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EDITORIAL: PARKS NOT TRUCKS!

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Guest Editorial by Extli Chávez On a warm morning last September, my mom and I woke up to flyers all around our neighborhood urging us to stop a diesel truck distribution center from being built just down the block from where we live in Lincoln Heights. The 60,000 square-foot distribution center would be built on an empty lot located across the street from Hillside Elementary School in a neighborhood that is densely populated, working-class, and mostly Latino and Asian. My family and I attended a town hall meeting hosted by Los Angeles City Council Member District 1 Eunisses Hernández where I heard city officials and community organizers talk about the dangers of diesel exhaust and about the empty lot where the distribution would be built. I learned that the empty lot used to be a dry-cleaning facility and is deemed a brownfield because it is likely polluted already. I also learned that the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) identifies Lincoln Heights as a disadv...
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Performance Artist Megha Jairaj Discusses Her Work and Art Practice as a Bridge Between Worlds

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                                            An Interview with Megha Jairaj by Daisy Elizeth Magallanes for Brooklyn & Boyle   I recently sat down with artist Megha Jairaj in Los Angeles, California to discuss her work and the potential of art performance to disrupt power structures. In the tradition of artists such as Tristan Tzara, Ha rry Gamboa Jr., and Graciela Carnevale who used Art Performance as their weapon of choice to combat state and institutional authoritarianism, Jairaj’s interventions beg the audience to consider the fallacious nature and the structural oppression of imposed colonial hierarchies   DM: A lot of your work deals with the reclamation of ritual practice and place. How do both of these components intersect in your work?   MJ: I feel like “place” is…what is “neighboring” to me. To feel connected to...
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AN ECHO PARK BESO: LOVE DEFERRED ECHOING ALWAYS c/s

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  By Isaac Lomelí When I was young, I knew Echo Park only through chase scenes on "CHiPs" and from stories my family shared with me. Parks are, in general, good places for making mischief, Chicanos being no different than others when it comes to mischievous behavior in them. This was true at Echo Park during the '70s and up until recently. My tio once told me that his first stabbing happened at Echo Park. Whether he was the one doing the stabbing or involved otherwise, I didn't want to know. And there were other Echo Park stories based on precarious situations members of my family had found themselves in. Some of the tall tales placed me in the middle of them as a toddler they'd taken along, although I have no clear memories from that far back. Kind of makes me wonder if my parents were a tiny bit negligent. What does Echo Park mean to the Chicano? From my accounts, it was just a place you could go to be yourself. To speak Spanish, Spanglish, or whatever. To...
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