No Place Like Home

 

Anthony Mitchell, Sr.

Justin Mitchell

Dalyce Curry

Victor Shaw

Erliene Louise Kelley

Evelyn McClendon

Rodney Kent Nickerson

Carolyn Burns

 

You can spend a lifetime treasuring a vase, a painting, a piano, a secretary desk, a pocket watch, or a dining room hutch, or the home filled with crocheted blankets, lace dollies, and family photos where these things reside. Year after year, we gather for the weekend, the holidays, or just a welfare check to make sure our loved ones are getting along with life. We thank God for the strength and resilience of our family members who scraped and toiled day after day at jobs they either loved or hated. Days they wanted to take off due to illness or a vacation, they sacrificed to go to work anyway because they each had a goal in mind to purchase a home, pay off that home, and house their loved ones. They retired hoping to keep the home in the family. Not only do people reside in this home, but so too does generational wealth. Family, friends, and neighbors can drive by and point to Paw-paw’s house, or say, “there go Ms. Loula Mae” as she steeps herself in garden dirt, or “Melvin lives there,” indicating the charming Tudor home they pass by on their way to a familiar park or grocery store that has stood in the neighborhood for decades. Like the TV show Cheers’ anthem sings, “you wanna be where everybody knows your name” and indeed Altadena, California was that place.

I often think about the things within our homes that we take for granted until a guest asks about these items or they become lost due to tragedy. Suddenly, we remember the stories, the memories, and the people tied to each of these things.

Black folks couldn’t live in Pasadena before the 60’s. Many of them worked in Pasadena as domestic servants, so they were able to find homes nearby in Altadena. According to Blackpast.org, “an influx of African Americans accompanied by significant white flight, Altadena adapted to the changing demographics while maintaining its unique character. As late as 1970, the town was 68% percent white. By 1980, the percentage of Blacks in the population peaked at 43%. Since then, it declined to 31%, and by 2020, it was 18%. The white population in 2020 was 46%, and Asian Americans and Latinos, almost all of whom have arrived since the 1990s, comprised most of the remainder of the community” –creating a diverse neighborhood.

The lives I listed at the beginning are the lives that have been lost due to the fires. These were people who sacrificed in so many ways until their last breaths. A father, Anthony Mitchell, Sr. sacrificed his life, knowing death would claim him, just to stay by his disabled son—to comfort him until they both succumbed to the flames. Victor Shaw, another Altadena resident, sacrificed his escape in an attempt to save his home—discovered by family with his nearly disintegrated body and hand clutching a garden hose.  The same home they raised their families. The same home that produced memories. The same home that was meant to be passed down. Because they are from marginalized groups, people of color, the elderly, and the disabled; their stories can perish as quickly as the fires stole their lives, their homes, and their tangible memories.

They defied the rhetoric of the American Dream to actually make a portion that Dream a reality with the purchase of their Altadena homes. Imagine the struggle, the heartache, the tears, and the uphill battles they fought for home ownership and to maintain those homes, and make that community a place of comfort when the places beyond those nine square miles wasn’t and isn’t always fair nor kind to them based on their race, their culture, their physical and/or mental disadvantages, and/or their lack of economic status.

I’m hoping privileges of righteousness, fairness, and kindness by corporations and institutions do not pass them by and they have the opportunities to restore the smallest portion of what has been lost, a place to call home.

Although homes and lives are lost, the reality of community couldn’t be more on display than the people of Altadena banning together to demonstrate love, unity, resilience, commitment, and determination. The tragedy has shown us all that community and family extends beyond a few street blocks and bloodlines. Many from around the world have donated money, clothing, or provided shelter, information and resources via social media, and written articles and television news stories to document not just the hardships and deaths, but also that people can defy sociopolitical, economic, and cultural affiliations for the common good of humanity.

It’s unfortunate that when tragic events occur it brings unity. If only we could practice unity and understanding without outside pressures of destruction and mayhem.

--CS