Category Archives: Politica

Save Golden Gate Theater—here’s what you can do right now!

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Alright folks, eleventh-hour call to action here…

 If we’re serious about doing something to save Golden Gate Theater—the only remaining movie palace in East LA—we need to drop whatever “urgent” matter we’re dealing with now (like updating our Facebook statuses or, even more mundane, working), and figure out which of the following two actions we’re going to take between today and tomorrow.

A)    Plan on attending the hearing tomorrow (May 13, 9am) and expressing your reasons before the LA County Regional Planning Commission for opposing the destruction of this invaluable cultural jewel.

OR, if nothing else…

B)     Write and submit by 6pm TODAY your comments on this matter. You can send your remarks to agutierrez@planning.lacounty.gov

Hopefully, you’ll decide to attend the hearing. Below is the address. It’s the first item on the agenda, so be on time!

Health Services Auditorium
313 N Figueroa (corner street: Temple), Los Angeles 90012

Points to remember…

 *  The 1927 Churriguerresque-style theater is one of LA’s most significant movie palaces and the only one remaining in the future city of East LA…

 * Even if Latino and working class, doesn’t East LA deserve the enjoyment of historic and cultural preservation as much as some Westside neighborhood? The restoration of a beautiful old theater in the community could potentially house emerging cultural/arts organizations on the Eastside and serve as the anchor for an East LA arts district on Whittier Blvd. Why squander this opportunity??    

* If we don’t save the Golden Gate Theater now, the real estate development firm that holds title to it, the Charles Co., will gut the building in order to lease it to CVS Pharmacy—hardly a friend of the community (read all about CVS and their crimes at www.curecvsnow.org…

The US is #1 in putting people in jail. We’re #1!

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Locked Up

The United States has the highest incarceration rates in the world. We’re a country that in some parts uses the test scores of third graders to figure out how many future prison beds we should be building.

So I guess that means if you’re not scoring high on test, you’re not going to get a job, since you live in America you have two choices: homelessness or crime.

Pull yourself up by your boot straps or we’ll lock you up.

In America that seems perfectly reasonable.

America is a perfectly reasonably barbaric country. Continue reading →

Brooklyn & Boyle issue 5

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brooklyn-boyle-vover

Here it is, the newest issue of Brooklyn & Boyle fresh off the grill. So to speak. It was a long time coming, but the wait was worth it. The magazine keeps improving with each issue. AND YES I see the grammatical errors cabrones, mistakes like that can be easily remedied, but what can I, we just wanted to get this mag out and ready for your viewing pleasure. So enjoy. Ohh and click on the images to see a bigger, more readable version of it.

Continue reading →

Japanophilia, or the obsession with Japan

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Anyone here obsessed with Japanese culture (i.e. anime/manga, cherry trees, samurai, kendo, taiko, karate/judo/aikido, sushi, teriyaki, Kurosawa, “Beat” Takeshi Kitano) and things related to it (Little Tokyo, Comic-Con) and consider themselves or have been called a Japanophile?
I find America’s rising obsession with Japan so interestingly ironic. 20 years ago in elementary school and throughout high school, anyone who looked remotely Asian was called Chino or China.
My mother and other Japanese tenants in nearby apartment buildings in Boyle Heights were and still are called Chin@ by neighbors.
Nowadays, elementary and high school students carry “manga” (Japanese comics) books with them and are fascinated with Japanese culture. Some high school students I’ve worked with are so obsessed with Japan that they are studying the language via podcast and the internet on their own so that they can one day travel there.
An American Caucasian friend of mine who now lives in Tokyo with his Japanese girlfriend has told me that he feels most at home when he arrives to Narita Airport. Another Mexican American/Chicano friend has told me he believes he was Japanese in his past lifetime because of his deep interest in Japan and the culture.
Oh, how I wonder what it would have been like to be “cool” for bringing salmon and riceballs to school in my pink New Kids on the Block lunchbox while envying my classmates who had normal sandwiches and bags of pepinos.

An article by Oxy professor, Morgan Ptelka. http://www.discovernikkei.org/forum/en/node/1709

La Linea de Odio

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mean

I guess someone should have mentioned it here earlier, this whole thing with Gloria Molina asking for the new Eastside extension to be named in Spanish, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I keep forgetting about the hatred people have for Spanish and Spanish speakers. In 2009. In a city of mostly Latinos, where half speak Spanish. I was planning on being outraged at the backwardness, call some assholes out, but fuck it, who cares? It’s just the monolingual ethnic white enclaves grasping at anything as they build up the virtual gates to stave off the inevitable: you will have to accept us. And the way we speak. Oh, I bet they are longing for those restrictive covenants now.

This shit is old and tired and repetitive. I’m used to it. I grew up with it. A second class citizen in my own country. My primary language mocked, derided, condemned. Taking the brunt of irritation as some annoyed monolingual bureaucrat is forced to talk through a child to communicate with his Spanish speaking parents. Authority figures that treat you like a criminal just because of an East Los accent. Newbies to the city thinking I’m the foreigner since they don’t recognize that accent. Even as other romance languages signify upscale. Yet a symbolic gesture to recognize one of the main languages on the Eastside, somehow that’s considered offensive?  Efaak eyuu.

I’m not going to get mad. Para tal baboso, sus babosadas. Look it up.

What you don’t understand is that we have defensive mechanisms, built from experience, to deal with this continued attack on our identity. What you don’t understand is that your streak of hostility will not touch us.

Sas!

Made in L.A. ~ May Day Campaign

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Click here to see a clip

When I first saw Made in L.A. last year after it won an Emmy, it hit a soft spot in me to say the least. When my father first came to this country way back in the ’90s to pave the way for the rest of the family to make it over, he worked in one of those garment factories. I remember those days because of where we lived, how we lived and my father telling us later on, in his drunken ramblings, how much he hated that work when he was doing it. Yet, he did it and put up with it because that was what he needed to do in order to get the job done, so to speak.
Continue reading →

Cute? A story of MY fire escape.

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Baby Rat w/feathers

Baby Rat w/feathers

I went by my girlfriend Noe’s place in Boyle Heights. It used to be my place, but I decided to move downtown.

My girlfriend loves everything and everybody. When I went to her place she was like, “Browne I have something to show you.”

So she takes me to the fire escape and shows me a baby rat. With feathers. I think some people call them pigeons.

“Isn’t it cute?” Noe.

I just sort of stare, she continues, “The mama was there and then there was an egg, so I couldn’t kick it out. It’s nature. It’s beautiful.”

An egg is not a bird, apparently she hasn’t been reading her pro-choice literature.

That nest and egg would have been on the sidewalk on the pavement if I still lived there. A sort of lesson to all of the other pigeons to stay off MY fire escape, but the universe works in mysterious ways and Noe lives there not Browne, so a lucky break for the pigeons of Boyle Heights.

Browne Molyneux

Killer’s Paradise

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As many of you know, I have been an art activist against the femicides that have occurred in Ciudad Juarez.  My public activism in this has connected me to others that work to change gender injustices occurring all over the world.  In 2007, I joined Chapinas Unidas (Los Angeles Guatemalan Women’s Group) who came together to create awareness on the femicides occurring in Guatemala. Again, the international community was faced with extreme injustice by governmental, legal and social networks for victims and their families in Guatemala.  In May of 2007, we organized a press conference at Mercado la Paloma in South Central and a conference and art exhibit called “Espejo” at Sol Art in Santa Ana to discuss the femicides in Guatemala.

TODAY April 8th, at 7pm PST a discussion on Feminist Magazine (KPFK radio) about the upcoming Bringing The Circle Together film screening of ‘Killer’s Paradise’. Radio host Melissa Chiprin will speak with Indigenous activists in Los Angeles, Ana Castillo and Azalea Ryckman of Chapinas Unidas, and Olivia Chumacero of Farmlab, who have helped spread awareness about the ongoing femicide in Guatemala. You can listen in Los Angeles on 90.7 FM, on 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara and streaming live on kpfk.org. This show will also be archived if you are unable to tune in that night!   Please tune in to KPFK tonight and click more here to get data on the free screening of ‘Killer’s Paradise’ on Thursday, April 16.  Nos vemos alli. Continue reading →

A.R.T.E.S.

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artes

The planning and development for an Art’s District in Boyle Heights is underway. Artist are uniting and getting the ball rolling on making sure this opportunity doesn’t get shelved and tossed to the side. The projects origins can be traced back to local council member Jose Huizar approaching a teacher at UCLA.  From there, 12 urban planning students surveyed Boyle Heights and presented their findings to Huizar a while back. Alfredo Huante and Carolina Martinez are two of the students and were at tonight’s meeting explaining what the current situation is and who their meeting with Huizar went. The students finished their commitment and got their credit. They explained that they no longer have a stake in the survey and said that projects like this usually go ignored because there is no one to pick up where they left off. That’s where A.R.T.E.S. comes in. With so much ground work already started, the students are passing everything on to them as they are getting organized and creating an infrastructure to make sure that the district meets the needs of the community and artist.

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Hands Across The River…

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east-of-the-river

There was a time when it seemed that some Westside Angelenos perceived life east of the river to be something like this…..

Apparently, there’s been some change of heart by our neighbors to the West. I received today the following email care of L.A. Eastside and I thought it would be worthy of sharing with our readers:
Continue reading →