, that municipalities with the highest percentage of single-family-only zoned residential areas had the highest percentage of white residents and the lowest percentage of Black and Latino residents. We also found that the highest observed levels of racial residential segregation occurred in the communities with the highest proportion of single-family zoning.”

Find and download the full report here.

J.T.

Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 08

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Today I awoke to the news that over 3.3 million people in the United States filed for unemployment benefits over the past week. When I mentioned this to mom, she gasped. She then pointed out to me that the number doesn’t even include the informal economy, comprised of nannies, tamaleras, small business owners like herself, and countless more.

At the same time, the number of cases of Coronavirus found in L.A. County topped 1,200 today, with the figure reaching over 4,000 for the golden state overall; I realize that the figure is just the tipping point if Californians don’t heed the warnings to stay home and minimize travel down to the essentials. As well as if the professionals don’t have the personal protective equipment they need to reduce the risk of becoming infected by their patients.

But most signs point to the fact that people have stayed home as ordered thus far. In my own community, I’m surrounded by humble, God-fearing citizens, who, as working class people, largely play by the rules set up for us daily anyway for fear of reprisal otherwise. I know that las familias have been home, led overwhelmingly by mama, that is, and that for many of them the shutdown has even been a reprieve, especially for the laborers among them who wear their backs daily with brittle bones undergirding them to bring the day’s bread home.

We are a people as humble as angels peering down from their portraits as if weighed down by their wings. And something tells me that if Jesus himself walked through Los Angeles today, he’d smile deeply on meeting our glances for our still looking up through yet another storm. Perhaps he does. We are the people of the awakening. Tomorrow it’s my turn to bring back some more bread.

J.T.