A not so uncanny encounter
After a semester abroad, I returned to Marquette and found campus just as I had left it last fall. Well, minus the addition of a new building or two, but the sights and sounds of freshmen move-in and the smell of the tannery (love it or hate it) brought back a slew of unchanging memories. Yet in some strange way returning to Milwaukee after reuniting with my tame Indianapolis roots was just as much of a culture shock as moving from the United States to Spain.
Take unpacking my apartment for example. I tore open boxes with novice renter pride, carefully accenting the place with reminders of home and pictures of friends. But the more I unboxed, the more I littered my apartment with cardboard and Styrofoam packing. So I took the trash down to the alleyway, not expecting to have company. But as I approached the dumpster to ditch my mountain of boxes, I shared the street with a man salvaging cans from trash bins.
All thoughts of playing interior designer for the day subsided. I rode the elevator back up to my apartment with an image of the unknown man freeze-framed in my mind. (Insert reality check here.) Suddenly my mom’s vendetta to find the perfect rug at Target seemed rather superfluous. I lost interest in whether a burgundy or a fire engine red mat best complemented the kitchen tile, let alone in buying one.
The cold, hard truth according to the U.S. Census Bureau is that Milwaukee ranks as the seventh most impoverished city in the country, and one in three of its children resides in poverty. The man I encountered is not alone, and as Marquette students living in Milwaukee, we have a responsibility to our city and to ourselves to acknowledge this fact.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Neighborhood Services, 27 percent of Milwaukee residents live in concentrated urban poverty, which economists classify as neighborhoods with 40 percent or more residents living below the federal poverty threshold. Those numbers outdo cities like New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. So where does Marquette fit into this picture?
Marquette lies in the eye of the storm, seemingly protected and calm in the midst of a sea of urban chaos. But as much as we are Marquette, we are also a part of the greater Milwaukee community. We are just as connected with the Milwaukee County Court House and the homeless as we are with the Alumni Memorial Union and our fellow students.
So I’m challenging myself, and I’m challenging you to look beyond the new buildings. Look beyond our fellow students, faculty and staff. We are entangled in a web so intricately connected with a living, breathing city that extends much farther than our stretch of Wisconsin Avenue.
In our own neighborhood, organizations such as the Milwaukee Rescue Mission, 830 N. 19th St., and St. James Episcopal Church, 833 W. Wisconsin Ave., reach out to people in need. The Milwaukee Rescue Mission alone provides 100,000 nights of safe shelter while St. James’ Gathering meal program feeds approximately 90,000 people a year.
The Rev. Debra Trakel, pastor of St. James, spoke about her 10-year commitment to her church and its service. Extending a hand to the greater Milwaukee community is a twofold process, she said. To better the community, we must give directly through service as well as examine society’s structural influence on poverty.
As Marquette students dedicated to service and as citizens of the Milwaukee community, we have the opportunity to do both.
“You can’t speak of faith, you can’t speak of the Gospel, and not talk about social justice,” Trakel said. “They go hand in hand.”
So let’s go ahead. Let’s put our faith, and our university’s mission, into action. Be the difference. Take the first step just by acknowledging the poverty that stumbles onto our campus. Social justice starts somewhere. We might as well foster it in our personal awareness of this brave, new world in which we live.
Tags: Alumni Memorial Union, church, episcopal church, homelessness, marquette, milwaukee, milwaukee rescue mission, poverty, rescue mission, social justice, st. james, university, welfare
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