Specter of racism haunts SCIG railyard project

Community Announcements: Harbor Area

Long Beach Extends Emergency Rental Assistance Deadline

Long Beach, for the second time, has extended by 30 days the deadline for residential landlords and tenants to apply for the Long Beach Emergency Rental Assistance Program or LB-ERAP. The new deadline for the program is now July 11, 2021.

All LB-ERAP applications can be submitted via the program’s online information and service portal at longbeach.gov/erap.

A second extension of the LB-ERAP application deadline is being provided as additional federal funding, which the city was expecting through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, recently became available. Additional funding of $21.4 million has increased the total program budget to $51.4 million, allowing the city to extend the application period to assist additional applicants. Details: 833-358-5372; longbeach.gov/erap.

Emergency Tenant Protections Set to Expire June 30

On June 30, 2021, emergency tenant protections are set to expire. That means, unless the protections are extended, renters will have to go back to paying full rent on time each month to avoid eviction.

Lawmakers are considering an extension and may extend tenant protections past June 30, but it’s important for Los Angeles renters and landlords to know their rights and be prepared. Details: www.dcba.lacounty.gov/newsroom/ emergency-tenant-protections

Long Beach Extends Emergency Rental Assistance Program

The City of Long Beach is again giving residential landlords and tenants more time to apply for its Emergency Rental Assistance program, this time by 30 days. Details: www.longbeach.gov/press-releases/ emergency-rental-assistance

Lunch at the Library Returns to Select LA County Libraries

Los Angeles County Library’s annual Lunch at the Library program is back, providing free graband-go meals to children during the summer. This year, two healthy meals — reheatable lunch and breakfast — will be available daily for no-contact pickup on a first come, first served basis from June 14 to Aug. 6 (except July 5). Details: https://lacountylibrary.org/SummerLunch

Drive Thru Food Distribution at St. Barnabas Parish

The Long Beach Bacolod Association and Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Community Advisory Council invite you to a drive-thru food distribution, June 26. Food is donated to the LASD Community Advisory Council by food banks Heart of Compassion and City of Refuge. During the food drive at St. Barnabas Parish, cars will be directed to a designated parking area and volunteers will bring one or two boxes of food to the car. Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. June 26. Details: 213-440-2707 Venue: St. Barnabas Catholic Church, 3996 Orange Ave., Long Beach

Every 10 Years, California Draws the Lines

California must redraw the boundaries of its congressional, state Senate, state Assembly, and State Board of Equalization districts to reflect the new population data from the U.S. Census. The Voters FIRST Act gives this power to California citizens, ensuring that new and fair districts are drawn free of special interests, politics, or political influence.

In the spring and summer of 2021, the California Redistricting Commission will host meetings where you can provide input by phone during the meeting or electronically prior to the meeting. Details: www.wedrawthelinesca.org/meetings

Summer Public Hearings

During Summer 2021, the Citizens Redistricting Commission or CRC will conduct 10 public hearings, ensuring residents’ ability to participate from all five Supervisorial Districts. At these hear[See Announcements, p. 6] Committed to Independent Journalism in the Greater LA/LB Harbor Area for More Than 40 Years

Specter of Racism Haunts SCIG Railyard Project

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

The specter of environmental racism permeated the Port of Los Angeles’ June 15 public hearing on the Southern California International Gateway, also known as the SCIG project, just two days before Juneteenth was signed into law as a federal holiday.

The disconnect between the port’s plan (only partially discussed in its revised draft environmental impact report) and the new national holiday was staggering. A chorus of community members explicitly condemned the environmental racism involved, while representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD, echoed their criticisms in more muted tones, focused specifically on formal failings in the EIR.

“This project is racist,” said Paola Dela Cruz-Pérez, youth organizer with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “This project and your deliberate choices to continue bringing it back are oppressive and I’m here to tell you: Not today, oppressors. Not today.”

“We oppose this project for many reasons that have been described by many members of the community today,” said NRDC attorney Julia Jonas-Day. “First and foremost because it will disproportionately impact low income and communities of color already overburdened by pollution, as the revised draft EIR itself makes clear.”

That disproportionate impact was “the one thing you all have been truthful about,” said mark! Lopez, former head of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “That is literally the definition of environmental racism.

“Mayor Garcetti, this is your environmentally racist project. Gene Seroka, this is your environmentally racist project. Chris Cannon, this is your environmentally racist legacy.”

“SCIG is located in an environmental justice area heavily impacted by neighboring refineries, diesel truck traffic on the Terminal Island Freeway and the intermodal railyard north of SCIG,” said AQMD assistant deputy executive officer Ian MacMillan. “BNSF’s SCIG project will further exacerbate this burden.”

In MacMillan’s prepared remarks, he said, “SCIG project will generate significant localized air quality impacts and exceed the applicable significance thresholds for NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 by 325%, 518% and 47%, respectively.”

Local residents have been opposing the SCIG project in public meetings since it was initially proposed in the early 2000s, voicing similar concerns that have been sharply underscored by recent events.

“The past year-plus of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter uprisings has been the most traumatizing and awakening period of recent American history,” Long Beach resident Elsa Tung said. “This SCIG project, as many, many others have mentioned, will disproportionately harm Black, indigenous communities of color that are already overburdened by pollution, disease and lower life expectancy.”

“We stand with the community, and echo the concerns that SCIG will increase pollution, worsen public health, and exacerbate inequities in already overburdened communities of color,” said NRDC attorney Heather Kryczka. “We urge the port to reject this project.”

“Allowing SCIG to pass is like telling people, ‘If you can’t afford to live in an expensive neighborhood, you deserve to die of cancer, yeah. Terminal asthma? Sure! Cardiovascular disease? Why not!’” exclaimed East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice organizer Tiff Sanchez. “It’s racist. It’s environmental racism.” “If you support this project, you are supporting the death of our neighbors,” Jessica

EYCEJ demonstrators protesting the Southern California Intermodal Gateway project in 2015. File photo

[See Racism, p. 10]

POLA Sets Western Hemisphere Record, Seroka Honored

SAN PEDRO — The Port of Los Angeles set a Western Hemisphere record on June 15, processing more than 10 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, in the 12-month period that will end June 30 and the first time a Western Hemisphere port has handled more than 1 million TEUs in a month. It was the second Western Hemisphere record broken by POLA in as many months. In May, it processed 1,012,248 TEUs, a leap of 74% above its total in May 2020 and the busiest month in the port’s 114-year history. It marked the 10th consecutive month of year-over-year increases.

In May 2021 loaded imports reached 535,714 TEUs compared to the previous year, an increase of 75%. It was the most imports ever in one month at the port, eclipsing the previous record of 516,286 set in August of 2020.

Loaded exports increased 5.3% to 109,886 TEUs compared to the same period last year. Empty containers climbed to 366,448 TEUs, a jump of 114% compared to last year due to the heavy demand in Asia. It was the most empties ever processed in a month at the port.

Five months into the year, overall cargo volume is 4,551,445 TEUs, an increase of 48.2% compared to 2020.

On June 16, Gene Seroka, POLA’s executive director, received a lifetime achievement award for excellence in supply chain and logistics management from the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. Details: www.portoflosangeles.org/news/10million-teus

Councilmembers Call For the City of LA to Withdraw From LAHSA

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles City Councilmen Joe Buscaino and Paul Koretz June 18, introduced a motion for the City of Los Angeles to withdraw from the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority joint powers authority.

The motion also calls for recommendations on incorporating outreach, housing and all other homelessness service delivery programs within a city department, or a new stand-alone city agency.

Operating with an annual budget of nearly $1 billion provided by federal, state, county, and Real People, Real News, Totally Relevant city funds, one of LAHSA’s core functions is street outreach to the homeless population, ensuring they receive resources, shelter and eventually permanent housing. The city pays LAHSA nearly $300 million a year to perform this function on its behalf. The motion will be heard in the city’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee at a forthcoming meeting. Carson Harnesses $65 Billion Housing Program for Affordable Luxury Housing CARSON — The California Statewide Community Development Authority or

CSCDA has issued more than $65 billion in bonds for more than 1,700 public benefit financings, including creating or preserving workforce housing for middle-income families. Carson is taking advantage of this program to attract employers who provide medium and high-wage jobs and to help

Carson’s middle-income professionals find affordable luxury housing in the city. June 24 - July 7, 2021 In the Southern California rental market, even middle-income residents have difficulty affording rent and other necessities such as food, clothing and medical care, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. During the COVID-19 pandemic, rents often consumed up to 50% of a family’s income. special occasions there. Portillo noted that they chose the name “Sepulveda Home,” because it was on Sepulveda Street. The home was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2016.

For about an hour and 10 minutes, Mr. Portillo and I talked about the pandemic and the good that came from it; and war and the good and the bad that comes from that. We talked about civil rights and the fact that we’re back where we began. But our conversations started with the Californios.

In Portillo’s view, war and the COVID-19 pandemic are just a couple of more processes by which humanity evolves.

Every two months, the grandfather of six publishes a newsletter called Goosetown News. He read from a piece he wrote in the latest publication about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: As we emerge from this pandemic that literally shut down the world, we must pause and give thanks to our creator, to the universe and to the scientists who are figuring out how to slow the destruction of humanity. And we must give thanks to ourselves for having faith, patience and the spirit to weather the storm. Humanity will be experiencing a new renaissance, a rebirth, rejuvenation and evolve into better human beings....

Portillo went on to note that while the pandemic has hurt the country economically and put a lot of people out of work, it has also really helped “homo sapiens” in this country to stop stealing.

“We were bullying ourselves ... we were bullying other people ... we were bullying the underserved classes,” Portillo said. “It is time that we all own up to it. How can we make this a better world? How can we share the planet? We can’t hide anymore. We need to embrace Americanism. Because it’s all we have going.”

Portillo has three children, all of whom are grown and are parents to their own children. His oldest grandchild has just graduated from high school.

Portillo noted that his grandchildren are just learning how to survive the anxieties of growing up and deal with their hormones during the pandemic. It’s been a major challenge for every child, he said.

“We had to teach our kids this last year how to accept solitude ... how to accept boredom ... how to entertain yourself one day at a time without going nuts,” he said. “So, the pandemic has done more than parents can teach their kids.” He offers the kind of guidance, support and advice to his children that comes with age and maturity.

“We mellow out as we get older and we share that with our kids,” Portillo said. “Take it easy. Don’t sweat the small stuff; don’t let the large stuff bring you down.”

Portillo said the history as it pertains to California and the American Civil War was part of that evolution.

“These guys that had land and knew they were going to lose it, embraced Americanism,” he said, bluntly. “They had no choice. You can be on the winning side or be on the losing side; you’re not going to know which side you’re on; you’re going to lose some and hopefully keep some and that’s what happened here. That’s evolution. So do I look back at it and feel negative about it? It’s reality.

“You have to remember, and this probably applies to a lot of Latino-Hispanic families during that era [...],” Portillo said. “A lot of these guys probably never heard about the American Civil War.”

Look at some of the photographs from that time, Portillo pointed out.

“These guys were farmers,” Portillo said. “These guys were cowboys, just out there trying to earn a day’s wage. Remember, the Civil War happened 15 years after the Mexican-American War, the war in which [Mexican President] Santa Ana gave away the whole store to save his ass. including Arizona, New Mexico, California and probably a few others on that list. Once the U.S. took over this territory, a lot of the Californios saw what was coming.”

He pointed to the big families — like those of Californio Gov. Pio Pico (who resided in early Los Angeles) and Californio Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in Northern California, which consisted of the Bay Area.

“A lot of the big-name families thought they were going to lose everything to the U.S.,” he said. “So, they did what they thought was in their business interest during the Civil War.”

Portillo noted the Californio soldiers participated in the war on the side of the North and the South.

“They formed their own regiments of troops,” Portillo noted. “Some of these guys came up as lancers because they were cowboys and they basically only had lances. That’s how they came ready for battle. They marched down here, in Wilmington, to the drum barracks, to go East to join the Civil War. The only skirmishes they encountered were Indians in Arizona. But they were ready. They were in uniform and they were sworn in to protect the Union.

“Those in the South fought to save the Confederacy. So you had bands of troops with different titles. Their effort netted the average soldier a couple of meals a day and a fresh horse. For the really wealthy ones, the Californios, they knew they were going to lose everything they had, unless they partook of the war effort. But they lost everything anyway.

“Look at the history here. This was all Rancho San Pedro. The Anglos who came in, married into the families. They did the right things and said ‘Hey, I got a beautiful rich daughter here. But being an American, I already have points here, right? I’m gonna marry her’ and that’s how the Dodsons got in and a lot of other families.”

Portillo is a historian and a keeper of this region’s stories. Ask him if he was always this way, a lover of history, he’ll tell you, “Not more than the average.”

Upon further reflection, he said, “You get curious about how your people got here, like, why are we still at the bottom rung?’

“With all of those challenges as you become an adult, you start asking, ‘What can I do as an individual to bring this up a notch or two?’” Portillo said. “What I did ... I went to school. I went into the military like my father.”

A day before we hooked up for this interview, Cub Scouts and the Brownies placed 500 flags at the Civil War era cemetery. Portillo was among the war veterans to speak at the Memorial Day ceremony.

He talked about the Vietnam War and war itself.

“As much as I’d like to pray that there’s a future without war...” Portillo said. “Since the beginning of humanity, we’ve been warring to sustain liberty and democracy and all things that people cherish. It’s taken wars to iron all of that out.”

Looking back in retrospect, he said that even though a lot of what has happened is not so pretty, all of it needed to happen to achieve a new evolution.

Carlos Portillo curated the Hispanics in the Civil War exhibit at Banning Museum in 2005. Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala

What does it mean to be a patriot?

In very basic terms, Portillo explained patriots follow the direction of their government, without regard to personal feelings, whether it’s right or wrong. He said he didn’t care one ounce for the previous president, and has no problem expressing it. But when he went to the VFW, he always checked his opinions at the door.

“A lot of the wars we’ve been in, the war I was in was a very wrong war, but I was there. I didn’t question.... Like, ‘Why were we in Southeast Asia?’” he said. “Were we fighting for the rubber plantations? Were we fighting for their rice plantations? What were we fighting for? You know, my personal values, [I believed] it was the wrong war [to fight].”

Portillo said there are so many components to what makes an American.

“We are the home of the brave,” he said. “That’s for sure. If you are a true American, then there’s going to be courage in your blood. If it’s

not there, then you need to build it up, because being an American, you’re not a coward. You have to fill that shoe, being an American. You don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not. But being an American requires you to live with courage. When you see that red white and blue flag, you’re proud of it.”

Portillo said he tells his kids that the red stripes represent the blood that was shed. He recalled how as a teenager, when he was dating his girlfriend who later became his wife, he took a trip to Catalina Island. At 19, he was a veteran even then.

“I was already back from the military. I was wearing a red, white, blue jersey — problem colors. I guess the culture on the island was different from out here,” Portillo said. “Latinos were really suppressed back on that island. And these white kids, they saw me and they were on a trolley going in a different direction than us, so they could say what they wanted and I would never catch them. They made fun of me because of the jersey I was wearing. It wasn’t about my brown skin, but because of what I was wearing. Not my brown face, but the red, white and blue. So, being an American, means fighting for that flag, and being proud to fly it. And defend it.”

“If I go to Mexico, I’m told, ‘You’re not American.’” Portillo said. “‘Yes I am.’ ‘Well, am I Mexican?’ ‘You’re not a Mexican either.’ So I’m caught in between there. So you have to stand and deliver what you believe in. I’m an American and I’ll fight until the end to defend it. That is a part of being an American.” Stand and Deliver

Portillo recounted that one of his first jobs was at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which he acquired after joining an apprenticeship there.

“They would hire like 125 apprentices every two or three years and put them through good training,” he said. “The 125 positions were spread across several different shops including welding, rigging, pipefitting, electrical and refrigeration and air conditioning among others. Refrigeration and air conditioning was the smallest. There was only one apprenticeship opening for refrigeration and air conditioning. They had plenty of spots in the other trades.

“To get into this federal apprenticeship you have to take a civil service test and if you were a veteran, you get 5 points. If you were disabled veteran, which I am, you get 10 points,” Portillo said. “I was working down there as a pipefitter’s helper. That’s how I learned about the program. So I studied for the test. I was planning on becoming a pipefitter apprentice. If I get into that ... it’s a great job.”

Portillo got picked up as one of the 125. After the administrator and instructors of each apprenticeship from each trade explained the selection process they were sent out on a short coffee break.

“‘When you come back, we’ll have your name on the board based on your score,’” he recalled.

Life After Mother Getting a Conservatorship Shouldn’t Be Like This

By Lyn Jensen, Columnist

After my mother had a stroke and was diagnosed with dementia in 2017, I knew all the efforts of encouraging her to plan her estate were unsuccessful. Her dementia no longer allowed her to understand the situation and she was as unreasonable as ever.

When persuasion fails and family finances are at risk, a conservatorship may be the answer, but getting one took me two years, encountering obstacles whether I approached the situation as a legal or medical matter.

Lawndale, where my father once resided, had a senior advocate who was helpful with him, so I contacted that service for advice. The woman directed me to a legal-aid clinic that offered sporadic appointments at various Harbor Area senior centers. I went to one in Wilmington, where the legal “advice” consisted of a sales pitch for the clinic. Except the clinic practiced only in Los Angeles County — I needed someone who practiced in Orange County — they couldn’t help me there.

Neither Anaheim nor Orange County had a senior advocate similar to Lawndale, while Carson, where I resided, was useless, too. I paid for a referral from the Orange County bar and may have got the slimiest member they had. The guy jerked me around for a year, scoffing at the medical documents I produced and advising, “Talk to your mother some more,” before he all but ran me out of his office. He treated me like a greedy gold-digger, not someone who needed legal action.

My mother’s health insurance was part of her pension. She had to use the bureaucratic health maintenance organization, or HMO, that came with it. I couldn’t just call my mother’s HMO and talk. The patient had to have an appointment — weeks or months away. Then I’d have to go, too and hope any questions I asked about the patient’s inability to handle her own affairs weren’t met with hysteria (from the patient) and/or stonewalling about “patient confidentiality” (from the HMO). They often were.

According to the HMO, they couldn’t discuss my mother’s condition with me because my name wasn’t on her chart as someone to discuss her condition with. When I protested I was my mother’s next-of-kin, a staffer mansplained, “California has no next-of-kin law, do you understand?”

I told her, law or no law, I was my mother’s next of kin — and still got nowhere.

Trying to talk to my mother got either, “None of your business!” or else screaming that my name was there, although according to the HMO, it wasn’t.

After a wasted year someone coughed up a phone number for a senior case manager at the HMO. He said he’d flag my mother’s file for a “cap dec” (capacity declaration). She didn’t see her regular doctor again, though, until after she was placed in a nursing home in July 2019, two years after her dementia diagnosis. The doctor passed the buck, saying a neurologist would have to fill out the cap dec. First available neurology appointment? That’d be in November.

I was reluctant to go to random lawyers after the prior experiences, but I got an old-fashioned Orange County phone book and called lawyers, left messages. One message found a family-law lawyer who took the case. She pried a cap dec out of the HMO and a conservatorship out of the Orange County court system — a whole four days before my mother died.

After the coffee break, many of the new apprentices gathered around the refrigeration and air conditioning trade even though there was only one position.

“I kind of stood back, thinking, ‘I don’t have a chance,’” Portilo said. “He calls us up one at a time. He looks at my record and notices that I worked as a pipefitter, then says, ‘You want to be a pipefitter, don’t you?’”

“I said, ‘Well, sir, I did ... but since I’m No. 1 now, I’d like to take that experience and get into the refrigeration air conditioning trade.’ There was an instructor and one other guy. He brought the administrator of the apprenticeship program to discuss this guy, who wants to get into it. Let me tell you, I was the first non-Caucasian to get into that training. But I had to stand and deliver. I had to convince them why. Well, you have experience as a pipefitter. But now that I’m No. 1, that’s what I want and I got in.

“Let me tell you, I had to fight my way through because I broke that ceiling. And there were some really racist guys in that shop,” he recalled. “They made it miserable for me and I could have easily caved in and lost my cool and said, ‘Screw this; it’s not worth it.’ But I fought and I stayed in there. Finally, they approached me one day and I asked, ‘Did you serve in the military?’

“‘No, I didn’t and I don’t have to,’ they said. “‘Well, I did. So I can say I’m more American than you because I risked my life for this country. What have you done?’” Portillo recounted. “It hasn’t been an easy journey for me but that’s what being an American means. Especially when you’re the minority ... you’re underrepresented ... underserved. You have to be tough.”

Portillo says his upright style has often been interpreted as him having a chip on his shoulder.

“Sometimes you have to have that chip on your shoulder to show that you won’t be steamrolled,” Portillo retorted.