Students helping unite communities

Low pay or no pay, internships provide many students with resume-plumping experience and the opportunity to "try-out" a profession.

A couple of SF State students used the summer to find out exactly what they did, and did not want to do with the rest of their lives by working through an internship.
Langston Edwards, a junior, applied to the AFL-CIO and was chosen to spend three weeks in Miami, Fla. as part of an intensive, hands-on organizing workshop. He was provided with free room and board and a $210 a week stipend.

"I was interested in the labor movement and decided to take a firsthand look at it and decided to apply for it," Edwards said.

He was assigned to organize "Kitchens of the Ocean," a seafood processing plant 15 miles away from "Little Haiti" in Miami to organize what Edwards described as "disenfranchised workers."

According to Edwards, the 210 primarily Haitian immigrants worked in poor conditions. They had no changing rooms or washing facilities available at the plant, and the bus that transported them from their town to the seafood plant had a padlock on the emergency exit.

"Their conditions were just gross," Edwards said.

The first week of the internship provided education on the history of the labor movement and the rights of the workers while the second and third weeks focused on putting what they had learned to use.

According to Edwards, the goal of the program was to educate the workers on their right to organize and begin to build a union.

"A lot of the workers had bad experiences in organizing unions," Edwards said. "They were corrupt and sometimes violent, so it was hard to try to convince them to do it."
By the time Edwards' internship was over, 180 of the 210 workers had signed union cards.

"I learned that the labor movement is potentially powerful," Edwards said, "but people don't get involved."

Although this was Edwards' first try at organizing he said he enjoyed it and feels ready to take a step up and try his hand at international organizing.

"In third-world countries, you can see where the strength of labor unions comes together," Edwards said.

Claudia Lara, a junior, spent her summer working for "Justice Matters," a community based organization that was established 10 years ago by three students who were active in organizing in and around their community. They wanted to learn how to organize their ethnic community while also helping to organize other ethnic communities.

Lara and eight other students were chosen from Stanford University , San Jose State and SF State to work in San Francisco at various community agencies that were in need of volunteers.

La Raza Centro Legal, Real Alternatives Program and the San Francisco Unified School District were a few of the sites the interns were placed at.

Lara worked for both the Real Alternatives Program and the San Francisco School District to get the parents and children involved in education.

She assisted Winnie Tang - the executive assistant to Superintendent Bill Rojas - who organized the Parent Empowering Conference in October. The conference was designed to teach parents how to become involved in making decisions and changes in their children's education.

Working with the Real Alternatives Program, Lara helped organize the Community Peace Initiative Youth Summit.

The summit, which has traditionally focused on Latinos, was expanded this year with the help of Lara and Johanna Silva to include the Asian and African communities as well.

Lara said that she valued her experiences working in the community more than any compensation she received. She was paid $360 a week throughout her internship.
"The internship was a lot of hard work because it was 40-plus hours a week," Lara said. "But it helped me realize that I want to work in my community and not just be a lawyer for my people, but to actually be in the community working with my people."

[ Golden Gater Online September 5, 1996 ]

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