Written in loving memory for the four lives lost, the hundreds injured and the countless ways

Boston continues to respond to the attacks on April 15, 2013

LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
BY: BOSTON MAYOR MARTIN J. WALSH

I II

THE HEART OF THIS CITY: BOSTON STRONG AND BECOMING STRONGER

The change-makers of Boston reect on the marathon, social justice and moving forward stronger in a publication produced by sixteen Boston College students in the Presidential Scholars Program Class of 2016.
Publication Editors-in-Chief:

Lucas Allen & Daniel Lundberg

Section Editors:

Vivian Chang, Tony Gallanis, Tate Krasner & Lucy Methven

Content Editors:

Isaac Akers, Sahil Amin, Harrison Bacon, Andrew Boyce, Nick Denari, Catherine Larrabee, Marissa Marandola, Maureen McGrath, Claudio Quintana & Nathan Schwan
Photography:

Many thanks to Paul Davey, John Wiley and Alison Wawrzynek www.theheartofthiscity.org 2014 Allen and Lundberg

THE HEART OF THIS CITY:

STRONG OR BECOMING STRONGER?
Im telling you, nothing can defeat the heart of this city. Nothing. Nothing will take us down, because we take care of one another. Even with the smell of smoke in the air, and blood on the streets, and tears in our eyes, we triumphed over that hateful act on Monday afternoon. Its a glorious thing, the love and the strength that covers our city. It will push us forward. It will push thousands and thousands and thousands of people across the nish line next year. Because this is Boston, a city with the courage, compassion and strength that knows no bounds.
- Mayor Thomas Menino at the Interfaith Prayer Service Held on April 18, 2013

SECTION I:

n Monday, April 15, 2013 at 2:49 in the afternoon, two bombs exploded thirteen seconds apart at the nish line of the 117th Boston Marathon. Twenty-nine-year-old Krystle Campbell, eight-year-old Martin Richard and twenty-three-year-old Lingzi Lu lost their lives, and over two hundred spectators and athletes were injured. The race was cut short, MIT Police Ofcer Sean Collier murdered, and the city placed under lockdown. At 8:42 on Friday evening, a manhunt for the two men responsible ended beside a boat in Watertown, a suburb of Boston. The days and months that have passed since last Marathon Monday are some of Bostons most remarkable. Within them are stories of great resilience, harmony and strength. Much has been shared and recognized about the courageous responses made by individuals toward these events. However, less has been said concerning what these actions reveal collectively about the character and heart of this city and what they can mean for Boston moving forward. // 1

// Over 700 marathons were organized across the United States in 2013. The Boston Athletic Associations marathon was the third most attended race behind the New York City and Chicago Marathons in 2011 and the fourth most attended race in 2012. Over 26,000 runners entered in 2013, and more than 23,000 athletes traveled to Hopkinton for the race. All fty states and seventy countries were represented with a ag from every country of every runner in attendance hanging at the nish line. While many participants were elite runners, others were members of charity programs, running for a cause, a loved one or a friend. Some ran to inspire change either in themselves or others and some simply for the personal trial and the desire to excel. Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia and Rita Jeptoo of Kenya won the race for the men and women with times of 2:10:22 and 2:26:25 respectively. //

THE MOST INCREDIBLE EVENT

A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH JOHN TLUMACKI
John Tlumacki is a photojournalist for the Boston Globe. He has been with the Boston Globe for 30 years and has covered Marathon Monday from Boylston Street for decades. On April 15, 2013, Tlumacki was at the nish line, and in the minutes following the attacks, he captured the now iconic photos of the marathon bombings from the scene of the attacks. For his coverage of the Boston Marathon and the recovery of Sydney and Celeste Corcoran, he was named Photographer of the Year by the Boston Press Photographers Association and the National Press Photographers Association. Tlumacki was also a Pulitzer Prize nalist for his coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

My connection to the Boston Marathon bombings is that I was there. I was the photographer at the nish line for the Boston Globe, my fth year in a row covering the nish line. When the bomb went o, I was angry. I think that motivated me more than anything to run forwards and not run backwards. A lot of people asked me, Were you afraid? I didnt have time to think about it. It was the time of the marathon when people coming across the nish line are not the best runners in the world, but theyre running for a cause. Theyre running with their children, or theyre running in a group. They get decorated. They are dressed in costumes and for me that makes for great photos. It is not always the winners; it is people that

try to cross the nish line and may even have to crawl across the nish line that inspire me. My rst photos were of a runner who had fallen in front of me. Three Boston police ocers started running towards him. One took her gun out, and in the distance you can see the second bomb going o. After I took that photo, I made my way to the sidewalk, and that was when I knew things were really bad. The images that I took after the bombings haunted me in my sleep, and it drew me to become aware of things I was never aware of as a journalist my emotions, my feelings. Because of what I photographed, I felt a necessity to talk about it. In the following days and even that

// At four hours and nine minutes into the marathon, the rst bombing occurred. Many athletes had already nished the race, but thousands of charity runners still crowded the course. In the seconds of silence before the detonation of the next bomb, expressions of utter shock and disbelief transformed into angry cries of not here, not the marathon and not Boston. It was in these moments of confusion and fear that commanding narratives of heroism emerged. The prociency of the medical staff at the nish line and the bravery of spectators who aided the injured despite the probability of another attack is for many where the meaning of strong begins. A few blocks away from the nish line, it was unclear to runners and spectators exactly what had transpired, but it would take less than ten minutes for the story to break internationally. The Boston Marathon, the citys soul, had been attacked. Fewer than 18,000 runners had nished the race, and with the shutdown of public transit, thousands were stranded along the course, denied the nish that they had spent months or even years training for. //

night, I decided I needed means Boston Strong to to go on every television I still have trouble going back to me. I see it every day, and show. CNN called me the finish line on Boylston Street. I believe Boston is strong. CBS, Polish television. I I hope that a lot of people have the I still have trouble going felt that it was important same trouble that I do because it back to the nish line on that I go on these tele- keeps alive the meaning of strong. Boylston Street. I hope vision shows to talk about that a lot of people have the same trouble that I what these photos meant. I felt guilty for takdo because it keeps alive the meaning of strong. ing those photos and I needed to justify that. If you want to see what life is like on the streets, The Boston Marathon is the most incredible take a ride through Bluehill Avenue through event in the world. At the nish line, theres a Dorchester and Mattapan and see the faces. flag from every country of every runner run- We are comfortable, and sometimes the people ning in the marathon. Every person who goes is there are not. We need to keep those issues alive. rooting for somebody. It is such a joyous event. So I believe in Boston Strong because Ive It is historical, and that is why I was angry. witnessed it. The memorial on Boylston Psychologically, there was damage to a lot of Street was to me the true sign of Boston people. It damaged the citys soul, and I think all the notes, mementos, t-shirts, shoes, it knocked the wind out of us. It was a sucker and track shoes. You name it; it was there. punch, and to rise up the way Boston has done

// During the hours and days following the attacks, Boston transitioned from a period of lockdown to a time of healing. The coming together of the city to support the survivors coupled with a toughness that seems inherent to many Bostonians reinforced the phrase Boston Strong that was rst printed by two Emerson College students on 110 t-shirts. Although New Jersey Strong and Vermont Strong had existed as mottoes before Boston Strong, there was a sense through the rapid, widespread embrace that this phrase would have staying power. It did. In addition to the collection of Boston Strong apparel that can now be found across the city, the Red Sox have taken on the motto, placing it at the center of Fenway Park and on memorial patches sewn onto their jerseys, and went on to win the World Series with it. We are Boston Strong quickly became an expansion on the motto that even members of different communities and cities could rally behind: we are strong like Boston. It seemed that everyone wanted to be a part of it. //

A BIG EMPTY SPACE

A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH DAVE FORTIER
Dave Fortier is a telecommunications business owner from Newburyport, Massachusetts. He trained for the 2013 Boston Marathon as a member of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and was injured in the rst blast of the bombings before nishing. He also suered extensive hearing loss, which remains with him to this day. He has since run the New York City Marathon in November for Team 922 to raise funds for Leukemia research.

I have a good friend and business colleague, Brad Standley, who was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, and in the spring of 2012, he suggested that I get out and run because we had just started a company and I was fairly stressed. It began with a 5K, and in October, I decided to see how far I could run and signed up for a half-marathon. Halfway through the race, I realized that if I was going to keep running, I needed to have a reason to run, so I contacted my friend and asked if there was a way I could get involved with the organization that was helping him. I found out in November that I was going to be a member of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston Marathon team. I was excited. I am typically the kind of person that avoids Boston on Marathon weekend because of the trac, but soon I became a part of it. And it truly has become a part of me. On the morning of the race, I was incredibly nervous. I was on a bus with several thousand people heading west. I saw a sign that read Albany Springeld and thought, Wow, now I have to run all the way back. I broke the day into small chunks ve miles, ten miles, thirteen miles and on. The longest run I had ever done was twenty miles, and when I got to the twenty-mile mark of the marathon, I was not sure what was going to happen during the last six.

// Among runners, the disruption of the marathon presented a mission to keep running and return to Boston next year as soon as the Boston Athletic Association announced that those unable to nish in 2013 would be invited back in 2014 to compete. Charities connected with the marathon were also overowed with interest, and preparation for the next marathon, set to be one of the biggest in history, began. Through this upwelling of support and interest in the marathon, a longterm response to the April 15 attacks has begun to manifest itself. But what does Boston Strong represent outside of the marathon? And more importantly, what will it mean when the rst anniversary passes and stories of recovery and heroism no longer occupy news channels? Is Boston Strong an active attribute of a city becoming stronger or a stagnant expression of a strong city? //
My family was watching near the Hynes Convention Center. My wife and our two kids were there along with several other family members, but even before that, somewhere at mile seventeen, I realized that I was having such a great time. The people who were nishing around my time wore their story on their backs, and as I was plugging along through the miles, I could read their stories about why they were there. Some of those stories are truly incredible. I was just about to nish the marathon when the rst explosion happened. I decided that I wanted to nish towards the right, so I was just starting to move toward the right when the explosion happened. Immediately my right foot was hit with a piece of shrapnel, and My resolve for the Boston I lost hearing in both ears. I still have some hearing loss Marathon had been etched and needed several stitches in my foot. I remember the in at about mile seventeen, flash. I turned around and where there had once been but it was very clear at the lots of people just as there had been lots of people for end of the Marathon and in twenty-six miles there was now a big empty space. And the events that have taken you could see a lot of what had happened very quickly. place since then that it will

My resolve for the Boston Marathon had been etched in at about mile seventeen, but it was very clear at the end of the Marathon and in the events that have taken place since then that it will forever be a part of who I am as long as I can participate in it. Is Boston strong? I think it is. I approach it from having run in the race. There are thousands and thousands of people who run, and it truly is a coming together. When you look at all of the dierent charities that are involved in the Boston Marathon and the amount of money that is raised to benet them, it is a staggering number. I think that is a big part of what makes Boston what it is, and believe it does make it very strong.

forever be a part of who I am.

// If personal triumph is the spirit of the marathon and the marathon is to be preserved as an embodiment of the strength of the city, questions necessarily arise about opportunities for triumph among all members of the Boston community in their other endeavors. Is Boston a city where empowerment and success are possible regardless of social and economic factors that disadvantage individuals? //

THE IVY STILL CLIMBING

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD BLANCO
Richard Blanco is the fth inaugural poet of the United States of America. A renowned poet, author, public speaker and civil engineer, he was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States. His most recognized works include City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to the Beach of the Dead and Looking for the Gulf Motel. Following widespread acclaim for his inaugural poem One Today, he composed Boston Strong in response to the events of April 15 and performed the poem at the Boston Strong benet concert on May 30 alongside musical guests including Aerosmith, James Taylor, and Carole King. Proceeds from the printed poem benet the One Fund.
Youll remember: the echoes of gunre blooming into flowers at the nish, the flags at the Common brighter than the spray of roses, the thanks you gave the clouds for the lives that saved lives in their arms, the promises of those who promised themselves and us they would walk, dance, run again, the stadiums and ballparks again lled with anthems sung by you, like a thousand songbirds all at once into a second spring you hadnt expected: dandelions still pushing through pavement cracks, spiders still spinning, forsythia still bursting yellow, elms still growing taller, and the ivy still climbing over the enduring walls of the city, still a city, but a whole lot stronger.
- Richard Blanco, An Excerpt from Boston Strong

from every stride of society led me to think about what else I could do with this idea of the occasional poem. Of course I wasnt expecting such a traumatic, or shocking, or sad event, but it did immediately make me think about writing a poem. One thing led to another, and I read Boston Strong at the benet concert. In terms of what poetry can do other than sitting in a classroom for reading, all the proceeds from the poem go to the One Fund. There is also a way of social activism through poetry that I had never thought about. There was something very particular and gravitas about this being a marathon and everything that involves, the idea of personal triumph. I dont want to say it was poetic, that is not the right word, but it was something that moved me to poetry. Much like writing any occasional poem, there were a lot of things to consider. One thing I remember very carefully was that I had to be respectful to the people of Boston, to the survivors, and to the victims in the sense that I wasnt going to assume that I knew exactly what people had

I have never lived in Boston, but I do have a bit of an anecdote. Boston was the very rst time I took a vacation by myself as a young adult, and I have very fond memories of it as the rst time I was out in the world by myself. It was one of the rst times I felt, if you want to follow the theme, strong. As far as my poem, what happened was that it was not too long after the inauguration and creatively the idea of the occasional poem was still there. Everything that happened with the inauguration in terms of seeing rsthand the power of poetry and the response of people

// Does the unied presence of Boston on Marathon Monday represent the full reality of the city, or do other realities exist that also need the extraordinary attention we rightfully summoned in response to these attacks? Are we as a city as strong as we could be if the Boston Strong energy extended toward becoming more aware, more conscious and more active toward the injustices that persist in the city of Boston? //

gone through. The happened and ends poem was more of an Strong is a weird, interesting word. with the phrase a honor, an elegy, and It is not necessarily even that we are whole lot stronger. a sort of tribute to stronger but the idea that our lives It was kind of what the the strength of the are experiences of the good and the whole event felt like, city. I went through a bad that make us who we are. In a the idea that we are process of going over way stronger means adding to the going to acknowledge images, researching. character of who we are, our wisdom, this happened, we are The idea was to re- our maturity, and all the rest. going to pay tribute, familiarize myself we are going to honor, emotionally and try to gather some images of we are going to heal, and we are going to move on. this story. Who were these people? Who were As individuals when we endure something, those the heroes? Who were the victims? Because my hardships, those trials and tribulations, to use personal childhood was, what can I say, not a a clich, make us stronger. Strong is a weird, happy childhood and had a very traumatic sense, interesting word. It is not necessarily even that when I see children, for example Martin Richard, we are stronger but the idea that our lives are it really gets to me. He was one focus that experiences of the good and the bad that make opened up the emotional door for the poem. us who we are. In a way stronger means adding It was interesting as a writer to have geographic to the character of who we are, our wisdom, our distance but be emotionally attached. So I maturity, and all the rest. It is the idea that events just took some of the images of the city as I can in some way create who we are. Something remember them, and I started writing a poem interesting happened in Boston. Something I using those perpetual symbols of very familiar was able to witness even from afar. There was images in Boston and trying to make metaphors always a feeling that Boston was a strong city, out of them. If you read the poem, it was very not quite an ancient city but a pretty damn old carefully worded. It doesnt say I this or I city for the United States. The ivy had always that. The city becomes a character, and it is been there symbolically. It had been in front of talking about the city as a character and of us all this time, but these events unfortunate course that means everyone and everything in it. and tragic events make us who we are, and I think that is the idea of being stronger to me. The concert was a moment to heal. We came In other words, it is being more of a person, together to honor and to catch our breaths. being more aware, and being more conscious. The poem took us through the moments that

// The marathon bombings were undoubtedly an attack on Boston, but they are just one of many injustices facing this city in our troubled world. Others such as poverty and disease claim and affect lives daily, and despite efforts by individuals to bring change, cohesive awareness and action are necessary for true transformation. Presently, Greater Boston faces record numbers of homeless families throughout this city with over 3,000 children presently living without homes according to the most recent census. Given the compounding effects of homelessness on health care disparities and the educational achievement gap, this is a weakness that Boston must collectively resolve. Boston Strong as an assertion of perseverance in the face of adversity must begin, not end, with our response to the marathon attacks. //

EVER STRONG
BY: JACK FULTZ
Jack Fultz is the 1976 winner of the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:20:19 in a race remembered for its record heat and the garden hoses awaiting runners at the nish line. In addition to his numerous running accomplishments, he is a tness consultant, personal coach, teacher of sports psychology at Tufts University, motivational speaker and writer. Since 2003, he has raised over $100K for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through his annual participation in the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge bike-a-thon (pmc.org/jf0068). His involvement in the Boston Marathon continues through his role as training advisor for Dana-Farbers marathon teams (RunDanaFarber.org).

Boston Strong! That declaration quickly and eectively articulated the response of Greater Boston to the horric events during and in the weeks following the 2013 Boston Marathon. Soon after the smoke cleared and the devastating eects of the bombings became vividly clear, Boston Strong erupted through a global lexicon with multiple meanings. To many it immediately became a rallying battle cry, profoundly if not profanely proclaimed by Boston Red Sox star, David Ortiz from the middle of iconic Fenway Park: This is OUR Fn city! During the ensuing year, which flew by so quickly, the renowned dictum has oered solace to a few, like the soothing balm of a meditation mantra. But to most whom herald the exclamation on T-shirts, ball caps, bumper stickers, billboards, bar walls and everything in between, Boston Strong has become a resolute expression of the same resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity that the Boston Marathon and the city of Boston represent. Many in the extended running community understandably took this heinous assault personally. They saw it as an attack on the sanctity of the Boston Marathon in particular and the larger running world in general. Others saw the bombings as an attack on America and what this country represents. Speculation is that the bombings were politically motivated acts of terrorism, intended to intimidate and instill fear in all Americans. Yet the marathon nish line may have simply been a convenient location of high visibility for the perpetrators to make their statement as loud as possible. As I wrote in the introduction of the recently released anthology If Not For The Perfect Stranger, When the bombs went o, I was standing less than a hundred meters beyond the nish line with

Jan Ross, my partner and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute colleague. We were congratulating and welcoming our DFMC team members and other friends who had run, plus anyone within earshot and hugging distance. Activity in the nearby medical tent had been minimal because the day was so ideal for distance running: sunny and cool with low humidity. Everyone in sightrunners exuberant and exhausted, their jubilant fans, friends, and relatives, and the small army of Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) volunteers and race ocialswas in a celebratory mood. All felt right in our world. We were cheering for the accomplishments of the runners and for the larger sense of global harmony of this renowned international event, illustrated so vividly by the flags of more than 70 countries represented in the eld of 26,000 athletes. We didnt realize then that the 117-year old Boston Marathon would be so profoundly aected, perhaps forevermore. It has been said many times and in various ways, nothing binds like a common enemy. The multitude of common enemies we all share: poverty, famine, disease, natural disasters and other major catastrophes and tragedies have brought diverse communities together to work as one and to speak with a unied voice. Jersey Strong helped summon resources and supportive energies after Hurricane Sandy destroyed so many of the New Jersey Shore communities. Newtown Strong helped that Connecticut community cope with their devastating losses in the senseless tragedy they experienced in 2012. And now Boston Strong provides us with a central focus of supporting each other in our respective needs to heal, to remember and to ultimately move forward. Good trumps evil. Throughout recorded history, evildoers have made their marks. But we the people are still standing strong. The Boston Marathon will continue bigger, better and stronger than ever. The BAA and John Hancock Charity Programs, which raise millions of dollars every year with thousands of people helping tens of thousands of people, will continue bigger, better and stronger than ever. Still, some questions beg to be asked. Will all mankind ever nd our common ground? Will we ever look beyond the small dierences that divide us and more fully cooperate to ght our common enemies? Those dierences have, for all recorded history, been the dividing lines in the sand over which we ght, maim and kill each other. Is our Precambrian brain stem incapable of catching up with our new technologies? Will we ever collectively come to agree that life need not be a zero-sum game? Will mankind ever evolve to a place where, as is sometimes said about a marathon race, everyone can win his or her own race? Perhaps. The irony of the tragic Boston Marathon bombings and so many other devastating events that occur far too often in our increasingly complex and troubled world is that we always witness in the aftermath how perfect strangers quickly become perfect friends. The resiliency of mankind continually reveals itself to be one of our most enduring hallmarks. We are, and shall always be, Ever Strong.

Is our Precambrian brain stem incapable of catching up with our new technologies? Will we ever collectively come to agree that life need not be a zero-sum game? Will mankind ever evolve to a place where, as is sometimes said about a marathon race, everyone can win his or her own race?

A NEW NORMAL
A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH DAVE WEDGE
Dave Wedge was the Chief Enterprise Reporter at the Boston Herald, where he worked from 1999 until 2014. During his career, he covered violence in the city extensively including the marathon attacks. He was a frequent commentator on networks including CNN, Fox News, CBS, and ABC and is author of the upcoming nonction book Boston Strong. He now serves as vice president of Northwind Strategies, a public aairs and communications rm

I am an alumnus of Boston violence in Boston on a College, so my connection I have seen violence in Boston on regular basis, and a lot with the marathon started a regular basis, and a lot of it does of it does go completely while watching the race on go completely under the radar. under the radar. We see Heartbreak Hill. For me the it on dierent levels with marathon symbolizes the beginning of spring. It the murders that we cover. For example, there is always the rst nice day where everybody gets was a young teacher killed in Danvers, and outside, and winter is nally over. You have the there was an outpouring for her, rightfully so. Red Sox game in the morning, so everyone gets However, there have been many twenty-fourup and enjoys the game and the marathon. year-old women killed in Massachusetts over the past twenty years, and there is not a similar I look at Boston Strong as a pure thing. It is a outpouring when the women are of a dierent way of saying we are all in this together. It does socioeconomic status or of dierent occupations. not mean that Boston is better than everywhere else. It is not a sports thing. It is simply a way With the marathon, it was the rst time we were for everyone to say we support one another. attacked since 9/11. It unfolded on live, national People in Boston are very loyal to each other. TV, so the entire world was watching. That is When Boston Strong is carved into the eld at why there was such an enormous outpouring Fenway Park, and the Red Sox have taken it on of support. It is sad for me covering this stu to use as inspiration, I dont think it is marketing that so many people are killed in this city every or a gimmick. It is pure. Those guys are residents day. There is at least one or two murders every of the city too. They were playing that morning. day in Boston usually in Dorchester, Roxbury, Some of their fans were injured. or Mattapan. That is something that people have grown to accept in this city unfortunately. Is Boston strong? Boston is one of the centers of liberty in this country: start of the American You hear the phrase a new normal. That is what Revolution, a lot of the Civil War. Boston has a a lot of victims say. You cannot go back to the history of repelling foreign invaders, and this way life used to be. As much as you want to go was another example. I think history will be very back, that part of your life is over. kind to Boston on how we handled this. Locking If Boston comes away from these events having down the city was a tough call, and from my learned one thing, it should be that we as a investigation which Im still working on Im society came together to help people injured actually writing a book about this whole thing in the marathon attacks, so lets come together there was a lot of disagreement among ocials. on a more regular basis to help others in our As a journalist at the Boston Herald, I have seen community.

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TWO SEPARATE BOSTONS

BY: KATHE MCKENNA
Kathe McKenna is the founder and former Executive Director of Haley House, a multi-branched Boston nonprot. She began the organization with John McKenna by renting an apartment in what is now the South End and oering hospitality to homeless men in the area. Today Haley House operates many innovative programs that address the roots of homelessness and unemployment. The original Haley House was purchased in part using funds raised by Fr. David Gill of Boston College who ran the Boston Marathon.

I live a couple of blocks from the nish line of the Boston Marathon but I wasnt there that day. The race had become somewhat old hat after seeing so many. A potent memory of the Boston Marathon actually concerns a Boston College Jesuit, Fr. David Gill. A little more than forty years ago he ran the marathon to help us buy our rst permanent housing. This was before there were any charity runners - no Walk for Hunger, no breast cancer or diabetes or AIDS walks. Such eorts hadnt come into consciousness. In fact, there were no computers so when Dave Gill was planning his fund-raising eort he ran o a mimeographed flyer saying: You cant save the world but you can save one rooming house! The South End was fast losing its private stock of low-income housing, primarily rooming houses. These weekly rentals were for the very poor. The students were generous to Daves run - netting us the down payment minus only the $500 we took out of our lean checking account. When I rst heard Boston Strong, I was a bit uneasy. Not due to the spirit of coming together to assist those who were injured. Peoples generous response to all the aspects of tragedy has been clearly inspirational. It was the stance of being tough in the face of attack that reminded me of a prevalent, post 9/11 attitude: if we are tough and strong, we can defeat our attackers. Might will protect us. For me that is a naive and facile perspective because I am not convinced strength and toughness in pursuit of bad guys is the most eective method to combat terrorism - or other violent acts that have been perpetrated against innocent people.

Surrounding our Bakery Caf in Dudley Square are people living in neighborhoods that experience intermittent killing and maiming, mostly of lost, young men. We hear the expressions of pain and grief. Our neighbors quietly noticed the massive public response to the Marathon bombings and could not help but compare it to the virtually non-existent response from the same public to the suering in their community. Once again they were left out. No generous outpouring of help flooded into lives impacted by children, brothers, or grandsons who were shot down.

Our neighbors quietly noticed the massive public response to the Marathon bombings and could not help but compare it to the virtually non-existent response from the same public to the suffering in their community.

The tragic, unspoken conclusion is that their lives do not have the same value as the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. A sense lingers that there are two separate Bostons - which are not equal.

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// Complex cycles of injustice and poverty are something that people have grown to accept across certain domains in this city, and although there is a broad need for change, there is not a similar outpouring of support as there was for the marathon to enact it. That is the tragic, unspoken conclusion. The true strength of Boston is a strength in solidarity that stems from the diversity of the city and the recognition that forms of power and capability exist in all of its residents regardless of physical, economic and social limitations. //

SOLIDARITY OF THE SHAKEN

BY: DR. ASPEN BRINTON
Dr. Aspen Brinton is an Assistant Professor in Boston Colleges Philosophy and International Studies departments. She has taught at Northwestern University and Georgetown University on their campuses in Doha, Qatar. Her research interests include the intellectual history of civil society and the development of philosophical and theoretical tools to examine dissident movements and civic associations. She teaches courses related to these interests at Boston College, as well as a course in the PULSE program, which addresses service and social justice.

As a recreational runner who once aspired to run the Boston Marathon, I have always thought of the event as an iconic race. When I heard about the bombing, I was in Philadelphia, coming out of a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where I was teaching at the time. I knew I was going to be teaching at Boston College in the fall, and after the news spread, everyone who knew I was coming to Boston asked me how I felt about it. At that moment I seemed to mentally move to Boston, even though my actual move was a few months away. I knew I was going to be a part of whatever became of that moment, a part of the city as it tried to react and recover. Most of the country had this sort of perspective on the bombing: looking here from the outside, watching what was happening on the news with riveted and horried interest. What I most remember were the accounts of the medical tent, the organization of the hospitals, and the way people seemed to come together and form a spontaneous sense of civic awareness. In asking the question of the strength in Boston Strong, one should be clear about what sort of strength one is referring to, and what one plans to do with that strength. If being strong and tough and going after the bad guys is the only thing you do when you want to be strong, I dont think that captures the deeper meaning of what we mean when we say strength more generally. I think that the best part of the aspirations within Boston Strong is a notion of strength in solidarity, the strength derived from coming together with others. To understand that notion of strength, I think you have to realize that those who might in one way appear to be weak or fragile might in another way have spiritual, intellectual, or moral strength not evident within traditional notions of strength-as-toughness. It is channeling this other kind of strength that makes solidarity possible among diverse groups of people.

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// This strength that we seek requires an admission of weakness. It demands conscious reection about the city we live in. We should not assert strength proclaimed for the sake of strength alone but instead strength and fragility embedded into solidarity. The weakest and most traumatized in this city can become among the strongest if they are provided opportunities to realize their potentials. //
The existence of this slogan Boston Strong, along with the campaign, the response, and the discussion it has generated together are evidence that such a form of solidarity exists here in some form now, and also existed before the bombing. In order for the civic The fact that so many have already response to be so deep and so fast, that strength in solidarity people must have existed prior to the bombing. There are, for registered for next years example, many countries in the world where people are race seems in itself an not willing to help their government in the way Bostonians indicator of a genuine did. In many other places, to cite just one example, tens willingness to confront fear of thousands of personal photographs and videos would and not be scared, but only not have been uploaded to a government website within a time will tell. Cities that are few hours of a bombing. So one measure of strength is the scared are not strong cities. fact that people were so willing to help their government; this alone speaks well of a sort of strength in solidarity present in the Boston community.

The other thing to consider is that we cannot yet know how to measure what sort of strength will be operating in the future. Only six months after the tragedy, we do not know how long the support of victims will last, or whether the community will continue to rally together. The fact that so many people have already registered for next years race seems in itself an indicator of a genuine willingness to confront fear and not be scared, but only time will tell. Cities that are scared are not strong cities, and it may be that next year the racecourse is strong, but rather than civically strong, it might be locked down like an army fortress, impenetrable to the community. The solidarity at stake now, as Boston recovers, reminds me of a philosopher I often read, Jan Patoka. He was an inspiration to Czech dissident (and later president) Vclav Havel, who became famous for protesting against the communist regime of Czechoslovakia and writing a well-known essay called The Power of the Powerless, which he dedicated to Patoka. The most memorable idea from their conversations arises within Patokas thoughts on solidarity: he thought something he called shakenness led to a particular kind of strong civic solidarity. He developed a system and theory around the idea of the solidarity of the shaken, that is, the solidarity of those who are often weakest and most traumatized. It is the shaken, he claims, who often produce the strongest form of solidarity. Perhaps that is what we are seeing now in Boston. Patokas idea captures the paradox of what it is to have both strength and fragility embedded into solidarity. If Boston Strongas a movement, as a conversation, and as a phrase is able to do that, I think it will have a lasting impact on the togetherness of the community.

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THE ACTIONS BEHIND IT

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRITTANY LORING
Brittany Loring was celebrating her birthday on April 15 and was walking past the nish line when the bombings occurred. She received wounds to both legs and thighs, a skull fracture, multiple wounds in her neck and head and a nger laceration. In the following weeks and months of recovery, Brittany graduated from Boston College with an MBA / JD and was married to her anc John McLoughlin.

Boston is one of those cities where people come and might think that people here are not as friendly as in other parts of the country. I understand why they say that, but once you start meeting people within the community, you realize that you somehow start to know everybody.

I actually do not think there is a consistency between the way we responded as a city to the marathon tragedy and how we have responded to other social justice issues. I Boston is a strong community. People who live do not think the city has come here really love this city. The idea that anyone together on any other event would want to hurt Boston is very disturbing as they did for the marathon.

to anyone who lives here. That is what we saw with the aftermath of the marathon, people coming out and showing how much they really love this city. We want to see this city prosper and see only good things happen in it. I actually do not think there is a consistency between the way we responded as a city to the marathon tragedy and how we have responded to other social justice issues. I do not think the city has come together on any other event as they did for the marathon. We are more of a behind the scenes place in terms of social justice. Those issues are not as in your face as the marathon was. I am not sure why that is. Maybe we are private people. This was the rst time in my lifetime that I have seen the city come together like this. It is easy for human beings to forget not completely forget that something happened but to forget the lessons we have learned and try to more forward because it is in our nature as human beings to move forward. However, we need to look out for each other so something like this does not happen again. We need to reach out to marginalized individuals, understanding that we as a city need to be stronger. We need to do the best we can to make this city a better city. I do not really want to think about the people that did this. I do not know if there is an understandable reason, but maybe we can realize that we as a city need to reach out more to marginalized individuals and work to understand trauma more. As a city and as a country, it would do us well to empathize more with individuals. Maybe we can become more involved in social justice in general. If I wanted Boston Strong to go on it would be for people to reach out and act how they feel about the city. The Boston Strong motto is only as good as the actions behind it.

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// There is little doubt that Boston is a strong community who responded to the marathon attacks with the greatest conviction and inspiration. However, it is easy for human beings to forget. Books will be written, exhibits constructed, lms made and monuments erected to memorialize these events, those affected by them and the legacy of the Boston Marathon, but how do we preserve the spirit of Boston Strong? How do we ensure that this response was not an isolated phenomenon but rather the onset of a movement toward a better city? Boston Strong has provided an opportunity for us to become stronger, to spare no further attention to the people that did this and instead devote ourselves more fully to this city. The lives lost and maimed on April 15, 2013 will be remembered in countless ways in 2014 and over the years and decades to come. Although the meaning of these events will differ between individuals, there seems at least one commonality among our understandings. Boston Strong was a response, and the motto is only as good as the actions behind it. We will stay strong if we continue to respond. //
Daniel Lundberg was one of several hundred Boston College students who ran the Boston Marathon in 2013 to fund-raise for the Campus School, a school for children with special needs located at the university. He nished minutes before the attacks and was a block away when they occurred. His experiences that day moved him to attempt to run six marathons over six months this year, 131 miles of which he has now completed. Funds raised from his run support his initative Ghana Strong, which attempts to empower people with disabilities in Ghana by founding AbilityTro, the rst accessible transportation network in Ghana. He serves as co-editor of The Heart of This City: Boston Strong and Becoming Stronger with fellow student Lucas Allen and hopes to return to the Boston Marathon soon as a qualied athlete.

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Reprinted with permission from Kenji Nakayama

16

HOMELESSNESS IN BOSTON:
HOW WE TREAT OUR MOST VULNERABLE

SECTION II:

aty greeted me with a smile as I rang the doorbell at Rosies Place, a sanctuary for poor and homeless women in South Boston. She led me through the art-lined walls into a classroom, spotless as per Rosies Place standards, with various items around the room labeled with their proper names such as clock and light. We all took seats at the desks and Katy enthusiastically introduced me to Sharon, a previous guest and current volunteer at Rosies Place. Sharon: I guess my whole life Ive never really been a bluebird of sunshine. I grew up in a kind of scary home and had some post-traumatic stress and a major depressive disorder. I went along my life mostly okay just a little guarded. I had an abusive boyfriend, one child. But I had a really good job where I made over $50,000 dollars a year, so I had an apartment, a car and all of that. Then one day I got laid off. I thought Id get a job in a couple of days. All of a sudden, it was taking a couple months. If I had gotten a job, it would have only paid thirteen dollars per hour, half of what I was making before. Things really werent happening, the jobs werent there, and the money was small. I guess it worried me, and I went into my depressed self. I didnt really give up, but I said, Whats wrong with me? Soon I had to move out of my apartment. I left my house with no money and very little gas in my car, and I lived in Winthrop in my car for a while. I had never been there in my life. It is lovely. //

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// I met a good group of people and stayed real clean. I had clothes with me because I packed my trunk. I didnt feel like I had left much behind. I gained the knowledge that the world has become cooperate and greedy with only a few people pulling all the strings,. I was happy on a different level and everyone around me came together. Similarly, the Boston Marathon was horric, but the //

A FULL-TIME JOB
SPOTLIGHT | AN INTERVIEW WITH KATY ERKER
Katy has experience working in areas of homelessness, empowerment, community organizing and the non-prot community at large. She has worked at Rosies Place since 2010 where she developed the Self-Advocacy Initiative which is founded in the belief that given the necessary tools, information, community and encouragement, poor and homeless women can be their own best advocates. Katy is a life-long athlete who loves to run and is joyful to be running her rst Boston Marathon on April 21st. A charity runner, she is running for Samaritans, Inc. a suicide prevention organization, in memory of two family members. And she is running because she believes the City of Boston and the human spirit are strong and resilient and will only grow deeper in community after our losses last year.

The day a guest comes to Rosies Place for the rst time may be one of the hardest days of her life. The roads shes traveled to get here are as diverse as the women we serve. One guest I work with lost her corporate job in the recession, fell into a depression and lost her home, car and community. Another guest was in a car accident on her way to work ve years ago, she was prescribed narcotics for the pain and her body grew dependent upon the drugs beyond her pain. Now her addiction has become her full-time job. Another guest struggles with trauma from her past and untreated mental health issues. Each woman has her own story. But regardless, what makes her special is that she is surviving, beating the odds and a part of our community. She is sister, mother, daughter, and friend. We realize that these women have been told no over and over again. At Rosies Place, we seek to nd a space where they can be told yes. Where they can be armed and empowered. Since our founding in 1974, Rosies Place has been focused on using innovative approaches for womens empowerment. After seeing

women disguising themselves as men to get into mens shelters, our founder Kip Tiernan created the rst shelter for women in the United States. She saw the Guests who come to Rosies Place as adults who should be treated with dignity and respect. Over the past four years at Rosies Place, I have had the privilege of working with Guests who have experienced very real struggles. Daily I witness the way they support one another and the communities that they create for each other. They are the most creative, resilient and resourceful people I know. They are adaptive and wise and have more lived experience than most. They are also some of the strongest people that I know. After the marathon, when we started to hear Boston Strong I knew just the people who could add to the richness of what makes our Boston strong. What makes women experiencing homelessness special is that theyre sisters and they want to share. I was excited to hear this new phrase Boston Strong because I could think of these resilient, creative women that I

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// ipside was the way people pulled together with kindness. Katy: Was Rosies Place the rst shelter you came to? Sharon: By Gods grace, I dont remember my rst few days, but I think it might have been the Woods Mullen Shelter. I know I slept on the side of a train track once. A cop came by, real nice, and said, Are you okay? I just dont want you to get run over by a train? It was really hard. I feel like some people cant see the sadness thats going on. Vivian: Where are you staying now? Sharon: I have a small studio out in Dorchester. I have a housing voucher that is only good for the building I am in. I cant move, but Im ne with that. //
work with everyday. Folks who havent stayed in a homeless shelter may not know that getting a bed for the night is a full time jobyou dont just show up to a shelter and have a safe place to sleep for the night. Usually you have to do a bed lottery and all too often there are not enough beds. Furthermore, guests who stay at the various shelters throughout Greater Boston oftentimes have to be at the shelter for the lottery by 1:00p.m. to make sure that they have a bed for the night. Meaning from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. the following day, their time is spent and not in their control. At Rosies Place, we have guests stay with us for three weeks. They dont do a daily lottery and once they have a bed with us they know they have a roof over their head for the next three weeks. When you come for a meal at Rosies Place, you dont wait in a line for your meal. Instead, your lunch and dinner are served to you by volunteers and sta, restaurant style. Self-Advocacy is an approach we use at Rosies Place that turns the typical social-services model on its head. It is rooted in the belief that poor and homeless women (not sta) are the experts on their own realities and options. When a guest sits down with sta she isnt asked what can I do for you?, shes asked, what are you good at? what do you like to do? how can we accompany as you make progress on your goals? The mission is to use a strengths-based approach to empower guests to work towards and achieve self-suciency by building their knowledge and condence through community, leadership development, interactive workshops and trainings. We all have these stereotypical, stigmatized views of what it means to be homeless. Even the language that we use; we say, shes homeless, rather than shes experiencing homelessness right now. Because homeless isnt a permanent state, at least it shouldnt be, it should be a temporary space that youre experiencing. So Ive changed the way Ive talked about homelessness. If someone is staying in shelter or experiencing homelessness, hes not homeless; hes a human. I think that that language in and of itself shows the way we stigmatize.

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THE FACE OF HOMELESS

SPOTLIGHT | AN INTERVIEW WITH MARIANN BUCINA
Mariann Bucina is the Executive Director of Friends of Bostons Homeless, which supports innovative, solution-oriented programs to help over 400 homeless men and women each year move beyond shelter and back into the community with an education, gainful employment and permanent housing. Friends of Bostons Homeless works in a unique public/private partnership with Boston Public Health Commissions Homeless Services to engage the public in fundraising and volunteerism for Homeless Services programs and shelters. Housing First is an initiative to empower longterm homeless persons with housing up-front rather than transitioning slowly through the shelter system. The success of the program has been immense.

It is in our societys best interest, and certainly Bostons, to implement Housing First because it is a proven solution in ending homelessness, long term. Housing our citys most vulnerable, those living on the streets or in shelters sometimes for more than a decade, is rst of all humane, to provide somebody who has been living on the streets or in shelters or bouncing back and forth between the two sometimes for years, but it also is an economic solution that benets all of us on so many levels. I think also that weve had some time here in Boston to really look at some strong results. The long term homeless remain housed, their well-being is improved, and they are able to re-build their lives, engage in services that they were clearly previously unable to. What a simple, beautiful way to end somebodys long term suering because they dont have a place to sleep every night or the ability to deal adequately with healthcare issues. What a wonderful thing to be able to do and say, as a community and as a city, that we are dramatically improving the lives of really vulnerable people, who have spent a long time in pain, just by housing them. At least from Friends of Boston Homeless perspective, there is real beauty in supporting programs such as our housing rst startup fund, through which we provide pieces that people dont have but need, like a security deposit, furniture, or household items. By investing in that fund, people are not only housed but the odds have been turned in their favor. What a wonderful thing you did as

an individual, through housing another individual, really allowing them to transform their lives. As an organization, we think about it, yes, on a community level, but really on the level of the individual because we know who those people we are housing are and where they are down the road. The odds are 90% or greater that years from now we are still going to be able to tell you the same thing theyre safe, theyre housed, theyre comfortable, theyre getting healthier. I get a little emotional about it, because I really think it is such a wonderful thing to be able to do as a community to meet an individuals basic needs. A disabled man we just housed two weeks ago had been living in a veterans shelter for about three years. There was an apartment for him in our building on Wise Street, but he really needed some basic things. We were able to provide him with some furniture and household items all for under $1000, and now he is living two floors up from where I work every day. He was pretty psyched that instead of sleeping on a narrow shelter bed, he got a queen-sized bed from us. Those are the kind of stories we can tell and there are many more. Chances are if you ask me in a year, or ve years from now, Ill be able to tell you that, of course, Donald isnt returning to the streets. He is happy. He is at peace. If you asked any of those individuals sitting on a park bench day after day when they were ten years old what they wanted to be when they grew

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up I guarantee you none of them would have said, here. I think the face of homeless people is in many ways a reflection of who we are, people from all kinds of backgrounds. Weve had people come through the shelters who have Bachelor and Master Degrees with big important jobs at one point in their lives, but things happened and they ended up homeless. We also had people who didnt have any of that, but it wasnt because that was what they wanted, it was lack of opportunity. Homelessness is the end result of a whole bunch of things that did or didnt happen that should have in somebodys life. The average age of a homeless individual is in the late 20s, early 30s. So the idea of the old guy, sitting on the park bench, while that is who you see, the individuals that tend to stay out more, the average age is actually quite young. But there has been a huge increase in homelessness in the last year among young adults 18-24, meaning the individual homeless population is getting even younger. A proposal from Homeless Services has pretty staggering numbers. In the recent years we have seen a 34% rise in the numbers of young adults accessing homeless shelter services just in the Long Island shelter. We have found their homelessness is not due to addiction issues. It tends to stem from issues of fleeing from an abusive family situation or physical abuse because the individual is gay, lesbian, transgender. Theyre young, they nally come out to their family, and their family disowns them. That in general, is what is causing homelessness among the younger adult population. When young people come into an emergency shelter, the shelters are safe places but there is a lot going on, especially with some of the longer term people that have been recently released from prisons, and young adults are easily influenced. We really want to target that group, the 18 and 19 year olds who are still kids. Their homelessness is short term and they do not have to overcome drug or alcohol abuse. What we are helping them do is to create a specic young

adults program. A separate dorm at the shelter is being built for the young adults, so they are not in with the general population. When asked what they need and want, the young people say things like, I really want to get my GED, a drivers license, an ID so I can look for work, I need to get some job skills. They want to be independent. So, the young adults program is specically going to have two things: an area constructed so they can have their own space, and really targeted services to transition them quickly into more independent living, certainly out of an emergency shelter. The number of individuals they expect for us to serve from Long Island is 24. While there are more in the city, a lot of young people go to Bridge Over Troubled Water and all kinds of other places. 24, that is probably the amount of kids that you have in a class. If you think about it, that is a classroom worth of students that could be at school with you and not in an emergency shelter. We can argue how awful it is for parents to do that to children but the reality is that it is happening. So, lets address it and change it. I think there are a lot of ways for people to engage. If you cant get to the shelter or one of the programs to volunteer, you can organize a drive, which is a great way to be impactful. There are hands on opportunities including serving a meal at one of the shelters, organizing a recreational activity. We have individual volunteers that teach creative writing workshops, help with independent living skills, helping people learn to write a resume, do mock interviews, teach a workshop on budgeting, how to balance a checkbook, those really basic life skills you need to be independent. There are also great group opportunities.

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SIGNS FOR THE HOMELESS

INITIATIVE | AN INTERVIEW WITH KENJI NAKAYAMA
Kenji Nakayama was born in Hokkaido, Japan and, though a mechanical engineer by education, made a signicant life change in 2004 with a move to Boston, Massachusetts to study traditional sign painting and to dedicate his time and energy to art-making. Each intricately carved stencil painting is a unique manifestation of documenting and responding to the environment surrounding him, and often takes months to complete. His work serves as a personal diary of experience and influence, and his process can be described as a balance between meditation and highly-trained craftsmanship.

What was your motivation to begin this project? I was motivated rst by curiosity. I got the idea years before the project actually started in 2010 because one homeless woman asked me to make a professional-looking sign when I was working at a sign shop in the South End. It was a simple, shallow concept, but as I started making more signs and meeting more homeless people, I realized that the issue was more complicated than I thought. Once the Metro Paper covered my story, suddenly local people started seeing what I was doing and I started gaining some responsibility; it became bigger than my own project. Around the same time, I was contacted by Christopher Hope, the perfect person to collaborate with, who had been working for a church as a minister in Cambridge and had more experience. He told me he wanted a dierent way to help the homeless. Since then, the motivation has denitely changed. Our mission now is to simply raise awareness, thats it. Its not about helping the homeless directly, it is about bringing their voice to the public to tell the stories of the homeless. If we compile information by collecting all the voices to one big voice, but people only think a certain way and look at the big problem, missing the smaller problems. By bringing up random peoples voices, people can understand that everyone has dierent reasons for being homeless. A lot of people say, If we give them money and food, theyre healthy, but its not like that. Lots of them want to have a job, a place to live, and to have a job you have to have

a house, an address. Even if you want to rent a house, if you dont have a job, you cant get the apartment. If you have a criminal record, it is even harder. There are so many things that if nobody cares about them, nothing is going to change. At the same time, theres a risk for us too; not everyone we work with tells us the truth. But to us, its not a problem. While the stories may not all be true, at least the suering is true. The main goal is to change peoples perspective; its not about proling the homeless. I also met a few people from non-prot organizations around Boston directly helping homeless people. Our role, to provide information, is dierent. If we dont know the problem, we dont know how to help. Through your close work with the homeless population, what have you learned about homelessness? The biggest thing we learned is that the problem is very complicated. We once did an interview on WGBH with a homeless man who told us his story. After, NPR did some sort of background check and found that the man had been arrested in the past for being a sex oender. To be honest, that was shocking and dicult to handle. NPR asked Chris if this incident changed our perspective of the project, and our answer was no, we always tell the true story. Through the project, weve learned not only about the homeless, but also about public opinion towards them.

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// Ive become a very simple person. Im living my life now with more purpose and feel like the blinders are off. The only thing that matters is making a difference in peoples lives which makes me feel good. My life has come full circle. My rst job was in human services. And its weird because I used to take the food at the end of the day from our functions and bring it to Kingston House Shelter. Never did I think that I would be these people. I think its hard, and people arent necessarily malicious, but some of the rituals, like going through the shelter shufe, which we called it because you cant go to the same place every night, its almost crazy. Housing is like a waiting list. //
What are the current perceptions of the public towards the homeless? I have found, mostly from the emails I receive, there are a lot of stereotypes. People think homeless people just need physical help, without knowing their true need or why a person is homeless. They think the homeless have a shelter to sleep in when its cold, while I have found that most people dont like to sleep in the shelter because it is not always a safe place. One shocking realization I found was the drug problem among the homeless community. One young woman we met passed away last December from drug abuse. Never having to chance to experience family love, she was very depressed. Even though she wanted to change her life, being in the street was very depressing, especially not being to have hope. If she wasnt homeless, she might not have been a drug addict, but a lot of people look at it the opposite way: this person is homeless because she is a drug addict. In reality, a lot of homeless people rely on drugs because the street life is so depressing and dicult to get out of. Another woman we met had a severe cancer and was in a lot of pain. She couldnt go the hospital to get prescription medication, but she had access to [street] drugs to get through the pain. The information you get, the more you think, and the less you stereotype. Why do you think its so dicult for the homeless to get themselves out of the street life? Even though many of them want to have a job and a safe place to live, many of us are not fully aware of why they cannot get out of the street life. A common and unfortunate reason is that they dont have good family support and without support of love, its tough to live by yourself or get help. Another issue is with the public perception; people tend to avoid dealing with the problem of homelessness. They are more willing to give a little help, like spare change, but few people are willing to give a reaching hand. How do you think the city of Boston as a whole can eectively combat the issue? I think awareness is important. More people need to think about the issue seriously because we cant help if we dont really know the problem. And of course, the city needs more support and more money to the nonprot organizations housing homeless people and funding educational tuitions for homeless families. What is your impression of Boston Strong? To me, Boston Strong means people caring for each other. Boston is a city in which people are neighbors and look out for our people.

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// When youre homeless youre a priority, but it can still take you two years. You know the feeling when you have to pack for vacation or if you have ever moved? Homelessness is like moving every single day of your life. Its like a worst nightmare, so the less stuff the better. Vivian: When you compare your life now to the corporate world you were in before and the homeless shelters you stayed at, do you feel you have more freedom? Sharon: When I had my job I felt secure. I went to my job every day, and I knew how I was going to pay rent and buy food. It was never a question and then all of a sudden you have to say, What if they take this? If everyone was just nice and simple in the world, we wouldnt look at people and say that you dont do X, Y, Z. Theres people who are just clearly not dealt the best hand in life, so should they suffer and live outside because of that? What planet are we on? I dont hate the corporate culture, but I wish it werent so large. Literally someone can make $6,000 per hour and somebody else could make $8-something, and nobodys saying whats wrong with that? Vivian: What do you believe is the perception of others towards the homeless? Sharon: If people see a homeless person whos drunk or asking for money, they may get frustrated. and so the minute you say the word homeless, people think, Shes homeless. She caused this. I think some people cant handle the reality that somebody is living on the street. If you can identify with me, youre going to feel bad for me, and then you have to do something. If we can hate them instead, our day is easier. Sometimes Im frustrated because I feel like we almost caused it ourselves. I try not to be judgmental, but if I see a homeless person feeling entitled or acting ungrateful, I think, Youre part of my group, will you cut it out? Im trying to put a good face on this. But we are all human. In terms of the Boston Marathon, I think it brought us together because everyone could identify with those people injured. We all come together because its a marathon, so you feel all warm and fuzzy for these people. When you see a homeless person, theres this thought that they did it. So I think we have to nd the things that unite us. Were all hated by somebody, but I think the more we //

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// identify with somebody, the more compassion we have and the more we empathize. After the marathon, everyone related. People wore Boston Strong because they could empathize with the families. I think homelessness is tough because a lot of people cant relate to it. If youre in school and cant nd a job, most people can say, Oh Im going to live in my sisters house or with my mom. For those of us who dont, people think right away that somethings wrong with us if we dont even have our own family. Well, how about som things wrong with my family? The the big and best thing about Rosies Place is the friendship and fellowship. If you walked in here and stayed for 21 days, you would think, Oh, this homeless thing is easy. But if you take another stop up the street, the city shelters are pretty dreadfully sad. Vivian: What are some of the present difculties that people who are homeless face? Katy: People who havent stayed at a shelter dont understand that trying to get a bed at a shelter is a full-time job. You dont just show up to a shelter and say, Hey, Im here! Im sleeping, Im home! You show up around 1 oclock in the afternoon and try to get a bed by doing a lottery because there are more people than there are beds. If you dont get a bed, then you have to go to a different shelter. If you do get a bed, then you have to stay there to keep the bed. So from around 1 p.m. to 6 a.m., your day is spent. Sharon: Thats why actually a couple years back, I had a bag that made me look like a tourist, and I used to go to the airport at night. Though it was difcult, it gave me the freedom of not having to wait in line. Vivian: How could they improve their shelters? Sharon: As far as making people feel a little bit better while theyre experiencing homelessness, they need more space, and they need to change those mattresses. Its nasty, and it gets at your head. You think in your head, Im just trash. Here I am waiting for a number, eating dog food, waiting for a bunk to lay on this really dirty mattress. Katy: Thats whats different about Rosies Place. You have your own bed. You have bed linens, clean sheets, a warm room, and only three other roommates, //

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INITIATIVE | AN INTERVIEW WITH BING BRODERICK

Bing Broderick is the Executive Director of Haley House, a diverse organization that provides food, housing, community events, and job training to the less fortunate. Brodericks rst passion was for music, but after the changing industry stopped oering new opportunities, he joined the Haley House team in 2005 as the Business and Marketing Manager of the Bakery Cafe.
I got involved with Haley House about eight ago when they were opening a new Bakery cafe in Roxbury and looking for someone to manage it. I had done some work in food justice and attended cooking school, eventually volunteering with a number of organizations in Boston. At a certain point, a friend of mine emailed me and told me of the opening of the Haley House Bakery Caf. The Bakery Caf was very chaotic in its earliest stages. We were doing our best to keep the doors open and focus on putting food on the table. One day a community service police ocer came in and said, I have a curriculum that Ive started that addresses gang violence by using food as a vehicle to break down stereotypes. Id love for you to partner with me on it. And that was the beginning of our Take Back the Kitchen Program, which is after-school education on health, nutrition, and culinary arts. We were then approached by a woman who said, You need art on your walls, and another woman said she would love to do a performance series here. We became a place of possibility and a vital community space when all of these things actually came to fruition. The bakery cafe had been open for about ve years and we had been running our training program focused on people in a lot of dierent stages of transition, from homelessness, victims of abuse, refugees, and some coming home from prison. Our catering manager encouraged us to focus exclusively on those who were coming from prison, because there were no other opportunities for those people. If we look at people who are coming home from prison, we currently initiate criminal record checks for jobs that have nothing to do with security or risk. Yet there is a barrier for people with that circumstance and as a result, people have little opportunity other than to go back to prison. Could you talk about Haley Houses approach to reintegrate incarcerated people who become homeless after being released? Our approach is to create a network for those who are coming out of prison. At any given time we may have four to six trainees in our program, and we have support network of 32 alums. During selection, we look for people who are ready for a change and have made the most of their time on the inside. Our alums have actually been mentors to the younger people who are coming out, oering them a support, as they know how hard it is to nd housing and a job. We have primarily addressed this with the program itself, which is able to oer more comprehensive support. We partner with others so they get computer training, and other things to build resumes. In some cases, we have also been able to provide housing for them. Focusing on these specic individuals has allowed us to leave a deeper impact. The 2014 homelessness statistics for Boston indicate that homelessness has risen to nearly 6% now, including around 3000 homeless children. Have you noticed these trends in your work and how do you respond? Yes. Traditionally speaking, a lot of the homeless families are led by women. We are not a facility as a soup kitchen that feeds families. One thing we have started in the last year at our bakery cafe in Roxbury is a pay what you can dinner every Saturday. Although we have been operating as a restaurant in the neighborhood for years, there

HALEY HOUSE

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are plenty of neighbors that have never set foot through our doors because they cant aord it. The pay what you can dinner, what we call community tables, was really to address that for homeless families. Could you talk about Haley Houses approach to equality and dignity toward guests? What are the advantages of this approach? Bing: In the soup kitchen we have an approach that really emphasizes engagement and contact, rather than isolation. Some of the guests may step in to do dishes and serve in order to break down barriers. In addition, there will always be one person out from our sta with the guests, checking in and reducing any conflicts, but also to really connect. Some of the soup kitchen guests pay for food over at the bakery cafe as well. One shouldnt assume that the lines are very rigid. Much of our sta consists of people who have left prison, and have found a place with us who take pride in working at Haley House. At other organizations there are often fundraisers to which we provide or sample food as a promotion. Our sta loves going to them because they are able to connect with the people who are eating their food. Its an opportunity for them to receive praise for the food and build self-esteem through that. There denitely is a sense of everyone on our sta being treated with respect, and treating each other with respect. Thats sort of the level we try to set for everyone. What are the biggest challenges facing people who are homeless in Boston presently? How is your organization responding? I think that whether it is at the soup kitchen, or at our cafe, or at our community tables, it is clear that is getting harder and harder for people to make it or get a leg up. There are more people who are living on the edge. I moved to Boston in the late 80s, and around that time, social services were getting decimated, and we have never recovered from that. And thats around the time when

homelessness really went on the rise. Could you talk about how this years Marathon impacted the organization and people here? Bing: On that day I was working over in the bakery cafe. Our current mayor, who was just entering the race at that point, was there having a meeting. We were open until a certain point. I think theres a sense in the community especially Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester, where there is violence that is not addressed on a day-to-day basis, no closure, no resolution. There is a sense of post-traumatic stress disorder in the community resulting from that violence. I think there were a lot of people who were oended. They were mad at the attention put on the bombings, when everyday things that happen in their communities go neglected. Could you discuss the phrase Boston Strong? I question the whole sense of strength, as a sense of wealth or abundance, where it is sort of put on a continuum where everything is great. All these words are loaded in their own way. I struggle with the words around it. Boston has never fully recovered from its class and racial struggles. And we need to come through that in order to be a better community, to be a stronger community, to be a place where any death is mourned, honored, and given its due. Do you have any particular methods of raising awareness on social justice issues in Boston? I feel that community conversations are very important and there is actually a lot of excitement around the new administration right now. I think our mayor understands our predicament, and he sees the need for healing. I think that there is a need to convene people across race, class and religion. We need to be a little bit fearless, and I think that we will be a better city for it. To me its not about strength, its about community, and quality of community. To really get there, we need to hear everyones voice.

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// not 75 other people. When youre staying, you feel warmer, welcome, and rested. Theres a certain amount of dignity and respect that can be conveyed just by having bright lights or painted walls or well-set thermostats or clean bathrooms. When people come on tours, not experiencing homelessness, they say, Wow Im just so surprised how clean it is. It should be. The test of our society isnt how we treat our wealthy; its how we treat our most vulnerable. This should be the most beautiful place, warm and welcoming. Sharon: It doesnt take much to bring it up a notch. A little thing the shelter could do would be to train people in sensitivity. Youre grateful for having some place to go, but if they expect people to make a step out of it, they need to give them a chance to move forward. Somebody once said to me, You dont get out of this alone. You cant become homeless and have zero money and zero advocacy or people helping you and get out of this. Theres not too many people who navigate the homeless shelter and get a job. Its devastating. Vivian: I noticed that at Rosies Place that theres a strong sense of moving forward. From hearing stories from other, larger homeless shelters, it seems that some people utilize the resources of the shelter and do not try to nd jobs and more opportunities. Sharon: Honestly thats harsh. Until you are sitting in there and have lost everything, until your daughter has a drug problem and every day you hope that shes alive, until you experience that, you dont understand that people who walk through the shelter, while theyre not perfect, theyve already been ostracized and thrown out by society. It isnt even a matter of not wanting to work. Its a feeling that Im not useful and Im not worth it. Look at what they expect me to sleep in. Somebody may put on a tough front, but inside theyre hurt because I think were programmed to belong. We are social animals. Katy: Its about being valued. If you feel valued, youre going to say, Im going to do X, Y, or Z. That may be, Im going to make sure Im taking my medication, showering, and going to my doctors appointments, or that may mean, Im going to apply for a job, maintain a job, and stay up on my housing. It takes a minimum of two years to get housing through Boston housing authorities at Rosies Place. A lot of us think that people are not working on housing, but theyve done everything that they can with a criminal record or no income. //

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// At Rosies Place, we meet people where they are whether they want to get housed, start a job, work on their health, get better at paying bills, taking medications, or just being safe. We say, Great, were going to work with you on that because were not going to tell you what your goals should be. Were going to value you, and were going to value where youre at rather than tell you what to do or how youre failing at it because youre participating in these broken systems. The other piece is the result of the stigmatization of mental health, drug addiction, and alcoholism. If in our country, we saw mental health as actual health issues instead of something to be ashamed of, this whole conversation about people staying in city shelters and not moving forward would be different because they would be getting the healthcare that they deserve for their addiction. Sharon: We do the us and the them. Itd be a nice experiment if one bold adventurer went through the shelter system for even a week though youd be taking someone elses bed so that wouldnt work out. And youd know that you were getting out. Katy: Thats the difference in mentality. You would know theres an end, and you cant know homelessness if you know that theres an out. Thats why I think the best way to learn is from people like you, Sharon, and thats why I believe in the work that we do because I think you are the expert on your own reality. The closest solidarity I can have is to listen to you, trust you, and take your story. //
Vivian Chang is a biology major, and has always seen the pursuit of social justice as being founded upon love. This past summer, she volunteered at Rosies Place and was able to witness the staggering reality of the issue of homelessness in Boston, with its rising trend and its increasing prevalence among the citys youth. She has a heart particularly towards children, and the purity of hope and promise they hold. Sahil Amin is a biochemistry major and an economics minor. He has always believed in pursuing social justice whether it is my means of teaching others about prevalent issues in society, or by volunteering himself at organizations such as local or foreign hospitals, schools, or homeless shelters. He volunteered at St. Francis House and a Department of Youth Services this summer, and really felt compelled to raise awareness of these issues through this project. He knows that while it is nearly impossible to completely solve issues such as homelessness, lack of education, and criminal justice, it is denitely necessary for society to pursue improvements collectively in order to assure a brighter future for more of our fellow humans on the earth.

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Photographs courtesy of David Miller Photography. David Miller is a graduate of Boston Universitys Center for Digital Imaging & Arts. Davids photography tells stories beyond his years. More of his impressive collection can be found at his website: www.millerfolio.com. 32

SECTION III:

HEALING BOSTON DAILY:

FACILITATING RESPONSES TO HEALTH INEQUITY

hen it comes to delivering health care, the city of Boston is certainly stronger than most. Boston has become a world-renowned medical hub thanks to its groundbreaking research, skillful administration of care, and integrative approaches to medicine. The medical eld continues to be integral to Bostons development and operation as a city. As of 2011, almost one out of every ve people employed in the City of Boston works in the health care eld1. Massachusetts General Hospital is the citys biggest employer with over 14,700 employees2. The centrality of medicine and health care to the day-to-day life of the city cannot be overstated. Although the vastness of the healthcare eld in Boston is obvious, it is our belief that to simply highlight the systems presence inadequately represents medicines humanity in the city of Boston. What happens on the micro level is often more indicative of Bostons medical scene than the birds-eye-view statistics. The immensity of Bostons medical institutions should not overshadow the daily work of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare practitioners who act skillfully and compassionately to ensure the health of Boston. The contributions of these professionals are not limited to the hospital, but rather extend throughout Boston to its very margins, where healthcare is most imminently needed.

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The quality of Bostons medical professionals continues to shine even in the midst of tragedy. The medical response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings resulted from years of dedication to the citys health and wellbeing, as well as preparation for such an emergency. In the words of Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission, There was no miracle here, there was a lot of hard work a lot of people working really, really hard to save lives. These hardworking people give meaning to the assertion Boston Strong. Their efforts, normally performed behind closed doors, were made visible and available to anyone present at the nish line. Medical responders simply saw the needs of the wounded, and heroically began to act. On April 15th, the humanity of medicine in Boston came to the forefront. As the journey to recovery continues, health ofcials nd themselves simultaneously looking forward and backward. Critical evaluations of past disaster responses contributed to the effective response on April 15th, and will continue to strengthen responses in the future. However, the events surrounding the marathon bombings give only a tiny glimpse of the incredible efforts put forth daily by Bostons health professionals in all corners of the city. The true face of medicine in Boston is exhibited by the countless small organizations striving to improve the health of Bostonians, and the individuals who tirelessly run them. These smaller organizations direct their healing efforts to where healthcare is needed most. In this section, we present the stories of individuals and organizations working to alleviate health disparities arising from unjust social factors. Some articles examine how improvements in the system of health care in Boston could create an even healthier city. Whether responding to sudden attacks or structural violence, these efforts protect the well-being of the city and allow us to overcome by growing back stronger.

The medical response to the victims of the marathon bombing was immediate, compassionate, and universal. The powerful personal connections that emerged from the adversity resulted in lives saved and justice done for victims. The story of Alyssa Psyhojos crystallizes the power of a personal connection, even between strangers, to administer a just health response.

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WOMAN IN THE GOLDEN COAT

SPOTLIGHT | BY ALYSSA PSYHOJOS
Alyssa Psyhojos is a nurse and the mother of a runner in the 2013 Boston Marathon. She shares her experience helping victims near the nish line.

April 15, 2013 started out like any other Patriots Day in Lexington, Massachusetts: waking up at 4:30 am to witness the battle reenactment on the Lexington Green, a pancake breakfast, and watching the Boston Marathon on TV. The only dierence this year was that we were heading into Wellesley to witness the marathon in person, as our daughter Sophia was running on the Dana-Farber Hospitals Marathon Challenge Team. Ultimately, we would go into Boston to see her cross the nish line while we were wrapped up into a thermal silver blanket. My husband dropped me o on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Exeter Streets around 2:30 pm. I walked up to Boylston St. to where the crowds had gathered and were cheering. On the corners of Exeter and Boylston I could get close to the runners, and I hoped to get a good picture of my daughter as she passed by, yards away from the nish line. Our priest had called me at 2:46 pm to wish Sophia good luck. Our conversation ended with his usual, God Bless You. God bless you too, Father, I said. Three minutes later, the rst blast went o. To be honest, I thought the explosion was a congratulatory musket shot, not unusual to hear on Patriots Day, especially coming from the town of Lexington. As I was trying to process what had happened I looked down Boylston St., scouring faces for that of my daughter. Just then, the second explosion went o and I witnessed the reball that erupted. Seconds later, a man behind me shouted, Those are bombs! Run! and I did. Remorsefully, the thought never crossed my mind to go see if people by the blast site were in need of help, and for that I will always feel guilty. Heroes went back to treat, not knowing if other explosions would occur. About fteen seconds later, I came upon a young Asian woman wearing a golden coat. She was standing in the middle of Exeter Street facing Boylston, grasping her throat and staring straight ahead, obviously in shock. People were running around her but as I approached, I noticed that there was blood dripping down her hand and arm, which was held up to her neck. When I asked her if she was ok, she dropped her hand to reveal a three-inch-long, deep laceration caused by shrapnel, miraculously missing important anatomical structures and arteries. I immediately held pressure to her neck and called out to people for a sanitary napkin, or anything that I could use to stop the bleeding. In retrospect, people must have thought I was crazy asking for a sanitary napkin in the middle of the road after such an occurrence and I chuckle to myself when I think of it. When I screamed out for someone to call 911, a young man asked if he should stop one of the incoming ambulances coming down Exeter. Yes, I urged. Yes! Stop them! The EMT asked if I was

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health professional, and when I said, Yes, a nurse, he replied, There are many more critical injuries up ahead. Can I give you this stethoscope, blood pressure cu, and bandages for you to start a triage area here? Ok, I told him nervously. I helped the Woman in the Golden Coat onto the ground, cradling her head with my left arm and applying pressure to her neck with my right hand. Luckily, two other nurses stopped and asked if they could help. The three of us managed to get her coat o so we could assess for other injuries, and began monitoring her blood pressure and listening to her lung sounds. Amazingly, her vital signs were stable. We waited for what seemed like an eternity for an EMT to return and load her onto the ambulance. As I treated her, I felt very guilty that I used her blood stained coat as a cushion for my knees upon the ground. At one point, I said to the other nurses in a panicky voice, I dont even know where my daughter is! and the Woman in the Golden Coat grabbed my hand and in broken English told me to go look for her. This was a moment that I will never forgethow someone in such dire need of help herself was able to help me back. I told her, No, I will stay with you until you leave for the hospital. She said in a whisper, Thank you, thank you. I dont actually know how long it was before she was taken away. It seemed like forever. She thanked me profusely as the ambulance doors closed. Once the ambulance had turned the corner, the two other nurses and I group hugged. I remember saying, I dont even know your names, but I love you and will never forget you. I never did nd out what happened to the Woman with the Golden Coat. I had scribbled my name and email address on the paper we had used to record her vital signs and tucked it under the gurney seatbelt, but I never did hear from her. I wondered where she was from -- perhaps a foreign exchange student -- and cannot even imagine how scared she was on that day, being treated by strangers in a foreign country. For weeks following the marathon, I searched online lm and photos of the crowds near to where I was standing to hopefully spot the Woman in the Golden Coat and to see from where she may have been watching. I never did nd her. Now, weeks away from the 2014 Boston Marathon, I wonder if she will return to the site where she was injured and whether or not I should return to somehow bring closure to that awful day.

The powerful and effective response amidst the shaken aftermath of the bombings is crystallized in Psyhojos narrative and in the stories of many others who shared her experience. There is much potential to learn from these stories, and to apply the lessons learned to other issues affecting Boston. Strong Medicine is one organization working to preserve the narratives of the marathon in order to pay respects to those involved, and to use their wisdom to improve future responses to similar crises.

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STRONG MEDICINE
SPOTLIGHT | BY: JOAN IIACQUA
Joan Ilacqua is the Strong Medicine Project Coordinator at the Center for the History of Medicine.

Strong Medicine: The Healing Response to the 2013 Boston Marathon is an initiative by the Center for the History of Medicine to save the stories and media created by the medical community in response to the Marathon. Strong Medicine is a digital archive space where users can submit their stories and media, or read and view others experiences. By collecting these stories, we have created a resource useful for medical education, disaster management training and response, historical research, and other purposes yet unrealized. In the meantime, Strong Medicine serves as a space for Bostonians to read and to reflect on the medical communitys healing response. Reading these accounts provides Boston an immediate opportunity to heal itself by looking to the strength and eectiveness of the medical community Dr. Alasdair Conn of Massachusetts General Hospital recently recalled his Boston Marathon experience in a Strong Medicine oral history interview. He attributed the eective response to intense training. In his interview, he

describes how promptly the hospital emptied its emergency room to prepare for the injured; how quickly rst responders brought Marathon victims to area hospitals; and how eectively patients were dispersed among trauma centers. He recalled the shock of the day, somebody asked me, Have you seen injuries like this before? Wed seen certainly very severe injuries, but it was one at a time or two at a time. Id never seen that number of severely injured patients all at once. But with disaster plans and training in place, hospital workers acted as a team to triage, treat, and heal the injured. Dr. Conn remembered, wed all trained for it, it worked like clockwork, but also describes lessons learned and new ways to approach disaster training. His interview puts a face to the training and planning that led to a successful healing response. To read Dr. Conns full interview, other Strong Medicine collections, or to submit your own story, visit http://countway.harvard.edu/strongmedicine.

In light of the incredible response on April 15th, the question remains how best we can apply the lessons learned on that day to future crises and ongoing health issues in Boston. Dr. Pamela Grace of Boston College highlights that unlike the acute care necessitated by the marathon bombings, the solutions to other health issues can be less straightforward. Health disparities across the city are often socially determined, and therefore cannot be alleviated simply by improving illness care. She offers some thoughts on how the paradigm of health care might change in order to make Boston truly strong.

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TOWARD A SOCIALLY JUST, HEALTHY BOSTON

INTERVIEW | WITH DR. PAMELA GRACE
Pamela Grace, Ph.D., RN, FAAN is an experienced critical care nurse, primary care nurse practitioner and nurse educator. Her doctorate is in philosophy with a concentration in medical ethics. She is also nurse scientist at the Munn Center for Nursing Research at Massachusetts General Hospital where she collaborates with colleagues on nursing ethics research endeavors.

What do you believe are the biggest social justice issues surrounding health care in Boston today? They actually mirror the systemic injustice problems everywhere. They have to do with the fact that people who live in very poor areas, even if we give them health care, thats not enough. Say we have a free clinic for people without health insurance in a really poor area of the city. A lady comes in and shes overweight, she has high blood pressure, and she has diabetes. Well I can treat all of those things. I can give her blood pressure medicine, I can treat her diabetes, I can tell her what to eat and how to exercise. She can have all of that knowledge, but she lives in an area where at night the drug dealers come out, and she cant go out and get her exercise. She wants to get healthy food from a market, but there are no markets around. There are fast food stores and they are cheap and convenient. Shes afraid for her safety. She wont be able to truly improve her health based on these circumstances. So you can provide people with healthcare, but the main issue when looking at disparities is where are the roots of those disparities, and they all arent purely due to lack of money. Theyre in the idea that people dont have many choices. So the whole idea of moral agency isnt there and there may not be much social support available. They cant make good choices for

themselves or maybe for others who are dependent upon them. All of those social supports are part of health. To talk about health, you have to talk about the whole context. This notion actually relates to the idea of Boston Strong. A just society, a strong society, would target all its eorts toward helping people in these poorer areas get the kinds of social supports they need, not just to be kind, but also as a means of health promotion. To what extent is the United States health care system succeeding to promote health justice in Boston? The US has a unique health care system. England, for example, has a national health system, in which everybody in the society has access to health care. In the US, it is mostly a prot motive system. In other words, insurance companies and others are allowed to prot o of people being ill. Health care in the US is treated like a commodity. A just system of health care would make sure that the least well-o were taken care of, were given the most resources. Most people in health circles prefer to think of this in terms of John Rawls theory of justice as fairness. Any inequalities are slanted toward the least well-o. Currently, its the opposite. Boston as a city has really tried to remedy this, by making sure that undocumented immigrants and the homeless have health care. But Boston is a microcosm of the whole country, so to really make Boston Strong, the whole country has to change.

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In what sense do people have a right to health? Theres a dierence between health and health care. So if youre going to decide theres a right to health care, you have to decide what you mean by that. And from my perspective, a right to health means keeping people healthy and allowing access to health care when they need it. What is doesnt necessarily mean is illness care, which is the system we have in place now. Rather than just treating illnesses when they happen, we need to invest in preventive care. As I mentioned, the current health care system in the US isnt conducive to this kind of holistic health care. It is a fragmented system with poor to no coordination among services and there are many dierent insurance companies, and those companies dont necessarily know whether theyll have the same population ten years down the road, those companies havent been interested in investing in preventive health care and health promotion. And these health promotion programs would only aect the people who have access to health care; many people dont have access to health care at all. The advent of the Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act provides some hope for better coordinated care but will not necessarily remedy the disparities in health care that exist for certain groups. What are the obligations of a health care professional to society? When health care professionals take on that role, they assume a position of trust. Its a duciary relationship. This means that whether you are a doctor, pharmacist, physical therapist, or nurse, people who come to you for help are trusting you can actually provide what you say you can provide. Health care workers have responsibilities to give the best health care they can, depending on what kind of work they do. Health care workers also have broader respon-

sibilities to society as a whole. For example, say Im working on the vascular floor, and I have a diabetic patient with bad arteries. I see that this gentleman has come in to have his foot taken o because his arteries no longer supply it. If I know hes someone who hasnt had good care, and I see that there are 5 or 6 more people from his community who are coming in with the same problem, and I know if he had been taken care of properly early on, it wouldnt have got to this stage, then I have a responsibility to bring that to somebodys attention. The specialists may not see the recurring issue. I have a responsibility to ask, whats wrong with the system that these people arent getting the care they need earlier? It may be that they dont have access, it may be that they dont know they do have access, it may be that we havent reached them in the right way. In that sense, health care professionals do have a responsibility both on the individual level and the societal level to aect change. What can we do as a society or as individuals to work towards a socially just health care system? For health care professionals and academics, I think probably the most important thing individuals can do is to debunk myths that are out there, and to point out fallacies that appear in the news or are reported in the media. Fallacies about, for example, that we should just leave health care to the market. Thats a fallacy because we dont yet have a direct buyer system, though that may change with the introduction of the Aordable Care Act. Another fallacy was the death panels issue promulgated by Sarah Palin. That fallacy that was advanced by people who had political motivations and had an interest in obstructing health care reform. One of the other ways that any individual can aect change is to be politically active related to health policy. People, nurses and others must be informing the policymakers about their stories or the stories that are told to them. Yesterday I went

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to the Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses political action day on Beacon Hill. Several senators and representatives met with the nurses to have a conversation about what is going on in health care, and what we need to do to make change. Something that became clear to me at this event was that for inspiring change, stories are the best, followed by facts. Stories about what is going on stick in peoples minds, and following these anecdotes with facts gives you credibility. If policymakers hear it from one person and then several more people, they start

to believe the constituency cares about the issue. From the perspective of undergraduate students, get into the habit of asking yourself, what is the real issue here? Thats the start. Not everybody can do everything. But the nurse at the bedside can tell the story to the clinical nurse specialist who has a masters degree, who can then pass it on to the nursing society, who can then work with others to change policies. Change begins with a bottom up approach. The public needs to know whats going on in order to inspire change.

The issues surrounding Bostons medical system, as articulated by Professor Grace, have implications for health disparities across the city. One of the most explicit manifestations of this system can be seen in the disparities characterizing HIV/ AIDS. Social determinants of health cause certain demographics to be much more susceptible to the threat of HIV/AIDS than others. Dr. Heidi L. Behforouz identies some of the roots of this phenomenon, and discusses her efforts at resolving the injustice.

THE COMPLEX REALITY OF HIV AND AIDS DISPARITIES

SPOTLIGHT | BY DR. HEIDI L. BEHFOROUZ
Heidi L. Behforouz, M.D., Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, has focused her career on the health issues of the urban poor and practices primary care in the Jen Center at Brigham and Womens Hospital. She is Founder and past Executive Director of Partners In Healths Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment (PACT) project in Boston, Massachusetts. She recently started a 501c3 called Anansi Health to assist health systems integrate community-based complex care management into their population health plans, achieve the triple aim, and provide meaningful work opportunities for community members burdened by disparities. In popular press and as a US public health emergency, HIV/AIDS disease has taken a back seat to other

chronic diseases. Today, we are much more likely to see obesity, diabetes, and asthma as foci of state health improvement plans and community coalitions. However, HIV/AIDS remains a true threat, as the CDC reminds us that the incidence of new HIV infection in the United States is not declining. With the advent of highly active antiretroviral medications, the overall AIDS mortality rate in the United States has decreased. Despite this small victory, the disease continues to disproportionately aect Black Americans everywhere. The epidemiology of the disease has changed: Blacks now comprise 44% of new infections. (3) Although they constitute only 12% of the US population, Black people make up 54% of people dying from HIV, and AIDS remains the fourth and fth leading cause of death among African

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American women and men, respectively. (4) We know that this disparity is not biological in origin. Rather, most experts agree that AIDS is excessively aecting Black people because of their relatively low scal and social power. Contending with unemployment, poor housing conditions, inadequate education, poor social capital, and racism, they are the same people who fall through the cracks of a system that does not give universal coverage or provide the infrastructure needed to facilitate long-term, eective relationships with health care providers. Illustratively, the prevalence of stage 3 AIDS and HIV deaths is highest in the South, where poor Black people are truly impoverished and have comparatively little access to appropriate medical care and medications. (5) Here in Boston, we have a more robust health and human services network than many other regions of the country. Almost every HIV-infected person in the city has insurance and access to medications and high quality medical care. Despite these advantages, Blacks still struggle in Boston. Review of 2010 data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health revealed that a black woman in Roxbury was fteen times more likely to die from her HIV disease than a white man. (6) Thus, disparity goes beyond a simple access to care explanation. Eective disparity-reducing interventions must take into account the psychosocial and structural determinants of health and address them in meaningful and sustainable ways. Over the past 20 years, I have had the good fortune of working with community health workers (CHWs) in the battle against HIV/AIDS disparities in Boston. CHWs are optimal agents of change because they have an intimate understanding of the life circumstances of their patients. They have similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds and approach the patients disease in a holistic manner, taking into account the patients experience of his/her illness from a personal, family, and community perspective. They provide an important bridge between the patient and the health/social service system by contextualizing treatment recommendations and providing important information and feedback to oce-based providers. They build solidarity and promote positive normative values within the community and promote growth and empowerment of communities from the inside out. PACT CHWs have successfully accompanied some of the most challenged HIV/AIDS patients to better health and quality of life. Their partnerships with patients have signicantly reduced total Medicaid expenditures by decreasing unnecessary illness and hospitalization. Patient and provider satisfaction have increased. And the CHWs themselves, people from disenfranchised communities, are given meaningful work and an opportunity to address the structural violence that continues to plague Bostons inner city. With the enactment of the ACA, more and more people have access to health care. We are rethinking our health care nancing models and making more funds available for community-based prevention and wellness eorts. We are pushing for greater accountability and cost-ecacy of our health care delivery systems. And an increasing number of systems are investing in community-based care management. This is all good. However, as we do so, it is important to remember that reducing health disparities is not just about health care reform; it is also about social reform. HIV is inextricably linked to poverty and marginalization. In order to address the HIV crisis at its most fundamental level, we must address the deeply rooted social and economic bases of poverty and racism and prioritize eorts to reduce both.

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Another implication of a health system focused on reactive, illness-based care can be seen in Bostons signicant asthma disparities. Social determinants put some groups at a higher risk for asthma than others. Treating those already affected, though absolutely necessary, cannot resolve the unjust factors that give rise to the disparities. Breathe Easy at Home Boston is an organization that seeks to address the problem proactively by alleviating the social determinants of asthma.

TARGETING AND RESOLVING ASTHMA PRONE LIVING CONDITIONS: BREATHE EASY AT HOME BOSTON
SPOTLIGHT | BY AMANDA ALI
Amanda Ali has been the coordinator of the Breathe Easy at Home (BEAH) program at the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) since 2008.

The Breathe Easy at Home program allows health care professionals to refer their patients with asthma for in-home inspections conducted by the citys Inspectional Services Department Housing Division (ISD) and to receive e-mail updates about the outcomes of inspections. Housing inspectors look for environmental factors that contribute to the development and exacerbation of asthma symptoms such as roach and rodent infestations, weather tight doors and windows, and contributors to mold like leaks and inadequate ventilation. BEAH is an eort of city agencies including Boston Inspectional Services Department (ISD), Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), Boston Housing Authority (BHA), Boston Oce of Civil Rights, with Boston Medical Center (BMC), Childrens Hospital Boston and legal and advocacy organizations. Throughout my time here, I have seen my passion for the programs work as well as the pride in our agency sta grow as we all learn and see how important our work is to Boston

residents. In short, my role is to serve as an overall liaison between medical providers and the Inspectional Services Department, email medical providers about the status of their patients cases, collect the case data, conduct sustainable outreach to hospitals and community health centers in the city, update the BEAH website, and convene our Steering Committee. Our Steering Committee is comprised of the aforementioned stake-holding partners who meet quarterly to evaluate the programs progress and dene goals and objectives for its future. For the past three years, Breathe Easy has convened a Collaborative Meeting on Safe and Healthy Housing each June. The Meeting brings together the housing inspectors from Inspectional Services, inspectors from the BPHCs Lead and Environmental Hazards Programs, as well as supervisors and managers of properties owned by the Boston Housing Authority. This sta comes together to learn about best practices for ecient services

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for safer and healthier housing within the city. They hear about new resources for their clients and tenants and have a chance to hear from doctors whose patients have beneted from their eorts.

In the city of Boston, the Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods have the highest percentages of Black and Latino residents, the highest numbers of asthma-related emergency department visits for children under 5 years old, and high percentages of renter-occupied housing units in the city of Boston. Given the Boston Public Health Commissions commitment to health equity and racial justice, Im happy to say that well over 50% of BEAH referrals are for tenants living in the Boston neighborhoods of Dorchester and Roxbury. Having grown up in Dorchester myself, I am proud to give something of benet back to my community. Growing up, my peers and I knew that Black and Latino residents in Boston suer disproportionately from asthma without looking at the data. Now, working for Breathe Easy, when I receive phone calls and emails from cities and counties across the United States asking how our collaboration works so well, I am proud to be able to talk about our commitment to inter-agency communication because of the data we have. People are often very quick to credit me with much of the programs success as its coordinator. Its true that I am very passionate about my job and getting residents as much service connection as possible. I love hearing from providers that their patients asthma has improved and that hospitalizations have decreased. Those success stories and personal accounts are what motivate me to respond quickly to communicate program needs across agencies. As much as I enjoy these calls though, I personally credit those providers who ask their patients about in-home asth-

ma triggers and make the referrals, the ISD housing inspectors who conduct over 20,000 inspections each year in the city of Boston taking the time to learn about housing as a social determinant of health and about the disparity among Boston residents suering with asthma, and the property owners and maintenance sta who quickly respond to their tenants needs. They are the miracle-workers with whom I am honored to work. Without their commitment to eliminating in-home asthma triggers, Breathe Easy could not be the success that it is. I love being the glue that binds these agencies, divided by agency objectives to fulll a single missioneliminate in-home asthma triggers for Boston residents. In short, my role is to serve as an overall liaison between medical providers and the Inspectional Services Department, email medical providers about the status of their patients cases, collect the case data, conduct sustainable outreach to hospitals and community health centers in the city, update the BEAH website, and convene our Steering Committee. Our Steering Committee is comprised of the aforementioned stake-holding partners who meet quarterly to evaluate the programs progress and dene goals and objectives for its future. For the past three years, Breathe Easy has convened a Collaborative Meeting on Safe and Healthy Housing each June. The Meeting brings together the housing inspectors from Inspectional Services, inspectors from the BPHCs Lead and Environmental Hazards Programs, as well as supervisors and managers of properties owned by the Boston Housing Authority. This sta comes together to learn about best practices for ecient services for safer and healthier housing within the city. They hear about new resources for their clients and tenants and have a chance to hear from doctors whose patients have beneted from their eorts.

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THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

SPOTLIGHT | BY DR. TRACY REGAN
Tracy Regan is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Boston College Economics department. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 2003. Her research interests include labor economics, health and pharmaceutical economics, and industrial organization. She has recent publications in Economic Inquiry, Journal of Population Economics and the International Journal of Industrial Organization.

Despite the recent health care reform, the U.S. remains the only industrialized country without universal health care. The unique health care system in the U.S. had its birth during WWII when employers, faced with wage controls, oered employees fringe benets as a way of attracting the shortage of labor. The link between health insurance and full-time wage/salary employment arose and persisted for decades for various reasons including the nature of the U.S. tax system and the economies of scale achieved when insurance is sold to large rms. This tax subsidy of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) has been associated with job-lock and moral hazard (which may lead to excessive health care utilization), amongst other problems. Moreover, in 2010 a record number of Americans (48 million, or 15 percent of the total U.S. population) were without coverage (KFF, 2010). Those lacking insurance included the self-employed and small business owners- both vital to a capitalistic economy- along with part-time workers, minorities, young adults, and the working poor (KFF, 2013). This coupled with an ever increasing share of our GDP being devoted to health care expenditures (17.6% in 2010), record-high average per capita expenditures ($8.232.90 in 2010), and a determined President led to the passage of the Aordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. Obamacare, as it has come to be known, is a set of comprehensive reforms that improve access to aordable health coverage for everyone and protects consumers from abusive insurance company practices (whitehouse.gov). The goals of the ACA are multifold (whitehouse.gov). Firstly, it provides strong consumer rights and protections. Obamacare ends the practice of consumers being denied coverage due to preexisting conditions. It also puts an end to limits on and cancellations of health insurance. Secondly, it endeavors to provide more aordable care and provides small business tax credits to alleviate entrepreneurial-lock and preserve the spirit of capitalism. Thirdly, the ACA provides better access to care. This includes the allowance for young adults (those under age 26) to be covered as dependents on their parents plans, free preventative care benets (including blood pressure screenings, for example) and the establishment of aordable insurance exchanges. Fourthly, it provides additional savings for Medicare recipients; for example, lower prescription drug costs. While politically contentious, the individual mandate- deemed constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012went into eect on the rst of year. While the initial rollout was rather unfortunate, this requirement was necessitated because of concerns over adverse selection, and this requirement (which was originally developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank) was designed to

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encourage personal responsibility and to eliminate free riders. (The individual health insurance mandate has been in eect since 2006 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, thanks to Romneycare.) To aid consumers and small business owners in satisfying the mandated coverage, statebased American Health Benet Exchanges, Small Business Options Program (SHOP) Exchanges, and Federally-facilitated Exchanges (FFE) were also implemented on January 1, 2014. The New York Times estimates that already 3.3 million Americans have gained health insurance through these exchanges (NYT, 2014). While there are clear benets (e.g., elimination of preexisting disease discrimination) associated with Obamacare, some challenges still remain. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF, 2014) estimates that 5 million people will still be without coverage. These individuals fall in what is being referred to as the coverage gap. This gap in coverage results from individual state decisions not to expand Medicaid and includes poor uninsured adults in these states, legal immigrants who have been in the US. for ve years or less, and undocumented immigrants. KFF (2014) estimates that 22 percent of these individuals currently reside in Texas, and 16 percent in Florida. Other challenges include, but are not limited to, the costs associated with the expansion of coverage and moral hazard. Results from the rst year of the Oregon Health Experiment have indicated some encouraging results, but also highlighted some of the ongoing problems (Finkelsten et al., 2012). In 2008 a group of uninsured low-income adults in Oregon was selected by a lottery and given the chance to apply for Medicaid. After one year, the likelihood of having health insurance coverage by the treatment group increased by 25 percentage points compared to the control group. Individuals reported better physical and mental health and had lower out of pocket medical expenditures and debt. The higher and statistically signicant health care utilization included not only primary and preventative care, but also hospitalizations. According to KFF (2011), the largest fraction (31.5 percent) of national health expenditures stemmed from hospital care ($850.6B). Emergency rooms have often played the role of primary care providers for those lacking insurance, and as this gure suggests, the costs of treatment at such facilities are incredibly high. And so perhaps, the real concern is why the U.S. spends so much money and has such dismal health outcomes (e.g., infant mortality rates, life expectancy at birth).
Lucas Allen came to Boston College with a conviction to use the great opportunities provided by a university education to better dedicate himself to social justice. His interest in health began after doing research on health disparities in the Boston area in the summer of 2013. Specically, he is passionate about racial and ethnic disparities in health, social determinants of health, and the eect of doctor-patient interactions on health outcomes. As someone who grew up near the city of Boston, this project has been a way to connect with his favorite city in a new way and respond to a tragedy that was much too close to home. Anthony Gallanis is majoring in Theology and minoring in Chemistry at Boston College. He aspires to continue an ethical understanding of the patient amidst changes in healthcare. His interest in health continues to grow especially in bioethics. Catherine Larrabee is majoring in Theology with a minor in Medical Humanities. She has always been interested in the social side of medicine, including health disparities. She is particularly passionate about theological ethics and social teachings as they apply to issues of justice, including those related to health and medicine. In the future, she hopes to work at the intersection of law and social work to advocate for marginalized people seeking health justice.

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REFERENCES:
1. 2013 Economy Report. Research Division of the City of Boston. 2013. 2. The Largest Employers in the City of Boston. Research Division of the City of Boston. November 2013. 3. Progress Along the Continuum of HIV Care Among Blacks with Diagnosed HIV United States, 2010 February 7, 2014 / 63(05);85-89 4. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm 5. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/health/millions-of-poor-are-left-uncovered-by-health-law.html?pagewanted=all 6. Massachusetts DPH 7. Finkelstein, A., S. Taubman, B. Wrights, M. Bernstien, J. Grber, J.P. Newhouse, H. Allen, K. Baicker, and the Oregon Health Study Group, 2012, The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 27(3), pp. 1057-1106. 8. KFF, 2010 http://k.org/other/state-indicator/total-population/ 9. KFF, 2011 http://k.org/health-costs/slide/distribution-of-national-health-expenditures-by-type-of-service-in-billions-2011/ 10. KFF, 2013 http://k.org/report-section/the-uninsured-a-primer-2013-2-who-are-the-uninsured/ 11. KFF, 2014 http://k.org/health-reform/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-\ medicaid/ 12. KFF, 2014 http://k.org/health-reform/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expandmedicaid/ 13. NYT, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/us/3-3-million-enrolled-in-health-care-marketplaces-more-young-peoplesigning-up.html 14. Whitehouse.gov http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/healthcare-overview

Immigration Editors: Andrew Boyce developed an interest in issues of immigration and language acquisition while interning at Educational Development Group over the summer. He assisted in English instruction and resume building and witnessed the diculties of these processes rst-hand. Andrew has also interned at Project Bread, the largest anti-hunger organization in Massachusetts, which gave him insight into how nonprots can be coordinated to produce the best results, something he wanted to examine in issues of immigration in Boston. Tate Krasner is majoring in International Studies and minoring in Chinese and Russian at Boston College. His interest in immigration stems from both linguistic and service experience. Following his rst year at Boston College, Tate served as an intern at Educational Development Group in South Boston, tutoring and assisting newly arrived immigrants. It was during this time that he developed a deep connection with both the immigrant population of Boston and the city itself. This project has allowed Tate to chronicle the immigrant experience in an eort to promote social and political reform in Boston. Nathan Schwan is a sociology major, aspiring activist, and linguaphile at Boston College. Through his work as an intern with a statewide coalition of organizations working to improve English language learning programs, he learned the unconscionable issues of immigration to the United States. Hearing stories especially of family separation or fear of deportation, started a passion to ght for these human rights. Spending countless hours learning German and Spanish, showed a brief glimpse of the frustrations that many immigrants face. Understanding that our nation is built on immigration and the ideals engraved on the Statue of Liberty, Nathan hopes to continue research and activism in this eld.

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SECTION IV:

IMMIGRATION TO THE CITY:

MANY PEOPLES, ONE BOSTON

BOSTON STRONG - ONE STRONG

SPOTLIGHT | BY DR. WESTY EGMONT
Dr. Westy Egmont is an Associate Professor of Macro Practice and the Director of the Immigrant Integration Lab at Boston College, an applied research lab exploring the intersection of social work, social policy, and immigrant inclusion. IIL is committed to social justice, working toward the well-being of immigrants by pursuing a rigorous academic approach that seeks to understand the appropriate services and delivery systems that lead to full social, civic, and economic integration of the foreign born in the United States.

When the Boston Marathon comes up Heartbreak Hill, we expect to see a Kenyan or an Ethiopian in the lead. Male or female, global athletes lead the race. The world runs in Boston and to Boston. As they run by Fenway Park, this phenomenon continues because there the All-American Game of baseball went the distance as 7 of 25 Red Sox players in the 2013 World Championship team were born in other countries. Near the nish line, where Boston Strong has its deep hold on all, we are just a few steps from Symphony Hall and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where nearly one third of the musicians were born abroad. Mass General, MIT, science labsthe Boston we know and celebrate is a hub, a city alive with leadership and labor from every nation. We are an immigrant gateway, drawing talent to the universities and jobs here, and we are a global launching pad, shipping goods and talent to every part of the planet. Boston is cosmopolitan; our population is among the most diverse in the country. Being a city of immigrants and their children means nothing if we cannot celebrate this rich diversity and address the complexities of a truly multi-cultural society. Over 25% of Boston has migrated here, and the children of Boston go home to 140 languages spoken by their parents. Being Boston Strong is about honoring these ancestral roots, as well as the storied history that gave birth to our nation. Our streets and tunnels were built with Irish labor that fled famine, and our thriving industry in life science is sustained with new Asian talent. A Brazilian store owner is likely to buy

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goods here from the son of Italian immigrants, who have more common hopes than dierent cultures. Pakistani software engineers lead in high tech, while Southeast Asians are likely to provide very personal care. Nevertheless, none can be stereotyped because within decades, almost all of the stories and families blend to the benet of our community. But a healthy community sees where there is need and where injustice hides. Our prisons are full of those the government would deportout of statusand we have far too little legal help to oer. Students with disrupted education who flee from war and poverty need mentors and social workers. Denied almost any federal help for ve years, new families still face crises in jobs, health, and children. Nearly half our high school valedictorians are foreign born, but a percentage of our graduates are denied in-state tuition due to their parents status. Immigration reform remains evasive on the national stage, but even here, drivers licenses are unavailable to those trying to take their children to school, or see their lawyer, or care for their mother. Legal permanent immigrants are welcomed, but only half those eligible have become citizens, and the outreach and services inviting them into the full equality of democracy lacks attention. Language binds us together and empowers the newcomers in employment and social integration, but the waiting lines are longer than the registration lines because too few English classes are oered and the cost is placed on the poor newcomer. While it is probable that a Boston resident has a foreign born doctor or hygienist, we live amidst great brain waste. Ask a taxi driver about their career and nd a professional coping with being unable to transfer certicates. Visit an ethnic house of worship and meet trained professionals with scores of skills and scores of stories about being passed over or their credentials being denied credibility. One garage attendant told a story that got attention: he had been on the supreme court of his African nation, but his English was poor and age was slowing down his learning. A thriving community is a welcoming community. Our diversity makes us strong, and one can see that in Boston. We have come to survive and prosper, and we will do that together. We are the cradle of liberty, and our Minutemen defend individual freedom; these values attract the bright, the driven, and the hopeful, who embrace a new life as they create a new home here. However, we must still learn to welcome, since tomorrow, yet another plane arrives at Logan, and a new neighbor will be nding their way. They wont see Irish need not apply signs as were hung 150 years ago, but they will need a hand to help, a patient ear to understand, and a generous spirit to welcome the stranger, making them part of the common life in the Commonwealth.

Dr. Egmont writes that we must learn to welcome immigrants. One of the ways in which we can welcome immigrants is through accessible social services. Matthew Jose works with the Greater Boston Citizenship Initiative to assist legal permanent residents in the naturalization process. As he asserts, citizenship is an important step for immigrants to be welcomed and participate in society more fully for the good of the entire community.

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GREATER BOSTON CITIZENSHIP INITIATIVE

INITIATIVE | AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW JOSE
Matthew Jose is the Program Manager at Greater Boston Citizenship Initiative, a program of the Fish Family Foundation. He manages the collaboration between several community-based organizations in an eort to increase the naturalization rates in the greater Boston area. Before he was hired in 2013, Matthew interned at GBCI for several months while in graduate school. He received his MA degree in American Politics at Boston College in 2013 and his BA in Political Science from Assumption College in 2010. In between degrees, Matthew volunteered through AmeriCorps in Providence, RI providing elementary school students with after school academic enrichment. He grew up in Warwick, RI and currently lives in Brighton, MA.

Obtaining U.S. citizenship is an important step for many legal permanent residents (LPRs). Nationally, over 700,000 LPRs take this step every year; 20,000 naturalize annually in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But over 1.1 million immigrants gain permanent residency status every year, increasing the size of the immigrant population who are not yet citizens. There are several reasons why immigrants choose not to take the last step in their immigration journey. The barriers to citizenship generally fall into three categories: language issues, information gaps, and nancial diculties. To pass the citizenship test, a legal permanent resident must demonstrate an ability to read, write, and speak English. While there are exemptions based on age and length of residency in the United States, the majority of applicants must pass the citizenship test in the English language. A second group of potential applicants faces information gaps or obstacles in the naturalization process which can cause hesitation and fear. It is important to remember that many immigrants come to the United States from places where government agencies are unstable and potentially dangerous. Distrust of government and lack of awareness about the citizenship process can be an impenetrable barrier. Regarding nancial diculties, many citizenship advocates worry about the spike in fees to $680. Seventeen years ago the processing fee was $95. There is relief from this fee for legal permanent residents who are eligible. Anyone who receives means-tested benets, e.g., SNAP, Med-

icaid, has a household income of less than 150% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, or can demonstrate nancial hardship can submit a request for fee waiver. Presented with all of these barriers, many immigrants do overcome them. They seek both tangible and intangible benets of U.S. citizenship. Tangible benets include access to a wider variety of public services, derivative citizenship for foreign born children, higher priority on family immigration petitions, eligibility for Federal jobs, scholarships and elected oce, and the ability to vote. Intangible benets can range from a feeling of greater security to an acceptance of the United States as home. Naturalizing is not a whimsical decision. Going through the lengthy and occasionally dicult process shows determination and entrepreneurship. The community who welcomes new citizens will benet as well. Receiving communities gain a more representative voter pool that translates to more representational elections. New Americans are also eligible for jury duty, making the eligible jury pool more representative as well. Greater Boston Citizenship Initiative seeks to help legal permanent residents overcome the barriers to citizenship and gain the benets of becoming a citizen. Started in the fall of 2011, GBCI has partnered with several community-based organizations to provide free services all across the greater Boston community. Through a combination of group processing clinics and case management,

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the collaborative has helped over 4,000 legal permanent residents complete and submit their naturalization application. GBCI also refers potential applicants to ESOL classes and legal service providers, when necessary. For the past two years, the primary conversation about citizenship among government agencies as well as private community-based organizations has focused on immigration reform. While citizenship is a part of reform (especially the pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants), encouraging legal permanent residents to apply for citizenship has not been a priority for most immigration players. Other than small grants through the Citizenship for New Americans Program in the Massachusetts Oce of Refugees and Immigrants, GBCI funds the majority of citizenship work in Massachusetts. While GBCI clinics are accessible to anyone, our resources cannot serve the entire eligible population in the Commonwealth. More

work can be done. We believe that GBCI can grow and help more legal permanent residents get access to the resources need to overcome the barriers to citizenship. In order for that to happen, we rst need to increase the amount of available resources for this work. Engaging with the Mayors Oce of New Bostonians and Massachusetts Oce of Refugees and Immigrants would go a long way towards increasing the workload. Second, immigrant serving organizations and advocates can help outreach to eligible legal permanent residents through various forms of media (mainstream and ethnic newspapers, social media, radio and television, etc). The information gap can be bridged through a concerted eort to increase awareness of benets and opportunities that come with citizenship. Finally, we all need to continue the conversation about citizenship so that we can overcome the barriers and create a more stable and vibrant community in America.

As Matthew Jose experiences in his work with the Greater Boston Citizenship Initiative, there are many natural and institutionalized barriers that inhibit integration into society and access to public services. There are many cultural differences which can be misunderstood in the frantic life of employment. Besides learning English, one must embody American culture and the rituals which we take for granted to obtain even a minimum wage job . Michael Murray, a literary specialist with the Boston Public Library, notes seeing these misunderstandings and teaching American culture, while facing the belief that we should promote a culturally pluralistic and accepting society able to integrate people from many backgrounds.

BARRIERS TO NEW BOSTONIANS

SPOTLIGHT | BY: MICHAEL MURRAY
Michael Murray has served as the Literacy Specialist of the Boston Public Library since 2007. He manages Literacy Services programming, teaches ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) classes, tutors in basic literacy skills, coordinates the Librarys volunteer program, does literacy reference, and tries to build the literacy collection.

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There are several barriers that New Bostonians face in meeting their individual needs and goals. Finding meaningful employment, navigating through American society, and becoming engaged in the surrounding community not only require people to learn English, but also require them to understand a foreign culture, to have an awareness of the customs and skills necessary to participate in it, to relearn professional skills in order to attain employment, and to gain condence in themselves and their abilities. In addition, the demands and responsibilities of adult life are often at odds with the structure of ESL programs, and the necessity of a job and the types of jobs available can interfere with lasting language and educational development. One of the rst priorities for a new Bostonian is the acquisition and use of authentic and condent English. By authentic, I do not simply mean pronunciation, but styles of speech that Americans use for communication. For example, in American culture we value self-narrative as well as relating others experiences to our own and vice-versa, and being able to communicate this to one another. Can you imagine going to a job interview where you were not asked to talk about your past experiences and accomplishments, or how you overcame a particular problem? Although this may seem normal to us, people from other cultures may nd this style to be arrogant or unnecessary, or just foreign. In addition, the language skills and awareness needed to adopt or mimic this style are quite advanced. Learning work vocabulary in a classroom environment does not necessarily prepare an immigrant for the styles of communication that are expected in the workplace. The fact that I can say I am a mechanic in my country doesnt mean that I can talk about my responsibilities, abilities, or particular experiences, problems, and accomplishments in detail. Moreover, I might not be able to communicate my mental states, express ideas, frustrations, goals, needs, and other things that are often necessary in a work environment and social situation.

For anyone who has tried to learn a foreign or second language, you know that this is not an easy task. On the other side of this, though, are the ESL programs that equally struggle to design curricula and activities that can honor the needs of the learner while also building the learners knowledge of English enough to understand what he or she is using. In other words, is English being taught to people using materials, subjects, and contexts that are either reflective of or relevant to the real world and to the goals of the learners? And, are programs providing enough scaolding and grammar to allow learners to understand what they are reading, writing, listening to, and saying? I teach several beginner classes at the Boston Public Library and am always amazed by some teachers that I meet who frown upon grammar. I enjoy having conversations or designing activities around, for example, the types of struggles an immigrant faces when coming to the U.S., talking about family, nding a job, visiting the doctor, and dealing with stress, but how is this even possible when a learner doesnt know what the words I, go, do, happy, job, and pain even mean or how to put them together coherently? ESL programs must not only adapt to the needs of the learner, but must adapt to student levels and provide enough language instruction and scaolding to prepare for the authentic activities that are so valuable. Of course there are several programs that are doing this, but there are still those that look down on grammar, and those that teach nothing else. At the Boston Public Library, we try our best to bring a balance to these two philosophies, with varying success. We have more traditional ESL classes that try to build language while also providing opportunities for communication and natural use, but we also provide ESL Conversation Groups that are designed to give people the opportunity to use and develop authentic language in a more casual setting. We pride ourselves on these groups and are grateful to all of the volunteers who give their time not only to the library

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but to improving and enriching the lives of New Bostonians. Even if a New Bostonian nds a program with a curriculum that is responsive to the needs of its learners, there are still possible problems with the provision of services and the policies surrounding attendance. Because several organizations receive state and federal funding they must provide proof of student achievement, which is assessed through testing and level transition, but they must also keep their seats lled. I have heard several stories from students who have attended our programs about being kicked out of the school they spent a year on a waiting list to get into because they missed more than two classes. The pressure on organizations, not the organizations themselves, is neither conducive to real student achievement, nor does it take into account the realities of peoples lives. First, adults are not children. When they dont show up for a class they are not like some teenage truant who has decided to spend the afternoon hanging out with his friends instead of going to class. Adults have several responsibilities, including family, work, health appointments, job interviews, etc. that demand their attention and are equally if not more important than a class. I cant imagine having spent thirteen months on a waiting list so I can attain enough English prociency to receive a job to support my family, only to be kicked out of class because I took three days o to stay at home with my sick four year old child. We cannot demand people to choose between ESL classes and the myriad responsibilities that are the reality of an adult life. Another dicult barrier to New Bostonians success is adapting to and understanding American culture and customs. I was struck recently by the action of one of my female Muslim students. During an end-of-class party I was giving most of the people in the class hugs and handshakes, congratulating them on their achievements. When I went to shake this womans hand she placed it underneath her clothing and then shook mine. I thought of several things at once. First, I need to learn more about So-

mali women and Muslim culture. Second, I felt that even though I must respect the beliefs, customs, and choices of all cultures, what kind of teacher would I be if I didnt say something to prepare her for the actual world of work and social interaction in America? Although many Americans are accommodating and understanding (and just as many who are not), there are deeply ingrained values, like trustworthiness and honesty, attached to things like handshakes and eye contact. Just imagine a job interview, a business deal, or greeting a male friend. At the risk of being insensitive, should I have mentioned to her that her opportunities in life might be aected by something as simple as a hand shake? Third, I thought, is American society in general also responsible for adapting to and accommodating dierent cultural values and customs. Perhaps my student should prepare herself for the world outside the classroom, but the world outside must also prepare itself for her, and millions of others like her. Diversity and the acceptance of diversity is not just a change in how things look. The presence of a Lebanese restaurant and my monthly visit to it is not an example of living in a multicultural world. Multiculturalism is often seen as the presence of strange or dierent food, dress, and music. However, my 45 minutes within a restaurant, even with its music, decoration, and my enjoyment of the flavors, is not an engagement or dialogue with Lebanese culture. I did not visit the owners home and experience the customs and lived experience of her and her family. I did not converse with anyone beyond simple pleasantries. Perhaps I never will, but it is my responsibility to make an eort to understand another culture, or at least to recognize it and accept it into the American narrative. Another big challenge for immigrants is managing a job and going to class at the same time. First, we must consider the type of job that they will get. Whether they were a bus driver, engineer, business owner, bank manager, or mechanic in their country they will most likely have to start out with a low paying job. It is always surprising to me when a student who was a doctor in Guinea or an accountant in Haiti tells me that he or she just got a job

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at Dunkin Donuts, or cleaning oces downtown. Although we might think that this is a good start, the job, which is necessary for survival, becomes an impediment to attending ESOL (English For Speakers of Other Languages) classes and from gaining any other type of education. The dilemma here is that in order to get a good-paying job people need to have competent English skills; however, in order to survive they must accept a low paying job that is not always conducive to continuing their education. Often times survival jobs dont provide enough hours or enough pay, so the person must take on a second job. Moreover, the jobs do not always have regular hours or a consistent schedule, making it dicult for people to know what their work schedule will be like for the following week. Beyond being exhausted, how can they attend a class if they do not know when theyll be working from week to week and they will be kicked out of class if they dont have regular attendance? To give an example, I recently had a former student from Ethiopia visit me and tell me why he hasnt

been to class in over a year. In order to make ends meet, he needs to work two dierent jobs at two dierent hotels. Each of the hotels will not give him a consistent schedule so he has no idea when he will have free time from week to week. He says that he feels stuck and is often depressed. He is unable to quit since he and his family are dependent upon the money, and he is unable to improve his condition because he cannot commit to any type of school schedule. The barriers to nding meaningful work and navigating through American society are as diverse as the countries people come from and as varied as their goals. So many people are incredibly motivated and want nothing more than to make a contribution to society and have an opportunity to support themselves and their families. However, this is not easy and it is not a question of desire. Although we cannot always change the circumstances of New Bostonians lives, or remove the barriers that they face, it is our responsibility to be aware of these struggles and to make whatever small or large efforts we can to assist them with their endeavors.

Michael Murrays insightful article about the cultural learning process and the challenges that many immigrants face is made even more personal when Frank Ramirez, Executive Director of the East Boston Ecumenical Community council outlines the economic and social contributions of the Latino community to the state of Massachusetts. As he writes, this contribution is not matched with support and respect.

LATINO IMMIGRATION IN BOSTON

SPOTLIGHT | BY: FRANK RAMIREZ
Frank Ramirez is the Executive Director of the East Boston Ecumenical Community Council, a neighborhood-based organization that that today promotes the advancement of Latino immigrants of all ages and works to advance immigrant rights at the local, state, and national levels. Frank Ramirez holds an MBA from the University of Southern New Hampshire and two Bachelors of Science degrees. Before working with EBECC, Frank Ramirez has worked with The Literacy Center in Attleboro, MA, and was the Associate Director of the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center in Lawrence, MA.

I visited our Massachusetts delegation in Washington, D.C. as a part of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) National Latino Advocacy Days. NCLRthe largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United Statesworks to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans. On

March 6th, more than 250 representatives of Latino community-based organizations across the country were on Capitol Hill to raise awareness and support for legislative issues aecting the Latino community. In an eort to connect communities and citizens with their government, we wanted to discuss issues

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and legislation, including immigration reform, education, and economic opportunities which concern the Latino population in Massachusetts. The above issues are critical, as nearly 103,000 Hispanics live in Boston today, accounting for 17% of the citys total population. They contribute $1,208,804,440 to annual spending; $1,617,636,305 to the gross state product; $467,296,624 in state and federal taxes; and 18,633 direct and indirect jobs for the local economy. In terms of local entrepreneurship, they produce $373 million in annual sales through 2,950 Hispanic-owned rms in Boston. While we celebrate these successes, the Latino community in Massachusetts is concerned about what they perceive as the lack of political will to advance immigration reform in Congress and the associated consequences for the Latino community. I asked my congressional delegation in Massachusetts how well the Latino community is being rewarded for its economic, social, and political contributions. In education, we can see mixed benets, as foreign-born Latinos (36.6%) have the highest percentage of their population with less than a high

school diploma, and the high school dropout rate is very high at 39%. At the other end of the educational scale, foreign-born Latinos (15.5%) have the lowest percentage of their population with at least a bachelors degree. Educational opportunity is thus an area in which we see a tremendous gap between foreign-born Latinos and other Americans. Concerning jobs and wages, when examining the wage rates for key occupational categories, all Latino groups receive the lowest average hourly wages. This is unacceptable, as the Latino population has the highest labor force participation rate (78.4%) among other demographic groups in Massachusetts. Concerning housing, across the State, Latinos have low rates of homeownership. 73% of foreign born Latinos are renters. Due to the high cost of housing in Massachusetts, housing policies increasing homeownership and aordable rent are fundamental. In terms of health insurance, foreign-born Latinos have the lowest rate of medical insurance (78.9%), even lower than other US-born (citizens) Latinos (95.2%.) So, while we are also at the heart of the city of Boston, we sometimes feel invisible.

Visibility is an issue of great concern for many immigrant groups. Frank Ramirez is intimately tied to the struggle for political visibility for Latino groups and witnesses how hard work can often be left unrewarded in the social setting. For refugee groups, the issue of visibility is also of tremendous importance. Immigrants have faced a great deal of adversity and being recognized in a welcoming way in society is a life-changing improvement. Vidya Tikku tries to offer social integration to these via an innovative gardening initiative, which combines both a connection to the home country with participation in American social structures.

GARDENING THROUGH REFUGEE ORGANIZATIONS

INITIATIVE | BY: VIDYA TIKKU
Vidya Tikku is the Interim Director of the Boston Natural Areas Network, an organization working to improve and expand outdoor space throughout the city of Boston.

Gardening through Refugee Organizations (GRO) was founded in 2009. GRO provides outreach, training, and support for immigrant and refugee families to grow vegetables at community gardens and their homes. The project increases access to healthy foods through gardening and provides refugee populations important opportunities to reduce isolation and intergenerational conflict while opening pathways for them to integrate socially into the larger community and maintain their cultural identity. Massachusetts is home to over 246,000 refugees and immigrants from Haiti, the former Soviet Union,

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Vietnam, West and Central Africa, Bosnia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan, with most living in Greater-Boston. About 2,000 refugees are welcomed to the Commonwealth annually. An important access point to these populations is the Massachusetts Mutual Assistance Association (MAA) Coalition, a partnership of grassroots, ethnic organizations that works closely with these populations and strengthens their collective voice in the state. About half of the refugees that come to the state are from agrarian backgrounds. For most of them agriculture is the only way of life they or their ancestors have known; it is rooted deeply in their culture, heritage, and identity. Arriving in the congested urban connes of greater-Boston is literally a world away from the rural, agrarian communities of origin. They quickly learn that fresh foods, as well as culturally appropriate produce from their homelands are dicult to nd or prohibitively expensive. As a result, refugee populations expressed strong support for gardening and gave important insight into how to use it to reduce family conflict, develop needed skills, help them assimilate into their neighborhoods, and preserve their cultural identity and family traditions. Some groups also use the opportunity to connect with the agricultural heritage to provide post-traumatic therapy and a means to rebuild communities. GRO trains refugees in urban garden skills and helps them garden in greater Boston. The project partners with Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN) to provide hands-on garden training, placement in community gardens, and to develop new gardens in neighborhoods with high refugee populations. Some participants garden at home in containers or in raised beds constructed by the Food Project. GRO provides refugees with seeds and seedlings for their preferred ethnic crops and coordinates all activities, including cultural festivals that highlight their agricultural heritage. MAAs provide interpretation, outreach, and link GRO activities to their existing programmatic strategies. Not only does GRO help reduce isolation, but it also helps build the self-esteem of new arrivals since they already know how to grow crops, and enables them to meet their new neighbors, become civically engaged (community gardens are governed by neighborhood-based groups), and create community networks that go well beyond their own refugee community. Children of refugees become Americanized very quickly and lose the traditional, more conservative ways of their parents and grandparents. Respect for elders is lost and intergenerational conflict further isolates refugee families. Children often learn English and acculturate much faster than their parents, creating distance between family members of dierent generations. Refugee parents and children complain they have nothing in common, creating family conflict and division. Gardening provides lasting activities they can do together as a family throughout their lifetimes, and provides an opportunity for parents and grandparents to teach children about their past. Upon arrival in this country, many refugees and immigrants need to learn new skills and English, which are usually taught in unfamiliar classroom environments. GRO helps them build needed skills in ways that are familiar to them and has developed curricula to use gardening as a forum for teaching English to ethnic populations. Over the past ve years GRO has provided training and support for almost 750 refugees and enabled about 150 to safely grow fresh produce in more than 100 backyard and community garden plots. The Project presents powerful and eective avenues for new arrivals to improve their nutrition, build skills, strengthen their families, develop their neighborhoods, and be part of mainstream social networks.

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REFERENCES:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Kidder, T. (1989). Among Schoolchildren. Lee & Burkham, 2002, p. 2; Digest of Education Statistics, 2011 www.myjstart.org Reynolds, Temple, Ou, Arteaga, & White, 2011, p. 360; Schweinhardt et. al, 2005; Campbell et. al, 2002 Heckman, J. J., Grunewald, R., & Reynolds, A.J. (2006). The Dollars and Cents of Investing Early: Cost-Benet Analysis in Early Care and Education. Zero to Three

Education Editors: Nicholas Denari is a mathematics major and theology minor, potentially looking toward teaching in secondary education after graduation. During his time in high school at Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis, he became especially interested in social justice. After living in Boston for the past two years, volunteering in the city, and running on Boston Colleges track and cross country teams, he feels a strong connection to the city and its people. He is interested in education because it is, in his opinion, the most direct means of impacting the world in a positive way. Lucy Methven is an Elementary Education and Applied Psychology & Human Development double-major from Midlothian, Virginia. Her studies focus on the eects of inequalities based on socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and a range of other demographic factors on individuals educational experiences. As a future educator, she is really concerned by the idea that not all children are aorded the same opportunities in school. She sees young people as a great source of strength for this city and believes strongly in the need to foster that strength now. Other Editors: Isaac Akers is majoring in Biochemistry with a minor in Medical Humanities at Boston College. Before arriving at Boston College, Isaac worked with Chattanooga Hospice and began a community science education program with the McCallie School in Chattanooga TN. Once at BC, Isaac volunteered with the Faneuil Gardens Youth Center in Brighton and then spent the summer after his freshman year as an assistant teacher in the Italian Home for Children School and in the MA Dept. of Youth Services. Isaac is interested in pursuing a career in public health and public policy, focusing primarily on the intersection between medicine, genetics and policy. He is also an avid rock climber. Harrison Bacon is a Finance major who is interested in social justice. He has come to learn about the daily struggles that so many in Boston and our great nation face, and how those struggling individuals interact with the criminal justice systemand how the system interacts with them, sometimes in an unjust manner. It is therefore with great interest that he has approached this project, and he knows that what we have learned thus far is only the tip of the iceberg. Marissa Marandola is a Political Science major. She believes that criminal justice is, in many ways, the ideal angle from which to examine issues of social justice. The net impact of accumulated interactions with social injustice is best seen through those who come into contact with the criminal justice system and the paths their lives take once (if) their interaction with the system ceases. She undertook this project with the hope of uncovering the motivations and goals of the states construction of the criminal justice system and the ways in which institutions mirror, deepen, and alleviate the social justice issues highlighted by other sections. Maureen McGrath, a Finance and Accounting double major, is interested in this project, and in social justice in general, because the marginalization of people, whether on the basis of race, class, gender, ability, or circumstance, deeply impedes self-actualization and overall societal wellbeing. In particular, she believes that our criminal justice system strongly represents these systems of oppression and their detriment to human welfare. Claudio Quintana is an Information Systems and Marketing Major, with a minor in Global Technology and Society. He believes in impact-driven entrepreneurship as an eective tool for solving problems that our world faces today. He has worked on social ventures, and continues to research development entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in developing nations. As the Regional President for the global organization Kairos Society, he puts this passion to work with young entrepreneurs all over the world to solve problems with creative solutions in Education, Healthcare and Cleantech.

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SECTION V:

EDUCATION IN BOSTON:
DISPARITIES FOR CHILDREN IN THE CITY LINGER

SPOTLIGHT | BY SUSAN NAIMARK

was stopped shortly after mile 25 when the Boston Marathon bombs went off. As devastating as that experience was, there was something greater that bothered me in its aftermath. Maybe because Im local, and was running my eighth Boston Marathon last year. Or maybe because I have lived in the city for nearly 40 years, worked in its neighborhoods, and sent my children to the Boston Public Schools. What bothered me was the news coverage. For months following the marathon, front page news covered its horric impacts. Then I would turn the page of the Boston Globe, and buried somewhere inside, nearly every day, were stories of shootings in Bostons neighborhoods. Why dont we have the same outpouring of support for these victims of senseless violence? I kept wondering. The only answer I could nd was that these victims were mostly poor, and mostly black and brown. Many of them were also young. We, the white, middle-class citizens, were not stepping up and showing compassion for them in the ways we were for people we perceived to be more like us. This lack of public will is at the core of our public education disparities as well. Boston has one of the best urban school districts in the country. Even at that, one-third of students are not procient in math, and one-quarter not procient in English Language Arts by tenth grade. With all of its progress, the system still has work to do. It serves 87% children of color, and academic failure continues to track closely to race. I learned to be blunt about Bostons nagging legacy of racial disparities the hard way. As my children moved through the Boston Public Schools, I saw how everything seemed to come easier to them, as white, middle-class kids. And how the barriers to academic success were multi-layered, and often devastating, to their peers of color. I came to understand how generations of racialized opportunities and barriers put me and my kids at a distinct advantage. Opportunities such as my own parents access to higher education that was severely limited for people of color of their era, which gave them, and in turn me, a leg up on the economic ladder. Barriers such as the racial violence perpetrated on Bostons children of color a generation ago todays parents under court-ordered school desegregation.

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DESEGREGATING BOSTONS SCHOOLS

SPOTLIGHT | BY STEVE COHEN
Steve Cohen taught high school history for fteen years and is in his nineteenth year at Tufts University. He is a Senior Lecturer in Education and also teaches courses in the Peace and Justice and the American Studies programs as well as being an Adjunct in the History Department.

June 11, 1963 was a busy day for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. On that day, a dramatic confrontation between Governor George Wallace of Alabama and the Justice Department of the United States ended with the Governor leaving the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama and, with the federalized Alabama National Guard present to prevent anything from going wrong, James Hood and Vivian Malone registered for summer school. That evening, President John Kennedy spoke to the American people about civil rights. In the strongest such address ever given by an American president up to that time, he spoke of the moral issue involved in the unfairness of life in the United States. He called for all Americans to be able to enjoy the freedoms and rights of every American. After listening to the Presidents speech in his oce in Jackson, Mississippi, Medgar Evers, the head of the NAACP in Mississippi, a World War II veteran who had once been refused admission to the University of Mississippi because of the color of his skin, returned home and was murdered in his driveway. But civil rights wasnt only an issue in the South. In Boston, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1963, Ruth Batson, the head of the NAACP Education Committee, a mother of two daughters who had gone to the Boston Public Schools, complained in a school board meeting that segregation, the s word, existed in this city. For the next two decades, Boston unsuccessfully dealt with this issue. At rst denying the charge and then systematically failing to deal with the truth of the charge, the Boston School Committee presided over a system where, for the most part, segregated schools were the norm. Residential segregation, formed by unfair mortgage and rental policies

that had lasted for decades, combined with specic School Committee policies to increase the number of schools that were racially imbalanced in Boston. Segregation was the norm. In June 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity decided a lawsuit that had been brought by black parents in 1972. The Judge correctly found that the School Committee had worked to keep schools segregated in Boston. The solution was citywide busing for desegregation to begin in September 1974. Other Northern cities looked similar to Boston, but the situations were dierent. The School Committees policies, not residential segregation, had brought about the ruling. When the School Committee refused to come up with its own plan for compliance, Judge Garrity used one that had already been created. After a summer of planning and concern, the desegregation order began with the rst day of school in September 1974. While desegregation took place peacefully in most schools, in South Boston, whose high school was matched with Roxbury High, the population was deant. Most white students boycotted, and black students riding the buses to and from the high school saw rocks and heard racial epithets flying. Boston headlined the national news on television. The situation was tense and remained so. Desegregation was a city problem. Bostons suburbs, overwhelmingly white in 1974 as a result of thirty years of suburbanization, watched issues of race and class divide their neighbors. Many Boston families who could aord to do so enrolled their children in independent or parochial schools or sent children to live with relatives outside the city. Those who could not do that had to deal with desegregationsometimes with anger, often with frustration, and always with anxiety. A city that was not very prosperous was now one

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As I began to understand these things, I began to speak out about them. And, too often, the reactions of a lot of white people teachers, school administrators, other parents was discomfort and hostility. People were weary of bringing up race in spite of the fact that we have never fully discussed its impact on Boston and the education we deliver to our citys children. After years of pushback, it is clear to me that we have not yet learned how to talk productively about racism and white skin privilege. Until we do, we will not crack the code necessary to ensure all children succeed in our public schools. This is not rocket science. It can be learned. Training in cultural prociency and institutional racism, racial dialogues, the insistence on a culture of high expectations by school leaders, close monitoring of racial disparities and corresponding action plans, a commitment of resources that broaden opportunities are just some of the specic actions that begin to address this gap. We each can play a role in taking such actions, and our city will be the better for it for all of us.

Susan Naimark teaches at the University of Massachusetts Boston Graduate School of Education, and is the author of The Education of a White Parent: Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools. She is a former member of the Boston School Committee and one of the founders of the Boston Parent Organizing Network.

that was in crisis. As desegregation continued, the movement of white families to the suburbs increased. The growth of the suburbs after World War II had been supported by the building of new roads and highways, the formation of richer communities with school budgets based on the higher property taxes that were levied, and the chance to take part in the American Dream. These things were available to white families but not those of families of color. These were the pull factors as the old mill economy in which many Boston workingmen had toiled gave way to service jobs, many located outside the city. Blacks and Latinos moved into a Boston that no longer had the same jobs available for them. As the school situation began to worry parents, white flight accelerated. Forty years later, whites make up less than 15% of the Boston public school

population. The suburbs, by and large, remain white. Urban students remain in schools with fewer resources, by and large, than suburban ones. No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have not appreciably changed anything. We are never going to test our way to equality, and all we have seen is greater and greater inequality. We still want the schools to act as Horace Mann once put it, as the balance wheel of the social mechanism. There has never been an age where all of the children in the United States have received an equitable education at the same time. The new laws call for every school to produce similar results. That doesnt seem realistic in a society in which inequality is increasing in every other realm. Traditional Boston public schools, charter schools, exam schools, pilot schools, and Horace Mann charters face great obstacles. We recognize the importance of education, but we often forget how hard it truly is to put our students in position to succeed.

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WHITE PEOPLE CHALLENGING RACISM: MOVING FROM TALK TO ACTION

SPOTLIGHT | BY BARBARA BECKWITH
Barbara Beckwith is a co-facilitator of workshops called White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action at Boston-area adult education centers, anti-racism conferences, and twice, in Wellesley Colleges winter session non-credit program. In 2009, she collected personal essays on white privilege and racism into a booklet titled What Was I Thinking? Reflecting on Everyday Racism.

Im one of a dozen people who pair up to co-facilitate White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action, a ve-session course thats been oered by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education since 1999, and more recently at other venues. As the title suggests, the focus is on white peoples role in dismantling racism. Most participants are white, but not all: people of color increasingly take the class to share their perspectives, and some now co-facilitate it. Participants have ranged in age from 13 to 81, an eye-opening diversity. Younger people say that they are surprised and gratied that older people care about the issue. And vice-versa: older students are surprised that young people care. This tells me that, at least in the Boston area, deep concern about racial inequity is widespread among people of every age but it is invisible except in classes like ours. Im convinced that whats needed are more venues where people can look directly at individual, interpersonal, and institutional racism, learn to speak up against it, and take action to end it in at least some sphere of their lives. Motivations for taking the class vary. A white high school sophomore signed up (and went on to colead the class) out of a desire to respond to misinformation that went unchallenged in his history class. A young white woman wanted to understand why her relationship with a man of color had fallen apart; was it her racial obliviousness a factor? A white judge drove down from Maine to attend, out of concern for possible bias in her courtroom. An older white woman wanted her church to be more welcoming to people of color. A Colombian with light-skin privilege wanted to share the racism he

experienced in this country, but also to confront his stereotypes about indigenous people in his country of origin. We dont own our course: its simply a series of non-academic readings, exercises, videos, role-plays and discussions that weve found eective. We rst look at family, school and media messages that pop up automatically in our heads. These stereotyped images aect our thinking, so we need to recognize and analyze them in order to replace them. We also need to practice speaking up. Jennifer Yanco, who rst taught the class 15 years ago, compares speaking up to a muscle. You need to work that muscle over and over to get it to work optimally. Its like learning a language: you need to practice in order for it to come easily to you when you need it. Participants share situations where they didnt speak up against racism, or spoke up, but ineectually. We role-play these scenarios to develop speaking up strategies that work. These vary, or course, depending if you are dealing with someone who is your boss or your grandmother; or if youre in a job interview or drinking at a bar with friends. By the end of the ten hours, each person will commit to a plan of action to challenge racism in one sphere of his or her life, drawing support and feedback from the group. Plans have ranged from attending community hearings on racial proling, to pressing the company one works for to hire more people of color, to confronting a roommate who makes racist jokes, to simply sharing racism-related books or videos with parents, children, or friends. We encourage participants to participate in other Boston area initiatives, including the YWCAs Com-

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munity Dialogues, Boston Busing/Desegregation Project, Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston, or Community Change Inc., all dedicated to understanding and acting to end racial inequities. We know we can make a dierence. Change starts with one person questioning, challenging, speaking up and doing something to make a dierence, Paul Kivel reminds us in Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. We can each make a dierencebecause each of us is already part of the community where racism exists and thrives.

And as Beverly Daniel Tatum observes in Why Are the Black Kids Sitting on the Other Side of the Cafeteria, While many of us regard ourselves as powerless, the fact is that all of us have some sphere of influence in which we can work for change, even if its just in our own network of family and friends.

FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES

INITIATIVE | BY NICHOLAS DENARI WITH DR. FRAN COLLETTI
Dr. Francesca Colletti has been working in the eld of education for more than 30 years. As the New England Director, she coordinates Facing History and Ourselves outreach, development, and support activities for a growing network of New England educators that currently numbers over 5,000. She works to deepen Facing Historys presence in the New England community. Remembering tough moments in history can be dicult. Not only tough moments like the bombing of the Boston Marathon, but issues such as segregation in schools and the Holocaust. Even more dicult, how do we teach these moments to our children? Facing History and Ourselves is a 35-year-old organization devoted to addressing these pivotal moments in history and teaching students how to think about them in a critical light. Founded in Brookline, Massachusetts by two teachers, the organization has become an international non-prot with oces around the United States and partners all over the world. Dr. Francesca Colletti, the regional director of the New England oce, shared some of the issues they face as well as initiatives they carry out in schools and in the community. She shared how their formal relationship with the Boston public school system began: Ten years ago, the school system came to us with a need: they were developing a civics course for the eighth grade. It was during the time in Massachusetts that so much focus was being given to the concern around standardized tests. We thought, Where in the curriculum are we going to stop kids to think critically? So they came to us to help them with the civics course where they were going study government. The powers of government and so on, but nowhere in the course was there a moment where you saw how government worked or didnt work, so we developed this unit that looked at dicult choices in Little Rock. It looks at the moment in 1957 when Central High School was integrated. Facing History takes this approach with remembering any crisis moment, challenging students to think for themselves and analyze the ethics of an issue. We have this and I think it is genius of the founders design about how we look at any moment in history or any moment in a community. It could be the Boston Marathon bombing; it could be the troubles in Northern Ireland; it could be hate crimes in the Heartlands. We have a scope and sequence that we follow: We take a moment in history and we look at that deeply and we move along and we look at issues of judgment and memory, and the last part of the journey is participation. The emphasis on participation and getting involved is vital: Why are we doing this work? We want to build

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civic and ethically minded young citizens. And not only civically minded for our country, but globally. None of the crisis moments that Facing History tries to address have easy answers. Despite this, it is essential to try to gain an understanding of a situation that is not black and white. When looking at the perpetrators of some of these events, it is important to humanize them and not demonize them, as hard as that may initially be. It is humbling to look at human behavior and say that these people were not monsters. You often focus on

the upstanders, you focus on the victims, you focus on the survivors, but theres something to be said to be able to look at what we perceive as the evil one. Youre not excusing it; youre just trying to understand human behavior. We can all learn a great deal from the ideas presented by Facing History. Most important is the critical mindset that students in our schools are beginning to develop. When we look at things in a critical light and try to understand dierent perspectives, we truly become citizens of the world. Only then can we strive for justice in our communities and in our world.

SPOTLIGHT | PERSPECTIVES OF DR. JULIA WHITCAVITCH-DEVOY

BY LUCY METHVEN AND NICHOLAS DENARI

In order for us to truly show that we care about education reform, we need to look across life systems. Without doing that, most of our great intentions and most of our strong efforts will, unfortunately, fall short. The only way to impact things in the best way possible is to take a systems perspective. That is, we need to take a biopsychosocial perspective and look at the bigger picture of how every developing individual is affected by a myriad of interrelated biological, psychological, and social factors. There is an idea that education reform will solve everything and unfortunately, that doesnt address housing issues or healthcare issues or economic disparity. In the past, policy has been generated with an either-or mindset, especially in regards to funding. If we take a more integrated perspective, we are going to be more successful. For instance, we need our students to have access to healthcare. Every day, kids come to school that have not had proper medical care and proper dental care, or are in situations where they have been up all night because of asthma. They are not going to come to school and be able to pay attention and learn the same way as somebody that does have adequate medical and dental care, does have appropriate treatment for asthma, and is not sleep deprived. Thus, one of the areas that is essential in education is healthcare reform. As a parent, I know that scheduling and getting kids to dentist and doctor appointments is not easy around work hours. Combining that with another complicating factor, such as being a single parent, it becomes a real hurdle, so having those services in schools and funding those kinds of initiatives is huge. Creating a healthy mesosystem between education and early health and medical care is a means for that sort of multidimensional reform. Another piece that is unbelievably important and we see here in Massachusetts is the issue of adequate housing. Real school reform cannot be effective if kids are coming and going out of the school all the time. Inadequate housing and transiency can have a large impact on the success of students in school. Some students go home to a place where they cannot get enough rest or sit down with a family member to read a book. When one does not have appropriate housing, being able to go to school, pay attention,

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TUFTS STUDENTS STEP UP

INITIATIVE | BY: LUCY METHVEN WITH LYDIA TREAT
Lydia graduated from Union College in 2011 with a B.S (psychology major). Currently, she is in her rst year in the School Psychology Masters Ed.S Program at Tufts University.

The city of Boston is lled with students. From preschoolers in the local public school to members of a study group on an Ivy League campus, these students represent a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and goals. This means that as a number of young students are facing signicant challenges in the classrooms of Boston elementary schools, universities in the very same neighborhoods are busy training eager future teachers. At the start of the 2006-2007 school year, Bostons mayor, then Thomas M. Menino, recognized the opportunity for mutually benecial relationships and launched the Step UP (University Partnership) Initiative. This program forged partnerships between ve universities Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, Northeastern University, and Tufts University and a number of Boston Public Schools. The main goal was to take advantage of the major resources that these institutions have to oer in order to promote student wellbeing in a variety of areas. This collaboration proved advantageous for individuals at both ends of the educational spectrum by providing both support to the young students and real classroom experience to those in college. At the end of the designated ve-year period, this valuable program ended; however, a group of students and professors at Tufts was not yet ready to let go of the strong relationships they had built with their partner schools. Lydia Treat, a rst year student in the Tufts School Psychology Graduate Program, was immediately interested when she heard about the plan to continue the work of the Step UP Initiative. She says, I just thought that the cause was worthwhile and it was just another good way to help out the community. Along with two of her classmates and two undergraduate Tufts students, Treat has spent every Friday since October 2013 in a local elementary school forming symbiotic relationships through which all of the students both the children and Lydia and her peers from the university are learning from each other. Lydia and her colleagues from Tufts are collaborating with the schools psychologists, teachers, and sta to implement the Sec-

ond Step program. This is a classroom-based social and emotional learning curriculum that promotes the development of a range of skills, including problem solving, emotion management, empathy, self-regulation, and feeling recognition, that will be valuable to students both in and outside of school. Ms. Treat teaches a Second Step lesson to a second grade class each week. She comments that working with the same group of individuals each time has allowed her to build up a rapport with the class in order to get the most out of the lessons and enable her to track their progress as they tackle the curriculum. Along with the developers of this evidence-based plan and its many supporters, Lydia feels that the important skills and tools that Second Step oers to participants are planting the seeds for future outcomes. When asked to share her favorite aspect of the program, Treat explains that largely due to her current position as a psychology student with a background in teaching, she especially enjoys the combo role for which the full group instruction allows. As she teaches her students valuable lessons in social and emotional learning that many children would otherwise not receive, she must tap into her prior experience as a grade school teacher and employ the practices she is learning in her current school psychology courses. Coupled with the great progress Treat feels that her students have made since she began working with them in October, the mutual benets are clear. Perhaps the strongest example of the programs strength, Lydia has already reported that she denitely plans to continue her work with the Tufts oshoot of the Step UP Initiative next year. She believes that it is vital to continue to maintain the relationships between the universities and the surrounding schools. It is not enough for Boston to just be home to a great deal of students of all ages learning near each other. These students must learn with each other, serve as resources for each other, and promote each others success.

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and show up with homework completed is an entirely different challenge than it is for other classmates. All of the great strides put forth for school are going to fall short for some kids if we do not address these other concerns. Labor issues, living wages, and economic disparity are terms that are not generally associated with education, but these too are essential to the development of our children. Whether or not a child is going home to a stable housing environment, he or she may not have access to books or resources. In Tracy Kidders book Among Schoolchildren, he points out that this difference is particularly apparent in science fair projects (1). In a science fair, it is obvious who actually had materials and someone to provide guidance. Ideally, all children would have this kind of support, and until we look at and address issues around economic disparity, this will not be possible. Some will argue that letting the experts in each eld tackle their own topic separately will be the most effective, but the fact of the matter is, if we are going to be successful in education reform or if we are going to be successful in health care reform, we need to think about the other areas. It is a multifaceted challenge around poverty and opportunity structures that is going to require a multimodal approach. Early childhood programming is equally essential to the development of children. All of the reforms for school, healthcare, and economic disparity cannot address early childhood experiences that are not harmonious in preparing children for school. A kindergartner who did not attend preschool is already behind the majority of his or her peers. A kindergartner who does not already know the colors, letters, and shapes and know how to hold a pencil or a crayon is behind. This stems out of expectations, and naturally the teacher will have a different dynamic with the other students. Years later, it is likely that that same student is still behind. There are kids that through Herculean efforts or some other kind of intervention will catch up and succeed, but that is not the norm. Those are outliers, and to use those as examples to make excuses for programs that do not truly address the systems challenges is irresponsible. It is a poor use of data. Each of these contexts, in addition to many others, can create a disadvantage for the family, especially the children. It is easy to recognize problems, but it is also easy to write them off, thinking that each one would not have much of an impact on a family. However, if a child is subject to one issue, it is likely that he or she faces many more, and it is the cumulative disadvantage that has an enormous impact on how children fare. Looking at reform movements, it is easy to be most excited about the ones that combine approaches because they are likely to have more efcacy. An attempt at education reform and healthcare reform that each combine with closing the gap on economic disparity, is going to be a more successful model for each area than just simply one or the other. The mindset of blaming the victim permeates a great deal of the thinking and it holds us back from looking across systems because as long as we can blame the parent, the teacher, the school, the child, the community, the whatever, then we dont look at structural issues. We do not look at systems that confer opportunity to some and constrain opportunity access for others. We do not look at structural inequality. We do not look at the big -isms sexism, racism. We cannot just focus myopically on one thing.

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JUMPSTARTING EDUCATION
INITIATIVE | BY: LUCY METHVEN WITH SARAH BALDIGA
Sarah has been with Jumpstart for three years and is the Development Manager for Jumpstarts work in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sarah has dedicated her career to working in the nonprot sector, and holds a graduate degree in nonprot management from Worcester State University. Perched precariously on the edge of a miniature chair in a cramped corner of the room, I nodded and smiled as the theoretical waiters of this restaurant grabbed a rubber slice of pizza and a plastic doughnut from a warm refrigerator that barely reached higher than my knees. As a college freshman, I was simply too big to be playing restaurant in a preschool classroom. As a Jumpstart Corps Member, I had been carefully trained to play eectively with these young students. That is, in addition to sharing their favorite plastic foods, I was trying to engage my partner children in language and literacy development. An individuals early childhood experiences are vitally important to their educational futures. Preschoolers from dierent areas begin school with a wide range of diverse experiences that signicantly influence how they learn and function in the classroom. Due to a myriad of factors including preschool experiences and exposure to language at home children from low-income areas begin kindergarten 60% behind their classmates from more aluent neighborhoods (2). This gap tends to grow as these decits accumulate over time. In 1993, recognizing that every child deserves to have the same opportunities, a group of students at Yale University set out to combat the problem. Now a national organization with chapters on many college campuses, Jumpstart provides training to college students to enable them to work eectively with preschoolers from low-income neighborhoods on essential literacy and language skills. Keeping the Children First motto in mind, Jumpstart volunteers visit their preschools three times each week to work toward leveling the playing eld for all students. Despite the fact that Massachusettss students routinely outperform all other U.S. states, racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps persist. Jumpstart has been serving students in the Boston area for twenty years. Development Manager Sarah Baldiga says she is drawn not only to Jumpstarts goals but the ways in which the organization goes about achieving them. She recognizes that the partnerships Jumpstart works to form between students in college and preschool are very unique. The college students serve as a valuable resource for implementing the literacy intervention program in preschools throughout the nation. Baldiga also values that the volunteers are all coming from a variety of dierent backgrounds and areas of interest and thus, bring dierent insights and experiences to the classrooms. Throughout the school year, as the students in my teams class learned to recognize and verbally produce the names and sounds of letter, it was easy for us to see the benets to the preschoolers. Rick, another Corps Member from Boston College, reports: Zaimarley is the youngest child in our class and most of the sessions we are just trying to keep him still. He doesnt seem to understand a lot of the aspects of the session. One day he left me in shock when during welcome he identied every letter in his name so condently. I was so happy to know that the constant repeating of the letters that I had been doing during welcome, even though he wasnt seemingly paying attention, had made a dierence (3). Jumpstarts work also proves benecial for volunteers. While not all of the Corps Members are planning to work in classrooms in the future, last year, 23% of those switched to majors relating to education or human services. Baldiga reports that even if time working with Jumpstart did not forever change ones career path, most students are at least more informed about their communities and

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issues surrounding education and empowered to be higher quality advocates for change. New to the Boston area and the study of elementary education, my year of service with the organization denitely introduced me to challenges faced by many students to which I had simply never been exposed and helped guide the decision of where to focus my studies. While the benets to all of the students young and old actively participating in Jumpstart are fairly clear; the advantages to the broader society are less obvious. Early childhood education is

associated with increased academic achievement, high school graduation rates, and lifetime workforce productivity and lower rates of teenage pregnancy, crime, and dependence on public assistance (4). Thus, every dollar that can be invested in early education programs results in a 10% return on the investment (5). The organizations eighty sites throughout the United States bridge mutually benecial relationships between universities, preschools, funders, local governments, and other education groups to promote Jumpstarts main goal of working towards the day every child in American enters kindergarten prepared to succeed. (3)

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO GOOD SCHOOLS

SPOTLIGHT | BY: SUSAN NAIMARK
Susan Naimark teaches at the University of Massachusetts Boston Graduate School of Education, and is the author of The Education of a White Parent: Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools. She is a former member of the Boston School Committee and one of the founders of the Boston Parent Organizing Network.

The return of white, middle class families to the Boston Public Schools has been a slow, steady march. Following a generation of white flight, the improvements and leadership stability of the last two decades have renewed a level of condence in the citys schools. Schools such as the Warren-Prescott in Charlestown, Manning in Jamaica Plain, and Haley Pilot in Roslindale have for a decade served families who in previous eras would have bailed to the suburbs when their children reached school age. The commitment of these families has spawned reenergized parent councils, upbeat websites, and raises tens of thousands of dollars annually. This trend is the envy of many big cities across the country. Yet there is a downside that must be attended to, if we are to ensure that all students succeed in our citys public schools. Last summer, I interviewed parents and sta of several schools that have undergone this resurgence. Chrystal Kornegay of Urban Edge in Jamai-

ca Plain and Roxbury had charged me to document what these families do, so that she might support the low-income families living in Urban Edges subsidized housing to employ similar strategies. The results of this research provide a sobering warning. Not all families approach their childrens schooling with the belief that they have options. I found that those who do go to great lengths to decide whether to send their children to the Boston Public Schools. Ad hoc research groups form among friends as soon as they have babies. Their members visit schools, create spreadsheets, vet references. Families then enroll their children together in their chosen schools, resulting in a support group to navigate the complexities once they are in the door. Every family could benet from such a support group. Yet this support tends to stay within the

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groups who know each other on entry. Kornegays request brought me to a meeting of lower-income parents of color to share my ndings. Some understood the eort required to nd the best school for their children and opted for Metco, charter or parochial schools. For Blacks and Latinos raised in Boston, childhood memories still sting of school bus rides across town met with racial violence. For some immigrant families, the idea of investing endless hours in advocacy to ensure a decent education for their children was as baling as Southies annual polar bear plunge. In short, the barriers for low-income immigrant families and families of color to the activism deployed by white, middle class families stem from distrust and discomfort with the system, not just lack of time or know-how. This divide is about race and class and, at its most potent, both. Boston Public Schools serves 87% children of color, 75% students eligible for free and reduced-price meals, and 47% whose home language is not English. One-third of students are not procient in math, and one-quarter not procient in English Language Arts by tenth grade. With all of its progress, the system still has work to do. We want to encourage middle class families to invest in our public schools. Their eorts contribute to expanded arts oerings, eld trips, new computers resources that all schools deserve. Their demands can result in attention to school

problems at the expense of unaddressed problems at other schools. Such disparities are not intentionally created. Yet they are the unintended consequences of a system still lacking in consistent quality, transparency, and enough resources to go around. Here are just a few ways we could all contribute to addressing these disparities: - City leadership can monitor resources, school by school then deploy sta or volunteers to help under-resourced schools bring in additional resources; - Schools can reach out to families not actively participating, to identify their interests, barriers to participation, as well as the social assets they bring to their childrens education then use this information to support their increased involvement; - Active parents can learn to work across race and class dierences, through training and activities such as the YWCAs Community Dialogues. There are organizations including the Boston Parent Organizing Network and Massachusetts Advocates for Children that work systemically to improve and hold accountable the Boston Public Schools. By supporting such groups, we can nurture improvement across all schools and for all children.

In order to have a program or an approach that works for your community, stakeholders have to be involved. Addressing housing in Boston might be very different than addressing housing in Atlanta. Addressing labor issues in Southern California is going to be different from addressing labor issues in the Northeast so I think there has to be some best practices on the policy level that are generated from a multi-system perspective, but each area also needs to develop their own home-grown solution. So Boston Strong is going to be a different strong from Milwaukee Strong.
Julia Whitcavitch-DeVoy is an applied developmental contextual psychologist who studies the relationship of social class variables to the human life span. Her research focuses on career and social mobility among low income individuals, and examines personal, as well as, ecological contexts such as family, workplace, community and school settings that facilitate and/or constrain developmental trajectories. She is an instructor in the Counseling Developmental and Educational Psychology department of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.

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Reecting on each of these testimonies, we must continually call ourselves to reect on and reevaluate our conception of Bostons true strength through the lens of social justice and human welfare. In the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon tragedy, millions worldwide witnessed the raw manifestations of the heart of this city: resilience, compassion, and, perhaps most importantly, outrage at the violation of human integrity. Usually, when such violations occur in the public eye (as they did at the marathon nish line in April of 2013), the overwhelming public outcry that follows stems from a deep sense of common humanity and emotional solidarity. Perhaps nowhere else is this sense of solidarity stronger than in they city of Boston- giving rise to the celebrated slogan Boston Strong. The need for this same Boston Strong energy to be carried forth in the city of Boston is especially apparent in the arenas of homelessness, immigration, health care, and education, to name just a brief few. In the months and, very likely, years to come, the upcoming trial of the Boston bombing suspect will serve to keep the events of that day salient in our minds. Naturally, the deep anger and indignation that arose immediately following the marathon tragedy will be reignited again and again. During this stage of our citys recovery process, the temptation to demonize this culprit will prove overwhelming. However, as with all of the issues of social justice weve explored in this publication, in the midst of that very anger, we must aim to redirect that powerful energy toward the uplifting of all people. True strength should be channeled through compassion and love- not through hatred and vindication. Where else does the culmination of all of these issues shine through better than in the United States criminal justice system? Perhaps, once more, this tragedy can challenge us to reshape our perceptions of justice and marginalization, this time through the scope of criminal justice. Time and again, collectively, as a city and as a community, we must employ these deeply emotional experiences to discover and harness the true strength of Boston, Massachusetts. Let this publication, in conjunction with each of our own personal testimonies to Bostons strength in the context of the Boston Marathon, serve as not only a learning experience, but also as a call to action: a call to extend Bostons enormous strength to each member of our community, seen and unseen.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
After the tragic events of the 117th Boston Marathon, we felt compelled to contribute to Boston, a city we either had been or were now deeply connected to. We felt compelled to contribute to the strength of our community through reflection on the marathon, an event which brings together many organizations ghting for social justice and a better society. Our idea was to gather and broadcast the voices which anchor our citys strength and to channel the energy of Boston Strong into action for a stronger community. These agents, located throughout the city, work constantly on the most challenging social justice issues we face. All of the pieces in this publication come from Boston for Boston, but they also address the issues we confront in every community throughout our country. Our goal for this publication is that we confront these injustices together, and the articles in the publication provide avenues and inspiration to do so. We would like to thank all of the contributors for becoming a part of this project. You truly embody Boston Strong and we know that the work you have done and the stories you have told will continue to inspire social action for marathons to come.

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WRITTEN BY SIXTEEN BOSTON COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THE PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM CLASS OF 2016