Art and Complicity: How the Fight Against Gentrification in Boyle Heights Questions the Role of Artists

BHAAAD talk on gentrification. | Photo: Leonardo Vilchis.

In Boyle Heights, even the air is contested territory. On the northwestern edge, on Mission Road between the 10 Freeway overpass and First Street, El Pato's briney odor pushes against the inky fumes of a print shop, while a wall of freeway exhaust seals it all in. To the south, the red glow of Vernon and the industrial furnace that is Southeast L.A. burns so bright as to compete with the sunset. Unidentified toxic gasses drift in with the pungent smell of the Farmer John plant. In the sky, the smell of singeing animal meat, a whiff of blood dissolving in water.

On the ground, many Boyle Heights residents have dedicated their lives to this place fighting against a history of racism, gang violence, drug epidemics and poverty. For the last 20 years, residents and community organizations have pushed against the displacement of low-income and working-class families as Los Angeles moves forward with market-driven, revitalization efforts. Recently, they have turned their focus on studios and galleries that seek to carve out L.A.'s newest arts district in Boyle Heights.

Since PSSST, Boyle Heights' newest gallery, announced its grand opening (originally scheduled for May 13) the conflict between the art space and local grassroots organizations has escalated to dimensions greater than each of the actual entities by bringing to question the direct and indirect complicity of artists and cultural spaces in the displacement of long-seated, working-class communities.

Boyle Heights has witnessed eastbound waves of gentrification that have transformed Echo Park and Highland Park into more affluent and white neighborhoods. The proliferation of artist studios and galleries has come to signal the arrival of additional enterprises that raise property values and cost of rent for businesses and housing tenants, eventually resulting in their displacement.

Newcomers, including artists, have been drawn to Boyle Heights by its rich cultural character -- forged from generations of Mexican, Japanese, Russian and Jewish immigrants relegated to the city's eastern periphery -- as well as its cheaper rent and property in an increasingly unaffordable city.

Projection of a gentrification poem on a PSSST wall. | Photo: La Union de Vecinos via Twitter.

The Pico-Aliso: People Have Left Their Lives Here

When PSSST set up shop, they chose a community with a long history of organizing. Ground zero for this new Boyle Heights battle is taking place in Pico Gardens and Aliso Village (also known as The Flats ) -- twin public housing projects that until 1996, together formed the largest housing project west of the Mississippi.

The demolishment of this housing project marked a key moment in an ongoing process of displacement in Pico-Aliso. While some residents were able to return to the neighborhood, hundreds of families were forced to move permanently as over 900 units of public housing were lost. Since then, this community and Boyle Heights in general, has experienced a continuous loss of public housing with revitalization developments by private investors, as well as the extension of Metro's Gold Line into the eastside. Currently, there are plans to demolish 1,175 rent controlled units in Wyvernwood to build 4,150 market rate units.

Through these struggles to keep their homes, the Pico-Aliso community also made efforts to take back its streets from gang violence that raged for decades.

Gentrification is evicting residents & businesses in BH! | Image: La Union de Vecinos via Twitter.

It's important to know that we have suffered a lot in this community. It's a miracle that we are alive. We have seen families lose their children and husbands. We have seen violence from the police. Many people have left their lives here, says Delmira Gonzalez. A Boyle Heights resident for more than 35 years, she has worked for decades to make her community a safer, more livable place. She is currently a member of Union de Vecinos, a tenants rights organization that formed over 20 years ago during the demolishment of the Pico-Aliso housing projects.

She remembers how women organized to create safe passages to escort children to school and back home and how they occupied known drug-dealing spots by setting up impromptu barbeque grills and serving free food. She remembers that dealers, when interrupted, accepted plates of hot food before scurrying away to eat. Their hustle would not take place under the watch of mothers.

Street infrastructure such as street bumps was earned with the blood of children killed in roads and the labor of mothers like Gonzalez, who formed human chains, capturing the mayor's attention. Streets, corners, alleys, curbs and sidewalks are saturated with lives, deaths and the determined attempt of residents to heal these spaces.

Industrial zone buildings in Boyle Heights. | Photo: Timo Saarelma.

Today, one of the most standout reminders of this community's hardships is Boyle Heights' calcified industrial zone. The community now sits among the remnants of former warehouses and factories, like the skeleton of a creature that curled up and died many lifetimes ago. Longtime residents of Boyle Heights in some ways, consider themselves the keepers and guardians of these bones, for many still remember when they were animated and provided their families with humble but dignified sustenance.

Gonzalez and Ana Hernandez, another member of Union de Vecinos, recall the factories, warehouses and cold storage plants where families once worked. They remember that the building that PSSST now occupies on Third Street, was once a Halloween costume factory.

It was along these industrial zones that Father Greg Boyle and the mothers of Pico-Aliso organized walks that grew into marches for jobs for their children and husbands

LINK:	https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/boyle-heights-gentrification-art-g...
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