Sticks and Stones: Critiquing the Internet one blog at a time.
Just a Postcard in America
The People’s Public Transit Bureau Presents: Sticks and Stones
at The Brewery 2100 N Main A-15 (In the Atrium.)
Breathing real life into new media.
The People’s Public Transit Bureau and LA Eastside will be having an open discussion on aspects of race, culture and new media while we silk screen the t-shirt you have on (you have to take it off,) the one you brought from home or a complimentary one from a very limited supply.
I’m pushing about ten years here in Los Angeles doing the community based queer Latina/o arts organizing thing that continues to move, baffle, inspire, exhaust me. Me da vida. I believe in making space for queer Latino/as living in Los Angeles to share creative work at an emerging level that often goes unseen and unheard. Oftentimes that’s the least of our troubles in the cacophony of violence that surrounds our realities as either gender-non-conforming outlaws trying to make a home in the communities we are from. We remember Gwen Araujo. Lawrence King, presente. Sakina Gunn, RIP. These youth did not have the chance to spit their truth and so we, as poets and artists, render their struggles poetically to remember.
I hope L.A. Eastside readers can pause and think about the LGBT gente in their lives–have you ever thought about the struggles that they face as they remain true to themselves while occupying spaces with family, friends, and institutions like church and school. Have you ever stopped some bullshit language flying around the schoolyards or did you let the slap in the face go unpunished? Did you ever not talk to somebody because the gender line was crossed in such a way that…ni porque decirlo?
Many of America’s cities are in the crapper thanks to years of policy that’s favored suburbanites and their wasteful consumption habits. And LA has suffered the glut of gentrifying jerks looking for a lifestyle instead of a place to live. Buildings turned into condos, markets turned into fancy t-shirt shops, restaurants with one word names. It’s like some invasion by rich asshole foreigners, quickly turning Los Angeles into a First World City, instead of an American city. But this trend is reversible and the opportunity to clean up this city, and get rid of all the cleaned-up-ness, is achievable.
What’s the difference between a First World City and an American City? Let me show you the signs.
I always like the story that the term “man” as a slang gesture of affection or recognition came into vogue through jazz musicians of the 1940’s. That Gillespie, Parker and Miles used the term to destroy the humiliating use of “boy” is a powerful demonstration. We’ll just make up our own shit. Better, let’s call ourselves what we are.
I read this comment from El Chavo and it jarred a few memories:
BTW, I hate that fake bonding shit: I get some people in my work environment calling me ‘bro’ or even ‘brother,’ like I know them or something. It makes me want to punch them.
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
Hey, it’s St. Patrick’s Day so I thought I’d share a few pics of that other drunken ethnic holiday: Purim! For those not in the know, which includes me, it’s apparently a Jewish day of celebration and required drunkeness. So where’s my invitation?
At one point, this holiday must have been common in Boyle Heights. Now it’s probably only big on the Westside. Click ahead for a few pics.
San Patricio Battalion Flag [repost from chimatli.org, written last year]
It can be argued that St Patrick’s Day is like a national holiday in my neighborhood, despite the fact there is no sizable Irish community in this area. Here in Lincoln Heights, it’s common to see people wearing shamrock paraphernalia all year round. As was recently pointed out to me, stores in Lincoln Heights will stock green colored clothing more frequently as it tends to sell more quickly than other colors. Shamrocks magically grace the walls after long weekend nights, spreading the luck of the Irish throughout our little hood. Continue reading →
A new and scary low for humanity, Sheriff Joe marches shackled immigrants through selective neighborhoods of Phoenix to heighten the impact and gain some publicity for himself.
Does the right wing want Mexicans to be tattooed with an ID number and have to wear a symbol of their ethnicity? Maybe a star of Davidlike the Nazis had the Jews wear on their clothing in Europe?
Last year in Maricopa county Arizona during Easter Sunday Sheriff Joe set up roadblocks in Chicano neighborhoodssurrounding churches and stopped and questioned every “Mexican looking†family on their way to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
Could this happen here? If Walter Moore gets elected Mayor he already has his “Jamiel’s Lawâ€, written upto “legally†profile Mexican Americans. It seems the failed right wing is looking to scapegoat the Mexican American population and use the issue of immigration as a wedge issue since they have nothing else to whip up enthusiasm for their “causeâ€
Sheriff Joe Arpaio Marches Immigrants Through Public Square
New America Media, Commentary, Douglas Rivlin, Posted: Feb 05, 2009
Editor’s Note: On Wednesday, Maricopa County, Ariz. Sheriff Joe Arpaio marched shackled immigrants through the streets of Phoenix as a show of force and to promote his Fox Reality Channel television program. Meanwhile, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, the new Secretary of Homeland Security, has called for a review of Homeland Security immigration enforcement measures, including 287g, which allows local police to enforce federal civil immigration law. Maricopa County has entered into a 287g agreement with the federal government that gives Sheriff Arpaio greater latitude to go after immigrants, whether or not they are accused of committing criminal offenses. Douglas Rivlin is communications director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-partisan pro-immigrant advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
The Wall Street Journal had an article on how paisa gardeners in Los Angeles don’t seem to be suffering as much their compatriots in construction and other blue-collar jobs. Despite La Crisis some of them seem to be doing remarkably well.
“Gardening isn’t like working at a factory, where you depend on one employer,” says Manuel Quezada, a 54-year-old veteran gardener, as he and his team put down sod in the front yard of a house here. “If I lose one house, it doesn’t hurt that much.”
For immigrants, gardening has long been a stepping stone to prosperity. Japanese immigrants with a background in agriculture pioneered residential gardening in California in the early 20th century. The physical labor didn’t require education or fluent English but it lifted them into the middle class. In the mid-1960s, Mexican peasants began flocking to the U.S. Southwest in large numbers. By the 1980s, they had come to dominate the residential gardening niche, Mr. Ramirez says, and some have thrived financially.
I can see how this industry would continue to do well. Some neighborhoods are required to have a certain amount of landscape maintenance and most of these folks that live in these areas are not going to do it themselves. However, if water rationing is implemented (California is currently in emergency drought conditions), I wonder how long it will be before gardeners start feeling the pinch.
On a related note, I’ve been hearing anecdotal tales about immigrants moving back home or at least away from Los Angeles. Anyone have friends or family affected by La Crisis that have decided to move on?
For some time, my work commute across the river took me down the stretch of Melrose Ave near Normandie/Western in Central Los Angeles. At first, I seemed to overlook the big red sign proclaiming “Santa Muerte,” I was more aware of the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries in the area. Eventually though, the Mexican Blackletter font snagged my attention and I began to realize this tiny storefront was more than just a regular neighborhood botanica.
Welcome to Part Two of the Taking Over reviews. A couple of reviews are still making their way through the LA Eastside digital transport, so please revisit this post in the next few days. (New review from Pachuco 3000 below!)
Part one can be found here.
Cindylu:
I’ve lived just a few minutes away from Downtown Culver City since 2000 in Palms South Robertson*. Despite living here for 8+ years, I only recently started spending any significant time (and money) in the area. Previously, there was nothing to do after 5 pm and a dearth of any other sorts of entertainment.
That’s all slowly been changing. The Kirk Douglas Theater playbill featured an article about the “revitalization” (aka gentrification) of DCC in recent years. In a small area you can find several architecture firms, art galleries, a couple of theaters, and several restaurants. On Tuesdays, local growers set up a farmer’s market on a 1-block long Main Street. If you go during a weekend night, you’ll find the 5 or so blocks between the Trader Joe’s and Kirk Douglas Theater quite busy. Now, I regularly shop at Trader Joe’s, buy fruit and vegetables at the farmer’s market, watch movies at the Pacific Theater and eat at some of the restaurants. I’d never gone to a production at the Kirk Douglas until last week. And yes, I can see the inherent contradiction of watching a play on gentrification in my neighborhood due to the gentrification in the area.
Top: Slum houses on Mateo St,
The Flats before being torn down for Aliso Village
outhouse and Clover St. 1940’s
Art’s Market, DogTown 1950’s
The question is often asked by people who didn’t grow up on the Eastside, “what’s the big deal about the Eastside? “Why is it that you people are so uptight about changes and gentrification, and all the concern about Echo Park, Silver Lake, or whoever, claiming they are Eastside?
Well the photos (from the archives of the LA County Housing Authority), show some of the reasons why the people of and from the Eastside are so thin skinned and protective. None of these neighborhoods (and many, many, others), as poverty stricken and rough as they were, exist anymore except in memories. Some of the destruction happened because there were people with good intentions who felt that tearing down neighborhoods and building housing projects was a positive step in alleviating poverty.
Some of the destruction was just an easy way to create wealth at the expense of the poor powerless people of the Eastside.
