COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

After attending a few Neighborhood Association meetings I befriended a young
Asian woman who was conducting a Women’s Needs Assessment study in Oak Park. A
board member of the Neighborhood Association introduced me to the woman because I
told him I was a graduate student observing community work for my thesis and he
thought I should meet Linda because she was also working in the neighborhood to collect
data for a Needs Assessment study. After chatting with her a couple of times, she
insisted I participate in her project and invited me to attend the women’s group she held
at her home in Oak Park. The Women’s Group was composed of a dozen women who
met regularly to discuss issues affecting women and children in the community.
Although Linda at many times asked me about my thesis project, I learned to distance
myself and inquire about the Women’s Group and its purpose. At the Women’s Group
meetings I learned of their plans to improve the quality of life for women and children.
The social welfare of women and children, they believed, were key to sustaining low-
income communities. Simultaneously, I began to volunteer once a week with a local
labor association in Oak Park and began organizing low-income service workers in the
neighborhood. The labor association’s views about poverty and their plans about how to
improve the quality of life for the poor followed a Marxist ideology of “radical” activism.
And while working at non-profit organizations, I learned how non-profit organizations
provide relief to the poor and produce programs to help a continuing clientele of poor,
who are often dependent on the programs they administer.
The analysis that follows is based on the observations and conversations collected during
my nine month stay in Oak Park.
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