Virgil Village Mourns the Loss of Another Youth

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On May 21st a local of the neighborhood, Marvin Hernández, was the subject of an altercation in la vecindad that led to the loss of his life and the injury of another. Marvin was only 21 years old. Above are photos of the neighborhood and that of ‘tags’ left by Marvin’s friends and survivors at the candlelight vigil in his memory on the corner of Virgil avenue and Clinton street.

Nearly three years ago to the day, also on Virgil avenue and five blocks north of Clinton street, another young man’s life was lost at the intersection of Virgil and Burns street.

It’s with an unimaginable sadness that the families of each of these young people have been forced to continue on without their loved ones, which the members of the community recognize, hence the candle-lights and beer bottles, as well as the tags; they are a form of honor and respect.

Although there is more to say regarding the implications for our vecindad following this loss, there is a time and a place for that separate from this acknowledgement. At this time, for anyone interested in supporting Marvin Hernández’s family as they organize his memorial, they can do so at the family’s fundraiser HERE.

J.T.

La Gentrificación del Pueblo Continuará

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Hasta que el pueblo se levanta y dice ya basta.

A walk through any neighborhood is the most effective way to take in a culture. This afternoon through my own, at the intersection of Madison and Willow Brook avenue, I took a moment to photograph the complex above, which is now in the process of redevelopment. Around the abandoned buildings, power lines idle next to nestles of leaves from tall trees branching out through air. East of the complex, a crosswalk away, is Lockwood Elementary school, where my old friends and I went to school, and where now even some of the children of those old friends go to school.

Today Lockwood Elementary is no longer just one school, but ‘two in one,’ as the site is now split between the traditional Los Angeles Unified School District program (LAUSD), and a charter school overseen by Citizens of the World – Silver Lake Charter (CWC), which serves ‘qualified’ students whose enrollment is based on a ‘lottery.’ But Lockwood Elementary is actually not located in the famed Silver Lake area; instead, it’s in what’s known officially, according to the L.A. City Clerk, as ‘East Hollywood.’

When my peers and I finished fifth grade at Lockwood, our next stop was Thomas Starr King Middle School (King MS). King MS was located East of Virgil avenue on Fountain avenue, and at just under a mile away from Lockwood, if one made the trek to King MS on foot from say, Madison and Willow Brook Avenues, they might reason that the school was actually better situated to serve students located in the wealthier Los Feliz area.

An urban planner might say this distance would be an easy fix, however; all the parents at Madison and Willow Brook Avenues had to do was drive their kids to King MS. Of course, that just meant the parents had to be able to afford a car, which wasn’t always the case for many of the single Latina mothers who oversaw many of my peers and I. In 2008, according to the L.A. Times, the median household income for families in East Hollywood was $29,927, while only 13.4% of adults in the neighborhood had a college degree.

Even so, at just under a mile of walking distance to the school, the daily trek couldn’t be that bad of a slog, right? Some mamas did it. Indeed, some had to. There wasn’t a whole lot of support for them otherwise.

When my peers and I finished at King MS, what followed was John Marshall High School (JMHS) for ninth through twelfth grade. At just about two miles walking distance from the old apartment complex at Madison and Willow Brook avenues, Marshall High School was unquestionably farther east of Virgil avenue. Unlike King MS, which an urban planner could argue was located between ‘East Hollywood’ and Los Feliz to serve both areas, Marshall High School was definitely located in the Los Feliz and Silver Lake areas.

As such, Marshall High School was definitely designed to serve the students of parents there. According to the L.A. Times, in Silver Lake, the median household income in 2008 was almost twice that of East Hollywood’s, at $54,339, with nearly three times the rate of adults in Silver Lake with a college degree at 36.2%. In neighboring Los Feliz, the median household income was $50,793. Los Feliz also had more than three times the rate of adults in East Hollywood with a college degree, at 42.7%.

Despite lacking much in terms of income versus these neighboring areas, and hailing straight out of our homes as “first generation” students, many of my peers and I made it in through the gates at Marshall, either by carpooling with one parent or another, or by taking the Metro 175 bus for those of us who could catch it early enough in the mornings.

Only 48% of the class that my peers and I entered into Marshall with in 2004 would walk out of the school with their diploma in 2008.


Was that paltry graduation rate planned? With ten years of hindsight from the day of graduation, it’s clear it certainly wasn’t planned against. From the time my peers and I were at Lockwood, all the way through our time at Marshall, there wasn’t exactly a cultural plan from the urban policy planners around us and the elected leadership at the time–Mayor Garcetti was the local Council Member for East Hollywood from 2001 – 2012–to get young people from our neighborhood successfully to college and back.

Should that have been the work of urban planners for the area in the first place? One may argue that it was not; yet it’s precisely that same lack of accountability which leads me to believe that in a significant way, the neighborhood surrounding the old complex at Madison and Willow Brook avenues, like many neighborhoods all across Los Angeles, was either supposed to get with the program, or just get lost. Parents in our vecindad were supposed to run with the market, or be Left Behind.

Similarly, today’s redevelopment of the old complex at Madison and Willow Brook avenues is a matter of getting with the program. Except that the program of the new complex at the intersection will be one of sleek buildings, the flaunt of which will be accentuated by bold fonts, and the grounds of which will be guarded by steep fences shrouding the complex in seclusion and high visibility at once, thereby earning its owners the right to ask for the unenviable rent prices it’s destined for; rent prices that virtually none of the trabajadores now reconstructing the complex day by day, nor any of their vecinos in the pueblo surrounding the complex, will be able afford for themselves and their children.

Asi es. Y asi sera, me dirian tantos compadres en los trabajos por ahi. Pero asi es hasta que nosotros decimos no mas, Los Angeles.

Despite the odds, there is reason to be only more optimistic about challenging this lack of accountability for L.A.’s neighborhoods, or this lack of protection for so many of the working families who make them. Everywhere in Los Angeles a resistance is growing to the “old” order of power, which has stifled pueblos like those of my peers and I, and our movements throughout The City, for decades.

I’ve got a feeling, then, that even at the intersection of Madison and Willow Brook avenues, a resistance to pricing out the pueblo and its children can grow here too. It may not do so overnight, nor even over the course of tomorrow. But it will rise and make its voice heard, one day at a time.

Asi es. Y asi sera, Los Angeles.

J.T.

Get Literary, Los Angeles

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On a mission to spread literacy like a Santa Ana wind in East Hollywood, Los Angeles


Following another lightning round of work at the shop for the day, it should have been just another chill bike ride home. But a force came over me as I decided it was time to give something else a try.

Just as I was about to make the swerve onto the ole block, I decided to keep going in a stroll through la vecindad. I’d gotten an idea. When I came across intersections through the neighborhood where I could find an outpost for the free literature, I stopped, took off my backpack, searched through the folder inside which contained a couple of prints, then grabbed the prints, took them out and dropped them into the boxes. I did this at nine (9) intersections throughout the neighborhood, and the results led to printed copies of JIMBO TIMES’s Los Angeles Students at the following cross-streets:

Virgil and Normal (1 Post: 2 copies)
Virgil and Monroe (1 Post: 2 copies)
Virgil and Clinton (1 Post: 2 copies)
Vermont and Clinton (1 Post: 2 copies)

Melrose and Vermont (3 Posts: 6 copies)
Vermont and Normal (2 Posts: 6 copies)
Vermont and Santa Monica (3 Posts: 6 copies)
Virgil and Santa Monica (1 Post: 2 copies)

Virgil and Lockwood – (1 Post & The Mini-Library: 2 & 2 -3 copies)

Halfway into making these ’rounds,’ I realized something. It was a job. A job that used to exist in days before I came onto the scene, when the world was a slightly more literary place. Or at least before all of it became digitized, relinquishing the power of the print into the depths of the past.

Rather than dropping off copies of the New York or L.A. Times, however, I dropped off copies of these JIMBO TIMES. That’s when something else hit me: I want to make more of these rounds for The L.A. Storyteller, one day, with my very own newspaper for the block!

I imagine the path towards such a dream is probably quite long, but then, how could I not give it a shot? During all these years blogging, the power of the written word has only grown on me, convincing me once and for all that reading and writing are mediums by which a people or pueblo can become aware of their environment in ways that are invaluable to them.

And even if Los Angeles never quite had much of a literary Intellegentsia, as Mike Davis has noted, the past doesn’t represent a world we’re confined to forever, but a possibility incumbent on those of us present to uplift for different worlds in the future.

We’ve got to do it, then, don’t we, Los Angeles? As with all things, one step at a time. We’re not afraid of a challenge when we know it’s in our veins to take it on. Indeed, that’s why we’re here.

Let’s make it happen, Los Angeles. Let’s get literary.

J.T.

aerial view of city buildings

I wish I could meet all of you, Los Angeles

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What do you know about the place that you live in? Who are the people there? Does it matter? Are you living where you are just for you, or are you there for others too? And what should others know about the place you call home, and why is it important for them to know? If there was one moment to speak to it all, what would it sound like?

I wish I could meet all of you. Every student in L.A., every teacher, every car-washer and car shop repairman, every unhoused Angeleno, small business owner, and more.

I wish I could meet all of the counselors and social workers, all of the judges and public attorneys, all those working in the non-profit sector, and more.

I wish I could meet every firefighter, and every police officer, and every construction worker, and every other city employee in L.A., too. I wish I could also meet every security guard, every store clerk, and every custodian.

And I wish I could meet all the gas station clerks, all the entrepreneurs and startup founders, and the aspiring business-owners in Los Angeles. I wish I could also meet every city planner, every historian, and of course, every librarian.

I wish I could meet every aspiring musician, every bus-driver, every skater, and every yoga instructor, boxer, and personal trainer in town, as well.

Then I wish I could meet all the graffiti writers, and all the gardeners, and all the grocery attendants here. And I wish I could meet all the authors, all the photographers, and all the painters as well.

I definitely wish I could meet all the little ladies selling their tamales, and all the humble pobladores selling their paletas. Just like I wish I could meet every taco truck owner; if only there was one on every corner.

I wish we could all meet, really, and that we could all just walk together for a moment. We’re already out here together anyway, bumper to bumper, shoulder to shoulder, yet still occupying such different worlds.

Except that our worlds are not so different. And that meeting each other doesn’t have to be so difficult. All it is is a moment.

One breath, and a guess. Trust in the sky. And fly,

Thank you, Los Angeles.

J.T.