Category Archives: La Crisis

What Would You Cut?

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The Mayor of the City of Los Angeles is threatening to lay-off many workers, the number fluctuates daily. In addition, various Departments like the one On Disability is being threatened with elimination. There have been quite a few posts here about what is going on.

Since the Mayor can’t come up with any ideas other than laying workers off, privatizing municipal institutions, and hiking up parking tickets I think we should come up with our own budget cuts and pass them on to him.
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Save Olvera Street!

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It’s unfortunate, but many of us Los Angeles natives take Olvera Street aka El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument or La Placita Olvera for granted. It’s the place to buy taquitos, folklorico shoes and other Mexican handicrafts. We go there to eat, stroll, take pictures on donkeys and just hangout. Every year they put on great programs to celebrate different holidays. I have fond memories of winning the best costume contest for Mardi Gras one year (Chicken Girl!) My mom always tells her story of spotting Marlon Brando sitting in the Plaza one afternoon, staring forlornly into space. For myself and my family, Olvera Street is an institution, a part of our personal history.

I recently read the book Los Angeles’s Olvera Street by William Estrada and was surprised by the history of this Los Angeles landmark. If it weren’t for the efforts of Christine Sterling, who recognized the area as a historic treasure, the whole street (actually it’s kind of an alley) would have been demolished and long forgotten by now.

Well, it’s time we all channel our inner Christine Sterlings because we received an urgent email tonight from a LA Eastside reader regarding a very important meeting tomorrow. It seems the City of Los Angeles, in it’s typical short-sighted way wants to privatize Olvera Street. I’m sure it sounds good to the CAOs and accountants to do so, but our history is much more valuable than the small profits number-crunchers try to come up with. This is not to say that there is no room for change or new ideas but privatization usually brings homogenization and corporate culture something Olvera Street, for all it’s faults, refreshingly lacks. Our city has enough malls.

Friends,

Due to the city’s fiscal crisis, tomorrow morning, the Los Angeles City Council will discuss and potentially vote on a plan to privatize El Pueblo Historical Monument, the Birthplace of the City of Los Angeles. Please come to John Ferraro Council Chambers at 11:15 AM ready to share your concerns during public comment.

While the details of privatization have not been disclosed, the plan will likely include the commercialization of El Pueblo, its public museums, galleries and historic sites which are visited by two million people annually, including 300,000 students.

Please communicate to city officials that privatization of the city’s birthplace is nothing short of an abomination, may violate state historic codes, and threatens the city’s irreplaceable cultural and historical heritage. Let them know that El Pueblo’s historic buildings, the oldest in the city, its public space, vast collection of artifacts and photographs that speak to the the city’s early history must be preserved for present and future generations.

Los Angeles City Hall
John Ferraro Council Chambers, Room 340
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, 90012

Thanks!

Is Villaraigosa Creating a “Police State” in LA?

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On Saturday morning I had coffee with a Los Angeles city worker, who (among other of his colleagues), is disturbed at the direction city leadership is laying out the LA Game-‘o-Life board. This week Mayor Villaraigosa said regarding the economic crisis fueled job cuts, “I don’t do this because I want to, I do this because I must.” Within this “a man must do what a man must do” blanket statement are also choices. In a city of approximately 40,000 city workers, there are 10,000 police and between 5,000 & 6,000 in the fire department, making them 40% of the city workforce. LA city workers have been appraised that Villaraigosa wants to focus on public safety first, translated means that other services in the city will suffer, but not the police forces.

Across my desk this week were dialogues about student actions being planned regarding the cuts in education, the closing of more parks in the city, the dissolution of the city’s Cultural Affairs Department (I got somewhere around 50 email petitions, which helped overturned this plan—gracias artistas!), an alarming price increase menu on traffic tickets with added rules (drivers beware!), gentrification plans to mow down more eastside historic buildings, and Pearl Art Store selling everything at 75% off (looks like they are going down).

As the students have noted in their various cries for continued funding, this city spends more on prisons and those who can imprison us, than things that can uplift us as a humanity, such as community spaces, art and education. I cringe to think what sort of summer we are headed for in LA. More negative places to be pushed into, armed monitors of humans to catch you erring, climbing prices on everything, mom and pops closing all around us, polluted city drinking water, no jobs, gas that cost more than a blood transfusion and no light at the end of the tunnel. My free-thinking art friends say “let the whole thing crash, we have survived worse.” I am starting to picture myself teaching an impromptu class to eager students on the street corner where they have been locked out of their schools.

Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

CSUN Chicana/o Studies Furlough day and teach in

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This past Wednesday at the big N, we took a department wide furlough day/walkout/teach-in. We are multi disciplinary so are our actions.

I didn’t call for a furlough day because then none of my students would have gone to campus, unless they had other classes, and they would have missed the march and teach in.

The weird thing about it all was that very few of the students knew what to do at a rally or march. Most had never been to a march. They grew up in an era of grotesque lies, conservativism, fear mongering and resistance to dehumanization but had never participated or seen what people did in the streets.

I met with my later class and asked “what will it take to get you angry and into the streets?” none could answer. I hope they come back with something on Wednesday.

City Arts Organizations Need Your Help

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This exhibition, co-curated by two Department of Cultural Affairs employees and taking place in the Municipal Gallery of the City of Los Angeles is exactly the kind of innovative programming that’s threatened by the proposed staff and budget cuts. This show brings together 60 artists who represent the thriving experimental nature of Los Angeles’ art scene, possibly the first gathering of size in LA of artists of this experimental generation, raised on a diet of relational aesthetics and a dissatisfaction with the art world in general. Our city is being recognized as an art capital today because of the risks and experiments of the artists gathered in this exhibition.

Hello Eastsiders!  I live in the Harbor Area, but this affects the whole city, so I’ve asked to borrow this soapbox for a minute.

The Department of Cultural Affairs is being threatened with a 24-48% staff cut, the elimination of the entire $2.2 million grants budget and there is a motion to eliminate the ordinance that guarantees a %1 “hotel bed tax” that forms the core of the Department’s budget.  These cuts will cripple the department, and the elimination of the grants program will spread the pain out, further crippling the ability of scores of non-profits throughout the City to deliver key programming.

There are hard working people at the Department of Cultural Affairs who will lose their jobs, and kids who will not get an arts education if these cuts pass.  Small businesses and individual contractors who provide services to arts organizations will be hard hit.  Artists who desperately need support and venues for their work will find it gone.  I will likely have to cancel upcoming programming at Angels Gate if these cuts go through, and I know that other arts organizations will be even harder hit than the one I work for.

This situation has been developing for several days now, and even now as I write this there is a meeting about the elimination of the grants program.  I have a whole series of posts up at my site that go into detail about the cuts, you can read about it here, here and here.  Arts for LA has also been on top of this, and their site has lots of information as well.  The Times is barely covering this, at the time I’m writing this, the Culture Monster blog hasn’t even addressed the issue.

How you can get involved and make a difference

Angels Gate Cultural Center, in partnership with the Grand Vision Foundation, will be hosting a letter writing party tonight, February 1, at the Grand Annex on 6th Street in Downtown San Pedro from 5:30-8:00 pm.  We will provide paper, pre-written letters, writing assistance, pens, envelopes.  We will write letters to the city council, Council District 15 councilmember Janice Hahn and the Mayor’s office, letting them know how important the Department of Cultural Affairs and its services are to you and your families.  Your words can change things.

If you can’t make our letter writing party, you can write a letter online via Arts for LA’s website.  If you don’t live in the City, but enjoy the services provided by the DCA, you should direct your Emails to either council president Eric Garcetti.  You can write all of them if you like, too.  It’s easy.

Write a letter online here.

You can also contact your councilmember’s office directly, via the City of Los Angeles website. Nothing gets their attention more than a barrage of phone calls.

Marshall Astor
www.marshallastor.com

UPDATE, click ahead

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Dirty deeds done dirt cheap

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If I remember correctly, my very first post on this here blog was about a police sobriety check in the heart of Boyle Heights in June of last year. Hmm more than a year later, the economy in Califas is tanking, the city is looking left and right and underneath every couch cushion to save money and bring in more revenue, like raising sales taxes to 9.75 percent and other various  measures. It’s getting tight in this city, real tight. The kind of tight that when I was growing up, frijoles, huevos and tortillas were what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with maybe some queso de piez sprinkled on the beans to add a little variety.

Needless to say, it’s not hard to connect the dots on the current situation out on the streets of L.A. right now, with all these holiday sobriety check points to keep drunk drivers off the streets. This is an invaluable service by the police, however we all know that’s not the case right ? I mean come on !! This is way over the line, even for the L.A.P.D We all expect and know these holiday sobriety checkpoints are around, but as of late, the amount of cars getting pulled over and of these check points is bordering on abuse. Nah, you know what, it is abuse.  “Ohh but you’re just exaggerating because you blah, blah, blah” hell no I’m not exaggerating. Sunday of last week me and VD were kicking old school on our way to the barrio when we see a car pulled over on Sheridan. Then we see another car pulled over two blocks further down and then another car pulled over on Chavez and Soto. Not to mention that I average out one text per day informing me of where there are check points taking place. This isn’t the police checking for drunk drivers and keeping the streets safe, this is the police being abused by the shot callers who need to come up with more feria to cover the cost of their business expenses and trips to Mexico to represent L.A. in a book fair. Really !? A book fair !?

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ICE team takes a Starbucks break

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A couple of friends and I were at the Little Tokyo Starbucks in early December when we heard a loud engine rumbling. We turn around and it was none other than the ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) team parking their gigantic greyhound bus in the red zone for a coffee stop. We couldn’t see through the windows if there were any “illegals” inside. This was just days after the big ICE sweep of 280 illegal immigrants (some with criminal records!) on December 11.

Does my tax money really go to this kind of bullshit?

big ICE bus

big ICE bus

the smaller, faster van, just in case

the smaller, faster van, just in case

NELA Xmas Parades This Sunday (and Next)

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(From last year at LH, when a girl tried to do a citizen’s arrest on a promoter of unhealthy food.)

(Edit: Damn am I stupid. Thanks to Crisis for pointing out the obvious. LH parade is on the 13th. HLP is the 6th. Argh!)

What you doing tomorrow morning? Nothing? Well then, might I suggest you consider attending one of NELA’s Xmas parades. This year, you’ll have to make the grueling decision of which one to attend as both the Lincoln Heights and the Highland Park parades are happening this Sunday Dec 6, even though they are usually spaced a week apart. What happened? Is La Crisis so bad that local parades have to battle for attendees and their few crumpled dollars? Oh wait, they’re both free. Nevermind.

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LH starts at 11:00 am, at least on paper. 😉 Best spot is around N. Broadway and Griffin. Plus they are having a Tree Lighting event today Saturday at 5pm at Mirabal Mortuary.

To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for the HLP parade cuz everyone knows that the Lincoln Heights one is always better, so your decision should be easy. Ha ha, I said it! But here’s that info, just in case a few people want to go just so they don’t feel bad.

65th Annual
Northeast Los Angeles
HOLIDAY PARADE
” Unity in the Community ”

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2009 ~ 1 PM
Traveling down Figueroa from Ave. 60 to Sycamore Grove Park followed by
WINTERFEST CONCERT & ENTRY AWARDS CEREMONY 4 PM

http://northeastlaholidayparade.com/

I guess you can go to LH first and then hurry to HLP. Hmm, that’s not a bad idea.

The Dentrimental Downer of the Digital Camera

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On my way home up an undisclosed street in Boyle Heights at 11pm on a Monday night, I saw a news van parked in front of a food stand.*  The food stand were run by a familiar Breed Street family.  Since I had my digital point-and-shoot handy, I stopped and took a few photos (without the flash).  I was immediately approached by one of the individuals with the food team and her male sidekick.  They asked me in Spanish what I was taking the photos for.  I responded in my poor Spanish that the photos were just for me, that I lived in the neighborhood and that I was also a regular customer.  They proceeded to explain that they’ve been getting harassed by the cops and that all the Breed Street vendors were kicked out because of all the media hype.  Then the news reporter for the [undisclosed] news station approached me and explained that they were there doing the story to publicize the negative repercussions the Councilman’s office has had on the livelihoods of the Breed Street family businesses.

For a moment, I felt like a criminal for carrying a handheld camera.  Granted, from where I was standing and my lack of professionalism not having approached anyone for their consent, I did look like a suspicious onlooker with a possible ulterior motive.  But I’m just an ordinary girl living in an ordinary world with an affordable digital camera made for the consumer.  Why was I looked at as a threat?

Everyone has a camera these days, whether it’s a feature on their phone, a point-and-shoot within arm’s reach of their breast pocket, or an SLR slung around their shoulder.  In a time where communication is excitingly instant via the phone and internet, however, it is easy to overlook the flipside of all the hype.  People communicating and sharing information with each other on their own volition has become nearly detrimental to the livelihoods of the people we talk about on blogs like this.  We’ve become LA Times’ enablers.  We’ve even become, I dare say, enablers of gentrification.  It’s become quite apparent that anything “underground” is considered “cool” and “hip.”  Once it spreads word-of-mouth, we’ll see the information and all its details on a blog somewhere.  Then it becomes officially popular and the official news media go after their hot story secretly using the local blogs as their direct source of information.  Then it becomes a matter of control.  City councilmen suddenly become the faces of everything that’s been going on in their very own community that they didn’t know about before the LA Times article appeared.

Lesson learned: use caution when taking photos.

Solution: Should I just take pictures of landscape and candids at family barbeques to avoid any possible controversy?

*names will not be named