City of Dreams by Podair Jerald;

Author:Podair, Jerald;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press

7

THE ARECHIGA DISPOSSESSIONS

The manner in which the evictions were carried out certainly influenced the ways in which they were interpreted, as did the nature of the media coverage accorded them. On the morning of Friday, May 8, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrived to find the Arechigas barricaded inside their two homes. The deputies broke down their doors as bulldozers idled outside.

Also waiting outside was the city’s news media corps. In addition to the usual newspapermen, there were reporters and cameramen from every local television station, ready to broadcast what they saw live. One of the deputies spoke to the family in Spanish, seeking to negotiate a peaceful resolution, but the Arechigas were adamant.1 Abrana shouted in Spanish, “Why don’t they play ball in Poulson’s backyard—not in ours!”2 Other family members bitterly criticized Wyman, who along with Poulson had been the most vocal eviction proponent over the preceding weeks.3

The Arechigas were then forced to leave, some more forcefully than others. As deputies moved furniture and dodged barking dogs and scampering chickens, Aurora Vargas, one of the Arechiga daughters, was carried bodily down the steps of her home with her head hitting the floorboards. The struggle lasted about ten minutes. Another daughter, Victoria Angustain, was also removed by force.4

After the Arechigas were out on the street, their furniture was piled into moving vans and water, telephone, and electrical lines were cut. Bulldozers quickly moved in and demolished the two Arechiga homes as television news broadcast the scene live. A crying Abrana threw a stone at them.5 She pointed across the street and said, “We will stay here.”6 Nearby, another home occupied by Alice Martin and Ruth Rayford, two elderly women, was also cleared and demolished after deputies smashed in the door to gain entry.7 Television captured Rayford swinging her cane at the authorities.8

That evening the Arechiga family pitched tents on a vacant lot across from the site of their bulldozed homes. Their purpose was to offer a physical manifestation of protest that could be seen and absorbed by passers-by and the media. They also offered the implication that they had nowhere else to go. Mike Angustain, Victoria’s husband, told a reporter, “We don’t know where we’re going to sleep tonight.”9

At hearings before the City Council on Monday, May 11, Arechiga family members contended they did not want charity, but again implied they were cash-strapped and homeless.10 They accepted donations of food while living across from their former homes as well as the donation of a trailer provided by a sympathetic recreational vehicle dealer who had seen their tents. Did they do so because they were truly in need or to dramatize and underscore their refusal to give up their homes and way of life? The distinction is not insignificant. Different sets of motivations propel the Arechigas on different historical trajectories. One puts them on a course to inspire the Chicano movement with their principled defense of community and culture. The other leads elsewhere, to the understandable and human impulse toward self-protection and personal gain.

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