Alice Callaghan
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Alice Callaghan (born circa 1947, Calgary, Alberta) is an Episcopalian priest and a former Roman Catholic nun. She is also an advocate of the homeless and impoverished people of downtown Los Angeles.
Early years
[edit]Her family moved from Canada to southern California when she was a small child. Diminutive and athletic, she became a proficient surfer in Newport Beach.[1] She attended college and became a nun. She left the convent in order to become an Episcopalian priest. Seeing the grinding poverty of skid row, she decided to "make [herself] useful there." [citation needed]
Activism
[edit]Callaghan participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam War.[2]
Callaghan founded Las Familias del Pueblo, a Skid Row community center,[3] in June 1981 in a one-room storefront near the neighborhood.[2][4] She remained its director as of 2021, when it moved to a larger building.[5] She also founded the SRO Housing Trust.
As of 1982, she was an associate minister at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.[2]
In May 1983, she led a protest demanding that the city of Los Angeles install a traffic light on one block of Sixth Street, citing concerns for children crossing the street in the area.[6]
In the late 1990s, Callaghan worked as a tutor for young Latino immigrant students. In 1998, she supported Proposition 227, which largely dismantled California's bilingual education system, on the grounds that Spanish-speaking students were not being taught English nor receiving an equivalent education to English-speaking students.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ "Column: Alice Callaghan: Pushing out the homeless isn't a solution". Los Angeles Times. 2015-07-15. Retrieved 2024-05-17.
- ^ a b c "Woman Priest Ministers to Skid Row Residents". The Press-Courier. Associated Press. 1982-12-16. p. 6. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ Jones, Arthur (October 12, 2001). "Complex reality at street level - training immigrants as garment workers". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
- ^ "Las Familias del Pueblo". GRoW Annenberg. Retrieved 2024-05-17.
- ^ de Ocampo, Andres (2021-12-07). "Las Familias continues mission in its new building". Los Angeles Downtown News - The Voice of Downtown Los Angeles. Retrieved 2024-05-17.
- ^ "Protesters Snarl LA Street Traffic". The Press-Courier. Associated Press. 1983-05-17. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ Terry, Don (1998-03-12). "Bilingual Education Faces Ballot Assault". Lakeland Ledger. The New York Times.
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- 1940s births
- Living people
- 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns
- 21st-century American Episcopal priests
- 21st-century American women
- Activists from Los Angeles
- American anti-poverty advocates
- American anti-war activists
- American homelessness activists
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- Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism
- People from Calgary
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