Author Archives: cindylu

About cindylu

reluctant westside chicana grad student

Saturday Morning

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The week had been tough relationship-wise. Everyone I was close to was pissing me off. My roommate set a bug bomb off while I was sleeping (mistake, of course). My mom wasn’t calling me back. And el Venado, the boyfriend, kept screwing up.

He called Friday night. The first ten minutes of the conversation were tense. He was trying, but I insisted on answering his open-ended questions with yeses, nos, okays, and fines. Of course I wasn’t fine or okay, and he could pick up on it. Ten minutes into the conversation he finally received my telepathic clues and said what I wanted to hear.

“I want to see you.”
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Sunset at Chavez Ravine

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In Antonio’s country, where there were many natural beauties, the sunsets were ordinary and predictable. Here in Los Angeles, nightfall was often a sweeping and multihued event, with a majesty that suggested the coming of the millennium, the end of a planetary journey.

Someone once told Antonio it was the pollution in the air that made the evening sky this way. Like everything else in Los Angeles, even the beautiful sunsets were man-made.

From The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar

(Same photo, different words.)

The Fan and Fernando

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I like to think I was destined to be a lifelong Dodger fan. I was born just before Fernando “El Toro” Valenzuela was called up to the majors in September 1980. Of course, I don’t remember that. Nor do I remember Fernando Mania and his awesome 1981 season which resulted Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards. In fact, I really don’t remember much about Fernando during his prime years except for listening to Jaime Jarrín announce over the radio, “¡Lo ponchó!”

Fernando made many people fans… or at least increased their love for the Dodgers. Still, I can’t say Fernando made me a fan. My dad gets all the credit for that.
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El Manzano

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When my parents bought their home 30 years ago, the front and back yards were barren. I don’t remember that, because by the time I came around the yard was lovely. The trees, plants and grass Papá Chepe (my grandfather) planted had grown perfectly.

As a gardener and former farm worker, he was quite experienced when it came to working the land. In the front lawn, he planted grass, several small pine trees which divided our lawn from our neighbor’s property, sávila, bushes, flowers, maguey and the prized mulberry tree known as La Mora.
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Antigua to be evicted from El Sereno location

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Sigh.

First Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore was booted from it’s original location in San Fernando. The space is now reportedly a laundromat.

Now, Antigua Cultural Coffee House will close the doors of its El Sereno location. They’re “getting evicted or just simply not being granted a contract extension.” In three weeks they’ll be gone… but never fear, their Cypress Park location will open later this summer.

Yancey, co-owner of Antigua, calls his coffee shop “the envy of the West side.” I can’t argue with that as evidenced by my reaction after my first visit in August 2006. Since then, I’ve found a coffee shop in Culver City where the owner notices when I haven’t visited in a while. It’s cool, but it’s no Antigua.

I visited Antigua a few weeks ago for a monthly meet up with fellow Latin@ bloggers. The meetings are a fun time to just catch up, support independent small businesses on the Eastside and talk about current issues. The next gathering will be at Antigua on Wednesday June 18th at 7 pm. For more info, check out Eastside Scene.

If you’ve never been to Antigua or met a fellow blogger, you should stop by. I always leave the gatherings feeling that the trek from Westwood was well worth it.

Email announcement from Yancey, co-owner of Antigua after the jump.
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Moving on east

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A few months ago, I read a post by El Chavo on the folks who leave the Eastside for suburbs to the east in an effort to “move on up.” In the replies to the post, some people pointed out that their families have been living in places like the Inland Empire for a couple of generations or that when their parents decided to buy a home, the only thing they could afford was out in the Inland Empire.

The post and ensuing discussion made me curious and I went to my parents with more questions. Why did you buy a home in Hacienda Heights? Why not stay in East LA? Why move to an area where you didn’t know anybody? Are we Chuppies?

Well, my mom explained, she and my dad started looking at homes in the area during one of their shopping trips to the Puente Hills Mall. She compared it to my sister going out to Victoria Gardens in Ontario (I think). I think she mentioned something about schools too, but that wasn’t what stuck.

In 1978, there was no Applebees or Chili’s or Starbucks to draw her and my father out to the area. Besides, they don’t care much for chain restaurants or over-priced coffee. But my mom has always loved to shop.

The funny thing is, growing up, my mom shopped most often at the swap meet. I visited the Vineland Swap Meet in La Puente much more often than the Puente Hills Mall though the latter was closer. We’d get everything at the swap meet from fruits and vegetables to fabric to make dresses and curtains and bedspreads.

There were no Kenneth Cole shoes at the swap meet. We didn’t mind.

Family Ties

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josé ureño I don’t live on the Eastside, neither the actual Eastside nor the area confused transplants mis-label as the Eastside.

I’m squarely on the Westside. I’ve lived here for the last 10 years while going to school and working at UCLA. I’ve never even lived on the Eastside. I grew up east of East LA in an unincorporated town of the San Gabriel Valley, Hacienda Heights.

Like a lot of LA-area Latinos, I have close ties to Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights despite never having lived in the area.

When my maternal grandfather, José, first came to work to LA in the 1940s, he lived in Lincoln Heights. José took the street cars to work to orchards in the valley and would watch movies at the theaters on Broadway. Several years later, he’d bring the rest of the family north. First, they’d leave Zacatecas for Tijuana. Then when everyone got their papers in order they migrated from Tijuana to LA. The first home they lived in was in Lincoln Heights. José worked as a gardener, my grandma Antonia helped.

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