Lynda Callon and Ezekiel A. III Amador

00:03 Lynda callon 50 class. Today is September 23rd, and we're in Kansas City, Missouri, and I'm a friend to Ezekiel Amador.

00:15 Good afternoon. My name is Ezekiel. Amateur III. I'm 37 years old today's date is September 23rd 2006 here in Kansas City, Missouri, and I'm here with my friend Lynda callon.

00:29 One of the first questions I had Linda was

00:35 Why why do you think we're here?

00:38 We're here to talk about community policing and how it's worked in our neighborhood the historic Westside neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, and as of course because we all know the west side is the best side and we oversee what is called the Westside Community Action Network Center or well-known in the neighborhood is the Westside can Center which is a neighborhood and community policing organization founded in 1994 its Kansas City's version of community policing based on the Broken Window Theory.

01:14 And we are located in historic immigrant neighborhood in Kansas City right now. The neighborhood is predominantly Hispanic, but it's been home to wave after wave of immigrants starting with the French huguenots the Irish the Germans and then at the turn of the 1910s the first wave of Mexican immigrants started coming and now we are home to Mexicans Guatemalans El Salvador and Nicaragua wins.

01:46 And we're also a neighborhood in transition where our neighborhood is highly desirable because of its beauty and its proximity to downtown. So we're facing the issues of gentrification.

02:00 Do you know why I wanted to interview you and how important in the things that you've done personally and also the things that the Cancer Centers done over the last decade or so. No, I didn't know who I you wanted interview be. We're just kind of doing our job of trying to make our little corner of the world a better place for the kids in the families on the west side and more recently because we are an immigrant neighborhood. We also have a history of Migrant day laborers and in 2002, we began doing Outreach to those labors and in 2004, we moved them off of a street corner to a much better sight and better facility at the ethnic and Center office which enabled the men to use the kitchen and bathrooms and showers and have lockers and totally changed the face of the West side.

03:01 Do you can you explain to me some of the impact that you have on the community besides just moving some guys a few blocks Maybe?

03:12 I think first I need to clear up why we did it we did it because the numbers of migrants were growing tremendously and people without structure don't function very well and it was becoming definitely chaos attracting a crime element but more specifically they were creating letter. They were there behavioral problems. They were sanitation problems and families could not go to the convenience store to get a popsicle for their kids or the kids couldn't have the joy of going to the convenience store on their own to buy a Popsicle or a treat without having to Wade through this throng of ill behaving men and I think every kid deserves the adventure of going to a convenience store without being harassed to buy a treat or get a quart of milk or whatever.

04:10 So the impetus to do something for the man really had to do with the quality of life issues for the neighborhood and as a result of doing that for the neighborhood. It also did something for the man as well as for the community-at-large specifically a reduction and crying Fring up law enforcement and Public Safety officials to do other things because they were having to worry about the bad things that were happening happening in our neighborhood. Give me an example of say the sanitary issues you're talking about. I don't understand. I may not understand that. Well, we're the only industrial nation that does not believe in public toilets. So the man would pee and poop in the Alleyways and behind the stores and in people's backyards. And in the summertime, I would have to beg the fire department to come out and turn on the fire hydrants the Flesh of the alley

05:10 Please because the stench was so bad people could not leave her whole hoses attached to their houses because the guys would sneak in at night and turn the hoses on to fill up water jugs hour to take showers. My favorite memory was Tracy one of our neighbors call me about 11 at night her kitchen sink looked on the back of Our Lady of Guadalupe school yard in the back of the church and father would leave the hose there for the guys to come get water or take a shower. So she's doing the dishes at 11 and calls me up Linda Linda. I'm standing here doing the dishes of there's a naked man in the schoolyard taking a shower. What should I do? And I said, well, what's he doing Tracy just as well nothing. He's just taken a shower buddies naked and then she says, oh no I said, oh my gosh what cuz she was home alone with two little kids and

06:10 He says he's waving at me. What do I do and I said way back because there was nothing to do. It was a big harmfully. Just wanted to be clean and that's kind of why we are at our new office why we call the shower the Tracy Memorial shower hits at her honor that we have a shower so she could do her dishes without having to look at a naked men.

06:34 And I meant just in general, you know, when you would go by and see the man going to the bathroom and the look in their eyes of the humiliation the debasement in the Defiance. It was a total turmoil of emotion with the with the condition that they wore in and to give somebody back a little bit of dignity by being able to go to the bathroom and have toilet paper and wash your hands. It's amazing. It's the little things in life that mean a lot.

07:12 What do you mean that the kids weren't able to get to buy some milk or ice cream or something like that? Well, if you were a young girl, and I know that you'd have to go through a throng of anywhere from fifty to two hundred men to get to the entrance of the convenience store and some of them are less than gentleman with cat calls and making suggestive her lewd gestures or remarks and children shouldn't have to deal with that. They shouldn't have their innocence and their freedoms curtailed because somebody doesn't know how to behave properly and so by removing that the kids can have you no feel better and the parents feel better about letting our kids have a little bit of freedom to go to the convenience store by themselves without having to worry about them are worried last rather.

08:10 Where's this neighborhood located? Maybe we should describe a little bit about the neighborhood as well. Then neighborhood sits. Just west of Kansas City, Missouri downtown. We border the state line. The neighborhood was actually Kansas City's first landfill when they cleared off the Bluffs to build Kansas City all that early construction debris was dumped on the westside. Additionally we were

08:44 The Southwest Boulevard, which is our main East-West thoroughfare really sits at the bottom of a little Valley that abuts Turkey Creek and

08:57 So where are small neighborhood? We were in the sixties and fifties. The neighborhood was decimated part of the way to eliminate am in early voting block at one time the neighborhood had close to 20,000 households. And now it's been reduced to 1500 households because of the highways that were run through it to take out the most households as the Hispanic Community grew and could become affect the voting and who got elected to office was about the same time as the major highway building across the country. So in a lot of municipalities the highways were driven through minority neighborhoods to prevent them from being able to have a majority so that they would have representation in their government in our neighborhood is no different and we suffered the consequences.

09:56 Chances of that so someone usually use the

10:04 Apparently someone use the interstates as a tool to maybe do something like this. Lots of municipalities across the country did so it's not unique. It was just something that was done and what part of that preserve the neighborhood it preserved. It would enabled the Hispanic Community the Mexican Community to preserve a lot of their customs and festivals and traditions because in a way it kind of came kind of this little mini Brigadoon set just to the side where an old neighborhood. We were first planted in 1869, but people were already living here at the time.

10:49 Oh when the when the IRS first wave of Irish immigrants came and became successful. They really weren't allowed to live with the Anglo-Saxon rich people. So they took over one of the hills in the area, which is what we call the North End of the neighborhood and that's where the wealthy Irish Catholics build their mansions and because they really weren't a welcome to live in the other parts of the wealthy community. So we still have some some of those old mansions that have been restored and rehabilitated. So we still have a few of those left which adds to the charm and character of The Neighbourhood The Neighbourhood was about course built before car. So we still have Alleyways our solar system is still made out of brick much to the joy of our water.

11:49 Which is why it takes him so long to come over and fix something because they don't want to have to deal with the bricks. And so it makes it a challenge. It's kind of been a blessing and a curse with the downtown Renaissance now though, we have become a target for major developers because we actually have the best views in Kansas City.

12:12 And that kind of proximity to downtown. So it is putting a lot of stress on the neighborhood and nobody has done gentrification. Well, nobody has done it so that there are winners and winners. There's generally somebody wins a lot and somebody loses a lot. So we're not sure where this adventure is going to take us, but for right now we're building the best neighborhood we can build with the resources that we can draw to our neighborhood resources through the city or the state where the county and neighborhood resources. I'd like to get back to the men. Why were they there in the first place the 200 or so men that you had that you mentioned the

13:02 When at the turn of the century when they were doing massive railroad expansion

13:11 The railroads hiring for us and our area of it are geographical area. They brought up people from Mexico man from Mexico to work to build the railroad lines. And so wherever there was a railroad head out screw coming out to Texas Oklahoma, Kansas and in the Missouri and then on up north wherever there was a Railhead you find a Mexican settlement and as the men stayed they would damn bring their families up from Mexico and then they would pursue other jobs in the Kansas City area, the two major settlements were the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas and the course the west side in the beginning. Nobody would rent to them. So what the railroad did was they sideline boxcars and the man would live in the box cars and then when they brought their families up, they would all live in the box cars.

14:10 And it wasn't really until

14:13 The depression and just before the depression that they started making inroads at the permanent housing in neighborhoods. But even then they were relegated to living in certain blocks the first Mexican that settled on the westside came about 1904 then with 1910. There was a big migration because of the Civil War happening in Mexico or the Revolution and then subsequently in the last 10 or 15 years because of the economic conditions in their countries of origin there been an acceleration or increase of people coming to this country for the opportunity and the hope that it offers for a better life and but coming from those oppressive kinds of environments are country. Looks like it doesn't have any rules.

15:13 But it does we just don't tell you if we have rules until you break them and then we slam you and so part of our why I felt was our responsibility was to help teach them about the rules help them to facilitate living in this country successfully and integrate them into our community. And the only way to do that was take away their anonymities desegregate them from the corner and incorporate the more into the fabric of our neighborhood. What are some of the besides that program what are some of the other programs are or better yet? What makes this organization different than some of the organizations that do the same thing throughout the country who specifically do we work with or what is it specifically different that you hear from say legislators that sets us apart from

16:13 What's being done across the country? I think we've gotten away from teaching people how to be citizens. And if you live and a disengage or disenfranchised neighborhood, there's nobody left to teach you because the people with that knowledge leave and so if you so people don't we're not we're not teaching them how to be responsible citizens or property owners were not teaching them how to access government. We really don't teach government anymore. We don't teach Civics anymore. So, where do you go to learn those things? How do you learn those things and first and foremost in our neighborhood there have been so many years of contention and being involved meant that there were Family Feud's some

17:13 Violent, it was so ugly and so contentious that nobody wanted to be involved anymore because it was just ugly. And so what we felt we needed to do in the beginning was to teach people that being involved in your community and being civically engaged didn't necessarily have to be violent or ugly or contentious that it could be fun and what creates a family or what creates Community is having shared experiences and shared memories. So part of that was creating opportunities for those shared experiences and shared memories, whether it was painting 55-gallon drums and having artist come in and kids come in and paint drums to deal with the litter problem that everybody said was the number one problem and then

18:13 Having a serendipitously betting pool start over which of the painted barrels would be stolen. It created a conversation about art. It created a sense of community. Everybody has their favorite trash barrel. There was kind of a camaraderie over the betting pool as to the cactus Barrel getting stolen but it started a community dialogue and it's also planted in the idea of litter abatement and not littering which we've gotten away from or whether it was a neighborhood garage sale and creating that kind of fun and more specifically there was a time when Kansas City had a thing that they called Clean Sweep which were massive neighborhood cleanups Focus neighborhoods and the not the first of the second but the third clean up that we have

19:13 Add where we really got neighborhood participation. It was like the whole neighborhood was having a picnic or an adventure. It was something that nobody had ever seen before it was the first major clean-up in 40-some years. We ended up at the end being the smallest land mass neighborhood that hauled out the most trash and we held the tire record for years. We how we were about a square mile and we hauled out about 800 + tires and one of them was a 1939 rubber tire off of an old Dodge and the man had 39 tires in his basement that cuz they said they were good tires and we had ran into U-Haul truck to haul these tires out of the neighborhood for the tire recycling and we got to mr. Waters this house and they're all these tires in his base.

20:13 Cement and the last Tire to come out of the basement was this one hundred percent genuine rubber tire and we get to the back of the truck and we couldn't but he wouldn't let go of the tire and it kept saying but it's a really good tire and it's Rubber and he Michelle's tugging on it and Mr. Juarez is tugging on it. It was emotional thing to let go of this rubber tire and we just had to promise him that rubber tires were never ever coming back and that model vehicle was never coming back and finally was cuz I think a little watery eyes he let go of the tire and we got it in the truck.

21:00 Afterwards, that's the the Sunday we had people will screeching into the parking lot of the can Center to say Linda. Come see our street Linda come see our street. We've never seen our street. Look this good before everybody's out on the street. So after I got the gates closed and laughed as exhausted as I was caused by about then I had 90 some hours in and drove up and down the streets to see where everybody was and we had ad hoc barbecue parties and Street parties going on people hauling their blocking out the streets and Hauling BBQ Pits into the street and cooking and people staying alive got this I'll bring this or I've got that and I'll bring that in the kids playing and one street. The neighbors came out in just said we've lived here twenty years. We've never seen our street looked this good it looks as good as anything in the suburbs and they

22:00 Or so proud that they did this and that they could look this beautiful. There's really nothing that can describe the Joy on her face and people talking to each other was like family reunions and reunions the friends and we had one kind of curmudgeon a guy that

22:25 Came out to one of his neighbors and so will I didn't realize all this was going on and the neighbor who wasn't really a fan of the can Center really but he says we'll where the heck were yet. He got 50 Flyers about this and he says, well, I never got them and he says that's a lie because I know she tied that to your door and you had to cut it to get in your house. So I know you got it. So it was also one of the first times that the name that they started Thinking Beyond being victims and taking ownership and responsibilities for the for their environment of the environment. Is it Community? It was also one of the first times at their personal definition of neighborhood and Community was expanded Beyond them and their immediate family to include the whole neighborhood and it was a real special experience and it was

23:23 It was hard to get other people outside of the neighborhood understand. It wasn't just the cleanup. It was the bonding opportunity and it was a shared experience in a shared memory.

23:35 I'm I've heard some stories I've lived in the neighborhood for since well that's been a family generational house since the Sporty's but I do remember my father and some of the other neighbors talk about their perspective on Civics and government engagement participation and what I've heard them talk about is they use to chain themselves to the light post just to get something done or get something. I heard either at study hall or it's some sort of government level how to how do you do and how do we do that? Now in part of it was you can't Civic engagement is something you do 52 weeks a year. It isn't something you only do in the bulldozer pulls up to your house.

24:27 And that's really how the neighborhood operated they waited until it was an emergency and it was almost too late to take it back and then they would have to go to these extreme melodramatic measures to stop it instead of being part of the process all along and that's really what we've tried to change so that

24:53 So that we try to get information and keep them informed for the whole process not that's something that they get broadsided at the eleventh hour. They've also been conditioned and trained and encouraged by a lot of the old thinking of social service agencies that that's what you do well wait till the last minute and then we'll just protesting will play the the poverty card or the race card or whatever. Well that doesn't necessarily mean you're civically engaged and that doesn't necessarily mean you're at the table or part of the process or or part of the power and the only way to do that is through continuous involvement and participation and that take self-sacrifice it takes time and it takes a concerted effort to keep yourself a prize.

25:51 But because we kind of did a lock step in the neighborhood thanks to lots of people in the neighborhood. We were able to down Zone the entire neighborhood and a systematic fashion. That won't necessarily stop development, but it'll slow it down and make it manageable and make us do some real serious planning is to what as our neighborhood changes. What do we want those changes to be and what do we want the neighborhood to look like? How long did that downzoning process take took about two years and that's the other thing that particularly poor and disengage were disenfranchised neighborhoods. Clearly don't understand is that things take a long time. It took us eight years to get the library. It took actually 30 some years to get the community center it has

26:51 A long time to get some of the amenities but because we stuck to our guns and didn't give up and didn't go away and didn't throw in the towel. We've had we've made some tremendous strides and in public and infrastructure improvements in the neighborhood. We've gotten Parts repaired new playground equipment. We're getting a new Sprayground that only took four years, but I think people that do not experience success give up way too soon and I'll way too easily and I think

27:33 That's a real hard lesson to get people particularly people that have become disengages is a franchise for them to clearly understand that change takes time and it takes commitment and it takes staying in there for the Long Haul and you still might lose but you have a better chance of winning that you mentioned the library and the community center. How does the cancer center?

28:06 Work in that Synergy is it will put everything is focused on what has to happen to facilitate the success of the people in our neighborhood and part of the people in our neighborhood our children. And so

28:24 It took us eight years to get our new library within the first six to eight weeks at the library was up and running the kids in our neighborhood had done 8 to $10,000 worth of damage to the library. And that was the last straw. So we called together social service agencies that work with the kids in the neighborhood and families. And we created what we call the way coalition to set up and organize non-school hours structured activities for the kids and try to redirect those energies from destructive two more productive activities and more specifically to have mechanisms for us to know who the kids are what's going on in their family and kind of head them off at the pass.

29:17 What time?

29:19 For example kids that misbehave did the library and the community center where identified and the two police officers that are assigned to the cancer center will go visit the parents and give them a heads up. This is so on. So this is just to let you know that you're sitting on a problem here that Joey is stealing or they're doing this or that and just thought you'd like to know for the most part that was a wake-up call for the parents to say one your child getting out of control and two were watching both of you and somebody needs to step up to the plate to be accountable and responsible for the actions for their kids. Who's we you go up to these kids house and

30:05 Tell him this or who else do you work with Kansas City's version of community policing we come with two Kansas City, Missouri police officer. And it's the police officers that go visit the family to give him a heads-up. And so that raises the profile a little bit that it isn't just a social worker or is it is it is it just a busybody that this an appropriate behavior is is catching the attention of law enforcement and law enforcement would much rather be a crime prevention then enforcing it through stronger measures prevention is much cheaper and easier than law enforcement.

31:01 There's been a few articles written about what we do. Do you realize the impact that what we've done here may help others say not only in the country, but internationally, I read an article that was done by one of the police chief's hear the police chief here in Kansas City, Missouri and does it do you ever think about how far and the extensive impact that what we've done here can make a change maybe in another country. Besides another Township our neighborhood are even if say someone were to listen to this so read this article 10 or 15 or 20 years from now and be able to use some of what you've done and some of what the Cancer Centers done to also change.

32:01 Or I create or have an impact in their community and neighborhood as you have done. The goal is to facilitate.

32:19 Successful lives

32:22 And some people are lucky enough to be in circumstances where that's easier to achieve than others. So to have a successful life certain things need to be in place. The neighborhood needs to be clean. You need to feel safe and you need to feel connected with those about you. And those are things that have work for our neighborhood. And those are the Hallmarks of a lot of of successful communities and successful citizens. So that's what we've tried to recreate a neighborhood that believed itself to be on its knees and we brought back Pride a place or help facilitate prior to place ownership and some responsibility. We still have a long way to go. But we also see a lot of changes.

33:18 For the Day Labor Center part of it. We had a mayor of one of the month of the days bigger cities and he came by to see what we were doing here already turned to his Aid and said, you know, we could sure use this and Mexico and of course, they could anything that facilitates people being successful are people reaching their full potential. Then there are no losers everybody gets the opportunity to be a winner and if you're instilling that self-confidence and that belief then you're going to have a higher level of success like Henry Ford said whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right.

34:07 So our messages yes, you can or in Spanish for Cesar Chavez. He supposedly have a personal question. Where were you born? Where you from? And where you where did you grow up? So those are three questions there. I was born at st. Joseph Hospital overlooking beautiful Lake Ontario and Toronto Ontario Canada, and we moved to the states when I was of a certain age and I'll move to Kansas City about 20 years ago to deal with some family issues. I couldn't handle long distance of the time. I was living in New York City.

34:50 So you're from Canada are Canadian immigrant helping with Irish immigrants in German immigrants and helping now a Hispanic immigrants. We're just connecting the dots for the NAFTA agreement from Mexico to Canada on I-35, which is the NAFTA Corridor. Was there anything you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to talk about regarding you the can Center or the impact that you've had and the can centers had over the past when it's what has it. Been 10 15 years now since 1994. We were Incorporated 94. We got a 501 c 3 and 95. It's been a struggle. It's been very hard. But you know when you see a kid light up for example tonight. We're going to have our third neighborhood Urban camp out in an urban park and to see if

35:50 To have the joy of frustration of pitching a tent or a kid that has makes a s'more for the first time cuz our kids don't go camping. It's bringing those first. And once again, it goes back to facilitating the success of somebody else.

36:08 What do you see the future in the next say 5 years or so?

36:13 Mo the goal would be not the need not to exist. It would be nice if we didn't need to be

36:24 I see.