The Hammer and Nails: Re-Constructing LA Schools After the Uprising

• In Event: Resisting Educational Abandonment in Los Angeles: Recovering a Critical History of Activism in Williams

Abstract

Objectives
As the dust settled following a week-long uprising ignited by unchecked violence against Black residents in the spring of 1992, LA’s prominent street gangs jointly released their own proposal to rebuild the smoldering city. Among their wide-ranging demands, the Bloods and Crips stipulated $300 million—the lion’s share of their proposal—for reconstruction of LA’s school buildings and other educational initiatives. The 10-page document signed off with a final, imposing line to city leaders: GIVE US THE HAMMER AND THE NAILS, AND WE WILL REBUILD THE CITY.

Needless to say, the city went in a different direction. Instead of seeking genuine repair, LA became a bastion of exclusionary development that eroded public space. Moreover, during this period (1992 – 2000), California saw a flurry of racist state propositions that cannibalized public education and criminalized youth and immigrants. Since the uprising, communities of color continued to demand the “hammer and nails” to construct dignified, life-affirming, and supportive school spaces. In this paper, I capture how state abandonment shaped the built environment of LA’s schools during this period.

Framework
My work situates schools spatially and politically. I draw specifically on abolitionist geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore and her notion of organized state abandonment. She highlights that despite California’s robust economy during this period, the Golden State faltered in its social investment in people, infrastructure, and innovation (Gilmore 2007). As a result of state abandonment, manufactured crises abounded and schools specifically were beset by overcrowding and dilapidated conditions which also set the stage for popular resistance.

Approach
The trans-disciplinary project is presented as a tour of manufactured crises and associated sites by incorporating the voices Black and Latine teachers, students, artists, residents, and activists through a variety of personal, historical, and creative records.

Results
In the 1990s, LA’s schools began to overflow amidst a population boom following successive waves of migration from Central America. With funding for new construction a distant possibility, poor schooling conditions pervaded across time and space. Multitrack schedules were instituted that led to hectic school calendars. Also during this time, classroom trailers/portables became ubiquitous. Numbers of portables soared, with statewide estimates relegating over one third of all of California’s students to these inferior and potentially toxic learning environments. Students and teachers during this time went about their days in so-called “temporary” portables that could be in use for generations.

There were other more menacing attempts to address ballooning student populations. In 1994, the electorate passed Proposition 187, a legal provision written to deny undocumented people access to public services, including public education. Under the “Save our State” banner, proponents of the proposition placed blame for deteriorating schooling conditions squarely on the shoulders of recent immigrants instead of the state’s faltering social support. These various indignities would ultimately usher in a political turning point, giving rise to a nascent educational justice movement.

Significance
The paper relates this particular history to persistent challenges in how we conceive of school spaces, the level of investment they receive, and who has access to them.

Author

• Esa Syeed, California State University - Long Beach