Unión del Barrio

Fighting Against Gentrification and For The Survival of Our Barrios

By Ernesto Bustillos

Raza Press and Media Association (5/9/10) San Diego, CA Occupied México- On Sat May 8, 2010, the Save Our Barrio Coalition (SOBC) led a march of about 100 residents and community activists through the streets of Barrio Logan.  The objective of the march was to protest the “gentrification” that is taking place in Barrio Logan, one of the oldest Mexicano neighborhoods in San Diego, Califaztlán.

COMMUNITY DEMANDS REAL DEMOCRACY

The Save Our Barrios Coalition organized a march through Barrio Logan to inform the community about the need to unite and stop all ‘redevelopment plans’ until the voice of the community is clearly heard. The “plans” as they exist, have been created with little or no in put from the community. Therefore, the Save Our Barrios Coalition is calling for a moratorium on all redevelopment until a democratic process that guarantees that residents of Barrio Logan have a say in any redevelopment of their community.’

RICH CORPORATIONS MAKE MILLIIONS

The redevelopment plans as they exist, can be characterized as nothing less than ‘Gentrification’: a process where poor and working class communities are demolished, residents forced to move out, and the area is replaced with housing and businesses that cater to the middle and upper class. It is a process by which rich corporations and land speculators make millions in profits at the expense of the original residents and city taxpayers.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

As a means of raising consciousness and informing the community to the realities of gentrification, since its founding in Nov. of 2009, the SOBC has organized several open community meetings, leafleted throughout Barrio Logan, organized several literature tables at community events, and has had “delegation” of its members participate in pro-human rights marches.

EXPOSING RACIST-ETHNIC CLEANSING

To the SOBC, the gentrification that is taking place in Barrio Logan and other Mexican communities, which destroys and then rebuilds the neighborhoods for the benefit of rich white folks – is another form of racist-ethnic cleansing and yet other way for the corporate thieves to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and the working class.

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GENTRIFICATION  DESTRUCTION OF RAZA COMMUNITIES, CULTURE, & HISTORY!

March 1, 2010, RPMA- The Save Our Barrio Coalition (SOBC) continues with its aim to build a community base that can effectively struggle against the destruction of “Barrio Logan” and other Mexican-Raza communities –some of these communities are more than 100 years old!

The SOBC was formed in November of 2009 by the Brown Berets de Aztlán, CPSC (Chicano Park Steering Committee), and Unión del Barrio; organizations with a decades-long history of activism in the struggle for Raza self-determination and against all forms of oppression.

The most recent SOBC “mass meeting” took place on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010, at the Paradise Senior Center located near the corner of Logan and Cesar Chavez Place, next to Chicano Park (San Diego, Califaztlán), in Barrio Logan. Over fifty activists and residents attended the meeting.

On the agenda were four areas of work or information that the SOBC felt was important to present to the community.  These were: (1) Summation of the question of gentrification from a Raza perspective (2) dividing up the tasks of the SOBC into working committees, (3) feed back and dialogue with those present on the work and proposals being put forth by SOBC, and (4), some agreements on key actions needed to take place immediately.

GENTRIFICATION IS NOTHING BUT A  FORM OF GENOCIDE AND DESTRUCTION OF OUR CULTURE!

January 7, 2010, RPMA- The practice of forcing people off their lands and homes is nothing new.  This is exactly what happen after the United States military invasion of the northern half of Mexico in 1846. Literally every home, ranch, and the traditional lands of the Mexican/Indian peoples was stolen and illegally occupied by White/European settlers.  Within 30 years after the invasion (by 1880), through the worst type of violence, murder, destruction of whole villages, hangings, and brutal beatings, the European/Anglos (who today call themselves “Americans”), stole and occupied almost every inch of our lands.

Like so many other things, the causes and results of this genocide, exploitation, and destruction of the Mexican/Indian people have been downed played and kept secret by the media, schools, museums, libraries, and other “settler intellectual institutions”. They have been able to turn illegal European/White settlers into “Americans”, and the “real Americans” (the Mexicans and the Indians) into “illegal aliens”.  They effectively keep the great majority of the people within the borders of the United States, especially Mexicans and other oppressed people, ignorant of the truth and with no idea of the history of genocide, racism, and forced relocation, that has been waged upon our communities.  It is something that continues today in the form of “gentrification”: a process that literally destroys working class and poor communities and rebuilds them for the benefit of middle class and rich European/White people.

Gentrification is a “process where ‘working class’ neighborhoods are ‘renovated or redeveloped’ for the benefit of rich corporations. Longtime residents are forced out of the community and only wealthy people are able to afford the ‘new homes, apartments, or condominiums’ that are being built. This is what is happening to Barrio Logan.

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