Last Sunday as I was heading home, I noticed the increasingly familiar sight of a helicopter swooping in circles around the heights area of Lincoln Heights. Things have been heating up around Northeast LA and by things, I mean gangs and related activities. They usually confine their exploits to the wee hours of the night so I was surprised at all the commotion on a Sunday afternoon.
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This afternoon, during 4th period, self-organized and self-motivated students walked-out. Now kids ditching or skipping out on school is nothing new. And definitely nothing new at Lincoln HS, let me tell you. But I could see the conviction of why the kids were doing it.
The landmark street sign for long time Eastside favorite “CHRONI’S FAMOUS SANDWICH SHOP” recently fell victim to a “hostile makeover.”
The former original version had featured a flickering neon outline that animated the doggie’s wagging tail and tongue. The new flat paint job reduces the sign to a shadow of it’s former self. By simply filling in the original outlines with bright primary colors instead of attempting to restore the original design, the management continues to further alienate us purists by continuing a string of Chroni’s atrocities such as putting lettuce in the hamburgers.
As an avid preservationist and historian, I lament yet another loss of our city’s original flavor. My only consolation at this point is that I had managed to document images of the original version.
The original Chroni’s sign now becomes yet another bit of L.A. history that we’ll have to find in some future coffee table book. (Sigh) At least we’ll have the pictures, and the memories…………….
Boyle Heights  by Los Poets Del Norte. Check out their myspace for their music and their new B-sides mix.
Quite unfortunately the Eastside (& NELA) seem to be hit by a wave of shootings. The local (il)legitimate media is pretty much silent about it. Working at a high school I have often first hand accounts of the going-downs in Lincoln Heights. Whether it’s drive-by’s or kids I know getting beat up, things are getting crazy.
Is it La Crisis? Is it an extension of what is going down in México?
Me : Hey ! I saw Rosannas facebook and it said there’s aztec dancers at Self Help right now, is it still going on?Â
Victoria : Yeah dude I was there earlier it was crazy.Â
Me  : So why didn’t you tell me or announce it !?
Victoria : I forgot. I’m too busy writing up blog post that I can’t keep track of everything.Â
Me : Yeah cause you post SOO much hahahah
Victoria : Anyway I though you worked on the weekends ?
Me : I do, I just got out and I was checking facebook through my phone at work. So i’d figure I’d call you and get the down low.Â
Victoria : Well go down and check it out. I bet your girlfriend Pachuco 3000 will be there. I know you guys hang out together as if your lovers.
Me : Sigh…just cause we hang out every now and then doesn’t mean we’re lovers. Besides I’m sure he’s up to something already.Â
Victoria : Ohhh I see.
Me : So did I wake you up just now ?
Victoria : Not really. I was taking a power nap because I rode my bike six miles today. Man my ass hurts.
Me : Damn !! you rode around that much ?!?!
Victoria : Nah, I have an exercise bike in my house. My knees are killing me tambien
Me : Ohh so is there anything else going on tonight ?
Victoria : Umm I’m not sure, but I’ll just end up staying home or doing something.
Me : Aight. I’ma head down to self help then and go take pictures.
Victoria : Ok puez. Give us your report about it. Â
Follow the link to see my report….
I know that many of us eastsiders have an embedded belief that using marijuana connects us to our ancient sacred roots, much like the spiritual use of cannabis to the Rastafari. A sprig in rubbing alcohol or as a tea, has been a part of our grandmothers’ homeopathic medicine cabinet for many generations. As an artist, I have questioned the culturally profound and the political correct. [Note: Above image is a self-portrait connecting me to MarÃa Sabina and Bob Marley through marijuana.]
I feel that my obligation as a human and artist is to speak out on matters that I find unjust, using whatever power I have. Being a Chicana artist, I have used my body of work as a platform for creating exhibits and art that have a social message. I have worked with many other artists around the world to keep the sadistic murdering of young women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico current and on our minds through various artistic campaigns. One of the reasons we have come together as a community in LA to demand righteousness for the people of Juarez is because of our history of resistance to injustice. That’s just the way we have been, since California became part of the United States. It was not by chance that in 2001 Raul Baltazar, Rigo Maldonado, Azul Luna, Erika Elizondo and I were invited by the victim mothers of Juarez to strategize on finding a resolution to these crimes—we were a small group of representatives of the greater Los Angeles consciousness.
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Saturday night, I’m still bummed out and sad over the two kids that were shot down on the sometimes-mean streets of the Eastside a few days ago. Across the street from my house there is a memorial for a kid I knew since he was in diapers, shot to death a couple of years ago at 18 yrs old, over some bullshit. Sometimes I think about all the people I knew and grew up with who aren’t with us anymore due to violence, drugs, prisons, all useless bullshit. But then I see something like Art posted up this AM, positive action, good karma, pictures of his kids, I hope all our youngsters have a chance at enjoying the good things that life has to offer, family, friends, a creative and useful time here on earth.
When the blues start to rain down on me I can always count on the Les Blank film “Chulas Fronteras†to snap me out of it, Los Alegres de Teran, and the good life, no matter how humble, there’s no place like home.
 
I have mentioned that I paint murals to make up for karmatic wrongs and have something to talk about at bus stops, maybe one day when i dont have 2 screaming monkeys keeping me from blogging I can elaborate.
Here are my 2 chongos, and their primos whom I am sole zuramaro of:
(PS, the trouble of taking this pic for tia/mama was the foundation for cleaning up Downtown on weekends when they get older, i primed them with LA river cleanups already)
 Me and my wife started a small nonprofit about 7 years ago that paints murals and promotes art awareness in working class comunities, blah, blah ,blah…
So Ive been busy the past week or so securing the permits and painting a mural regarding watershed and indigenous philosophy in Cypress Parque on Macon st. and San Fernando Road. The mural theme is Tlaloc, the aztec deity of water, creating rain on the city of LA (behind tlaloc is map with the LA River and Arroyo Seco highlighted) which flows into the LA harbor.
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Working Class Historian Gifford Hartman (a white guy that grew up in East Los by the way) sent me this link to a fascinating piece about the Jewish influence on radical politics and multiculturalism in Boyle Heights during the 1950’s. For those interested in the history of the Eastside, it’s a must read. There’s lots of good quotes I could pull but this has to be my favorite:
Frumkin already saw the distinction between his community of Boyle Heights and the growing Jewish community on the Westside in 1945. There was “an unspoken solidarity among all the neighbors†on the Eastside, including the 60 percent of his neighbors who were Mexican. “We never had a lock on our door, never had a key. You just didn’t do it. I don’t know if it was unspoken, but as poor as we were, nobody stole from anybody else.†In this working-class solidarity, a certain level of contempt was reserved for the more middle-class surroundings on the Westside.
“When we would smoke, for instance, we would keep the cigarettes in the car. We would never dump them out in East L.A. When we used to go to West L.A. to the Jewish Community Center to dances, we’d dump all our ashtrays out, because we knew the streets were going to be cleaned there. But we never did it here.”
Wow, even in the 50’s people were complaining about the disparity of service in our communities. Some things never change. Is ashtray micro-resistance an action we can learn from our Eastside ancestors? It couldn’t hurt!
The full title of the article is “What’s Good for Boyle Heights Is Good for the Jews”: Creating Multiculturalism on the Eastside during the 1950s by George J. Sanchez
Download the pdf from Muse here
or from us at LA Eastside here
The family of Alejandro Garcia has been keeping vigil at this memorial everyday, hydrating the flowers and answering the questions of passerbys. This past Monday would have been the sixteenth birthday of Carlos Hernandez.
Last Friday, two young boys, Alejandro Garcia, 16 and Carlos Hernandez, 15 were gunned down on their walk home from Franklin High School on the busy North Figueroa corridor. Police and eyewitness reports say the incident started initially as a brawl before it turned deadly.
I’m a bit late in mentioning this story because I was out of town when it happened but I’ve been wondering, what excuse does the Los Angeles Times have? All they’ve got on this tragic story is a small blurb on one of their blogs. That’s pathetic. People have left comments on the LA Now blog expressing similar sentiments. There have been more shootings in the area and still no coverage. Well, at least the Times wasn’t posing outrageous questions to their readers, like whether or not they felt safer with the deceased gone.
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Get your mind outta the gutter you freaks !!! This is a family site. Ok. So last week I paid a visit to the staff of the Roosevelt High newspaper, The Rough Rider. And lemme tell ya, these kids have moxie. I’ve ran into a few of them here and there, mostly at the classic because as a reporter, we can smell our own kind. The nature of my visit was to talk about how the media portrays undocumented residents and how I, as an undocumented resident, use the media to champion my crusade. That’s what I should have talked about, but when I get the spot light I tend to trail off. In fact, the whole time I was there I spent it talking about my life experiences, how IÂ hustle my writing and other adventures I’ve lived through.Â