By Jason Lewis
Dating back to 1954, the Los Angeles City Stentorians have fought for the rights of Black firefighters within the Los Angeles Fire Department. They have also helped incoming fire fighters train for testing at their head quarters in South Los Angeles on the corner of Normandie Avenue and Vernon Avenue.
Historically, the overwhelming majority of firefighters have been men, but women have fought to break barriers to enter the profession. In 2023, the U.S. Fire Administration reported that women currently account for nine percent of firefighters nationwide.
The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) is only 3.5 percent female, and less than one percent Black female, so LAFD firefighters Afara Lalaind and Tanika Hubbard are advocating on two fronts: for Black people and for women. With the Stentorians, they both serve on the executive board. Lalaind is the Executive Vice President and Hubbard the Assistant Vice President.
“It’s important that Tanika and I are on this board because we bring a different perspective to what used to be a board of men,” Lalaind said. “In the Los Angeles City Fire Department, we’re less than three percent women. We’re like .001 of Black women on the job. There’s only 10 Black women on the job, and me and Tanika are two of them. So it’s very important that we give those women a voice. That we’re included in the conversations and the decisions that are being made. The Stentorians works with the fire department on different policies, so we have that voice so that we can speak not only for the Black women on the job, but for all women.”
“As the executive board, we all work as a team,” Hubbard said. “We meet with the fire chief, we have meetings with different members within the fire department to make sure that our diversity, equity, and inclusion is being properly installed in the fire department. We’re in workgroups that create plans to ensure that the discrimination that the people who came before us experienced doesn’t happen.”
Lalaind is an arson investigator while Hubbard is a firefighter paramedic.
Lalaind is from San Francisco, and she became interested in the fire services when she was 22 years old. Her sister-in-law worked for the San Jose Fire Department, and introduced her to the profession.
“She let me know that this was an opportunity for me where I could be present for my children and be able to have a rewarding career where I could support my family,” Lalaind said.
Lalaind started her journey to the LAFD by taking a fire science class at the City College of San Francisco, where her instructor was a woman.
“I was just blown away from that one class, and there was no turning back for me,” she said.
While Lalaind was working her way through the process of becoming a firefighter, she received a lot of advice and encouragement to keep going.
“Early on when I was introduced to the job, I had a lot of women who were my mentors who stood behind me and made me feel empowered to join this profession,” she said. “So early on I had no doubt that I could do this job. I understood the challenges of being in a male-dominated field, but I wasn’t worried.”
Hubbard’s…
This article was originally published by a lastandardnewspaper.com . Read the Original article here. .