South Park Location Study

South Park is located in south Seattle on the west side of the Boeing international airport. It is south of Georgetown and north of Tukwila. Georgetown and South Park are separated by the Duwamish River.  The town of South Park was formed on December 9, 1902. Before then the Duwamish tribe resided in the area. In contrast the tribe has been in the area since the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago. The historic language of the Duwamish tribe is Lushootseed which is part of the Salishan language group. In 1855 the settler colonists made a deal with the Puget Sound natives called the Treaty of Point Elliott.  One of the signatories was Chief Seattle who was part of the Duwamish tribe.  The tribe is still fighting for its federal status today. In 2001 they were briefly granted the status by Bill Clinton, but sadly this was revoked by Bush. In 2009 the tribe purchased land close to their ancient village of Ha-AH-Poos which is located in modern day west Seattle close to the mouth of the Duwamish river. Chief Seattle is famous for a letter he sent to Washington explaining how they couldn’t sell the land. This small excerpt of the letter shows the difference in understanding of the land.

“So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves...So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us...We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.”(Chief Seattle) 

He goes on to explain his conditions of sale of land. He explains the interconnectedness of our world by comparing the iron horse (a train) against the loss of food resource of the buffalo removed for railways which were killed by the white settlers for their furs and the meat of the animal was left to rot in the sun. The indigenous people use their spirituality to enhance the world they live in. Their rituals and ceremonies helped their children and future generations and was communicated through spiritual channels. In order to explain the mysteries of ecology the natives created stories to enforce their science.

“So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition: The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers...What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.”

When you look at the historical time clock and compare the different groups living in the south park area it is clear to see that in 158 years the white man has destroyed the land whereas the natives lived here for about as long as we have recorded history. We must rectify these problems. The way to start is with working with the people living in the area now. We must start by looking who lives there now. Relationship building is a tool for understanding the place. Race is just one factor of course but it helps identify which cultural backgrounds may exist in the area as well as what languages the community may speak. It is important to understand how to communicate across cultural barriers. Research the culture you are going to work with. Understanding the language is always useful but not always necessary for communication. Non-verbal communication is up to 75% of the message you are portraying. That means that your body language is most of the message that others comprehend. Facial expressions are the only body language to be universal across all cultures. From culture to culture the interpretations of and certain uses of expressions can change. The basic expressions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise are the most recognizable. The responses from others facial expressions can give you information. The key with cross cultural communication is to not make assumptions with the data. You must learn to communicate and respect the different hierarchical structures there may be different power structures in play that you don’t initially understand.

Hispanic is defined as ethnically as: Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South American, Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. Latino or Latin-American is preferred by some as a racial designation. Making the assumption of anyone’s ethnic heritage can be a dangerous thing. Ask questions, most people are willing to share their story but be careful to ask them if you can share what they have told you with others. Trust is a valuable thing. The story we tell says a lot about us. The words we choose to use when describing things, events or ideas reveals our personal biases towards them. We make judgments based on our system of morals and ethics. Listening to the story and to each word can help you to understand a person’s system of internal motivations. When asking questions about differences in culture think about the words you choose carefully, even everyday words have implications that block communication. Even the best intentions can lead to disastrous consequences if let run amuck.  Working with an organization such as El Centro  de la Raza will help to overcome the language and cultural barriers with the Hispanic community. Finding and utilizing community leaders already in place and trusted helps to strengthen the message you bring.  The community of South Park is also eighteen percent Asian-American it is important to understand that this ethnic group was rounded up and put into camps in 1942 and for two plus years people were treated as dirt. The cultural distancing is understandable with the grandparents of kids today telling the story of how the police told them to go these horrible places. In Japanese culture prolonged eye contact is considered rude. The differences in culture are illuminated by comparing the stories of the two different cultures. The Japanese tell the story “The nail that sticks out gets hammered.” The American individualistic story is “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. When communicating in a culturally diverse environment, be aware of differences and do not jump to conclusions if someone reacts in an unexpected way. Also understand that because someone looks a certain race or even is ethnically from a specific place doesn’t mean that they practice those cultural norms. Be aware and mindful of each individual person. 

Sustainable Business

Sustainable business is something attainable and profitable.  Due to the popularity of the “green” movement, people have begun to care about the earth. In turn these people are looking into the financial and non- financial information and choosing companies and products that they personally support. With the internet, communication has become instant and global. The key is to link how spend as a company to what you are doing. Having information for people to look at online is essential for transparency. Finding the most effective way to sell the a given product today requires that it also has the best possible social and environmental results. This  is complex relationship and must be managed well. Which leads me to the question: As a company are you defined by your customers? ; Or do the company’s values lead customers to it?  In Minding your Business (p. 120) The authors speak of “needs” that are used in designs of marketing. This style creates a myriad of new issues in educating people to why what you’re doing and why it is worth it to them. People want to know why you do what you do. In any business profit must be part of the equation even in a non-profit the books need to balance. This creates an obvious issue it needs to be worth it to run the business. Cradle to Cradle calls triple bottom line as the balance between ecology, equity and economy.  Economy as being the company making money and is where the basic bottom line concepts comes from.  This is important but should be equally balanced with the other non-financial aspects of the business. The equity of the employees is very important in making an effective business, I believe that the happier your worker the better job they will do. Of course this should all be in balance with the effect on the environment or the ecology of it. The meltdown of financial systems shows that deregulation can be a very bad thing.  Shady giant corporations have lobbyists that often only benefit those specific individuals or companies. It’s time for a change. Transparency in corporations in needed. In One Report they show how this model can make you more money. Natura a brazialian company produces a one report. They have produced a set of ideals and a company policy that shows stakeholders and to customers that they are all about the planet and being “green”. Corporate image is important. As more companies jump on board and follow a similar model it will force the whole market to change. Or to be left behind.

Gardening

Growing takes skill. I have been planting, tending, feeding, weeding and harvesting my entire life. Yet I still don't have skills. Only recently has gardening become cool and hip. This is probably tied to economic hardship. The people that have land start to realize the potential for savings. If you have the time and energy a garden can save you money on food. The issue with the equation is your time is sometimes more valuable than the money saved gardening. Another problem with gardening is seasons, and knowing when and how to plant each thing. Learning to preserve the food you harvest is a lost art. We have turned over our food processing to companies and forgotten how to do even basic things.  For example most people I speak with don't know how to can food or what can be canned. These basic skills and knowledge is available to all of us online yet few of us take advantage of it. It takes a lot of work to maintain a garden to harvest. Most of the time the work does not yield a physical product. It's great to harvest the final grapes as they change color and sweeten up, but the rewards from being outdoors gardening go beyond the final product. Teaching people to enjoy the outdoors is important with more and more of our daily lives spent indoors. We even differentiate between the clothing we wear indoors and out. Gardening really requires you get into the dirt you start to appreciate the different types of soils and stop thinking of it as dirty. It's always great to shower off all the gunk that you can accumulate gardening but the appreciation of understanding where your food comes is fulfilling. 

Off The Grid

Buying a new hybrid car wastes materials on the planet and furthermore defeats the purpose of being green. The purpose of being green is to sustain our planet and to use what we have. Not to buy more and waste more. My goal is to make a completely self-sustained ecosystem, through the processes of permaculture and other off the grid living methods. The cost of this is restrictive and until you own land it is almost impossible. From the people that I have personally surveyed I have found people would love to not have to pay bills and also to have access to fresh food. This is the idea behind off the grid living. There are many different ways to generate energy depending on the types of natural features the land may have. All can utilize the energy of the sun with solar. If you have a stream running through your property you can create a mini hydroelectric plant. Any pressurized water can potentially b e run through a turbine to create more useable energy for the home. Wind power and geothermal power are dependent upon terrain, but should both be utilized to maximize effectiveness. The purpose here is to create enough energy to cover what you use. The first thing that many home owners will do is to switch to high efficiency appliances such as stoves, furnaces, showers, washers, and dryers. This allows you to keep the creature comforts you love and lower your total electricity usage. Another option for lowering energy usage that one company has coined the “green switch” which is where you place a switch near your bed that turns off all the power in the house for the evening, they can be programmed to allow certain lights for night usage. A very clever invention indeed that can be utilized without hiring the company all you will need is a good electrician to do the correct wiring in the house. Or you can just unplug things you and not using many devices have standby power to turn on quickly which uses up to twenty five percent of the total power requirements for the device.  A backup option is propane power which can be used for almost everything from a generator for electricity to propane heaters and stoves for cooking to refrigerators that run on propane. The idea is to have multiple sources of power. You want to prevent any bottlenecks in the system by keeping the power flowing. Permaculture is an approach to human settlements and agricultural systems designed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. The model it follows is based on the relationships that naturally occur in an ecosystem. An example is: a lake above your farmland this allows the water to flow downward with gravity which you can utilize to irrigation the crops. The eventual goal of permaculture is to create a self-sustaining system that to produces maximum efficiency for the given plot of land. Having not only crops, but livestock for sources of income and materials is part of this equation. Ideally a variety of crops will be grown based on the specifics of the land. One of the founders Bill Mollison described permaculture as "a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single project system." 

Jim's Farm

I visited my uncle Jim's property which is located near Yakima. He and my other family members own a total of ten acres of land. Of those ten acres of space eight acres are  devoted to apple orchards.  My family owns the water rights to the irrigation water. Jim, my uncle was telling me about the water rights in Kittas county. He was saying that the water is pumped from Bumping lake and then it travels via channel. They have a well which is three hundred fifty seven feet deep. They have built two houses on the property and had to bring in and install two electrical transformers. Seven of the eight acres of apples are golden delicious and red delicious. Then one acre of honey crisp apples which are worth much more than the delicious types. Their person garden was maybe a half acre and they called it tiny but it is massive by city standards. The amount of food they are able to grow was amazing. About a week before we arrive in Yakima a hail storm struck with disastrous results. Eighty percent of the apples were damaged beyond the point of return. The damage ranged from small brown blemishes to breaks in the surface of the skin of the apples. I was amazed at how little damage it took for the crop to be not worth it. I had to have my uncle explain the whole process to me so that I could understand.The workers went around and thinned eighty percent of the crop. The apples were everywhere in the orchards so many in fact that it was dangerous to walk in them. These apples just went to waste on the ground.  They were explaining to me why Treetop juice needed perfect apples. The machines designed to skin the apples didn't work well with damaged apples. The would have to manually go through and cut out and bad parts of the apple losing time and apple in the process. Treetop will stop buying your apples if the level of fault is too high. Meaning that if too many apples are damaged they will put you on a no-buy list. The profit driven market we are a part of uses machines function under the assumption that all the apples will be perfect. The waste apples could be pressed into cider which then could be process into ethanol fuel. The left over pomace or brewers grain could be used as feed for animals.

References

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Appendices:

"Feeding Apples or Apple Pomace in Cattle Diets

Drs. Steven Rust and Dan Buskirk, MSU Dept. of Animal Science

Reprinted from Cattle Call, 2008, Vol 13, Iss 4

Apples and apple pomace can be fed to beef cattle. The composition of apples and apple pomace are shown in Table 1. Apples have an energy value similar to corn silage, but with less crude protein. Apple pomace has considerably less metabolizable energy (ME) content than corn silage and only serves as an energy replacement for poor to average quality hay. Little information is available on feeding apples so a precautionary strategy would be to have a dietary inclusion rate less than 20%. Studies from the first half of the 20th century were concerned about ruminal parakeratosis (damage and clumping of the ruminal epithelium) when apples were fed at high levels. More information is available on feeding apple pomace. From 40-60 pounds (as-fed) can be given to beef cows daily. Apple pomace works better in diets of cows with low energy demands, such as the second trimester of pregnancy. The total diet should be evaluated so that it is formulated to provide adequate protein. The economic values of apples and apple pomace as replacements for hay or corn at different prices are shown in Tables 2 and 3. Apple pomace is not priced relative to corn as its energy value is too low to use as a replacement for corn. The prices in the tables represent the values on your farm and do not include transportation costs. Values for apple pomace and apples do not include adjustments for protein, as most forages in Michigan have excess protein content relative to the cow’s requirements."