Los Angeles has been fighting multiple major wildfires around the county this week, with 10 reported dead and more than 9,000 homes and structures damaged or destroyed as of Friday.
California native Dr. Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta, recently appointed the Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming at the Temple Contemporary, described following the news of the wildfires from his current home in North Central Philadelphia as a lot like “root shock,” Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove’s term for the “traumatic stress response to losing all or part of one’s emotional ecosystem.”
“I’m devastated in ways it’s still hard to put to words,” said Kenyatta, who goes by “Dr. Matt” at Temple University. “So many friends and family were either temporarily, or in some cases permanently, evacuated and in jeopardy of losing everything, at least physically. It’s really painful right now to be there from a distance, but not be able to be there in all those sort of small and large ways that they need help.”
Most of Kenyatta’s family and friends are now safe, he said, though a few whose homes were damaged or destroyed are still unclear how they will be restored. He recalled the distress of being on the phone with his best friend who was going to the grocery store one second and then packing his things to evacuate the next.
Multiple perspectives
Kenyatta, an author, artist and urbanist, as well as husband to Pa. State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, was born in the Bay Area and considers both Northern and Southern California as homes. He was the first Black person person to earn a PhD in urban planning at the University of Southern California and is currently working on a book focussed on the cultural meccas created by Black artists and entrepreneurs, particularly in LA’s Crenshaw neighborhood. He said his work and education has also added historical and professional lenses to how he sees the wildfires’ effects on the city.
“It’s disasters like these that are so painful because, yes, we have the human cost, but there’s also these deep cultural costs that happen where folks are looking to find a sense of permanence and belongingness to their homes, but the realities and the legacies that they’ve built there are being erased in minutes,” he said.
During the wildfires, Kenyatta has tried to help connect friends and acquaintances in need with those who could help. Through his Instagram account, he has also provided information on resources available.
He has also used his platform to try to counter some of the online misinformation claiming mismanagement by the leadership of the Los Angeles Fire Department, and LA Mayor Karen Bass.
“The leadership of the city very much reflects South LA,” he said. “People from that area really lead from a place of love and compassion and they’ve been through this and in their own ways, particularly with the 1992 uprising [after the trial verdict of the four police officers charged with using excessive force in the arrest of Rodney King]. The fires that broke out and South LA really showed the spirit of compassion, and being present, and making sure everyone is safe.”
Neighbors helping neighbors
Much of the devastation of the wildfires has been in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton areas of the city, and not directly in the South California neighborhoods Kenyatta’s work has focused on. In response to the wildfires, Kenyatta says that those unaffected neighborhoods have offered evacuation centers and resources for the displaced.
Today, LA firefighters have been able to contain the wildfires as winds eased, but they are still far from ending them.
Till the time comes that the damage can be fully surveyed and plans can be made to restore what’s been lost, Kenyatta said he has been uplifted seeing those who have stepped up to help, and looks forward to helping with the rebuild through his work.
“I’m really grateful in this moment to be able to offer with my research at least a love letter — and I think of it as a lot like a love letter — to the resilience, and the creativity that has driven parts of LA that are often overlooked and I think the city is leaning on right now,” he said. “I think my work at least highlights that these places, whether it’s planning or preservation or storytelling, it’s important to preserve them and to prioritize them in our vision for recovery.
“In my current role, I’m really grateful to be at a school of art and architecture, because I think we’re training the next generation to dream differently in these moments and to step in in times of crisis to help reimagine what it looks like to move forward.”
