California State University, Monterey Bay
IN-1: Innovation 1

The Chinatown Renewal Project is a comprehensive community-based revitalization effort in the historically rich, though currently economically blighted, Chinatown neighborhood of Salinas, California. Working with the Chinese Confucius Church, the Japanese Salinas Buddhist Temple, the Filipino-American Cultural Center, the Salinas Redevelopment Agency, and the agencies providing services for the homeless in the neighborhood, CSUMB has provided leadership, energy, vision and resources to support this dynamic collaborative process of community revitalization. Over the past 12 semesters, 762 CSUMB service learning students and over 20 CSUMB faculty and staff have made a significant contribution to the multi-dimensional project, including: creating a thriving community garden, a “Green Jobs Corps,” and a sustainable energy demonstration project; delivering courses and workshops in natural building and organic gardening; conducting oral history interviews and collecting historic artifacts and documents for a new Chinatown Cultural Center and Museum; creating job opportunities for the homeless through the support of a silk-screening co-operative, founding a fledgling composting enterprise, and opening a computer training lab.

This project addresses primarily the social aspects of sustainability, though it also encompasses the economic and environmental aspects. Since it covers all three legs of the triple-bottom line, it represents a very comprehensive solution of bringing topics of environmental and economic sustainability to a region of California that has serious social challenges which, if remain unaddressed, make purely environmental solutions moot.

Background

Salinas Chinatown was home to successive waves of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino agricultural workers who turned the swamps of the Salinas Valley into some of the most productive agricultural land in the world. However, since the 1970s, Chinatown has suffered from urban neglect and deterioration, as businesses closed and buildings were boarded up and abandoned. To the current residents of Salinas, Chinatown is off-limits, known more for its homeless shelters, soup kitchens and illicit drug traffic than for its rich history.

Since it opened as a university with a core commitment to service learning and civic engagement, CSU Monterey Bay students have provided support to the various agencies working with the homeless and other marginalized residents of Chinatown. However, in 2005, the Salinas Redevelopment Agency, the Salinas Buddhist Temple, the Confucius Church and the homeless service providers in the neighborhood invited CSUMB to spearhead a new initiative in the hopes of revitalizing this “Neighborhood Forgotten.” (Appropriately, this was the title of a 2005 documentary film produced by CSUMB students that helped spark the revitalization process.) Working in partnership with the Redevelopment Agency, CSUMB helped to create and staff the Salinas Downtown Community Board (SDCB), a coalition of local businesses, property owners, non-profits and governmental agencies committed to the revitalization of Chinatown (http://www.salinasdcb.org/) . The goal of the Chinatown Renewal Project is: “To create a safe, welcoming, revitalized and accessible neighborhood that embraces its cultural history, richness and diversity, offering housing, economic opportunities and community services to all.”

Unlike the majority of community-university partnerships, this effort is based in the community and run by the community. However, CSUMB is a key partner in the process. In 2006, CSUMB opened the Soledad Street Community Learning Center, which serves as the physical home for the project in Chinatown. CSUMB employs a Project Coordinator who provides administrative supportive for the project, and most importantly, serves as a bridge to make powerful connections between the project’s various initiatives and CSUMB faculty and student resources. Since Spring 2005, 762 CSUMB service learning students (an average of 64 students per semester) have participated in the project, providing over 27,000 hours of service to the project. In addition, the CSUMB Service Learning Institute has brought in $2 million in state and federal grants to support the planning and revitalization process.

While the focus of the project has been on neighborhood revitalization, sustainability has been a consistent theme. The following initiatives, all of which have involved CSUMB faculty and service learning students, represent this focus on sustainability:

•Community unity garden to grow organic food for the local community. Homeless community members constructed a 24,000 sq.ft community garden. The garden has over 50 raised beds which have been adopted by local residents, the homeless, and service organizations. CSUMB service learning students work regularly in the garden.

•“Natural building” Classes and Projects.” Through an Extended Education course offered to both community members and the homeless, CSUMB built a “straw bale” tool-shed in the garden, demonstrating a variety of “natural building techniques. Over the past five years, CSUMB has conducted numerous “cob construction” (clay, sand, earth and straw) workshops, teaching students and community members this ancient, affordable, and sustainable building technique.

•“Green Jobs Corps.” CSUMB has provided job training for 6 cohorts of marginalized community members; people who have been out of the work force, living on the streets for a number of years. Skills included organic gardening, sustainable building, computer literacy, and general employability skills.

•“Green Energy Demonstration Park.” CSUMB has introduced solar and wind energy concepts to this marginalized community. The installations include educational signage to help teach the marginalized residents of Chinatown about sustainable energy sources.

•Vermiculture micro-enterprise. CSUMB is producing “worm casting fertilizer” at the community. The fertilizer will be sold at local garden stores and farmers markets, providing an income source for the local community.

•Lead Remediation. CSUMB science students are experimenting with natural processes for lead remediation on abandoned plots that have high levels of contamination.

Design and Implementation

In 2006, CSUMB led the Salinas Downtown Community Board in a series of strategic planning meetings, to identify key issues and concerns of the neighborhood’s diverse stakeholders. Then, in Spring 2007, CSUMB and the Salinas Redevelopment Agency co-sponsored a week-long community planning event in which over 300 people representing the Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and homeless communities participated, and shared their visions for the future. The planning process resulted in the Chinatown Renewal Plan (2007), which provided a new unified vision for the neighborhood, and identified four priority issue areas: neighborhood reconnection; community health and social services; economic development and job training; and, cultural history preservation.

CSUMB’s involvement in the Chinatown Renewal Project has involved over 20 faculty and staff from: Museum Studies, Oral History, Business, Environmental Science, Kinesiology, Information Technology, Communications Design, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Global Studies, and Service Learning. It has involved 762 students working on diverse community-initiative projects, including: a community garden, a job-training program, a new community computer center, and the creation of a new Chinatown Museum and Cultural Center.

Service Learning Institute Director, Dr. Seth Pollack, has been intimately involved in the project since 2005. He has served on the SDCB since its inception, and has taught “SL200S: Hunger and Homelessness” every semester. Dr. Pollack has written three successful grants to Housing and Urban Development and two successful grants to California Department of Transportation, bringing in over $2 million to support the project’s efforts. The university opened an office in the heart of Chinatown, called the Soledad Street Community Learning Center, which has served as the hub of the project over the past five years. The Learning Center has a community computing center, which is also operated by the university, and supported by the university IT staff. CSUMB also provides the overall Chinatown Renewal Project Coordinator, who provides administrative support for the effort. The University also has leased the land that houses the Community Unity Garden, and has agreed to support and manage the construction of the old Republic Café as it is transformed into the Chinatown Museum and Cultural Center.

At the beginning of each academic year, new faculty members are brought to the Chinatown Renewal Project as part of CSUMB’s New Faculty Orientation. The goal is to introduce the faculty to the project, and help them see ways that they can align their teaching and research to further the project’s goals. The project has been recognized by CSUMB President Dianne Harrison as a model community-university partnership. In Fall 2010, CSUMB began a new Master’s of Social Work program. The staff of the Chinatown Renewal Project hosted the entire staff and faculty of the new MSW program to help them integrate their future social work placements with the project.

The collaboration between both campus and regional organizations created a synergy and a product that would have not been possible without such mutual involvement. The results align with the CSUMB’s Mission and Vision statements and incorporate all aspects of sustainability critical and consistent with the STARS (Sustainability Tracking And Rating System) accreditation, upon which the university is engaging, as well as with the President’s Climate Commitment in terms of reducing the impact on the region by growing local, organic foods, providing training and employment opportunities to many homeless who are often overlooked, and creating multiple opportunities to educate members of the community and the university on aspects of regional history, natural building, gardening, composting, green energy and green jobs.

Community and Stakeholder reception of project

Community Reconnection: in 2006, CSUMB faculty and Service Learning students turned 24,000 sq. ft. of abandoned land into the Chinatown Community Unity Garden. Today, the garden is a vital community hub, with over 40 beds “adopted” by local residents and neighborhood organizations. In 2008, CSUMB Business students helped organize the first ever “Asian Festival,” featuring cultural demonstrations and food from the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino communities in the neighborhood. Today, the Asian Festival is run entirely by the community.

Asian Cultural Encounter: In 2008, CSUMB Museum Studies and Oral History faculty and students began documenting the stories and collecting artifacts from the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino families who lived and worked in Chinatown. To date, over 60 interviews have been conducted and archived. In April 2010, the first of three community history exhibits (The Chinese in Salinas) was mounted at the National Steinbeck Center. In October 2010, a symposium on Asian Cultural Museums and Community Revitalization was held at CSUMB, with participation of over 200 local community members. The historic Republic Café, closed for decades, is being renovated to re-open as the Chinatown Cultural Center and Museum.

Job Training and Economic Development: Since 2007, over 120 homeless and otherwise marginalized community members have participated in job training programs at the CSUMB Soledad Street Community Learning Center. The Center also is home to a silk-screening co-operative which employs 12 formerly homeless community members. The Garden is creating a composting and vermiculture enterprise, which will employ an additional 12 individuals.

Some quotes

“CSUMB has been the engine making this whole effort possible. Alone, as community volunteers, we would not have been able to accomplish nearly as much.” –Larry Hirahara, former President of the Salinas Buddhist Temple; former Vice-Chair SDCB.

“The faculty and the students bring a dynamism that is really special. We get new energy and new ideas that is very valuable. It allows us to think outside the box, and try things that otherwise would have been impossible. Just look at the garden!” -Don Reynolds, Project Manager, Salinas Redevelopment Agency.

Here are some excerpts from student comments:
“Working with the Green Corps was an interesting and valuable experience. I learned a lot about helping those with barriers to employment find jobs.”

“I learned a lot. My experience helped shatter the wall between me and the homeless, and got rid of all fears about doing community service in “bad” areas. Making a “bad” area look beautiful was very rewarding in itself.”

“The most valuable thing that came out of my service learning experience was me maturing as a person. I learned a lot about myself. I now do not judge others before I get to know them. Now I feel the need to help others not because I have to but because I want to.”

“The experience helped me realize how many people are just thrown away from society. I learned how to network and got over my fear of talking to people about programs or problems that I might need help with.”

“The Community Unity Garden was a great site to work at. Even though it was a lot of physical work, I gained a lot of inside knowledge and learned something new every day from various people at the garden. Most importantly it taught me to be appreciative of everything I have, to be grateful, and to be aware of society’s negative perception about the homeless and to help change that.”

“It was great hands on business experience and experience in the t-shirt screen printing industry. My perspective of business and business ethics has changed for the better since through being at my site.”