ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing a book is seldom about placing words on a page. Authoring this book has been a journey, a journey with my village.

—Sancha Doxilly Medwinter, the author

To my village, who began this walk with me, some who joined earlier, some later, some for short periods, some longer, some who planned to tarry but have transitioned to the other life, before ever having the chance to run patient fingers through the leaves, crisp and new, feeling their sharp edges before slowly tracing letters forming their names with fingertips, calloused from tilling the rich soil that led to plentiful harvests of produce that made a belly full, before having the chance to clasp with rope-burned palms from pulling back the cows too eager to run off down the hill sure to end delicious milky breakfasts, and possibly a Christmas, well-planned, were it not for those strong hands that were gentle enough to cause a child to melt, like cocoa sticks brought to boil in a charred-bottom cast iron pan, into the warm embrace of wrinkly arms, soft pillows made of love that ripples through generations, my heart thanks you.

To my husband Floyd Medwinter, for whom I have a deep love, I am so grateful for you. You have always lovingly and steadily supported my personal dreams and professional goals even when the evidence of their possibility was not found. I am grateful for your quick thinking to request from your employer the truck that would hold and transport the disaster supplies to the Superstorm Sandy survivors in such a short window. Thank you also for being a constant reminder and motivator to keep making progress on my writing.

I am so grateful for my girls, Melinda and Pristeene, who at eleven and twelve excitedly made a list of supplies and posted the flyers on the walls, stairwells, mailboxes, and doors of our apartment complex. Your work helped bring these families needed supplies that they had not yet received twelve days into the disaster. Keep considering how you may help the least fortunate and anyone who is experiencing tough times. I love and thank you young women, now twenty and twenty-one, for always looking up to me with an admiration that only daughters possess for their mothers.

My loving daughter Pristeene, you took this journey with me, a young single mom who made ramen and canned mixed vegetables from a rented bedroom with no windows, which meant we had to keep the door ajar to overcome the brutal New York City summers. Thank you for understanding why I always seemed busy juggling mothering, school, and work, for the better future that seemed forever on the horizon, all the while that I feared that I was failing you as a mother. Even at six years old, you believed my stories that we would have a Cinderella transformation and have a home where there would be enough room for you to spread out your toys and play. Thanks to my friend Princess, who first dreamed this dream for us, when I would bring you over to her apartment to get a sense of what a full and spacious home that was ours would feel like. Melinda, you’re my special gift from a mom who entrusted me with her heartbeat even as hers was fading. You are my loving, bubbly daughter who could always sense when I needed a boost when you asked me how the book was going, and I responded with, “It’s going.” Your “You got this, Mom!” infused me with the energy I needed to continue.

My heart overflows with rivers of gratitude to my grandmother Mary Darius, who raised me from the age of one and cultivated in me a devotion to my studies. Always knowing that I was going further than most would have imagined. There would be no play until I completed homework and studying. Thanks to Priscilla Doxilly, my mother, and my queen, who birthed me into this world and whose un-failing love and support has carried me through college, then graduate school, and into my first job as a professor. You always spoke life into me. Thanks for telling me in moments of uncertainty that plagued my graduate school experience, “Sancha, if everyone counts you out; You, don’t count yourself out!” No one knows this book as intimately as you do. Thanks for listening to my working theories, asking me important questions to help me dig deeper, accompanying me on one of my return visits to the field sites. You have always surrounded me with fasts and prayers that helped me through difficult periods in my career. I am grateful for my dad, Titus Emmanuel, a people’s person. You have generously shared your wisdom on how to interact with people whom I encounter in my life’s journey.

Mum and Pap, where do I begin? I will forever love and hold you dear to my heart. Mum (Ma Ju), and Pap (Defwen), my great-grandparents only whose spirits are still with us, but who gave me all that they had, a U.S. $100 bill, folded into a million halves wrapped in just as many plastic bags, much like Russian dolls. Yet you believed in me so much that you gave it to me in the wee hours of the morning in the few minutes we had left before catching my flight into the unknown. I didn’t yet fully understand how precious that moment was when I hugged Pap, as it would be my last, a moment I would circle back to again and again through the years. I am so grateful I saw Mum again. She didn’t recognize me at first, as I was no longer a teenager filled with dreams and the bravery to strike out on her own. I remember how your eyes welled up with tears as you called me my endearing name, “Suuuunnnnnyyyy” with an endearment and longing that only my sweet Ma Ju could ever express. I am so grateful that I had the chance of that reunion.

My cheerleaders, my cousins, Juliette, Roger, and Martin. Roger and Martin, who would always ask me whether I had already finished the book, yes, I have! My cousin Juliette who has, for years, been plotting with my grandmother to parade this book in the communities in St. Lucia and Martinique as evidence that a Doxilly has made it to the highest rank in education and is now a published author, this book is yours to share. Abi and Sister Bastien, thank you for always making the time to celebrate with me. You are family. Tarrick, Nicky, and Nezry, thank you for accompanying me, and sometimes while I was interviewing someone, your friendliness kept others engaged, which sometimes gave me an opportunity to not miss them. Your knowledge of the lay of the land was priceless, and just having a travel buddy in the beginning made it less intimidating to go to the field alone.

My tribe, you who have kept me grounded, as I understand that my success is not mine only, but the success of many generations. You who have known scarcity, lacked access to education, but carried on a hope that in your lifetime you would see your dreams fulfilled in your great-grandchildren, grandchildren, and children.

This village who raised me and taught me how to love and see the humanity in people and always want the absolute best for them. I learned empathy from you. I learned how to love not just my family and friends, but everyone I encounter with a generous heart. These values that you have instilled in me have played no small part in fueling my passion and commitment to pursuing and completing this project, despite the emotional toll of encountering human suffering. You will continue to inspire all my future community-engaged projects, as I align my career with my calling, a dedication to understanding, so that I can help undo inequality, inequity, and injustice.

Robert, how can I ever forget that you are the one who gave me an opportunity to pursue my undergraduate degree and drilled into me and many other Black students, “You gotta get your PhD, you gotta get your PhD.” You knew what I needed to fulfill my life’s purpose. Carolina Bank-Munoz, my undergraduate mentor and member on my dissertation committee, you have been such a steady fixture at every stage in my career. Thank you for advising me and guiding me through my graduate school applications. I still remember the disbelief in your voice saying, “You’re not going to Berkeley? No one turns down Berkeley!” I think I can safely say that you think I still turned out okay.

Thank you to my graduate school advisers and mentors who were instrumental in helping me accomplish the project, giving me feedback along the way. I am especially grateful to Nan Lin, who agreed to chair my dissertation after I had knocked on a few doors with no luck. I had never taken a course with you, yet when I called, you scheduled me for lunch after your return from San Francisco in three weeks. Assigning me five books on social capital in the interim and seeing how well versed I was by our first meeting showed you my seriousness about working with you. I am also grateful for the funding I received to further this work, a fellowship from Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a grant from the National Science Foundation.

I do believe there’s been an angel at every station I disembark. Moon-Kie Jung, thanks for being a constant support and advocate for me during my time at UMass, especially those times when I most needed the support. You and Caroline were often a source of encouragement. Joya Misra, thank you so much for being such a resourceful and dependable mentor who has been such a great support in guiding my career trajectory. Your thorough read and generous editing of several iterations of this book and your helpful feedback are indispensable. David Brunsma, thanks for seeing the potential in the first draft of this manuscript and suggesting that I submit my proposal to University of Georgia Press.

Thanks also to David Embrick for your role as series coeditor in moving the work forward. Thanks to Mick Gusinde-Duffy for being such an encouraging and easy to work with executive editor. You clearly believed in this work. Thanks to referees 1 and 2; this book could not have been what it is today without you. Thanks to Jim Elliot for seeing the value in this work and inviting me to share with your graduate students. Their engagement with this work has helped me think deeper about my analysis.

A special thanks to Whitley Plummer, my cartographer, who created such beautiful maps, graphs, and tables for this book. You possess such professionalism, and detail-oriented, analytical smarts, which allows you to deliver. Tannuja Rozario, always a steady support, thank you for your consistent willingness to read, edit, and assist me with reorganizing some chapters. Thank you also for your efficient library research to add suggested sources by reviewers for the chapters. We really work well as a team, especially during that late night mad dash before sending out the last draft. Whew! Joanna Riccitelli, you were such an efficient and amazing editor who helped ensure that the manuscript was consistently and correctly formatted. Altogether, this process would have been so daunting without the assistance of these graduate students, whom I appreciate so much.

My sincere gratitude to the numerous disaster response site managers, staff, and volunteers who gave me their time to help me gain clarity on the limitations of disaster response. Thanks to the church leaders who became disaster responders overnight. I appreciate you bestowing upon me such deep insight into the process. I especially thank Pastors Errance and Ward and Bishop Fabian (pseudonyms, as are the names of all the clergy, staff, volunteers, and survivors used in this book) for facilitating my entry into the field and having done this work on a shoestring budget, with only rented trucks and no warehouse to store supplies.

To all Superstorm Sandy responders, your dedication to your work was visible and commendable. So many of the pitfalls are structural and cultural, both invisible. I only hope that the findings in this book will help improve disaster response and allow you to see the process from multiple perspectives and levels that were, at that time, inaccessible to you while you were deeply engaged in the work at your respective stations. Many of you worked unforgivable hours in an unfamiliar place, and away from family, so thank you.

I may have saved the best for last. I have nothing but immense gratitude, respect, empathy, and hope for all the Superstorm Sandy survivors in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and The Rockaways. Thank you for entrusting me with your vulnerability. Know that in the years since we last spoke there were long periods when, for one reason or another, I felt like I could not write. But your words, like your lives, were like drums that pounded on my heart and pulsated through my temples, not letting me rest until I fulfilled my promise to you. I promised to tell all who would read this book what happened here. This was especially true for Canarsie disaster survivors since many had erred in thinking that Superstorm Sandy had left you unscathed.

Ricky, thank you for your persistence, and your insistence on your humanity even though the system has let you fall through the cracks far too many times. I am forever changed by your generosity in allowing me to learn about your struggles. Your lived experiences allow us all to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of navigating poverty, social services, and disaster response in New York City. I deeply regret that I lost touch with you shortly after your relocation to Brooklyn from The Rockaways like a pawn in “the system” (as you called it!) that has repeatedly tried to strip you of your agency. I had truly hoped for a miracle, that you would really find that apartment, permanent housing to welcome your baby, just as you wished. I know that you have hopes and that you have dreams too, and that you have an unlimited supply of optimism and fight; even as I am just as certain that we will all continue to fail you, and so many others like you, until our conscience won’t allow us.

I am grateful that there are pastors of small churches, and founders, staff, and volunteers at community-based organizations, and local community members who within a day had mobilized. You are the ones who remain when the disaster response machinery retreats. Freddie, the founder of Always With You (the names of all organizations mentioned in the book are pseudonyms), your work in Eastville and your reflections on Eastvillers (both are pseudonyms) demonstrate your deep understanding of and the love you hold for your community. As I reflect on the hardships, frustration, confusion, disbelief, despondence, fatigue, anguish, and helplessness, I am also reminded of the rivaling, unrelenting will of local community.

I hope that this book will bring clarity, empathy, and resolve to those who are in positions of power and influence about the value of local community and home-grown organizations. These organizations serve in urban areas that the State socially, politically, and economically deprives. It is my hope that a deeper understanding of how we manufacture inequality will lead to needed allocation of resources, information, and respect to support your work, not only in the time of disaster but through the crises our communities routinely endure. The journey continues as we, with our village, continue to walk.

This book is derived in part from an article published in Environmental Sociology, 2021 © Taylor & Francis, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/DOI:10.1080/23251042.2020.1809054.

Funding Sources

The project that culminated into this book to receipt of a grant from the National Science Foundation (SBE DDRIG # SES-1434602), and a fellowship from The Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Voluntarism at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.