Support our #Altadena businesses to recover from the #EatonFire. (Scroll down for GoFundMe links.) Please share. ❤️‍🩹

Support Black Families Displaced by the #EatonFire: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I talked to my children often about how having a home, regardless of its condition, was the biggest blessing of all because it would be an asset. Most importantly, it was our home to create beautiful memories with our family and friends.

We agreed to show the sellers our picture, even though we’d experienced discrimination a lot in the LA rental market. With my name, and my husband’s last name Perez, it got to the point that we would send my husband's uncle before revealing who we were as applicants.

In LA, I was discouraged & beaten down trying to buy a home. So when my husband – who grew up in South Central LA – and our realtor called to say they’d found the perfect, affordable house in Altadena, I was nonplussed. They knew I wanted to be in Altadena, but I was reaching the point of despair.

I grew up in the small, tobacco-farming town of Lake City, SC, where people knew each other's goodness, complexity, & history. My family’s roots in this country grew under enslavement.
Altadena, all the way across the country, in the sprawl & chaos of Los Angeles, offered me this rootedness again.

These words were so hard to write. Our #Altadena is a place where Black joy is lived. We will rebuild & return.

Full reflections on hurt & loss: bit.ly/shimicaspeaks
#LAFires #EatonFire #BeautifulAltadena #OurAltadena