yli is My Story

It’s essential to be a good neighbor to people who are struggling economically. People living in a motorhome are often ignored and vilified. It’s so important to see them as humans, and to see them as your neighbor. They are somebody’s child and they have a family, just like all of us.

Glendora is no longer the self-imagined Shangri-la, protected from the discomfort and unattractiveness of wealth disparity, that many of its settled-in residents have always conceived of it as.

When I tell you I have hope, it’s more of a wish that this all ends very soon and we can go back to our homes in Gaza City if it still exists. I can’t speak about hope now. I can only be wishful about my family returning back home eventually and being safe right now. 

It is in these moments where we consider reassessing our own necessities to ensure that the rent is paid on time. These are realities that serve the unrelenting cycle of hardship for undocumented people who are subjected to surviving low wages and endure barriers in accessing government support.

As I step outside of my home, I am constantly bombarded by an abundance of “For Sale” signs in my neighborhood. Every time I see an abandoned home, I ponder if the family that lived there left because they couldn’t afford to live in my city.

In Glendora, we do not grow up thinking deeply about economic inequality because the lullabies of financial comfort have put many of us to sleep. You assume your friends will be able to pay for their ticket when you go to the movies. You walk into homeroom and assume no one slept in their family’s car the night before.

“You need to learn how to code,” my father would tell me, after “Technology is the future. Make sure you’re a part of it.” “What about me?,” I would fume internally. What about my ability to create as a human, without the assistance of AI or technology?

A driver pulls into the Three Rivers Art Center parking lot, holding out two fingers representing the number of families they are picking up for. A line of volunteers drop full-sized boxes of produce into the driver’s open side door. “You sure you don’t want another box? It all needs to be gone, or it’ll go bad.”