gentrification – Women Who Submit

By Noriko Nakada

Before: Hyde Park Homework

UMFoC. Upwardly Mobile Family of Color: pronounced, “um, fuck.” This is what I kept saying to myself as my family and I prepared to move from one recently gentrified neighborhood and into another.

I moved to Los Angeles over two decades ago. It started with a studio apartment in Eagle Rock: pre-Colorado-Street-gentrification. Then, there was a Ladera Heights condo, after Magic opened his Starbucks. After that, it was a Highland Park casita where our front fence housed bullets from Avenues, before Mr. T died and his alley was restored. Next was a Mar Vista condo pre-Starbucks and road diet. Now, we would make Hyde Park our home: pre-stadium and Crenshaw line. Continue reading “Breathe and Push: Moving in LA: Before and After”

By Sarah Rafael Garcia

When I first received the rusty, planter cart from my friend and local business owner Delilah Snell, she was explaining how to garden herbs and organic veggies. Meanwhile, I was envisioning a bookmobile and planting books in gente’s hands alongside the fruteros on La Calle Cuatro.

LibroMobile is a literary project I initiated in Santa Ana, California with support from Red Salmon Arts and Community Engagement. It integrates literature, free visual exhibits, year-round creative workshops and live readings. The actual LibroMobile (a repurposed gardening cart holding an inventory of diverse books) is not only mobile but also builds community and promotes literacy. As of January 2018, after a 9-month stint in a stairway, the retrofitted bookmobile resides in a warehouse on Calle Cuatro (off 4th & Spurgeon, back alley area), travels throughout Santa Ana visiting a variety of community-based events, and on Saturdays we provide free café de olla donated by Café Calacas. The design of the LibroMobile is a tribute to the iconic paletero carts or fruit vendors that are part of downtown Santa Ana. To hear or see a paletero or frutero cart builds cultural interests (from locals and visitors) to know that something authentic and familiar is being offered, and LibroMobile has achieved the same connections through relevant literature. Continue reading “Santa Ana’s LibroMobile: More Than Just Books”