[Dryerase] Building a Home in the Media: Simba Rousseau interview with Ana Noguiera

[annie v]

Building a Home in the Media: 
Simba Rousseau interview with Ana Noguiera 


Simba Rousseau was homeless for seven and a half
years. Now she has an apartment in Bushwick that she
pays for with her storytelling. Starting at age 13,
when she designed a house for ten dollars that would
have cost the owner $500,000 at “professional” rates,
Simba was never afraid to teach herself new skills and
do what she needed to get by. 

An immigrant in her own country because she left her
abusive home without any documentation, Simba has made
a name for herself in the independent media world. She
taught herself photo, audio and video skills and has
been published in The Indypendent and Rolling Stone
Magazine. She is a regular corre-spondent for Free
Speech Radio News and a cameraperson for 
Democracy Now! and PBS. 

What started as a flyer making business when she was
on the streets, Simba’s own project, Universal
Rhythms, now produces documentaries on the prison
industrial complex, detainees, and immigrant
struggles. As a black, lesbian woman hustling the
streets for spare change, Simba has battled some of
the worst prejudices and injustices of our society.
But through it all, her spirit has emerged as a
determined force and it shines in her work as an
independent journalist. 

Simba, now 27, was born in Florida and spent half of
her homeless years there. We start our journey with
her in NYC, which she got to by beating a master at
his chess game…. 

Chess to me was the ultimate idea of what the game of
life is. You either know how to play your pawns right
or you just get fucked. That’s how street life is. So,
when I won the game, [the master] paid for my ticket
to New York City. I had always wanted to go to NYC. As
a kid I read about the Harlem Renaissance, at a time
when I hated myself for being black, for being a girl.
I felt that, if anywhere, Harlem would be the place
where I would find out who I was. 

At first, I worked as a messenger because it was the
only job I could get without papers. So just like an
immigrant I was making $20 a day, working 60 hours a
week. But soon, I was starting my own businesses:
cleaning houses, babysitting, and making flyers.
That’s when I developed Universal Rhythms, my
trademark. 

My first apartment in Harlem was a Section 8 building
for people on welfare. I was paying $550 per month.
But the place was a slum, with a slumlord and slum
management. No hot water or heat in the winter; no
working stove. After about a year, I realized this was
screwed up. So I started talking to other people in my
building to ask if they wanted to start a lawsuit. 

Everyone was scared. They just wanted to live and hope
that things would get better. But I couldn’t take it.
So I put my case together. I learned housing law. I
learned my rights. And I read a book about
photography. I borrowed my friend’s camera, this
little shitty point-and-shoot. And I documented
everything that happened in my house. I took my
landlord to court with that. I represented myself in
court and I won my case. From there, I thought,
imagine how many people have no clue about their
rights as tenants. That’s what got me into journalism.


I taught myself how to develop prints. I happened to
also bump into an old friend from Miami who was a
photo assistant. And he taught me carpentry and
together we built his photo studio from scratch. I
became his assistant and we started getting big jobs.
We traveled a lot, all over the freakin’ country.
That’s how I learned photography. He knew that I was
into photo-journalism so he told me about the
Inauguration protests in D.C. Someone there gave me a
card for the Independent Media Center. So I started
looking into it. As soon as I walked in, Eddie Becker
threw me on the radio. And that’s when I met Madhava,
who told me there was an IMC in New York City.... 

I got into journalism primarily because there are so
few people of color journalists in the U.S. There are
none to have as role models. And mainstream media
doesn’t cover issues of color. I soon discovered that
the left media doesn’t really cover issues of color
either. So it became my mission, as a person who was
struggling internally to appreciate her own identity.
Each issue was an opportunity to battle those issues
with myself. 

Plus, as a journalist, you learn to speak out and ask
certain questions, and that was me learning to think
for myself and speak for myself and find my voice. My
voice was lost. But through each 
person I interviewed, I felt like I was speaking, that
I was allowing my voice to speak. 

How did you learn audio? 

I taught myself. I teach myself everything by finding
people who are the best at what they do and I learn
from them. Video was easier because I already knew
photo. But I saw so much stuff as a homeless person,
that’s really where my eye started. To me, life is a
movie and you can either be the character in a movie
or you can be the director. And I guess I wanted to be
a director because I love to sit in trees. When you
sit in trees you can see the whole movie from the
tree. I learn by watching. 

Then I started listening to “Democracy Now!” I loved
Amy Goodman’s style of journalism because she asked
tough questions. So I knew I needed to get in there to
learn how to be a good journalist. I figured if we had
a person of color journalist who could be that tough
and ask those kinds of questions and do that kind of
work, well, then you’ve got some-thing going. So I
came to DN! And started doing camerawork. 

How and why did you make it over to East Timor? 

Miranda [Kennedy, former producer for DN!] told me
about Amy’s reporting in E. Timor. So I listened to
all those archives, and they blew me away. When I
found out about their independence day I knew I had to
go. And then I found out that Amy was going. I knew if
I really wanted to learn how she did it, I had to be
in the field doing it. So I worked my butt off, enough
to buy a laptop and all the equipment I needed. 

In E. Timor, I met Deepa [Fernandez, anchor of FSRN],
and I learned a lot from her. I stayed with Amy and
Deepa and the whole crew, so I watched and learned
from them. But then I realized what what they were
doing was different from what I wanted to do. Amy was
interested in the high politicians, but I wasn’t. I
just wanted to be with the people. 

I met this kid. He was 20 years old. His name was
Abrau. I was shooting with my little Rolleicord
camera. This kid came up to me and had never seen such
an incredible camera, even though it was actually a
shitty camera. He only had a point-and-shoot. But he
said, ‘I’m ready to work.’ I didn’t have any money,
just enough to survive. So instead of paying him, I
gave him my audio equipment. In exchange he was my
translator. He spoke English, Portuguese, Indonesian
and Tetoun. So, we went around to people’s houses and
they showed us what happened to their houses and they
told us their experiences during the occupation. 

When you were there did you ever reflect on your days
sitting on a beach in Miami? 

It’s still hard to realize that I’ve come so far,
mostly because I’ve blocked out about seven and a half
years of my life. I still feel like I haven’t
accomplished much. Even in E. Timor I felt that. But
occasionally, I would look around and say, wow, I’m
here. I’ve really just been very fortunate my whole
life. Just the fact that I’m here. I could have been
killed so many times. I’ve seen it flash in front of
my eyes so many times. I’ve learned to climb
obstacles.I spent a lot of time in the mountains. To
me mountains are like obstacles in your everyday life.


When I was on an Indian reservation I’d hike a
different mountain everyday. I felt like if I could
conquer them there then I could take care of those
mountains in the “real world.” I’m in this world by
myself, obviously. My family is not here. I learned to
be my own family, and cheer myself on in hard times. I
tried every drug possible on the street. But the fact
that I was interested in spirituality at a very young
age is what kept me through it all. Otherwise I
probably would have given up a long time ago. 

I felt like giving up many times, but once you’ve gone
through so much, you know you’ve come this far. And
after you’ve hit rock bottom, you know at least that
it can’t get any worse, unless you just stay there. I
didn’t want to stay there, because I also wanted to
help other homeless people. I wanted to move because I
couldn’t help them from where I was. I had nothing to
help them with.

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