The Eagle Rock Effect

If you are reading this blog, then you—like me—may suffer from “compucrastination,” the inability to stop procrastinating in front of the computer. I cannot cure you, but during the periods I own your eyeballs I will attempt to ensure that these precious minutes of your life are somehow illuminated, educated or just entertained. 

Time is our most precious commodity, which is why I always give it up to members of our community who donate their time to serve on our Neighborhood Council or community organizations like TERA (The Eagle Rock Association) and the local Chamber of Commerce. I give it up to the folks planting trees and shrubs on the medians stretching down Eagle Rock Boulevard or the volunteers who work with the Center for the Arts to bring us the awesome Eagle Rock Music Festival. I give it up to our neighbors who give up their weekend mornings to help clean up blight when they could be sleeping in or enjoying brunch at Camilo’s because the line is too long at Auntie Em’s.

Preparing for my blog debut I had a few subjects in mind, but lately my mind has been consumed—as have most Eagle Rockers—on the recent successful retrieval of Osama bin Laden. I know you may be wondering what does a military mission across the ocean in Pakistan have to do with our little corner of NELA? Well, one could say that the decision by President Obama, acting as our Commander in Chief, to greenlight the assault on a compound in Abbotabad actually started here in Eagle Rock almost 30 years ago.

There is a cause-effect proposition in chaos theory called “The Butterfly Effect,” in which a tiny event or action in one moment in time can result in a major effect much later in a totally different place and time. For instance, the simple and seemingly inconsequential act of a butterfly flapping its wings could trigger a chain of events in the atmosphere that might eventually cause or prevent a hurricane or tornado in another location. The butterfly does not cause the hurricane, but the minute changes created by the flapping of its wings are an essential part of a series of conditions that eventually results in a hurricane. Thus, without that flappity flap of the butterfly’s wings the eventual hurricane would not have existed.

I am not a scientist; I just wear glasses like one while watching Ashton Kutcher movies on TV.

As many Eagle Rockers may know, our current President attended Occidental College for two years (1979-81) before transferring to Columbia University. What is not as well known is that it was here at Oxy, as it is affectionately nicknamed, that Barack Obama experienced his political awakening—a process that transformed him from an alienated young man lacking direction into a focused individual who knew what he wanted to do with his life.

As Obama writes in his book, Dreams From My Father, about a conversation he had at Occidental with a fellow student:

• “Strange how a single conversation can change you. Or maybe it only seems that way in retrospect. A year passes and you know you feel differently, but you’re not sure what or why or how, so your mind casts back for something that might give that difference shape, a word, a glance, a touch. I know that after what seemed a long absence, I had felt my voice returning to me that afternoon with Regina.  It remained shaky afterward, subject to distortion. But entering sophomore year I could feel it growing stronger, sturdier, that constant honest portion of myself, a bridge between my future and my past.”

He goes on to describe his political awakening as he got involved with the divestment campaigns roiling many colleges at the time (campus movements to get their colleges—and businesses—to divest the investments they had in then racially segregated Apartheid-era South Africa).

• “As the months passed and I found myself drawn into a larger role—contacting representatives of the African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting letters to the faculty, printing up flyers, arguing strategy—I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions.  It was a discovery that made me hungry for words.  Not words to hide behind but words that could carry a message, support an idea.”

Thus, in Eagle Rock on the campus Obama describes as “tree-lined and Spanish tiled, [where] the students were friendly and the teachers encouraging,” the partying, skirt chasing "Barry" would become Barack and begin to walk the path of political activism, a journey that ended with him making the "3 a.m. call" to dispatch an elite team of Navy SEALs into the night sky and into history books. A decision that was perhaps caused by a butterfly effect from his days at Oxy during which Obama says, “It was when I made a conscious decision: I want to grow up.” (Newsweek, March 31, 2008)

Occidental was where Obama found answers for what has been his  lifelong quest for identity and belonging.  As a Korean-American Catholic raised abroad I share his search for identity.  In a broader sense, I think all of us do regardless where and how  we were raised.  It’s why I think his story is the quintessential American one—we all grew up hearing that anyone could grow up and become President but many of us never saw anyone who looked like us (i.e. of color) in a serious viable run for the White House until the last election.

Judging from the Obama-centric items for sale in the Oxy book store, the college is rightly proud of their most famous undergraduate. My favorite is the t-shirt that highlights the coincidence of his address then (1600 Campus Road) and now (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)   I share that pride when I take in the view of the red tiles of the campus buildings from my home off the aptly titled College View Avenue and enjoy pointing it out to visitors. I recall reading a Los Angeles Times article noting a sizable bump in enrollment  at the school following his election. I wonder how much the current crop of students think about their connection to Obama and hope they too are finding themselves and their life path,

So it was with a frisson of local pride that I followed news reports over the past few days. The now iconic image of Obama and his National Security team watching the events unfold. The trickle of details about the mission. The months of planning. And I marveled at his ability to crack jokes at the Correspondents Dinner even as he knew what was going down on the other side of the world.

Our President is one cool cat. And it started here. In Eagle Rock.

It is an interesting thing to have a college in the center of your neighborhood. I appreciate that there are issues and concerns from residents who live near the campus. But it is a beautiful campus and I do encourage those of you who haven’t to take a stroll through it. The college named one of the ten most beautiful campuses in America by StructureHub, an architectural website, is among the top 10 percent of liberal arts institutions whose graduates go on to earn Ph.D.s. Check out the Water Forms fountain, a campus landmark that was prominently featured in the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as the pointy eared Science Officer’s home planet. (I know, a blog that goes from Abottabad to Vulcan, but peeps, that is how I roll.)

So hurray for our Commander in Chief and our Armed Forces, especially the super badass Navy SEALs who got the job done. And hurray for Eagle Rock and Occidental College, who took in a mixed race kid from Hawaii and started the butterfly transformation that led to closure not just for the families who lost loved ones  on 9/11, but for all Americans, including those of us who live in the shadow of the Eagle Rock.