posted on: Monday, April 12, 2010

Former Los Angeles ACORN President Martha Sanchez speaking just
before the Governor of California signed a bill increasing the minimum wage.

We have written four reports to date on the impacts of community organizing and policy advocacy. Each time we come to a new location, we hear so many powerful stories of community change. As we write, we are faced with the seemingly impossible task of condensing all the rich details into a report that is reasonable in length and thus stands a chance of being read. Needless to say, many compelling stories or parts of them end up on our electronic “cutting room floor.” We always reassure ourselves that we will find ways to resurrect these precious tidbits in other media, such as this blog.

One of the stories we didn’t get to describe in much detail in our Los Angeles report was the story of Martha Sanchez, an immigrant mother of three children, who began asking questions and digging for information when her daughters developed asthma. She, along with other parents and teachers, fought a chrome plating factory that they suspected was making people at the nearby school sick. The 28^th Street School is just south of downtown L.A and is one of the largest elementary schools in the country, with more than 1,300 mostly Latino students. Martha joined Los Angeles ACORN and became president of her neighborhood chapter. ACORN took on the long-term campaign to shut down the plant. According to former ACORN organizer Peter Kuhns, the factory emitted the same toxic chemical, hexavalent chromium, that devastated the rural California town of Hinkley, as described within the movie “Erin Brokovich.” Students experienced nose bleeds and headaches. Kuhns said that teachers in one particular section of the 28^th Street School had high cancer rates. Two classrooms closest to the plant have since been vacated.

Sanchez continued to lead the fight and became chair of ACORN’s board. As reported in the L.A. Times last December, ACORN and the teachers’ union sued the company, Palace Plating, which has been accused of illegal dumping of hazardous wastes such as cyanide and chromium. Until recently, the company has denied wrongdoing and was unwilling to shut down or move. Years of lawsuits, criminal charges, fines and community pressure are finally making a difference. The City of Los Angeles has been negotiating the plant’s relocation, which would pave the way for a planned massive redevelopment of 11.5 acres of land to create affordable housing and parkland.

At last victory is in sight. Yet, Los Angeles ACORN no longer exists as of March 2010. The local chapter did nothing wrong. It broke no laws. But it was made vulnerable by management challenges at its parent organization and was the victim of an unscrupulous attack orchestrated by right-wing operatives. Luckily, some of the former leaders and organizers of L.A. ACORN have joined with others to form a new organization, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). Sanchez is involved with ACCE, which will soon help to build an interest list for the first phase of the housing development.

I have hope that ACORN’s important work of fighting against injustice will continue in new forms and configurations. Foundations have a critical role to play in ensuring that the leadership and capacity built among ACORN chapters across the country is not squandered, but rather is harnessed in new and better ways. It’s going to take real investment, and soon, to ensure that capacity is not lost.

Let’s not forget what ACORN stood for and what it accomplished over the last forty years. This is just one ACORN story among thousands. It doesn’t deserve to end up on the cutting room floor. None of them do.

Do you have a story about ACORN’s positive impact you’d like to share? Please post it in our comments.

Lisa Ranghelli is the Senior Research Associate at NCRP and co-author of the series of reports Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities. In 2006, as a consultant, she wrote “The Monetary Impact of ACORN Campaigns: A Ten Year Retrospective, 1995-2004.”