Story One: Offline in L.A.

Northeast of Los Angeles, the town of Azusa is nestled against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Most of the once-fertile citrus groves have been replaced by small houses that can weather the sun, and the letter “A” has been etched on the face of one hill as the town’s tattoo.

A small crowd begins to gather as the clock nears 10 a.m., when the Azusa Public Library opens its doors. Mothers with strollers join young men who park their work trucks near the curb and older folks who seem to know one another well. The group is congenial at first, but when the doors are unlocked, there’s a dash inside.

The rush isn’t for the latest Harry Potter installment. There are only 13 public computers at the library, and dozens of people who need to use the Internet. Missing an available computer can mean waiting at the library for several hours, and time is in scarce supply for most people trying to balance their jobs with raising children and getting online. Even when a computer is secured, the time restrictions make doing any long activity, such as online classes, impossible.

With high-speed Internet – or broadband – costing $40 to $60 per month, many people in Azusa can’t afford the connection or a computer. Azusa, with its primarily Latino population, has a poverty rate of 18 percent, higher than the state average.

Azusa Public Library Director Albert Tovar says the scene is the same every day as people have come to rely on the library’s Internet connection to perform the necessary functions of life – from looking for jobs to e-mailing distant relatives to researching a city council measure.

A troubling divide

Albert is deeply committed to the library’s mantra, “Knowledge is power.” It comes as no surprise, then, that he finds the digital divide deeply troubling.

“Not having access means not being informed,” Albert says. “And when you’re not informed, you can’t make good decisions.”

Whether because people can’t afford a computer or high-speed Internet, don’t have the training and skills to navigate the Web, or have no broadband options in their community, the digital divide – the gap between the Internet haves and have-nots – is glaring. According to the Census Bureau, more than 16 million Californians lack a high-speed connection.

The digital divide especially affects communities of color. Nationwide, only 35 percent of Hispanic urban homes are connected to broadband, compared to 60 percent of urban non-Hispanic white households.

Then there are the kids. Albert says the digital divide is primarily harming children who are being left behind because their educational opportunities are stifled without the Internet.
“They may have [Internet] access in the schools, but what happens in the summer?” Albert says. “What happens after school? What happens when they need a quick answer to ‘Who was the 10th president of the United States?’ They should be able to have that right to go to the computer and get that information anytime they want it.”

Lower grades without a log-on

In downtown Los Angeles, 14-year-old Lily Huerta wants to be a veterinarian. Or maybe a doctor. Or even a lawyer. She says she’ll decide later, when she’s older.

But right now, Lily is struggling just to do her homework. Her family can’t afford Internet access at home, and can only get online for small chunks of time at a local community center – the All People’s Christian Center in Los Angeles.

“A lot of kids get a good grade because of the research they do on the Internet,” Lily says. “For me, I might get a lower grade because I don’t have Internet access at home. So I can’t get the good grades that I want to achieve and make my parents proud of me.”

Lily says she lives in a dangerous neighborhood. Her mother doesn’t want Lily on the streets at night, hopping from the library to friends’ houses to use the Internet. Yet paying for a high-speed connection is simply out of the question for the Huerta family.

Working twice as hard

A few miles away, Antonio Reyes and Julian Rosas grew up together in California’s San Fernando Valley. Now 17 and seniors in high school, the two friends are beginning to fill out college applications. Antonio wants to be a pediatrician, while Julian is considering computer engineering.

But Antonio has one distinct advantage: He has high-speed Internet access at home. Julian – whose family can’t afford a connection – can only get online at school, when one of his working parents can drive him to the library, or at a local youth center, the Youth Speak! Collective (a nonprofit organization that works to empower “at-risk” youth).

Restricted Internet access makes doing homework and applying for colleges especially difficult for Julian. “I can’t go online anytime I want,” he says. “I have to work twice as hard just to turn something in.”

The great equalizer

Back at the library, Albert Tovar says eliminating the barriers to Internet access is urgent so that Lily and Julian can have the same opportunities as Antonio and millions of other kids across the nation.

“It’s something that we have to do, because that [the Internet] is the great equalizer,” he says. “Once we all have equal access and the same access. It doesn’t matter what your background or economic status is when you enter a library, and we have to reach that with the Internet – where everybody has access.”