the job ahead of me.

Two months into my work at a nonprofit, and I certainly don't feel like I'm participating. Problem is, I can't figure out quite how to participate in local activism. I feel like I'm living in an ex-pat community; hardly anyone I am friends with is actually from here. We all talk about how hard it is not to be from New Orleans and how that means the work we do is necessarily stunted, but yet here we all are. I know I think that my ability to contribute trumps the fact that I am an outsider.

And indeed, that was my goal when I applied for this nonprofit job. I am a community liaison and I am meant to set up events that reflect community needs. But what happens when the community does not need more meetings, but rather more action? And it's true! Everyone tells me, all the time, no more meetings. Action action action. Even planning--the kind where a big firm or university is hired to create a coherent vision for a neighborhood--is starting to seem stunted to these neighborhoods. Someone recently told me they are engaging in a new model: plan, action; plan, action. This model is more accountable and will increase the likelihood that things will get accomplished. I accepted my job because I wanted to be a marginal figure in the community, doing good work but essentially chauffering community needs around: where do you want to go? Ok, I'll help you get there, empowering you and giving you resources you need. The beauty of my position, I think, is that there is no chance that a) I could have any role in deciding what the community was going to do, and b) the resources that I provide are available elsewhere and therefore I have no real power. But if these resources are available elsewhere, why does my job exist? The 'elsewhere' is really a hundred different government and social service agencies, and I just collect them all in one place. Theoretically. It is a hard battle and we don't have enough people/time/expertise to really do our jobs correctly. And such is the problem with nonprofit culture in post-Katrina New Orleans.

The same openness that led to my position as case manager at a homeless shelter (a job for which I am not, technically speaking, qualified), led to my position now at this nonprofit. The openness provided by liberal applications of money to nonprofits--which, for all intents and purposes, run this city but have no decision-making powers--means that they hire lots of young college graduates to do their work. But half of our staff is not from New Orleans, and as our Executive Director tells us constantly (and to our betterment), it's obvious. The cultural differences are immense and I will never fully grasp them. And the openness that led to my position now also led to hundreds of Teach for America, rebuilding, and City Year jobs. All of these people will be gone in a year or two, including me. And why am I leaving? Because graduate school calls and New Orleans does not have what I need. It's a shame and I will return, one day, to this city. And I can be one of those transplants who in any other city would be called locals--"I wasn't born here but I've been living here for 25 years."

So what can I do to balance out this problem: my participation is problematic, I chose a job in which it would not be, and it turns out my participation is not particularly impactful. Maybe it will be; I see the potential, as my knowledge grows, to be a useful resource to the community. Where can I go from here? My lack of community organizing experience weighs upon me; where is my place. One part of me thinks that I can continue working at my job, and in my free time just spend it however I like, working on writing and art and all those things that make me feel like myself. On the other hand, it is hard for me not to feel selfish in that position. I want to find a social justice movement where I am cursory, just another set of hands. And perhaps I will one day be able to use my artisan crafts as a way to help; organizing crafters to participate, creating beautiful signs and banners for activists to use. Lofty goals. My real goal is just to participate, meaningfully; but I am nervous and worried about what that can mean, about the possibilities of not doing enough, and doing too much.