Jan Lin - Taking Back the Boulevard: Art, Activism, and Gentrification in Los Angeles

TAKING BACK THE BOULEVARD

Taking Back the Boulevard

Art, Activism, and Gentrification in Los Angeles

Jan Lin

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2019 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lin, Jan, author.

Title: Taking back the boulevard : art, activism and gentrification in Los Angeles / Jan Lin.

Description: New York : New York University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018021498| ISBN 9781479809806 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479895700 (pb : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Community developmentCaliforniaLos Angeles. | Arts and societyCaliforniaLos Angeles. | Art and social actionCaliforniaLos Angeles. | GentrificationCaliforniaLos Angeles. | Community organizationCaliforniaLos Angeles.

Classification: LCC HN 80. L 7 L 56 2019 | DDC 307.1/40979494dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021498

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Also available as an ebook

CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURES

. Lisa Marie Sandoval on Branca Patio at Occidental College.

. Dzian! playing on Lummis Day 2012.

. Franklin High School students of teacher Yim Tam on Lummis Day 2012.

. CicLAvia in Boyle Heights.

. CicLAvia over the Hollywood Freeway.

. Take Back the Boulevard campaign logo.

. Los Angeles Times Magazine story on Eagle Rock in 2001.

. Traci Green of the Green Bean.

. Miguel Luna at Urban Semillas community garden.

. Tim Ryder of Cannabis Clubs United with the Community.

. Baba Austin of Vintage Tattoo Art Parlor.

. Jeremy Kaplan of Read Books.

. Camilo Gonzalez of Camilos California Bistro.

. Amy Inouye of Future Studio with Chicken Boy overhead rear.

. Misty Iwatsu of North Figueroa Association.

. Mark Vallianatos, professor at Occidental Colleges Urban and Environmental Policy Institute.

. Map of neighborhoods of Northeast Los Angeles.

. Streetcars on Eagle Rock Boulevard on last day of service in 1955.

. Racial/ethnic profile of Eagle Rock, 19602010.

. Racial/ethnic profile of Highland Park, 19602010.

. Currently active businesses that opened before 2000.

. Currently active businesses that opened since 2000.

. Sectoral growth and decline among currently active businesses that opened since 2000 as compared to before 2000.

. Currently active businesses in 2015.

. Eagle Rock Music Festival 2013.

. Kathy Gallegos at Avenue 50 Studio.

. Danny Ruiz of Northeast Muralists.

. Cathi Milligan in the Glass Studio.

. Linda Allen of Gallery Ophelia and the Eagle Rock Community Preservation and Revitalization Corporation.

. Eagle Rock timeline.

. Eagle Rock 1928.

. The Eagle Rock Association (TERA) members Kathleen Long, Barbara Eckholm, and Geraldine McMahon at an Eagle Rock protest in June 1988.

. Save Our Eagle Rock campaign graphic.

. Joanne Turner of the Eagle Rock Association in Fattys Restaurant in 2001.

. Highland Park timeline.

. Funeral for the SW Museum, Autry as bandit, museum in coffin.

. Funeral for the SW Museum, rites.

. Funeral for the SW Museum, Nicole Possert addresses participants.

. Funeral for the SW Museum, mask and dancers.

. Friends of the SW Museum Coalition demonstration in 2013.

. Friends of the SW Museum Coalition with SW Museum in rear.

. Over two hundred NELA Alliance members and Highland Park residents demonstrate at the office of Councilman Gil Cedillo.

. NELA Alliance members stage their first major action.

. El Capitalista puppet made by NELA Alliance members in silent procession on December 12, 2014.

. Housing is a Human Right projection during course of silent procession on December 12, 2014.

. NELA Alliance member Arturo Romo and Lis Barrajas lead other participants in silent procession to La Culebra Park.

TABLES

. Racial/ethnic transition in Eagle Rock and Highland Park, 19602010.

. Household and housing indicators.

. Currently active businesses by industrial sector in Highland Park and Eagle Rock combined.

Introduction

Scenes from Northeast Los Angeles

A rolling tortilla stuffed with

cilantro and hot chile dreams

of mailing money to Mxico

passes from a mother to

a son. The taco maker gashes

cbolla against the grill. He wears

an apron, matted against mole

skin, carries his form when

he peels it off. At 2 a.m.

university students stack

at the window for taquitos y burritos .

A girl with hair the color of white shoves

A dollar across the counter,

he slides extra jalapeos . She talks

more with the taquero than with her parents.

Salsa sticks to her lips but

Never his name. A row of sodas

Shimmers through the glass

Displays that separate

This youth from his own

Son learning to read in the char

Broiled mist of the griddle

Six lenguas sizzle

Staccato steam puffs

In this chrome box oiled

With hopes. The taco makers child

Scribbles a menu in ingles and wonders

If he might look at his father

From the other side of the glass.

Lisa Marie Sandoval, The Taco Truck

In this poem by Lisa Marie Sandoval, a transaction at the window of a taco truck reflects experiences of both cultural encounter and social disconnection on a boulevard of Northeast Los Angeles. An alumnus of Occidental College, Sandoval expresses the tradition of Oxy students venturing from the ivory tower of campus into the neighboring Mexican American barrio of Highland Park to satisfy their late-night appetites and thirst for authentic experiences. The protagonists lips tingle in the sensual delight of the salsa that she tastes, but she has no subjective recognition of the immigrant worker who produces the commodity. For the food-adventuring student, the food of foreign-born vendors at the nightly sidewalk market of Los Angeles, the Latino and global metropolis, offers temporary escape from the academic pressures of middle-class college life. For immigrant families working late hours, the earnings from these nocturnal white consumers contribute to aspirations of an educational future for their next generation. The taco truck window is a portal in the social intersection between people from different racial and socioeconomic worlds transacting in the same street and neighborhood space as they crisscross on contrasting life journeys of social mobility.

Sandovals poem appears in The Yowling and Other Sounds from Highland Park (2005) and reflects the years around 1990. She was a graduate of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Occidental College and stayed in the neighborhood. In the preface she reflects on her vocational commitment to be an artistic voice for the community:

I crashed here with some friends one summer. Fifteen years later they are gone, yet I have stayed. Perhaps for the same reason others do. Perhaps God permits us to stay because he has heard the cries of a people with yowling stomachs and a hungry seed in their soul. They yearn to give a resonant voice to their dreams.