#ethnic neighborhood

[newyorkthegoldenage]

An Italian neighborhood grocery store, 1937.

Photo: Ezzes for the WPA Art Project via NYC Municipal Archives

[dynamicsofthecity]

Little Armenia

Zoe Deyermond

Little Armenia is an enclave located in Los Angeles, right next to Hollywood, named after the prominent Armenian community that settled in the area after the Armenian genocide that began in 1915. This small area of Los Angeles has grown throughout the decades to reflect Armenian culture and to preserve the history of those that live there, ultimately making Little Armenia the place with the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia itself (Mirzoyan). One of the most prominent attributes to Armenian culture is the emphasis on hospitality and etiquette for guests of a space. This could potentially be accredited to the culture’s faith in Christianity, and the belief that guests are sent as a gift from God (Bock). Aside from these cultural and moral beliefs for Armenian people and their communities, there also remains the fact that the city of Los Angeles holds a prominent and widespread population of people experiencing homelessness and a lack of hospitality. My goal in traveling to Little Armenia, with these ideas in mind, was to examine how people interact with the space as well as to see the types of people that are included in these spaces. Alongside this, I also interacted with several business owners in order to get a better understanding of how residents of the community might interact with non-residents or unhoused individuals.

The primary concern with the power dynamics of accommodating such a large population of unhoused and mentally ill individuals in a city such as Los Angeles would be the ever present systems and constructions of oppressive practices. Such practices can be observed through the use of exclusive architecture, monetary coercion, or blatantly destructive actions like “clean-ups” around the city. Practices like this that dismantle and further diminish the livelihood of unohoused individuals is not only cruel and inhumane, but largely counterproductive as it wastes resources on exclusionary measures instead of offering any real assistance. This being said, the responsibility to do better in terms of providing support for unhoused individuals should not solely fall onto the backs of local business owners and residents, but it is a good place to start in order to get attention from bigger organizations that only seem to exacerbate the issue. Focusing on Little Armenia as a foundational understanding of how the homeless population could be better accommodated in Los Angeles, I chose to travel to three different businesses, as well as the local church and the murals located around Winona Blvd.

My first impression of Little Armenia as a space was how clean and well kept the outdoor environment was. The sidewalks were relatively clean in comparison to the space around campus, and trash was seemingly nonexistent. This was impressive to me because the sidewalk space itself seems to be a fraction of the size that it is in Hollywood, but nonetheless seemed to be well taken care of. The first business that I walked to was a local coffee shop called Obet & Del’s, which serves a wide variety of coffees and teas, and also provided a welcoming atmosphere with open doors and open concept seating. The barista was very friendly and talkative, and I asked him to make me his favorite coffee. I was given a Filipino iced coffee, which was delicious, and I sat down in one of the available seats to observe the space. During my time here, there were about 20 other customers that entered and left, with about 5 of them utilizing the open seating. The demographic of these customers were mostly young adults. A good portion of them appeared to be college students, but the vast majority appeared to be local residents and regulars to the shop. The employees were all very friendly with each of the customers and even brought their drinks to their tables, if they chose to sit down. Another thing that I noticed about this business was how they would greet each of the customers upon entrance, as well as say goodbye and thank you when people left. I thought this was really refreshing and not something you would experience in a chain coffee shop.

After I left, I decided to go visit the local church, which is called St Garabed Armenian Church, and is located on Alexandria Ave. On my way there, the tidiness of the space was consistent, and I was unable to find but one tent on the sidewalk. Instead, unhoused individuals seemed to navigate and utilize the space just the same as everyone else and were even welcomed into many of the spaces, such as thrift stores or places with bathrooms. I feel this contrasts much of my experience thus far in Los Angeles where the homeless individuals are frequently excluded from these common areas. The benches were even more inclusive, as many of them were free of bars or handles and were being utilized by unhoused individuals. Upon arriving at the church, the front doors were unfortunately locked, however, I did spend a good amount of time outside of the church to take in the architecture and observe the overall surroundings. Much like the rest of Little Armenia, this space was very clean and well maintained. One aspect of the church that I observed was the implementation of outdoor, public water fountains for drinking. They were located at the front entrance of the church and were fully functional, providing access to clean water for people that might not otherwise have it. Once again, a very drastic difference to other areas around Los Angeles that make the best attempt at deterring unhoused people.

Next, I traveled back the way I came from and decided to eat at a local Armenian restaurant called Carousel’s. I went here alone, but this did not impact the positive experience that I had. I was seated at a table in the middle of the restaurant where I was best able to take in the surroundings. The space was very cozy and relaxing, both with the arrangement of the tables, the music, and the friendliness of the staff. There were about 15 other people dining at the restaurant at this time, with one large group of about eight guests, and two smaller groups at other tables. Although I was alone, I did not feel judged by any of the people here, which I really appreciate. I decided to order an eggplant dish, which was called the Mousakka plate, and it came with an Armenian style salad, an arrangement of cheeses and vegetables, pita bread, and a choice of one side. I decided to order the rice as my side, and the waitress was mindful to ask me about my diet preferences. I told her that I was a vegetarian, and she notified me that the rice contained chicken broth and brought me a plate of fries instead. My food arrived quickly and I was frequently checked on by multiple staff members about the quality of my food. There were outdoor seating options available, as well as a restroom open to the public, although nobody used it during this time. I packed up the remainder of my food to go, as the portions were quite large, and started to head back towards campus.

On my way back, I came across the murals located around Winona Blvd, which depict references to the Armenian genocide in 1915. One of the most prominent murals was the one called We Are Still Here, which was painted in 2015 and appears to showcase an older Armenian woman bound by chains at the wrist, releasing the tortured spirits from the past. Her mouth is covered with red cloth that reads “1915” across her lips. I spent a good amount of time here as well, taking in the artwork and appreciating the effort that is put into maintaining these large scale murals. The eyes of the woman in the painting visibly carry a lot of pain and suffering and I thought this was a really poetic way to honor and commemorate Armenian history and the residents of this space. Finally, my last stop in Little Armenia was a chandelier shop located on Hollywood Blvd, which was called George’s Lighting Plus. At first, I entered the shop because I was attracted to the beautiful chandeliers and lamps, but I stayed much longer than I anticipated to speak with the man working inside. He went into great detail about the lamp and chandelier services that they offer, as well as brought me around the store to show me some of his favorite pieces, and other works in progress. I was really touched by his enthusiasm over his lamps as well as his eagerness to welcome me into the store. I walked around a bit, thanked him for his customer service, and left with some really lovely pictures. Overall, my experience in Little Armenia was very positive and I witnessed more than one instance of accommodation for non residents and unhoused people. I think that other areas around the city should look to Little Armenia as an example of being able to keep a space clean without totally excluding those in need.

Bibliography

    Bock, Gregory L. “The Philosophy of Forgiveness.” vernonpress.com, 2019. https://vernonpress.com/index.php/file/6661/d4f20d145841a3af4df4e73b6ef881de/1537944706.pdf.

    Mirzoyan, Inna. “The Armenian Ethnic Enclave of L.A.” Armenian Los Angeles | Department of Sociology | Michigan State University, June 2, 2022. https://sociology.msu.edu/news/inna-essay.html.

[cupiare]

this school really deserves its impending doom bcs management is soooo tone deaf “but why do our students choose to go to uni in their own city and out of the 2 they choose the non russell group one why aren’t we doing something to support them to aim higher 🤔” could it possibly be that this school is in one of the most deprived areas of the city/nationwide and thats a significant factor affecting academic achievement so students default to the uni w lower entry requirements theyre likely to get into? or maybe that our predominantly immigrant students and their families don’t share the culture of moving out and living independently at 18? that their immigration status and overseas qualifications affect their entry requirements ? that many of them are responsible for their families and don’t want to leave them? that its more affordable to stay home and not be in even more debt by taking out a maintenance loan to stay alive? the girls who aren’t allowed to leave home before marriage? what a truly confounding phenomenon that our students don’t go to a russell group uni it must be a very bad look that we get 90% students in higher education or formal training after college but not the ‘best’ choice. But what do i know i guess !

[saturngalore]

watched that 3 minute trailer twice just to be still only excited about all the wicker furniture that’s finna drop 😭

[thisbrilliantsky]

y’all i’ve seen a few of those posts about ar*ana gr*nde “racebending” and ppl getting all up in arms about her looking like “different races” etc etc,,,, look. i don’t know anything about her. but y’all. being “ethnically/racially ambiguous” is a real thing. that ppl just are. no one controls who their ancestors were or the genetic traits they do or do not inherit. maybe examine your own urge to jam ppl into unambiguous racial categories before you cuss someone out bc they look like “different races” in different lighting

[thewingedwolf]

i hate the way people will say the most out of pocket nonsense about Latinos in the US and then act surprised when people say they’ve got some racism issues. “oh if it weren’t for the fact that people in the USA hate everyone with ancestry from Latin America, lock Latino children in cages even under democratic presidents, and regularly hop on tv to call all Latinos evil rapists and murderers, they’d all be considered white” yeah no SHIT if literally every aspect of how Latinos in the US are racialized was different, they would be racially categorized in a different way, that is a very intelligent thing to say about race relations and doesn’t at all exacerbate issues thanks you are so wise and educated and learned

[ugisfeelings]

i can't do this gentrification discourse why are y’all pulling up dictionary dot com trying to one up each other 💀

[liketaylorswift]

americans may have “bastardized” italian food or whatever but I don’t care. The way it’s made here is delicious

[holdoncallfailed]

Moving with a partner, we have money saved/ jobs lined up, want to be within an hour public transit commute of Manhattan and am open to living in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, trying not to spend more than 2,500 per month in rent

again, i can't really direct you to a specific neighborhood without more info especially where in manhattan you're going to be working (uptown? downtown? midtown [i'm so sorry]?). look at whichever train stops are closest to your work and then follow those subway lines on streeteasy's map with your budget plugged in until you get to an area with listings that you can afford.

tbh $2500 (assuming you mean in total vs. you and your partner each paying that much) is a little low especially for manhattan. with your budget and an easy commute into downtown manhattan, i would look at bushwick, ridgewood, bed-stuy, crown heights, maybe williamsburg ("east williamsburg") if you get lucky. you could look at sunset park or PLG if you want to be near a big park but i think they can be inconvenient if you are going to be spending a lot of time in other parts of brooklyn. for a commute into uptown manhattan, i would look at yorkville especially if you're willing to live in a studio and neighborhoods like washington heights closer to the manhattan/bronx border, as well as astoria and sunnyside over in queens.

the only real neighborhoods that i would say are a no-go for safety reasons rather than price/commute reasons are brownsville and east new york but even then YMMV. and places like the hole of course lol but i don't think you can even rent an apartment there at this point.

good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[filosofablogger]

Life In Da 'Hood

A few nights ago, dear friend Scottie sent me an email in which he asked me this … “I wonder if you would consider doing a post on your neighborhood, the building you live in, the many different ethnic / nationalities that live happily together and also are happy to share food, music, and each others lives / culture with everyone … in this time when the right wants the people in the US to hate…

[soon-palestine]

In a statement that was shared with The Nation, a group of 25 HLR editors expressed their concerns about the decision. “At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal’s leadership intervened to stop publication,” they wrote. “The body of editors—none of whom are Palestinian—voted to sustain that decision. We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way. “ When asked for comment, the leadership of the Harvard Law Review referred The Nation to a message posted on the journal’s website. “Like every academic journal, the Harvard Law Review has rigorous editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece…” the note began. ”Last week, the full body met and deliberated over whether to publish a particular Blog piece that had been solicited by two editors. A substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication.” Today, The Nation is sharing the piece that the Harvard Law Review refused to run. Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. But naming injustice is crucial to claiming justice. If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics. The UN Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” These acts include “killing members of a protected group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm” or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that “these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent,” as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes. More importantly, genocide is the material reality of Palestinians in Gaza: an entrapped, displaced, starved, water-deprived population of 2.3 million facing massive bombardments and a carnage in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over 11,000 people have already been killed. That is one person out of every 200 people in Gaza. Tens of thousands are injured, and over 45% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed. The United Nations Secretary General said that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children,” but a cessation of the carnage—a ceasefire—remains elusive. Israel continues to blatantly violate international law: dropping white phosphorus from the sky, dispersing death in all directions, shedding blood, shelling neighborhoods, striking schools, hospitals, and universities, bombing churches and mosques, wiping out families, and ethnically cleansing an entire region in both callous and systemic manner. What do you call this? The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a thorough, 44-page, factual and legal analysis, asserting that “there is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.” Raz Segal, a historian of the Holocaust and genocide studies, calls the situation in Gaza “a textbook case of Genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”

[dynamicsofthecity]

Outing in Little Tokyo

Katelin Berube

I had the opportunity to go and walk around Little Tokyo with my small Canon camera and with no clue where I was going to end up. I wanted to go and be an observer of this community and see how people and companies use the public spaces there. We’ve learned a lot about Little Tokyo in class by reading different articles and sources, but most importantly from the guest speaker we had earlier this semester. She told us a lot about the space and how businesses coming in can hurt the community. I was really intrigued by community space coming into this class, and her discussion about Little Tokyo trying to create community spaces truly stuck with me. Spaces for people with alike identities can strengthen their sense of  community, as well as act as a claiming of space. When a community can look around and say that is a space where they feel comfortable and welcomed, it is a concrete way of making them more permanent within the bigger society. If a community uses their public spaces to honor their culture or be accessible to residents, the space becomes a place of safety for the residents, and a place of education and learning for outsiders. 

Something we tackled in class was the idea of gentrification and outside business coming into a community and forcing other community places and residents out. We looked at places such as Boyle Heights and Little Tokyo as examples of businesses coming in and forcing residents out and not serving the community they were invading. For Little Tokyo, there is an emphasis on community spaces throughout that part of the city. When I visited, I focused on the space where the Japanese American National Museum was located, as well as the Japanese Village Plaza. This was a more commercial part of Little Tokyo, but I found patterns emerging even in this small place. 

I went on a Monday morning, aiming to avoid the influence of tourism that could be seen in the afternoons and especially on the weekends. I was fortunate for a warm morning where people were seen enjoying the public seating and community aspects of this very small part of Little Tokyo. Walking around with no distinct plan of where to end up led me to study a small space called the Japanese Village Plaza. I thought one of the most interesting parts was the two cafes that occupied this space and who was sitting at each location, and who had the most customers. One of the first things I noticed was the idea of open and closed seating. There were many benches and chairs that were open to the community, but some seating was roped off and unavailable. The seating that was unavailable was for restaurants that didn’t reflect the community where they occupied space, but the tables and benches that were open were more in front of the restaurants and stores that did reflect the community residents. I focused mostly on two restaurants that were open that morning and were very busy. 

Although in Little Tokyo, there were two cafes open that morning. One was Cafe Dulce, and the other was Yamazaki Bread and Cake Bakery. This kind of lined up with what we talked about in class. It was interesting to see the patterns of who went into each cafe and if they sat down to eat or not. At Cafe Dulce, it was mostly a place where people ordered and kept walking after picking up their food, where most customers of Yamazaki would sit outside of the cafe and eat, as well as talk with the other people sitting outside. Watching who went into each cafe suggests which one belongs to the community, and who that business is for. Watching residents of Little Tokyo go into Yamazaki and talk with other residents while sitting outside attests to how much that business and customers reflect the culture of who lives there. Cafe Dulce, although having good food, did not reflect the people of the community, and was a grab and go food spot for tourists or people on their way to work. 

I learned a lot about Little Tokyo while walking around and I kept looking at how they chose to use the space within their community. A lot of their space was also used to commemorate their culture and claim the space as their own. There were many signs and plaques around the Japanese Village Plaza that educated tourists about the space they are walking into, which is not something that every community does. It isn’t for the residents to read and look at, but for the people coming in, like me, who might not know who was in the space or the history of it. I thought it was important to look around and think about why these signs are up and why they’re important to see. There were magazines and newspapers available, as well as murals that covered the walls of the space. It made the space welcoming to someone coming into the space, but it can serve to remind the residents of the history and their community. 

[spidergvven]

israel is built on top of the mass graves of palestinians, of entire towns burned to the ground, their inhabitants systematically slaughtered. the occupying settlers regularly arm themselves and rampage through palestinian neighborhoods. they march in the street chanting death to all arabs. israeli snipers shoot children and elders in the head and laugh about it afterwards. they assassinate journalists and doctors, bomb hospitals and apartment buildings. they openly call for a war of extermination and refer to palestinians as animals. israelis who oppose apartheid are jailed and anti zionist jewish people in the diaspora are labeled as self hating jews. peaceful protesting like BDS is criminalized in europe and the us.

but there are those who will look at these atrocities and say their heart weeps for both sides. they cry over genocidal fascists and pretend that makes them enlightened. they accuse those who unilaterally oppose apartheid and ethnic cleansing of extremism. their cowardice and complicity is heinous. never trust someone who will weep for the murderer while the victim is still bleeding out.

[ornamentodeux]

Italian Market Festival 2023

[nononovaaa]

really sick and tired of people saying “how can this be happening in our time??” “imagine screaming for help and no one listens” “why is no one doing anything??” “how could I be witnessing a genocide in 2024?” Black people are still going through ethnic cleansing today from colonialism of Africa to the trans atlantic slave trade to chattel slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration to BLM to Cop City. We have been begging and screaming and crying for help, for mercy, for people to wake up and pay attention and you guys have ignored us and continue to do so. If you are saying Free Palestine but you dgaf about BLM, you’re not speaking up about Cop Cities or you’re not educating yourself on DRC, Sudan, Haiti, Ethiopia, etc., you are and always have been apart of the problem. You have blatantly ignored Black bodies being murdered mercilessly in the streets, being robbed of clean water at Flint and Atlanta, our Black towns being bombed, gentrification of Black neighborhoods, our lack of reparations and so much more. I don’t want to hear anymore “how could they do this?? why does no one care??” because you guys didn’t care when it began, when it happened and as it’s happening right in front of you!! Where do you think Israel and most Western countries get their inspiration for colonialism and ethnic cleansing from?? Black people across the globe are still going through ethnic cleansing TODAY and have been since white colonialism touched Africa!! We have been on the front lines of most movements and you guys ignored us, called us violent, called us angry, called us ignorant. We’ve been saying we are not free until we are all free and everyone moved on with their lives and said “well this doesn’t affect me.” If you’re not going to check your anti-blackness at the door, be prepared for a failed revolution.