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Daniel Diaz
Professor Malvin
English 115
2 November 2015
The Human Space
In Todays society, too many people living in poverty are unnecessarily focused on
tensions between the people in their own environment. Ethnic tensions, however, cant be solved
through systematic methods, and that is part of the reason they are still prevalent today. To truly
end the conflict of ethnic tensions in poverty filled environments, genuine human to human
relationships, and tools to combat poverty are needed. The Human space, a community aid
project, will be similar to a boys and girls club in the idea that employees will create
relationships with the people who attend (not just children). However, The Human Space does
not intend to mentor anyone, instead, the Human Space intends to help build relationships
between the people of the community. With the installation of The Human Space,
disenfranchised/marginalized communities may come together through the formation of genuine
human relationships, education on how to combat poverty, and bond-forming activities. In the
case of Los Angeles, the city that The Human Space will target is Compton. The City of
Compton has had tensions between its Latino and African-American communities for, at least,
the past 10 years, and problems with poverty for even longer. Not all members of poverty are
open to the idea of an escape from their environment and the ethnical tensions associated with it,
however. Due to this conflict, The Human Space will also be a social group promoting our ideas
on how to help communities, through advertisements and in person. When all ideas are put on

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paper, the main goal of The Human Space is to instill a love for all humans into the people of
Compton, and if the project is successful, to other communities all around the world.
To summarize the tensions between Latinos and African-Americans in L.A., hatred has
existed between the two races ever since the idea of slavery existed. Going back to the era of
slavery, colonial Mexico had a population of 370,000 Africans (and descendants of Africans)
the largest concentration in all of Spanish America.(Hernandez 7). This fact can help shed some
light on why, even today, there is still bad blood between the two races. However, this fact in
itself is not a good explanation of why there is still tension, and no sum of facts could be used to
justify the hatred. To clarify the magnitude of the hatred, an example of the outbursts of rage
seen in L.A. communities can be seen in the case of Cheryl Green. Green was a 14 year old
African American allegedly killed in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood, by members of a Latino
Gang. This type of news, unfortunately, is not exactly news, as Hernandez details the
happening. Hernandez pleads that there was nothing really new about it. Rather, the murder was
a manifestation of an increasingly common trend: Latino ethnic cleansing of African Americans
from multiracial neighborhoods (Hernandez 2). Rather than looking at the magnitude of the
hatred between the two races, The Human Space will look to find solutions to put a stop to the
hatred. To do this, the idea of love for all humans plays a big part in eradicating the hatred, and
forming bonds between the two communities.
Although The Human Space will be, in part, a social group, it will have a physical
component to it as well. The physical component of The Human Space will involve all interests
of the communitys citizens, and also involve outside aspects to help engage members in an
interest in the world. The interests that will be involved would be sports that both ethnicities of
the community are interested in, for example members of the male Latin community generally

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like soccer and baseball. As for the African-American community, basketball and football tend to
be the sports that are generally favored. The overall reason for the use of sports in the physical
component of The Human Space, is that according to an article written by Gordon A. Bloom,
Todd M. Loughead, and Julie Newin, team-building can benefit the members of a team. As
Bloom, Loughead, and Newin summarize the research of two men named Woodcock and
Francis, they list the benefits of team building: (1) the production of coherent, visionary,
acceptable leadership; (2) the acceptance of roles and responsibilities by team members; (3) the
dedication of member efforts toward collective achievement; (4) the development of a positive
and energetic achievement; (5) efficient group meetings and practices; and (6) the reduction or
elimination of negative team influences (Bloom 2). Although the main goal of The Human
Space is to instill a love for all humans into the people of the community, the reduction or
elimination of negative team influences will allow our employees to really get through to the
members of the community. These benefits will be kept in mind when sports are being played,
however, if a strategy for playing sports impedes the creation of genuine human to human
relationships, then sports will be played without these strategies in mind. Along with
accommodations for these sports, classes for education on humanism, and the teachings of civil
rights activists will be included.
To dismantle ethnic tensions and aid a community that has been systematically put down,
trust is needed. To develop trust, systematic methods will not work, and so The Human Space
employs honest people that actually share The Human Spaces ideas. The reason behind the
necessity of trust is the people of the community need to know that we actually want to help
them, and are not helping the community for some personal gain. In Anna Deavere Smiths
Twilight Los Angeles 1992, Smith plays a man named Mike Davis in the interview titled Surfers

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Desert. In this interview, Davis analyzes what the war on gang crime actually is, and highlights
fear in this city of talking to gang members, talking to kids. In the last Instance, if you peel
away words like, you know, gang-banger and looter and stuff, this is a city at war with its own
children, and it refuses to talk to those children, (Smith 28). People dont have respect for kids
anymore, its obvious in the fact that walking around with a few friends at night just cruising,
as Davis puts it, in almost any neighborhood gets a group a ticket and a ride to the local police
station. This is part of the reason that trust is needed even more today than in the past, because
the lack of trust in the new generation of youth has resulted in the current generations freedoms
being stolen. Along with this reasoning, some communities may feel that the government is
untrustworthy, and that is why this installation will have nothing to do with the government. To
give an idea of the teachings we will employ, Langston Hughes poems will be employed to help
educate the community.
Like Hughes poem Harlem speaks about the idea of deferred dreams either withering
away, or growing larger and larger, one of the ideas that The Human Space will teach is about
goals. In The Beauty in the Journey by Daniel Diaz (me), the author speaks about a hidden
potential that lies in everyone, and can be used to achieve certain goals through certain traits.
Perseverance, a hunger for greatness, and the will to achieve a goal are all derived from the
dormant potential that lies in everyone. This is part of what will be taught, along with ways to
combat poverty. In Henry David Thoreaus Civil Disobedience, Thoreau highlights that the
government does not educate, nor does it keep the country free, and nor does it settle the west.
Using this idea, the community will be taught to learn on their own in order to combat the
system, for what use is a weapon created by the system, against the system. The only weapon
that these communities peoples can effectively use is one that they make themselves (teach

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themselves). Some people learn better in groups, some people learn better alone, and in the case
that someone is not learning at all, it can either be assumed that one is never alone, or that one
likes to learn better in groups. This, and the fact that not a lot of people actually take action to
combat poverty in ghetto neighborhoods, are the reasons that genuine human relationships are
needed.
Through genuine human relationships, education on goals and humanism, and bondforming activities, communities like Compton, where poverty and ethnical tensions are
prevalent, may come together with the help of The Human Space. Without human to human
relationships, there would be no trust between the community and the project, and thus no trust
in the community itself. Trust is the foundation for The Human Space, and that is why it is
necessary. As for bond forming activities, without a common goal in mind the idea of trust would
not even cross the minds of the people of the community, and since trust is needed in The Human
Space, and ideas on how to reach certain goals will be taught, a common goal is very helpful.
Some benefits also arise from the use of team-building as highlighted in the essay, which
would help the people in The Human Space in various ways. And as for the education, a rut
cannot be escaped without the knowledge of how to escape the rut, in this case poverty and
ethnic tension symbolize the rut, and the education symbolizes the knowledge on how to get out.
The Human Space is important because without a group/organization that actually wants to help
a part of society, that part of society would be oppressed until they recognize something that will
help them escape the loop, The Human Space is showing them the way out.

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Works Cited
Bloom, Gordon, Todd Loughead, and Julie Newin. "Team Building for Youth Sport."
Sportpsych. McGill University, 1 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Diaz, Daniel. The Beauty in the Journey. (Not published, however it is my own work). Print. 10
Nov. 2015
Fernandez, Tanya. "Roots of Latino/Black Anger." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 7
Jan. 2007. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Smith, Anna Deavere. "Surfer's Desert." Twilight--Los Angeles, 1992. New York, NY:
Dramatists Play Service, 2003. Print.
Thoreau, Henry. "Civil Disobedience." By Henry David Thoreau. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.