Community Organizer
My view of leadership is based on empowering historically underserved and underrepresented people and their communities. I believe in the power of diversity and that it holds the key to an ever evolving and beautiful future. But in order to attain that future, we must build people up today.
Internship — the Community Liaison Program:
During my time interning with the Community Liaison Program at Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, I worked with over 60 liaisons, coming from dozens of historically underserved communities from all over Seattle. Our liaisons are hired and trained to facilitate two-way communication between the community they represent and the City of Seattle. There were two major tasks that we did. The first was with the departments themselves, our liaisons would translate written materials and outreach in their respective communities. The second was the Community Conversations, which consist of presentations and/or resource fairs. Here we would team up with several departments and local community organizations to bring relevant resources to specific communities. Our liaisons would act as interpretation aids for our guests.
Photo taken at Citizenship Day, an event host by the City of Seattle during January of 2017
Social Justice: This experience made me learn about the lives of many under-served communities, especially those in immigrant communities. It has made me wake up in a sense. I have grown up in an immigrant family myself so I already thought I understood, this opportunity made me realize that there are a million and one ways to experience the same situation. It also made me realize how eager people are to learn and to gain skills for their communities. Not only our liaisons, but everyday community members showed me time and time again how quick, sharp, and ready to learn they are. Even if they have a language handicap, once they have the ability to grow most of them will take it.
Organizational Behavior: I think one of the biggest things that I learned was how people interacted in the workplace. Work culture. Although I only worked in one office space and with one team, I was able to gauge the norms of the culture there. There was a drastic difference between the workplace and the classrooms at UW. While I have had internships and worked with different organizations/program, this was a whole new level of professionalism that I was never exposed to before. Especially with the City, you had to be careful of your actions and words because they carry a lot of weight not only outfacing, but also in facing. So, I learn to adapt. I also learned to be aware and on the lookout for certain cultures in the future.
Self-understanding: This is the biggest competency that I gained during my time in this internship. I learned a lot about what I like, dislike, and require to be happy and productive in a work environment. Aspects of me like how I am motivated by the value of my work and the relationships I have with my colleagues. It makes me proud to look back and realize how much I had grown and makes me more determined to continue to grow when I look back on my pitfalls. This experience also gave me an understanding on how inequity influences the lives of me and my family, especially financially, politically, and professionally.
Empathy: Working with predominantly immigrant American populations, you get a feel of what they go through. During this time, President Trump was elected and sent a shock wave through our immigrant communities. I remember one instance where one of our Sikh liaisons came to us to ask if his community should carry around their green cards. They were worried about getting pulled over or harassed. They were stuck on if they should carry around a copy of their paperwork or the original. The worry was that a copy wouldn’t be enough, but they also did not want to run the risk of losing their card. Other groups also showed signs of distress. As someone from an immigrant family myself, I can and did empathize.
Verbal Communication: During my time in the program, I would interact with Vietnamese immigrants during our Community Conversations. Here, I would talk to and guide Vietnamese guests through the resource fair portion of the event. I would translate the details of each resource as we went around the tables, helping the guests determine if they could make use of the City’s programs. These events were meaningful opportunities because they allowed me to exercise my Vietnamese outside of my family and allow me to get to know the broader Vietnamese community in Seattle.
Inclusion: The whole point to the Community Liaisons is to give historically under-served communities a voice. To include them in the planning and policy process. While the CL program isn’t perfect, it’s a step in the right direction that all cities should take. Through my experience here I talked to hundreds of people from all over Seattle and learned about their limitations especially with policy and knowing how to get the help that they need. Not only was this extremely unfair and even detrimental to the communities that were excluded, but it was also a loss for the City, who was deprived from their insight and input. This has cemented my belief in incorporating inclusion into group/community processes. Not only should everyone have a voice, but it’s also better for everyone overall if we accept multiple perspectives.
Decision making: Even though I was an intern in the program I still had many decisions that I made, regarding to all aspects of the internship. During the eight months that I was working, I was still in school for six of them. This meant that I had to make decisions about how to block out my time and what I would prioritize. I also learned to make decisions on the fly. For example during one Community Conversation, one of our liaisons stepped out without telling us. We then had to make snap decisions on who we needed to go out to find him, if we should continue with the scheduled presentation, and how to keep the guests
engaged during the lapse.
Diversity: Throughout this experience I worked with communities that I didn't even know had such a large presence in Seattle. I learned so much about almost 50 different resident ethnic groups, made connections with the liaisons, and really learned how the City operates. I staffed events, worked on projects, wrote reports, and saw how our translations and interpretations affected operations and decisions. The program gives the people a voice. It's no where near perfect, but it's a beautiful start and it's growing all the time.
Writing: During the internship, I had to write a report on survey results from four different neighborhoods. I read near a hundred surveys that were taken from business owners and managers from these neighborhoods, and condensed them down into a twenty page report. I detailed statistics, quoted anecdotes, and summarized the findings. The report was then sent to Seattle’s Office of Economic Development to represent the safety and economic status of many immigrant American business owners in the greater Seattle Area. This was a challenge due to the volume of stories that I read through. I had to figure out what I could cut out, where the redundancy was, and which stories best illustrated the picture that all the surveys painted.