CHANFLES!

This next installment of Eastside 101 takes us to the Boyle Heights corner of Olympic and Lorena and into the housing project known as Estrada Courts. Though there’s a sign on the corner of one of the buildings that warns it is not open to the public and you need to ask permission to enter, I don’t think anyone will notice a quick visit. At least that’s what I’m counting on. But it’s not the housing authority I’m worried about, it’s the local gang that will keep me looking over my shoulder. I’m going to squash my gut instincts as there is something about Estrada Courts I want to show you: the walls.

(Warning: lots of pictures)

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This was the first of the Eastside 101 posts.

Ed Fuentes of View from a Loft pointed out a new publication to hit LA, a monthly that imagines itself as “a meaningful upscale magazine” for the Eastside. A quick look at their site and it suddenly feels more like a slap; their Eastside is nowhere near to the one I grew up in, that vast expanse of mostly Latino humanity on the other side of the river. Ugg. Here we go again, the re-imagining of our city in a historical vacuum. A cultural demarcation by terms. Just have a damn flag planting ceremony already, make a few decrees about the new Easternmost territories held by the Westsider Cultural Empire, declare East LA to be inconsequential (until further notice) and call this vision the new LA. At least that way we will have something to work with, or something to fight against.

I’m tired of this “debate” since it mostly consists of Eastsiders fighting to preserve a semblance of place, informing newcomers from the far off West or beyond that we, on the other side of the river, do exist, and that (at least to ourselves) we do matter. Before I raise my army for the coming culture wars, and before the divide between the two LA’s gets even wider, I figured I’d do some preliminary bridge building: I’m going to embark on an occasional series of posts to highlight aspects of the Eastside that I know. Mostly it’ll be about places you can visit but sometimes there’ll be posts that are based on the map of memory. Maybe it’ll help some out there to take us seriously. (Ha, ha!) But even if it has no effect, and people still insist on erasing our identity, it’ll be a record of the Eastside that actually means something to me, the place I call home.

For our first lesson, turn to the page marked Hollenbeck Park!
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