The red dress and long veil are instantly familiar. It’s what this 7-1/2-foot Virgin Mary is holding that’s surprising: an eviction notice.
“When you do look at the Virgen, her hands are already to her chest,” says Nico Avina, the artist who painted the plywood figure. “She’s looking down and she’s reading this eviction notice like she just got served.”
Why is the Virgin Mary being evicted from Boyle Heights? Gentrification, Avina says. If the demographics of the neighborhood keep changing, “then she’s not going to be around here as much as she has been.”
Virgin Mary murals are prominent in Latino neighborhoods, but as longtime residents get displaced, he says, so do signs of their culture.
“You would see them on every corner,” says Avina, 44, who grew up in Boyle Heights. “It’s talking about the community that believes so much in la Virgen de Guadalupe. And how it’s used in the barrio. How it’s used as a symbol of respect.”
Avina grew up with murals by the likes of Judy Baca, Paul Botello and Willie Heron. He cites “El Corrido de Boyle Heights” (The Ballad of Boyle Heights), the mural painted by East Los Streetscapers and recently at the center of another gentrification discussion. “It’s not just art for art’s sake,” Avina says. “There’s a story behind it.”
If murals are the stories that the community tells itself, Avina says, who or what will tell the stories when the murals are gone?
“As the people get displaced, so does their art,” he says. “The Virgen was a reflection of that. She’s also getting displaced.”
Full story at The LA Times.
Gentrification is a good thing! It means properties are being cleaned up, fixed up, and sold to people who want to take care of their investment. Despite all the hand-wringing of the LA Times, Boyle Heights is a rough area with lots of gang activity. The sentimental notion that this community is just little Latino grandmas parading with their Virgin of Guadalupe banners is false. Our Lady can be honored in any neighborhood, “gentrified” or not.
Thank you.when my Chinese friends buy your neighborhood someday as an overseas investment you understand if we ask you to move
For California’s big left-run cities, the question of gentrification is this: do we want reliable Democratic voters who can’t pay big taxes or reliable Democratic voters who can pay big taxes? Young, college-programmed (er, educated) tech workers bring cash, and don’t change the political equation.
Great point, Tom Byrne.
Also, “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other”. — Oscar Ameringer
I was not giving my approval or disapproval to any of this — just stating the facts of what goes on at times. Politicians often divide one ethnic group from another to get votes. Sometimes they are worse than children on a playground — constantly tattling on each other and campaigning. No wonder some people do not vote; they get tired of hearing it all. Divide and conquer. Divide and conquer. Seems to be their perpetual goal. Some with good motives, others evil. It is often hard to tell.
Anonymous post at 10:08 pm yesterday, Aug. 20, is mine — Anne TE
MAGA
No. MAFA. Greatness is just one of Freedom’s dividends.
El Señorito Nico Avina relates how Our Lady of Guadalupe is used as a symbol of respect en el barrio (used?), then trivializes and politicizes Mary with his art. It shows the superficiality of a lot of OLG devotion here.
But you gotta laugh at Avina’s take on gentrification which is nothing more than the old “There goes the neighborhood,” except in reverse. Oh well. Adiós, mano.
Ethnic areas change all the time. People tend to like to live with those most similar to them. We all discriminate to a certain point. Why lie about it, and say we do not.
I should have written: “most similar to themselves.”
I did not mean that last post just for Hymie, but for all of us. I do agree,with him, though ,that Our Lady of Guadalupe deserves a sacred place, inside or outside a church or chapel or at least in a nice niche on someone’s porch, instead of being used like a billboard. After all, she did ask St. Juan Diego to build her a chapel.
What happened to Hope and Change? With Gentrification you get both.
I wonder if the Marian artist NIco Avina was among those throwing feces at the new gentrifying cafe in Third World Boyle Heights. Not very Marian; not very Catholic.