Colleen Mullen remembers visiting a sweatshop is Los Angeles, where she said she saw many workers cramped in a small gated room with mountains of discarded fabrics and covered windows.
“It’s absolutely incredible that people are working for hardly any money ““ they work 12 hours a day and can’t even have a decent life,” she said. “It’s shocking.”
Having seen such cases in the city, Mullen and other members of the Student Activist Project are hosting a week-long event titled Social Justice in Los Angeles to promote student activism and inform others about issues the city faces, such as homelessness, labor, education and the environment.
“We live in Westwood; it’s a really nice area, we don’t see a lot of issues at large that Los Angeles deals with,” said Stephanie Castro, a member of the Student Activist Project. “We thought it would be good to educate students about it and encourage them to get involved in the community they live in ““ to really immerse themselves in Los Angeles.”
Today, as part of the week of events, previously homeless people plan to speak about poverty and share their personal experiences with it.
Christina Reggio, a member of the Student Activist Project, said the event is meant to break misconceptions about homeless people.
“You see a homeless person, you try to walk the other way ““ a lot of students think they’re lazy, that they don’t work hard, that they want to be homeless, but that is not the reality for them,” she said. “A lot of them are incredibly hardworking and are trying to break out of the cycle of poverty.”
On Tuesday, the focus of the events is set to shift to labor issues in Los Angeles.
Speakers from the UCLA labor center plan to talk about sweatshops in downtown Los Angeles.
“When you think of the word “˜sweatshop,’ you think third world country, but this is not the case,” Mullen said. “It shows exactly what’s wrong with our government.”
She said the sweatshop issue also embodies problems with immigration. Because workers at these sweatshops may be undocumented, they are less likely to report any injustices they face because of the fear of deportation.
Mullen said another issue involving sweatshops is that there is not enough enforcement of labor laws. Out of the 5,000 garment factories in California, one in four has a chance of being inspected, due to a lack of labor inspectors.
Tuesday’s events will also include a discussion on localized labor issues affecting UCLA employees, and a member from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 plans to speak about student workers’ attempts to organize on campus.
On Wednesday, the events will focus on problems with education in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Speakers plan to lecture about what they believe are the lack of resources in LAUSD.
Among the speakers will be a representative from the Student Initiated Access Center, who will talk about the different tutoring and mentoring programs that are being implemented in these schools to promote interest in higher education.
“(The schools) don’t have enough communication to the students about higher education, so they are not thinking about higher education,” Castro said. “We want to call attention to those problems.”
Artwork from students in the LAUSD will be featured in Bruin Plaza during the day because “it’s a sign of the talent of the student who can flourish if they have the opportunities to higher education,” Castro said.
The Social Justice in Los Angeles week will conclude on Thursday with discussions about environmental issues. During the day, there will be pictures of Los Angeles’ air pollution and posters of statistics about air pollution and its effects. In the evening, there will be an educational speaker panel that plans to further discuss problems with the environment.