In Mid-City, ‘We’re Trying to Build Bridges’

Canvassing the streets of her Mid-City neighborhood was never on Peggy Copeland’s agenda.

A deeply religious wife and mother of three sons, she tended to her church, her new home and her family, including a son permanently disabled by an injury during birth.

But something always tugged at her inside, a feeling that problems were not being addressed; that the daily lives of people on her block and in her city were wanting and that someone should do something about it.

About six months ago, Copeland became that someone. She responded to a knock on her door, an invitation to become involved, and joined a group dedicated to improving her community, block by block if necessary.

The group, Coalition L.A., went door to door for five months asking hundreds of residents what they and their government should be doing to better their lives. They collected surveys and then organized communitywide meetings that attracted more than 100 neighbors to sort through concepts and ideas.

The result is a plan of action, released Thursday; a set of broad-based goals that will be distributed to 12,000 homes in an area that generally runs as far north as Wilshire Boulevard, as far west as Robertson Boulevard and as far east as Hoover Street. Members of Coalition L.A. hope to attract the attention of City Hall by asserting strength in numbers at the grass-roots level.

They want to create neighborhood councils, find uses for vacant lots, create more park space, develop after-school programs. They also plan to field a City Council candidate, Madison Shockley, for the 10th District seat.

But for many of them, simply coming together has already made a difference. Residents--Latinos, Koreans, blacks and whites--who had lived in the community for years without knowing who their neighbors were are now friends.

“I’ve seen Koreans who didn’t know me, invite me into their homes,” said Copeland, who is black. “That was a milestone to me.”

Coalition L.A was a perfect melding of interests for community activist Tae-hui Kim, who has worked in the Korean immigrant community for years.

“The L.A. uprising in 1992 painted this picture of the Korean community as stingy, prejudiced merchants who can’t get along, and we’ve been working to try to change that,” she said. “We’re trying to build bridges, but this group is not just about coming together in dialogue. There are things we have in common that we can rally around and work for in concrete ways.”

One of the group’s ideas is creating a sort of neighborhood exchange program that would place students with families from different areas and cultures around Los Angeles. It is an idea close to the heart of Altagracia Perez, 37, an Episcopal priest who has worked to reconcile the diverse congregation of her parish.

“It took me two years to get to know my neighbors from across the street, and I only met them when I did the survey,” said Perez, a mother of two daughters who once did gang prevention work in Chicago.

Shawn McDougal, 25, grew up in the neighborhood when its demographics were vastly different. He went away to school back East but didn’t feel he belonged. He moved back to Los Angeles and became intrigued when he heard about the group on the radio.

Involvement in the group prompted Copeland to begin reaching out in new ways. Over the holidays, she organized a toy giveaway, distributing more than 300 gifts to children.

There were surprises as well. Copeland would knock on doors and realize that people were pretending that no one was home. She learned that many took her for an authority.

“You kind of sense something is wrong, and it tugs at your heart,” said Copeland. “But now we’re bringing the meaning of democracy back to where it belongs.”