NEWS & EVENTS

Valdez: Involve everyone in CVP
By Mike Christopherson, Managing Editor
Crookston Daily Times

April 23, 2004 - Liz Valdez was intrigued when she was invited to a Nov. 1 (2003) retreat at the Northland Inn to hear about something called the Crookston Vitality Project. As someone who has worked with young artists through the Fresh Voices initiative and spent years advocating for Hispanics and other under-served facets of Crookston’s population, Valdez wanted to hear what this Vitality thing was all about.

She certainly heard a lot.

“I remember looking around the big table and thinking that the people who organized that event were probably pretty happy, because a lot of important people had shown up,” Valdez said.

As the retreat got underway, Valdez heard people talking about all kinds of wonderful things happening in Crookston, as well as things that could happen if some people got together and worked hard to make them happen. Some of the most enthusiastic discussions centered on nature-based recreation and tourism. People gushed about opportunities to make Crookston a more vital community by taking advantage of these nature-based opportunities, like watching the many birds that are unique to this region, or going to the Pankratz Prairie or Glacial Ridge Project, both located just a few miles east of Crookston on US Highway 2. People talked about all the lakes nearby, and the opportunities to capture lake visitors as they made their way through town. They talked about exciting projects underway to make the highly-underused Red Lake River in Crookston a nature and recreation destination. They talked all about kinds of things, and it didn’t take long before almost everyone around the table was pretty fired up about the possibilities.

Valdez was impressed, too.

“It was fun to listen to,” she said the other day while working at the courthouse café that she operates. “But I remember wondering why Hispanics and low-income people should care about everything they were talking about. I remember wondering where my people fit into all of it, if they were even supposed to fit into it.”

But Valdez did more than think about it, she said it. At several points during the retreat, as people talked about various ways to make Crookston a more vital community, there was Valdez, asking if the wonderful things everyone was so excited about were designed for everyone in the community, or just the people who could afford them.
Valdez had heard Dan Wolpert’s introduction that day, about how the effort began as an initiative to boost the mental health of the community, and how it early on had been based on a set of values identified at an earlier retreat. She’d heard about how Vitality Project leaders had talked about the need to reach out to the entire community, not just the affluent, to spread word on the Vitality project, by going into neighborhoods and backyards, and knocking on doors to talk to individual families. She’d heard all that, but wondered how a struggling Hispanic family would react to someone knocking on their door to sing the praises of bird-watching.

“I do like the idea of reaching out to people on that level, but I think you need to say things that have meaning for them,” Valdez said. “If you put stuff in the newspaper or on the radio or in the Chamber newsletter and hold a couple of informational meetings at the high school, those families aren’t going to feel like they’re participation is truly wanted. But they probably wouldn’t even hear about the meetings in the first place.”

Pretty town
Valdez loves Crookston. She recalled the days when she lived in Warren but had to drive through Crookston often.
“It’s so picturesque; it’s a real, old-fashioned prairie town,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of towns that look like Crookston, and I remember looking forward to my drive through.”

She also remembers thinking that a town that looked so nice had to be a “real” community.

But, after living here for years, she’s not so sure about the “community” thing.

“I’ve seen so many fragments of this society, the low-income families, the Hispanics, the Native Americans, and there is very little or nothing in Crookston that they can say truly represents what they’re all about,” Valdez said. “Somehow, through the Vitality Project now or other initiatives before it, there always seems to be some kind of effort to give this town an overall image that will make others think we’re wonderful. That’s not a bad thing, but I think that those efforts continually deny the existence of a lot of people in this community.”

If the Crookston Vitality Project truly wants those people involved, Valdez said the project leaders need to go where they are, and advertise at places they frequent.

“At the grocery store, even at the WIC office,” she said. “They have some great ideas, too, about their vision for this community, but no one’s ever asked them. I happen to get to voice my opinion now and then because I read things in the newspaper and know about things. But buying a newspaper subscription isn’t something that these people do, mostly because of money.”

Valdez is a believer that the Vitality process is just as important as whatever outcomes result. “If the process doesn’t give everyone in the community a chance to speak up, then the outcomes won’t matter to those people, and the Vitality Project will be something less than it could have been,” she explained. “So if CVP is trying to create something significant, then the process needs to reach out to all levels and be thorough, not just lip service.”

Valdez senses that most of her friends don’t feel a connection to Crookston or a sense of ownership in much of anything that’s going on. They hear that different groups, agencies and organizations “value diversity,” but they don’t see it in any mission statements or bylaws, and don’t see it in actions, either.

“I’m different because I force my way in the door, I force myself to get involved. Most people don’t do that.” Valdez said. “But I still don’t feel comfortable. I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable when I walked into the Northland on Nov. 1.”
The problem is that “the elite” (Valdez said she doesn’t like using that term, but it’s the best she could come up with at the time.) rely on Social Services, law enforcement and other agencies to deal with lower income members of society.
“But the lower income people don’t see those people and agencies as an answer, as someone who helps them or supports them,” Valdez said. “More often than not they see those agencies as creating more problems for them.”
She cites the pawn shop on North Main that is closing its doors as an example of this community’s problem. First off, when it opened, its license fee was much higher than at its Grand Forks location. Then, when the owner wanted to open a payday/express loan service at the location to increase revenue, he was denied.

“Pawn shops carry a stigma, and Crookston’s was no different,” Valdez said. “People think they encourage people to steal and that it encourages a criminal element. But that’s like assuming people on welfare are going to get pregnant.”
The pawn shop is closing for financial reasons, Valdez said, but it was making enough money to stay open. It closed because it wasn’t allowed to add the payday/express loan service.

“He feels he’s not being given an opportunity, as a businessperson in this community, to make more money. He’s closing because this city doesn’t want a pawn shop,” she said. “The more I think about it, the more I know that there are people in this town who, like it or not, need those payday loans every once in a while to scrape by, or they need a pawn shop to pawn something to get a little money in their pocket. Now they’ll have to drive to Grand Forks to do that, in a vehicle that might not run very well, in a vehicle that needs gas, which costs more money.

“This issue,” Valdez continued. “Is that that opportunity, that service, was right here in Crookston for those people but now it will be gone. Lower income people could have had a need met right here in Crookston, but now they won’t have that opportunity, because people who will never need a pawn shop or a payday loan made a decision that Crookston doesn’t need that kind of business. Tunnel vision is what it all comes down to, and it makes me wonder what Crookston would look like if all facets of society were represented. Maybe some people are afraid to think about that, or maybe they wouldn’t even want to live in a Crookston like that. I don’t know what you do about that…fear.”

Strength in numbers
Valdez’s strategy to get the whole community heard lies in the old adage that there is strength in numbers. She’s trying to form a Latino association separate from the culture center being pursued by Carmen Leal (although the two work together on many issues). She also has never completely abandoned her push that began years ago to form a human rights commission in Crookston.

“We can’t continue to reflect only the things in Crookston that look good on the surface, and that’s what I work toward every day,” she said. “The city council can’t just say that they care about everyone, they have to show it, and I don’t think they do. But if we get enough people together we can take our issues to them. If I’m by myself before the council, they can drown me out, but they can’t drown out many voices.

“I love this town, I really do, and that’s why I stay,” Valdez added. “But I face struggles and people I know face struggles that the leaders of this community probably will never, ever face in their lifetimes. Just because we struggle like that should not disqualify us from participating in things that drive our community forward. I hope the Vitality Project realizes that, and is different from everything that came before it.”