A week with Government and Advocacy

This week, July sixth through the tenth, we were working with Helen Hayashi. She took us to meet a bunch of different government officials from all different levels. We spoke with Lauren Watts of the Department of Transportation, Raul Peralez, the council member representing district three, Fred Buzo, the policy advisor for Sam Liccardo, Cindy Chavez, the supervisor of Santa Clara County, and Vedant Patel, the Congressional Aide to Mike Honda. One similarities that I saw between all of the people we spoke to was that they didn't take to government work as their first choice. Vedant had gone to college for biology, which was probably the farthest study from what he does now. Though I don't have a strong desire to stop filming and go on to work in a completely different area, I would like to follow their model of taking what they learned and applying it to what they currently do now. Raul Peralez told us an interesting story about his experience. Prior to being a council member, he was a cop for eight years. Through that time he learned how to connect with the community, and used that skill to get himself elected. Mike Inouye spoke to us about consciously applying what you've learned to other fields at the beginning of the internship, but reminders are always necessary.
 During our intern day up in San Francisco we spoke to a bunch of the organizations such as JCYC and the Nichi Bei Weekly. As we spoke with them they told us a lot about their organizations, but one thing we noticed was the very apparent lack of communication between the youth of the community and those who are currently leading it. They spoke about all that they do, but we knew virtually nothing about all the events that they put on. One of the tasks John Osaki gave us for this week was to figure out ways that we could bridge the gap between generations.