Alice Callaghan
{{BLP sources|date=August 2007}}
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
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.{{Cite web |date=2015-07-15 |title=Column: Alice Callaghan: Pushing out the homeless isn't a solution |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrison-callaghan-20150715-column.html |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}} 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|date=August 2007}}
Activism
Callaghan participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam War.{{Cite news |date=1982-12-16 |title=Woman Priest Ministers to Skid Row Residents |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jRxKAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Alice+Callaghan%22&pg=PA4&article_id=6510,4225832 |access-date=2024-05-16 |work=The Press-Courier |pages=6 |agency=Associated Press}}
Callaghan founded Las Familias del Pueblo, a Skid Row community center,{{Cite news |last=Jones |first=Arthur |date=October 12, 2001 |title=Complex reality at street level - training immigrants as garment workers |url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_43_37/ai_79665352 |access-date=January 18, 2007 |work=National Catholic Reporter}} in June 1981 in a one-room storefront near the neighborhood.{{Cite web |title=Las Familias del Pueblo |url=https://growannenberg.org/grants/8680/las-familias-del-pueblo |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=GRoW Annenberg |language=en}} She remained its director as of 2021, when it moved to a larger building.{{Cite web |last=de Ocampo |first=Andres |date=2021-12-07 |title=Las Familias continues mission in its new building |url=https://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/las-familias-continues-mission-in-its-new-building/article_eb90b6fa-57d2-11ec-8a1e-cf21db2c7b8b.html |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=Los Angeles Downtown News - The Voice of Downtown Los Angeles |language=en}} She also founded the SRO Housing Trust.
As of 1982, she was an associate minister at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.
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.{{Cite news |date=1983-05-17 |title=Protesters Snarl LA Street Traffic |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7R1KAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Alice+Callaghan%22&pg=PA2&article_id=4234,4738532 |access-date=2024-05-16 |work=The Press-Courier |pages=3 |agency=Associated Press}}
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.{{Cite news |last=Terry |first=Don |date=1998-03-12 |title=Bilingual Education Faces Ballot Assault |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U50sAAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Alice+Callaghan%22&pg=PA2&article_id=6384,499554 |work=Lakeland Ledger |agency=The New York Times}}
References
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Category:20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns
Category:21st-century American Episcopal priests
Category:21st-century American women
Category:Activists from Los Angeles
Category:American anti-poverty advocates
Category:American anti-war activists
Category:American homelessness activists
Category:American housing rights activists
Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States
Category:Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism
Category:People from Newport Beach, California
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
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