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Pictures from a street in Southeast
A magic place to be from and a magic place to return to
The dingdingding of the trolley isn’t a warning, but an announcement of a community’s heartbeat.
My toes know all the cracks in the sidewalk. My hands can read the street signs even if my eyes are closed. My lungs breathe green chile on stoves. Burning. Recipes made by women I love. I pray to banda music on Fridays and gospel on Sundays. And when I dream, it’s in the neon green pulled from liquor store lights. Living on my street is a full body experience. Like my mother’s full body held mine for nine months. Returning home from the hospital, here to this house, to raise me. Like my full body held my son’s when I returned home, here, to raise him. There are generations of us that live here, and when you remove any one of us, the street sighs, trying to fill the holes we left in her, in each other. Because even if my mother’s full body now lies in the grave, her voice still plays rhythms on the leaves of the trees where we live. This city will try to erase us, but how can you erase the wind?
On my street, we use the front porch as a telephone. The woman who was friends with my mom had a stroke, and I yell from my house to hers that she looks good, that I’m so happy to see her better, that she should let me know if she needs anything. She is re-learning to walk, and just a few days ago I saw her husband building a ramp for her, because on my street we say "I love you" not only with our voices, but also with our hands.
On my street, our houses were pink and blue and green with graffiti on their walls. The graffiti scared me, but the colors were my shield against anything I couldn’t see. Houses on my street are white, grey, and beige now. And did you know that when I was small, I could hear a juke joint at the end of my street? Open my window and have blues music enter, tickle my ear? My ear still itches, but the juke joint is gone. I don’t know if anyone still remembers it but me.
When I left for college, I took pictures of my street and placed 4x6 prints on my bookshelf. So that I could feel home. Share with everyone the readings that taught me. Most people don’t leave my street for school. But that’s OK, because I went for them, my backpack filled with “We’re so proud of you mija.” My suitcases filled with the written covenants that permitted this to be the only area of San Diego where homes could be sold to some of us. Both of those decrees tethered me to this world. Made me walk into classrooms as a heavy weight. I still walk into rooms like that.
On my street, our houses were pink and blue and green…houses on my street are white, grey, and beige now.
Up the street lives my friend, who I spoke to all during the pandemic. On Saturdays, he has a garage sale that no one goes to, and he painted his house yellow and black in 2020. He’s 80 years old and waves at me from the front of his house and I take him food and his yard has succulents and I worry about him when the sun goes down. I made him a birthday cake one year and stood in his living room while he smoked weed and laughed at the days he’s lived on this earth.
You see, I’d tell you the name of the street where I live, but then what other Black family would you move out next? Whoever took their place wouldn’t know that the dingdingding of the trolley, the one that runs at the base of my street, isn’t a warning but an announcement of a community’s heartbeat. They wouldn’t know that from the top of my street you can see a nearby church and if you listen closely you can hear hands over rosary beads. And they wouldn’t know that the everyday sounds of police sirens are really the wailing of the women who have lost their loves. To prisons. To these streets. To the sky.
I could tell you a story of someone on my street, but why? Don't we all look the same to you anyway? Like the time that the cops raided my neighbor’s house. I could tell about how when they surrounded his home with guns, he asked for a popsicle. How when they threatened to send the dogs in, he pleaded with them not to, because they bite. He doesn’t live at the corner house anymore. The hipsters moved in after he left. They live here now. When the reporters came to report on my neighbor’s arrest, everyone who was watching the scene unfold yelled at them to get off our street. We don’t like outside observers judging what we do.
At any given point, up until a few years ago, there were four generations of me living on this street. My great-grandmother with her permed purple hair lived peeling tomatillos at a table in the kitchen. My grandmother who I swear to God looks like a telenovela super star with all her beauty, came home from days of work as a seamstress, tired yet still impeccable. And my mother with skin that was soft and brown like cajeta, she lived on this street too. Then me. Then my son. Who is not a first-gen and doesn’t know what it’s like to use the stove as a heater on cold winter mornings. My son who doesn’t introduce himself with “I’m from Southeast” trailing right after his name, the way I did and still do. My son who doesn’t know what it’s like to say a novena to St. Jude so that seemingly impossible impenetrable protection guards your home and those in it.
From my street, I watched streets around me float away in the floods last winter. And while maybe the rain baptized us so that our sins were forgiven, it didn’t give redemption to those who allowed us to drown. While my street gasps for breath, it also breathes life into everything around it. It is blood that ties this street to its residents. The blood of sacrifice, of grief, of birthing wombs, of kneeling until you bleed. Of family, of resilience, of culture, of pride. It is all of our veins, in this ground, resolved not to be uprooted.
At sunset I watch the pink purple orange cotton candy clouds and whisper a thank you to my street. I urge it not to give up. I whisper the same words to me. That we both stay fighting, alive, even with hands around our neck. That we still keep standing even if there’s nothing else left. That together we remain magic. A magic place to be from and a magic place to return to. Always always to return to.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Pictures from a street in Southeast
A magic place to be from and a magic place to return to
Pictures from a street in Southeast
A magic place to be from and a magic place to return to
The dingdingding of the trolley isn’t a warning, but an announcement of a community’s heartbeat.
My toes know all the cracks in the sidewalk. My hands can read the street signs even if my eyes are closed. My lungs breathe green chile on stoves. Burning. Recipes made by women I love. I pray to banda music on Fridays and gospel on Sundays. And when I dream, it’s in the neon green pulled from liquor store lights. Living on my street is a full body experience. Like my mother’s full body held mine for nine months. Returning home from the hospital, here to this house, to raise me. Like my full body held my son’s when I returned home, here, to raise him. There are generations of us that live here, and when you remove any one of us, the street sighs, trying to fill the holes we left in her, in each other. Because even if my mother’s full body now lies in the grave, her voice still plays rhythms on the leaves of the trees where we live. This city will try to erase us, but how can you erase the wind?
On my street, we use the front porch as a telephone. The woman who was friends with my mom had a stroke, and I yell from my house to hers that she looks good, that I’m so happy to see her better, that she should let me know if she needs anything. She is re-learning to walk, and just a few days ago I saw her husband building a ramp for her, because on my street we say "I love you" not only with our voices, but also with our hands.
On my street, our houses were pink and blue and green with graffiti on their walls. The graffiti scared me, but the colors were my shield against anything I couldn’t see. Houses on my street are white, grey, and beige now. And did you know that when I was small, I could hear a juke joint at the end of my street? Open my window and have blues music enter, tickle my ear? My ear still itches, but the juke joint is gone. I don’t know if anyone still remembers it but me.
When I left for college, I took pictures of my street and placed 4x6 prints on my bookshelf. So that I could feel home. Share with everyone the readings that taught me. Most people don’t leave my street for school. But that’s OK, because I went for them, my backpack filled with “We’re so proud of you mija.” My suitcases filled with the written covenants that permitted this to be the only area of San Diego where homes could be sold to some of us. Both of those decrees tethered me to this world. Made me walk into classrooms as a heavy weight. I still walk into rooms like that.
On my street, our houses were pink and blue and green…houses on my street are white, grey, and beige now.
Up the street lives my friend, who I spoke to all during the pandemic. On Saturdays, he has a garage sale that no one goes to, and he painted his house yellow and black in 2020. He’s 80 years old and waves at me from the front of his house and I take him food and his yard has succulents and I worry about him when the sun goes down. I made him a birthday cake one year and stood in his living room while he smoked weed and laughed at the days he’s lived on this earth.
You see, I’d tell you the name of the street where I live, but then what other Black family would you move out next? Whoever took their place wouldn’t know that the dingdingding of the trolley, the one that runs at the base of my street, isn’t a warning but an announcement of a community’s heartbeat. They wouldn’t know that from the top of my street you can see a nearby church and if you listen closely you can hear hands over rosary beads. And they wouldn’t know that the everyday sounds of police sirens are really the wailing of the women who have lost their loves. To prisons. To these streets. To the sky.
I could tell you a story of someone on my street, but why? Don't we all look the same to you anyway? Like the time that the cops raided my neighbor’s house. I could tell about how when they surrounded his home with guns, he asked for a popsicle. How when they threatened to send the dogs in, he pleaded with them not to, because they bite. He doesn’t live at the corner house anymore. The hipsters moved in after he left. They live here now. When the reporters came to report on my neighbor’s arrest, everyone who was watching the scene unfold yelled at them to get off our street. We don’t like outside observers judging what we do.
At any given point, up until a few years ago, there were four generations of me living on this street. My great-grandmother with her permed purple hair lived peeling tomatillos at a table in the kitchen. My grandmother who I swear to God looks like a telenovela super star with all her beauty, came home from days of work as a seamstress, tired yet still impeccable. And my mother with skin that was soft and brown like cajeta, she lived on this street too. Then me. Then my son. Who is not a first-gen and doesn’t know what it’s like to use the stove as a heater on cold winter mornings. My son who doesn’t introduce himself with “I’m from Southeast” trailing right after his name, the way I did and still do. My son who doesn’t know what it’s like to say a novena to St. Jude so that seemingly impossible impenetrable protection guards your home and those in it.
From my street, I watched streets around me float away in the floods last winter. And while maybe the rain baptized us so that our sins were forgiven, it didn’t give redemption to those who allowed us to drown. While my street gasps for breath, it also breathes life into everything around it. It is blood that ties this street to its residents. The blood of sacrifice, of grief, of birthing wombs, of kneeling until you bleed. Of family, of resilience, of culture, of pride. It is all of our veins, in this ground, resolved not to be uprooted.
At sunset I watch the pink purple orange cotton candy clouds and whisper a thank you to my street. I urge it not to give up. I whisper the same words to me. That we both stay fighting, alive, even with hands around our neck. That we still keep standing even if there’s nothing else left. That together we remain magic. A magic place to be from and a magic place to return to. Always always to return to.
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