The sacred and the human on Skid Row, Los Angeles.

ORDINARY CITIZEN'S NOTES. 3 JAN 2014. SAT. N4.
The sacred and the human on Skid Row, Los Angeles.

MORE THAN THREE years of living in Los Angeles, yes, that is Southern California for you, gave me that rare opportunity to study up close what the United States could offer me. 

For many years before that, I entertained leaving the Philippines for good, as every disappointed person in the Philippines felt in those years of living dangerously during the atrocious Marcos Regime and right after. 

Only those who were in a better position to suck up all the goods of the earth were able to stand up each morning and still could convince themselves to stay. 

I took part in the latest of the masquerade--this charade of a People's Revolution we call EDSA People Power 2--and then my disappointments turned to despair. 

The people's revolution was a failure not because of the people. 

it was a failure because of the fact that those who benefitted from the sacrifices of the masses forgot to return the favor given them by the people: the favor (and the opportunity) to lead, and to lead the masses to redemption, not perdition. 

In 2003, right after turning in my grades for the second semester of the school year, I packed my bag, and hit the skies to Los Angeles. 

That was to be the beginning of my journey into the heart of America, that journey bringing me to Skid Row. 

No, I did not live on Skid Row. 

Skid Row was the place I would love to go to to make me remember for always that I am an immigrant seeking for a life better than what I have found in my own home country. 

On Skid Row are the stories of the exact opposite of justice and fairness and and success, and by being there, I would always remember where I came from.

On this strip of earth right in the middle of opulence, abundance, and wealth is wretchedness, misery, failure. 

You want to understand social inequity, go to Skid Row.

You want to understand social injustice, go to Skid Row. 

And there, in the Los Angeles leg of my American journey, Skid Row reminded me how to live.

Read this account by CNN, and please, please weep for these wretches far worse that our own wretchedness. 

HON/