Suburban Wasteland

Letter From The Editor

Dear anyone stuck in cul-de-sacs,

This issue is a love letter to the place we call home, the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley. Looking back at our first year of our publication we felt it was time to make an issue about what inspired us to start Drifter in the first place. This is a place I’m forever grounded to thanks to it’s community of artists, organizers, and vendors scattered from East to West. Each and everyone of them work everyday to see our home reflect the wants and needs of our community. This is authentic love you’ll find in any suburb, but there’s a toxic side too.

Breeding here are NIMBYhood councils, bullshit politicians and collectives that only do harm to our community, there lies a toxic culture. The suburbs, specifically the valley, is more than nostalgia culture or a brand to profit off of to quote “put the SFV on the Map”. Being naive is no excuse for toxicity. Our suburb is on stolen Tataviam land and the racism in forms of redlining and gentrification continues to segregate our community. This needs to end and we hear the voices on the frontlines working to make this happen.

Suburban Wasteland has been our favorite issue to work on thanks to all the amazing artists and writers who allowed us to publish their work. This summer we were actually able to meet (in-person!!) some of the amazing people you will see featured in this issue who spread creativity through the suburbs. These folx prove that art can thrive outside of the city and I hope that inspires you as much as it does Iván and myself.

Thank you, Madi Parsley

Creator and Editor-in-Chief of Drifter

Drifter Zine recognizes and acknowledges the first people of this ancestral and unceded territory of the Achoicominga that is now known as the San Fernando Valley. We honor their elders, past and present, and the descendants who are citizens of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.

We recognize that the Tribe is still here and we are committed to lifting up their stories, culture, and community.

I-45

I sighed shifting seats over tumbled items. Then she took over And the other crawled to the back.

The many stars of the early morning turned into a single shining ball in the sky as we moved forward. She thrust. The other cracked the glass. And I soared. “Let me.” she said. Was the only memory I carried as I rose from emerald blades and peered into remoteness. She crawled on the sweltering asphalt as a hubcap rolled under the searing ball in the sky. And the other that coughed blood lay in shattered glass. We paused in our places. I in emerald blades, She on asphalt, And the other still inside. I waited. She waited. The other was stuck. Glancing in the distance at one another under the scorching ball in the sky Amidst passing dust, dragonflies, and sweltering concrete on an empty highway.

“Let me.” “No.”

Jennifer Baptiste

A place between mountains and eras holding basins of dreams

By Rebecca L. Gross @rebeccalynngross

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Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.

In eighth grade, two years after my dad died suddenly at our house in the San Fernando Valley, I read T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” for the first time. It is undoubtedly a cliché to declare that reading this canonical work would change the way I read literature forever (it did), or to claim that digesting this poem would disrupt my sense of self (it absolutely did). But perhaps I might redeem my unoriginal platitudes by explaining why, for a valley kid like me, reading “Prufrock” was particularly impactful.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot

This Eliot piece opened my heart to the pain and beauty inherent in being from a suburban wasteland: The San Fernando Valley. And now at age 25, when I look back at my emotional journey with the Valley’s very own “half-deserted streets” and “one-night cheap hotels,” it’s the art I consumed, produced, and experienced alongside other valley kids that allowed me to (surv)/(thr)ive.

There were moments in my teenhood when I wanted nothing more than to be free of the Valley. I felt stuck, trapped, caged in the south-western quadrant of the Valley defined by the borders of the 101, 405, and the mountains. I was dipped like a homemade candle in layers of Valley -- born and raised there, waxy debris taking the shape of whatever container I melted into, sweltering through 110 degree days.

Hot blacktops made my skin sticky, brightening the red birthmark on my forehead. My dad used to call the red blotch an “angel’s kiss” to make me feel less self-conscious. (who would tell me this after he died?) The fact this blemish was always more prominent on days when Valley heat reflected back onto my body from the black top gave me a particular distaste for Valley heat.

For those of us who were self-described freaks, the rigid grid of suburbia and its lingering aura on the people of the region could be harsh. But when I found my people and joined a curated collective of weirdos, the weekends in the Valley became a teenage dream. When I turned 16 and got my license, I packed five or six friends into my sedan and we sloshed through San Fernando Valley hills bordering the Santa Monica Mountains. Taking sharp rights and lefts like we were sailing on an ocean occupied by a volatile sea storm, we opened windows and flooded our smiling and singing mouths with summer valley air. We replaced the salty sea flavor with that of the arid desert.

We go from one desert to the next: swap San Fernando Valley for Joshua Tree. As I tried to fall asleep, I could hear the sound of the ocean outside my window –– the crashing of waves on the beach, the subtle noise sand makes as it is rearranged to form a new shape in the same moment the water recedes. The sound of putting a shell to an ear, a nostalgic and childlike sound that feels vivid and comfortable, one untainted by the truth most adults already know: the ocean noise which lives in the shell is really only the sound of your own blood moving through your ears, magnified by the shell’s echoing acoustics. Swoosh; I listen, in my dream. I could hear the low moan of the whale’s hum, as if I were hundreds of feet deep in the sea. Perhaps, for that moment, I was.

Though, outside there was only miles and miles of desert –– the kind that’s less sweet and more dry. Openness that at once feels as though it will invite you to roam and then swallow your body in its entirety, like the sick stranger your parents had warned you to keep your eyes averted from and your lips closed to. The unique Joshua Tree, its symbol of diversity and strangeness, of flexibility and sharpness, of collision and rapid spreading, the desert exists as an oxymoronic arid plane, absolved of the fluidity with which the ocean seems to breathe; her breath is still, and when it moves, her diaphragm seems to quiver moving her breath in evil chuckles like Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

Earlier in the day, before willing my eyes shut, I had walked on the ocean floor; that is to say, I had begun viewing the desert as a land that was once sea, as space that had returned to a time before time. I felt as if I were a weightless sealing, one without air pockets trapped inside my body summoning my person to the surface; I planted my feet evenly on the floor. Plants sprouting, sandy paths, rocks and cliffs –– the sea- turned landscape guided my movements, perhaps I would be careful to step lightly in one place and I would let my toes spread wide and mush into the earth

elsewhere. Out of breath, my chest would heave and if I was lucky I would turn my mouth to face a slight breeze I might catch; like a filter-feeder, I opened my mouth and wished they were gills to re-oxygenate my blood, tasting a residue of saltiness leftover from what could have been, from the potential of what might have been, or might become.

I leaned into a space of transformation, of constant evolution. Water could have flooded the valleys and basins I stood in, but at that moment, there was none; only dry sand and her prickly plant offerings prevailed in front of me. I could not un-imagine her resilience, though; her ecosystem, already accustomed to such harsh climate systems, would adjust and thrive should a god-like excellence inundate her sandy bottom with dense fluid: a salty water or a jello-like goo. A historical entity trapped within this basin was whispering to me she had done so before.

I could hear this whispering so vividly; indeed, I felt it fiercely in my bones, as though those too were becoming part of the desertscape –– as though this wasn’t the first time the desert floor had entered and enjoyed a human body as a vehicle for her thoughts. I was overcome by an explosive conviction that the desert was becoming and that I was, too.

When you are a child, and you spend your summers swimming in swimming pools in the San Fernando Valley heat, there is this game you play. I was a child that spent my summers swimming in swimming pools in the San Fernando Valley heat, and as such, I played this game. I called it “moonwalker,” but, as I was an only child, I do not have any way to know what other, or most other, children might call it, or really if other children played this game. When I played, nevertheless, I would make my way from the shallow end to the deep end one step at a time. Each step, I was compelled by the rules of the game to make contact with the pool’s floor, and between each step –– forced by the same rules –– I had to reach the surface of the pool’s water for a quick breath, before plummeting like a pencil back under water, feet first.

Feet still planted, I found them difficult to move, but I did not not care to; I felt at one with her, and she was mesmerizing, and I was mesmerized. The whisper continued: She was always becoming, I was told, she was always changing, existing, growing. And there was no anxiety, as there was among the human race, about this constant reformation; as much as this continuous reshaping was part of the desertscape, it was also part of the desert-identity, one in which to not re-configure was to not persist in existence. I won’t make any adjustments; I will just let it be. I won’t resist becoming, and so I will become. And like that, I did. It was as if all I had to do, all along, was eliminate any resistance; my own resistance was all that was in my way of growth. I was my own villain, as much as –– if not more than –– I was my own bolster.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep

We go over the hill to go to LACMA: David Hockney’s largest painting on a single canvas has the four of us sitting on a bench staring. It’s called “Mulholland Drive, the Road to the Studio,” which describes exactly what we see. I’m less interested in the windy rendition of Mulholland and I’m more interested in Hockney’s depiction of the Valley. North of Mulholland, grids of the Valley seem to go on forever, every now and then transverse by a diagonal street. Painted in red and white and then white and orange, I am forced to reckon with the simultaneity of negative and populated space, with the artist’s expressed truth: The Valley is a filled-up non-space.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot

The living ecosystems within the desert and the ocean depend on interconnectedness. Each system relies on the existence and willingness of other creatures within its biome for support; when one keels, another stretches its limb to sustain. They lean into and away from one another, remaining present –– but not on edge –– should something happen. There is no crisis training in the desert or the ocean; existing in the desert or the ocean is a constant state of crisis. The creatures of the desert- and oceanscapes grow tall within states of movement and instability; in their oxymoronic space and with an oxymoronic nature, they become flexible in states of precariousness –– how else could they be? They don’t only accept change, they burgeon among it; they drink it like a baby separated from its mother’s breast, sucking long and hard with strength and conviction –– there is no other way; there is only the will for life.

Human beings are not well-suited for this level of adaptability; we have become inflexible in our bodies and our ability as a race to metamorphose. We feel dissatisfied when the stream diverts, and we are deprived of the hydration we need to sustain our being, but we have lost the instinct to chase it (to pick up and re-place ourselves, our belongings, and for all intensive purposes, our lives). When the desert first dried up, and we maintained traces of our pliability, we lost our gills to make space for air within our lungs. But as the deserts begin to fill once more with rain and river and ocean, we climb the tallest mountain before we will our bodies to evolve to our surroundings; our rigidity has made us cowards, ones who run away and place bandaids sooner than we transform.

---

So let us go then, you and I, into the dried-and-deprived, filled-up non-space we call home: a place between mountains and eras holding basins of dreams, wasted and nourished. Let us ask the self each of us hold in this suburban wasteland: Do we dare? Do we dare… disturb our little bubble of a universe?

Words from a SFV

Mighty Mouth Owner

This hand written poster was posted on the glass wall of Mighty Mouth announcing to their customers that the demolition of the Granada Hills Plaza was happening sooner than they had expected, forcing them to close their doors early. Not only did this demolition project affect this business but countless mom and pop stores that were on the property as well as displacing workers with jobs. What will take the place of this plaza will be a new-four-story building containing 440 apartments and a 65,000 sq ft ground commercial space. The new development is literally gentrifying the face of the community in the suburbs.

Jeanette Benitez @ sfvalleyphotos

IMPRESSION #6

Sitting in my plastic pool from Walmart, Sipping on my frapaccino from Starbucks, and hitting my vape from the local gas station, while mindless scrolling Twitter on my iPhone 11 pro max, I saw something about the US bombing another country, It upsets me. I never know where they get the money to fund that stuff, but I go back to scrolling because maybe it will go away. This is all I’ve ever known, and I’m happy because the worst thing that happens to me is that my phone dies while I’m in the drive-thru at McDonalds on my way to church and I can’t hear my favorite song on the way there. Amen. - Your neighbor

The venues named after a hues of blue and tall trees were laid to rest in the 2010s leaving musicians without a place to worship.

It doesn’t snow here, let alone rain, but the shattered glass from last night’s collisions glitter the streets like the powder on mountain tops or water in rivers that aren’t cemented over.

Our neighbors don’t have roofs and Karen from the NIMBYhood council says they need help but “Mrs. Martinez although affordable housing is great, heavens no, not in my backyard.”

Don’t fuck with wishful non-profits that take money from mass murderers, I mean politicians, and look the other way in the name of beautification, because what’s so beautiful about murals when the streets are already painted with blood by Bob, Nury, Monique, John and Paul.

Cops post “confiscated” guns and drugs along with bloodied put-tons on social media, but Villanueva still won’t show his tattoos and the Chief of Police said he could do the job without broken bones or bullet holes with a couple million dollars Moore.

The list as follows is not a emergency:

- Plane crashes

- Methane leaks

- Brownish grey air you breathe

Ignore the asthma, the migraines, the not hearing your own thoughts over airplanes, the burning eyes, and the terminal illnesses because they’re a symptom of poverty not environment according to LADWP.

And Eric Garcetti sleeps easy, while families of four in one bedroom apartments lay awake wondering when he’ll send rent relief that’s months overdue because he’s too busy dreaming of a new country to move to.

TOXIC REALITY TOXIC REALITY

Susana Radillo @suzy_the_artist

SAN FERNANDO SAN FERNANDO

San Fernando we have a toxic ass relationship

I fucking love and hate you wtf

I love that we are mixed

I love that my neighborhood feels like a pot with different spices I love that we break stereotypes

I love that we can party for a long time

I love that everyone came to support my mom when she started to sell food I appreciate that when we stopped selling food you all came knocking at our door saying how much you loved our food and our vibe

I also love that we are all equally as nosey and looking outside when we hear some neighbors fighting But . . . I also fucking hate you

I fucking hate that cops call our neighborhood ghetto

I hate that my neighbors that are so kind are afraid to hang outside

I hate that I hate that just because they have tattoos they are considered a threat to cops Fuck im not saying my neighbors are angels they are fucking annoying I learned the hard way that i can’t leave my dog outside at night because its like 4th of july every weekend

I hate that some of my neighbors steal from us And if the one that stole my froggy table is reading this FUCK YOU Or if your the one that stole my plants and left a FUCKING DONALD TRUMP book I burned that stupid shit i hope my plants die and break through their pots And also to the neighbor that stole our Christmas lights are you an idiot we know who you are you should’ve at least removed my dads name off it i hope it breaks

Lost in the Suburbs

Lost in the Suburbs

Of Scorpions, Ghosts, and Parking Lots

by C.C. de Vere @ccdevere

“Are you here for the museum or the saloon? ” the parking attendant asked me.

“Uh, sorry?” I was still shaking pretty badly. Five minutes earlier, I was on the westbound 101, signaling to merge into the exit lane, when a massive Cadillac Escalade zoomed in like a bat out of hell and cut me off, coming mere inches from my comparatively little Toyota.

The attendant explained that the lot was shared by the Leonis Adobe Museum and the cantina next door. It was just after 10 a.m., and I was there for the house, not a margarita-fueled brunch.

The Leonis Adobe is one of the rarest of rare places in Los Angeles County: a surviving relic of our Old West past.

The museum’s entrance is routed through the Plummer House, a Victorian cottage relocated from Plummer Park in West Hollywood, and now the visitor center for the Leonis Adobe. You will see framed pictures of the house, Miguel Leonis, his wife Espiritu, and their daughter Marcelina. You will see replicas of Don Miguel’s pistols. What you won’t see is the brutal, years-long struggle Espiritu went through to keep a house that was rightfully hers.

The house is a long and generously sized adobe with a wide wooden porch, probably built in the 1840s. In the nineteenth century, the surrounding land was Rancho El Escorpión - Scorpion Ranch. Today, the house is surrounded by Calabasas - Spanish for “pumpkins” or “squashes”.

Locals have long lionized Miguel Leonis - the now-closed continuation high school in Woodland Hills was named for him. An immigrant from France’s Basque Country, he became the third-richest man in California before his death in 1889.

Fantastical claims abound: that Don Miguel was illiterate and only spoke Basque, that he was so strong he threw a stolen safe into the river, or that he was a drunk. Most of the stories should be taken with an entire canister of salt. Court records reveal a glimpse of the real Don Miguel.

Miguel arrived in Los Angeles, became the foreman of Rancho El Escorpión, and bought out his boss’ half of the ranch. The other half belonged to Espiritu Chijulla Menendez, a Spanish-speaking, half-Chumash and half-Kizh widow with a young son. The land had belonged to her father Oden, chief of the Chumash village Humaliwo (Malibu).

Pictures of Miguel and Espiritu hang in the parlor. Mannequins resembling Miguel and Espiritu stand in the kitchen.

Some visitors report seeing Miguel’s ghost. I wonder how many of them just got spooked by the mannequins

.

Two-story adobes are very rare - Miguel added the second story in the 1870s and enclosed a veranda to accommodate a sturdy wooden staircase. Coming upstairs, I felt like I was being watched. But not by Miguel. It felt like an exhausted, elderly woman who did not trust me in her house.

A highly decorated trunk in Espiritu’s bedroom is the only original stick of furniture. Espiritu’s red velvet canopy bed was re-created from contemporary accounts.

I couldn’t stay in Espiritu’s bedroom for long. The feeling of being watched was too intense, and it continued until I stepped out onto the upstairs veranda.

Miguel and Espiritu’s only child together, Marcelina, died of smallpox at age twenty. Miguel eventually recruited his nephew Jean-Baptiste to come to the rancho and eventually take it over. Six weeks later, Miguel was dead - mortally wounded in a wagon accident in the Cahuenga Pass.

In his will, Miguel claimed that Espiritu was his housekeeper, not his wife. He left her a pittance, left Rancho El Escorpion and his fortune to his siblings in France, and stated that she would get nothing if she contested the will.

Espíritu hired a good attorney and contested the will anyway, demanding half of their estate as his widow.

The court battle raged for weeks. Dozens of witnesses were called upon to testify as to whether Miguel and Espiritu were married or not. Marcelina’s headstone was even entered into evidence. The Los Angeles Times gleefully raked all the muck it could, and published a tabloid-worthy story claiming Espiritu (now in her fifties) had married an 18-year-old man.

Espiritu was awarded half the estate. But it wasn’t over.

Early LA had no shortage of con artists with no qualms whatsoever about trying to cheat a two-time widow out of her house. Espiritu was in court, off and on, for SIXTEEN YEARS.

Nine months after the last court battle ended, Espiritu passed away, leaving the house to her son from her first marriage.

The house had been abandoned and left to rot when Miguel began fixing it up. It was abandoned and left to rot again, in the 1950s.

The house was nearly torn down in 1962 for a grocery store parking lot. Instead, it became Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1.

An old house, abandoned twice, owned and nearly lost multiple times by a woman living in a stacked deck, and nearly bulldozed for a parking lot - the adobe is a truly remarkable survivor, still standing between the 101 and Calabasas Road, surrounded by kitschy faux-Western and faux-Spanish storefronts.

We call it the Leonis Adobe. But I, personally, consider it Espiritu’s house.

“No Periphery” by Thrill Touch: An Uncanny Audio Visual Experience

Fast, slow, loud, quiet, louder. Thrill Touch is an experimental post-rock trio that was born out of the sun-bleached haze of the Mojave desert. Their combination of high-energy melodies, dissident whispers and explosive noise form a cocktail of controlled chaos matched only by their turbulent and off-the-wall performance.

“No Periphery,” was conceived with little time and even less communication, but injected with all the personal introspection we’ve built in isolation during the pandemic. Within a 3-week period, each individual member recorded a piece of the track to build off the piece they received by email. Working remotely and without an agreed upon concept, each stem inspired the next and the song built itself over time. It became a song about exploration and transition. Because of the pandemic, we no longer fear distance from each other and no longer feel tethered to our past histories and birthplace. We now wish to pursue the desires we felt were unattainable prior to March of 2020. Michael’s locational change coincides with Misty and Bianca’s plans for Washington and Oregon, where they seek to repair their mental health in the mountains away form the grind of Los Angeles.

“No Periphery” begins with the sound of a starting car engine, immediately followed by loud knocking noises and flickering dash lights. It’s as if an old machine is slowly igniting. Then, there’s a drum beat that segways into a musical composition that builds in layers of dissonant synths, distorted guitars, drum machines, and even helicopter noises that make the whole thing feel so uncanny.

It’s a musical piece that was created during a time of introspective isolation during a pandemic where melancholy and pain was felt within us every day that went by. “There’s a bank in my backyard/And I’ve got no light to grow my plants in.” The words are mostly spoken and get lost in all the noise going on around it. It’s a voice speaking to itself; a voice processing the effects of a capitalist structure obstructing life. It’s final words are as stunning as the song that accompanies it: “Like the shadow of the bank/Or the valley winds that pull a sand dune/I’ll pull everything into me/and hold it like a trinket.”

The music video was co-directed, shot and edited by Misty Steppe alongside Bianca Ascencio who also is credited for hand-theatrics featured in the video. “In a fever dream of a 2-day period, Bianca and Misty were able to work together in person for the first time since March of 2020,” as the band stated.

The video displays footage of a mannequin made of foam that has different faces projected onto it and a pair of hands in blue and green gloves moving around the mannequin’s facial perimeter. The hands end up crowning it and offering it a bouquet of white withered roses.

Overall, the audiovisual experience is a dark industrial combination of something like Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity” mixed with Radiohead’s paranoid-android-era aesthetic. A decaying machine; an isolated being looking at its reflection; a capitalistic monster in the backyard; It’s a musical piece that is uncomfortably perfect for our times of discordance.

A Music Review By Iván Salinas

POST-TRUTH YOUTH

Francis Robateau @francis_robateau

CAN’T CHANGE MY MIND

Smoke green tornados

Munching leaves like billy goats on volcanoes I’m Gruff cos its ruff out here for a lady On this fertile land With the creative power to give birth To fertile man And his babies Only subject to God’s mortal plan and His maybe -s Critical of everything set up too ornately What glitters isn’t gold But we’ll still rock grills in some fake teeth Body is just a vessel I’m just trying to dock my ship safely If we’re supposed to let go of cargo in the end Then these shackles can’t contain me You can’t unlock doors of truth if you’ve inherited some fake keys And you can’t petition my opinions So don’t solicitate me My mind is a stone temple Drop your offerings at the gate, please.

Brie Harvey @spiciesthoney

Araceli Romo

GIRL AWASH

I will never understand, you were somebody’s baby she held your hand and washed your pain did her best to keep you safe dressed you in lace, gave you perfume allowed you sugary treats in a dollar store bowl while you watched cartoons on Saturdays I will never understand, you were somebody’s baby night after night you scream in agony spending the time lost in your mind living in filth, being abused losing your pieces one by one men take them as you scream your cry amplified by concrete walls sirens come and sirens go followed by your mother’s pleas begging you “please come home” she walks away without you believing she has lost her daughter’s love years come, years go and I will never understand how that mother lost her baby

Catch a Break

It was a typical San Fernando Valley summer night. July? August? Maybe September -who knows- but it had been a long day for two 18 year old girls trying to make it in life -which many of you may know ain’t easy or cheap- We both worked as receptionists by day and took cosmetology classes at San Fernando Beauty Academy by night. Neither of us was ready to go home to our poorly insulated apartments which were as inviting as toaster ovens in summer. We deserved a break from it all, from work, from accidentally cutting our fingers and from the suffocating heat. Oreo shakes? Slurpees? Nuggets and cokes! That was it. So off we went to Mc Donald’s in Nidia’s car laughing and singing, just having fun. She yelled out the window to a cop passing by “you’re cute, do i call 911 to get your number?” he laughed, i guess bad pick up lines weren’t a ticketable offense. We got our food and decided to go back to the empty beauty school parking lot. Plaza Del Sol (now Plaza Del Valle) was under construction on the same lot so the electricity had been shut off for weeks -maybe months. It was completely dark and sure the neighborhood was sketchy, but it was OUR neighborhood; we knew shit didn’t go down everywhere EVERY NIGHT. We reclined our seats,rolled our windows all the way down and put our feet up on the dashboard to really enjoy our treats. We were a few nuggets in when BOOM! a gunshot then POW! POW! POW! four. Nidia crumpled the brown bag with both hands and yelled “oooh shit, oooh shit” i snatched the bag and threw it aside as i yelled “duck! just duck!” Shenanigans? Bad luck? Just another summer night in Panorama City. You be the judge.

A HAIRCUT, A MAN SHOT, AND A SQUAD OF PIGS: A DAY IN PANORAMA CITY

BY Iván Salinas @ivansali_

June 18th, 2020. Another day of scorching summer heat. I was too broke to get a haircut at the barber shop, so Madi cut my hair. I sat on the toilet seat and it took her about thirty minutes. The entire bathroom floor was covered with my hair; actually, the entire bathroom. I cleaned it up as fast as I could. We got in the shower. It took us another thirty minutes to soap and rinse off. We dried ourselves and as we dressed we made plans for the rest of our afternoon: maybe, go for a walk and take photos along the way. I like the lighting at sunset over Panorama City. We were also craving tacos from the truck at the corner of Sepulveda and Nordhoff.

At some point during this time frame a man had gotten shot a couple of houses down the street, at least that’s what had happened according to the pig sergeant who was to inform us later that night. We never heard a gunshot. The sound of water rushing out of the showerhead may have blocked it.

My parents rented the room next door to a young couple who had just had their newborn, but we were also renting the remaining two bedrooms from the actual landlord of the house. Our backyard is divided by a wood picket fence that separates it from a construction site that the same landlord owns, too. My family moved here in 2018. Before that, we had lived in different apartment units throughout Van Nuys. The worst one was on Erwin Street: way overpriced and too close to the Pig Station. I hated that place. But we later found this house for rent at an amount my family could afford.

Before Madi cut my hair, we were in our bedroom and I’d heard yelling outside the bedroom window. I thought it came from the construction site behind us. I heard the newborn’s cries, too. I didn’t know the baby’s name until that day.

By the time we were dressed and ready to head out, I suggested we go to the backyard and smoke some weed; I loved how the view of the streets was enhanced during our walks. It would also allow some time for our golden retriever, Rocket, to run around the house for a bit, too. He had been living with us for about a month a half at that point.

While we were in the backyard, the neighbors asked us if we’d call the cops because they were outside on the front porch. Who the hell called the pigs?

I winced at them and quickly went back inside. We hadn’t heard any sirens, so I didn’t think it was as serious as it sounded. I approached the front door and looked through the glass in the middle of the door. I could see an LAPD car blocking the right driveway and a female pig pointing a gun towards my house. There was another pig car in the middle of the street, but no traffic coming from any lane. The entire avenue looked deserted, taken over by uniforms. I looked around trying to figure out what they could possibly be looking for that’s making them point their guns in this direction? From the right side of the street I saw a pig walk down with a large weapon. I couldn’t figure out if it was a shotgun or tear-gas.

I heard a voice coming from our side of the house. It was my neighbor, Alfredo. He was wearing a black tank-top, shorts and sandals. He walked up to the pig that was now aiming her gun at him--He later told me that wasn’t the first time he was in this kind of situation. While he talked to them, Madi and I had to make a decision. We either went out or stayed inside. I could hear that Alfredo was telling the pig another family lived inside this house and he wasn’t the primary person to talk to, he just rented a room there with his wife.

I still lived with my parents but they weren’t inside the house while this was happening. I am glad they weren’t. However, that meant I had to open the door and talk to the pigs.

A few weeks back, the protests following George Floyd’s death erupted in LA, and the numerous black and brown folx who had lost their lives for police brutality kept rising. Many more black and brown people had been killed by pigs and this could have been another instance where I met the same fate. If I didn’t open the door, they would have jumped through the gate, no doubt about it. And they would have stormed without any of us knowing what or who they were looking for.

So we decided to open the front door, but our dog had to stay inside, so we locked him in my bedroom. When I did so I put my hands where they could see them. They looked at us for a couple of seconds, then one of the pigs oinked, “These are not the suspects.” No, I guess we are not. I wondered what the actual suspects looked like. Our skin colors are light-brown and white.

They shouted at us to come out of the house. Madi shouted back, “ok, but we just want to know what’s going on.”

“There’s an armed man that may be hiding in the lot behind your house, so if you can please step out we can check out the area.” They made it sound like we had a choice.

We put our masks on and walked out to the front porch. The neighbors came outside, too. They weren’t wearing a mask. Yesenia held her one-month-old baby with a white towel wrapped around him. When we all walked up to the pigs at the curb they quickly began to ask questions.

For the entirety of the day the only pig we spoke to for the most part was Pig Richard. His body towered over all of ours, he was a white man at least 6’5 tall. He asked if there were more people in the house. He wasn’t wearing a mask or any type of covering over his face. Many of the pigs weren’t either. I answered his question, told him there was just a golden retriever in the room.

“Is he violent? Would he bite someone if we were to go in?” He oinked.

“No. He’ll lick you though,” Madi said. He explained that they were answering a call about a man who had just gotten shot. The ambulance had just left and they were looking for the suspect who they believed was still in the area. They weren’t entirely sure where the suspect could be located but there was a chance it could be somewhere in the construction site behind my house. So, I told him the truth: we hadn’t heard anything, no gunshots, but I did hear someone yelling earlier; I had just gotten a haircut, and we were about to go for a walk like we do every other day.

Behind him, I could see an entire squad of pigs with riot gear arrive. There were at least twelve of them in one truck-with more on the way--and more pigs had blocked off Van Nuys boulevard on the east and Noble street to the west while a helicopter flew in circles above us. They set their perimeter and it became their stage. Their performance “to keep us safe” had just begun.

Pig Richard first briefed us on what they were going to do, which was to go inside the house and look in every corner of it--even though we weren’t the supposed suspects. Only if they decided the area was all clear they would then let us back inside. We were all on the curb already, and it’s not like we were going to stop them anyway.

We watched the entire pig squad move into my house wearing their riot gear. For the past weeks leading to that day, that’s how they were dressed in every BLM protest across the country. I wasn’t going to take a chance to end up dead at the hands of the pigs.

I was sure the pig squad was going to go into the room where I stored all my music gear, the room that smelled dank 24/7. If this was ten years earlier, I probably would have been arrested for possessing a schedule 1 drug even though they didn’t answer the call of a neighbor complaining about the smell.

My golden retriever was in the bedroom. I hope they’d hear Rocket bark so they wouldn’t go in the room. I prayed they wouldn’t shoot him even though we warned them there was a dog.

While they did their supposed search, I texted a group chat of friends about what was happening. I told them we were all ok so far. I sent them a photo, I told them I would keep them updated. Several of them responded with messages of support. They told me to keep an eye out, to get close and record their every move. My phone’s battery was at 5 percent but Madi had her phone.

My parents called me and told me they were at the corner of Van Nuys and Plummer, where the pigs had blocked off traffic. They weren’t letting anyone in. I briefed them. I told them we were safe, too, but I didn’t feel safe. The pigs didn’t make me feel safe flashing their guns at us, telling us to get out of their way, storming into my place in full riot gear. At this point, no one had seen the wounded person. At this point they were the only ones with guns disrupting our home. Seeing them do this wasn’t as surprising, it just finally hit home, and I didn’t think it would. You’re never prepared for when they show up. Before this day I hadn’t really talked to the neighbors living on the other side of our living room. We’d just overheard their occasional fights and answered the door whenever they paid rent. It was the first time I’d seen their newborn.

“What’s his name?” I asked the parents.

“Jacob” Alfredo said, and he turned so we could take a better look at the baby. He was calm, resting on his dad’s shoulder under the towel so it kept him cool under the hundred degree heat. He never cried the entire time we were outside.

The couple asked us if we were working. We were fulltime students then, taking classes over zoom, working parttime myself delivering food with Postmates. Alfredo told us he had just gotten his hours cut at a factory where they make parts for airplanes. Yesenia hadn’t worked in almost an entire year. She also mentioned that when she was younger she wanted to be a pig, but she became a nurse instead.

My dad had just gotten fired from his job at a Valet Parking company. My mom thankfully kept her job as a caretaker, but she had to sell home-made crepes during the weekends so we could make rent.

Neighbors in the houses and apartment units next to us came out to the curb, looking from behind their gated driveways, curious, as they saw an entire pig-squad go into my house. One white lady came out of her townhouse and wore a bright purple mask. She was in her early thirties and asked us what was going on. Alfredo answered, but it was hard to make out the words because of the noise of the helicopter above us.

“Oh, I don’t speak Spanish” she said.

“We all speak English” I responded.

She then told us that she had seen another neighbor drunk on her front porch the other night, screaming sometime around midnight. Madi and I lived next door to the neighbors she was referring to, who are asian, and they are very friendly and like to have family reunions. We have never heard something like that happening, which made me think this lady was racist. But, the neighbors across the street have gotten into fights late at night after their parties. They’re Mexican. And at the house next to Alfredo and Yesenia’s room, they would play salsa music almost every weekend at the start of the pandemic. They’re from Ecuador. But it’s cool cause every now and then we also had our parties.

Yanira and Alfredo were taking pictures while we talked to the neighbor. They got close and talked to a female pig near them. She said her shift ended in five minutes and she was stuck here. Because she’d seen them take photos with their phone she told them they could get inside the patrol car and take a look inside. “It’s not caged,” she said. They declined the offer--it could have been a trap.

A few more minutes went by and the entire pig squad came out with no suspect arrested yet. They hadn’t given up their search, but we were allowed to go back inside. I was expecting to see the whole place trashed, but Pig Richard walked us through what they had done and ordered us to confirm that nothing had been touched or displaced by them. We looked around and everything was where we left it. He then briefed us with more information.

The reason why they targeted our house, aside from the possible suspect hiding in behind the backyard, was because the call they received said the person that shot him ran into a white house with a blue dodge. The exterior of my house is white. The car my dad owns is a blue Dodge. We were definitely the suspects at first, apparently we just didn’t look like them. But while they were searching the perimeter they found another house with the exact same description, which is where they were more sure that the suspect was hiding, so they were going to check out that place next. He stepped out speaking to his walkie talkie and the entire pig squad followed.

They oinked west.

I heard Rocket whimpering. I opened my bedroom door and he immediately clung to us. We looked at the room and noticed he was the only one that caused damage. He ripped apart Madi’s wallet and a Grassroots Journalism book. He almost ate some of her birth control pills. We were just glad he was ok. The sun was starting to settle. It was closer to 5 pm. The heat got more intense. I put my phone to charge. I went outside, up to the gate of my front porch. The street was still blocked and my parents still couldn’t get through. I called them again to tell them we were back in the house. Yesenia came out from her room and asked if we had seen anything. I told her what Pig Richard had briefed us on and they were now looking into the other house.

“Oh yeah, where all the sketchy people live. They’re either on that side or drinking at the liquor store in the corner,” she said. A few weeks earlier I had made conversation with a neighbor across from us to tell him about the little crepe business my mom had going. He was making carne asada. I told him I noticed they were new to the neighborhood. “It’s nice here... except for all the homeless people at night.”

When my family first moved here, the house had just been remodeled, just like the rest of the other houses around us. Exactly next door to the house the pigs were targeting next, began a fenced lot of deserted land that used to be homes. Only debris, beer cartons, and random clothes were left. Someone tagged “Trap House” on the wood fence. People living in mobile homes decided to move next to that lot. It was lawful of them to stay there. There were no parking limits imposed and not many houses around, nor any schools. It was the perfect spot. One of these mobile homes was also a mobile mechanic shop. They were the first to move in, then more mobile homes joined until they took up the entire space. When my girlfriend and I walked past them we either were just stared at or they kept minding their own business. They couldn’t see our smiles behind our masks and would ignore my “hola, que tal?” One of them also spray-painted bikes. I never saw them as a threat. If I were living in a mobile home, struggling just as much to keep myself alive, I probably wouldn’t have the most friendly attitude either. My family was one rent bill away from getting kicked out of where we lived. But to assume that they had anything to do with what happened that day was just that, an assumption, and a wrong one too. The “drunks” at the liquor store were a usual group of day laborers. They hung out with the unhoused lady that made a home out of a bus stop bench. They all hung out more often there now that the pandemic took away most of

their gigs. One time I walked to the liquor store and passing by this group of men, the youngest one of them said, “la muerte me la pela, la muerte es mi carnal.” It’s a sketchy thing to overhear, for sure, but true nonetheless. If you don’t mess with any of these vatos they won’t pay attention to you either--at least that’s true for men.

Shortly after Yesenia made her comment we heard a gate smash open and heard the classic line: “Police! Open up!”

All the pigs standing near us were watching attentively. We watched with them. There were loud thuds and I could hear more yelling, but our entire view was blocked until one man in handcuffs came out. And then another man, and then a woman, and two more men. They were all handcuffed. They were all darker in skin color. The pigs lined them up against a wall on the curb and the rest of the officers had their guns drawn on them. It looked like they were about to be executed. They probably felt ashamed as we were watching them, most likely terrified for what was coming next. In the twelve years I’ve lived in the valley, this was not the first time I saw this kind of scenario. This time it was right next door to me rather than passing by and seeing pigs restraining someone that is already on their knees. I don’t think these people had anything to do with it, but the pigs arrested them.

I took out my girlfriend’s phone and zoomed in. I was captur ing the same kinds of images seen all across the entire country. Panorama City was just another neighborhood where immigrant black and brown people were arrested. The pigs had them handcuffed for a long time. I heard some Spanish mixed with English from behind the wall, when I got closer to where they had them handcuffed. The sun went down. The street lights came on. They reopened the streets and my parents were back home. I couldn’t hear what the pigs were telling them, but so far no one had gotten shot. No one was beat up. But I did see two of the same handcuffed men get taken by the pigs.

By night time I saw Pig Richard again. He called my girlfriend and I so he could speak to us. The red lights lit up his face the same color. He told us that the people arrested were involved in a gang. The empty field next to that house was a common problem and they had previously contacted the owner to sell the property and houses could be built. That way “more nice citizens like you could move in.” And those nice people renting from greedy-ass landlords that would raise up the rent and overcrowd the fuck out of the northeast valley.

Pig Richard thanked us for our cooperation and left us his business card in case we had any more questions. He also mentioned that they would be patrolling more often around the

area to check up on us. Fucking great. More gangs are moving in.

One year after the incident, the renovation of the empty field has been underway. Signs of parking limitations have been imposed along the curb. Most of the mobile homes left before they were swept by LA Sanitation or given a fine. The only one remaining was the mobile mechanic shop. He took clients for as long as possible, using both sides of the street as his working area while condos were getting built by more men working to feed themselves and their families. For a few weeks I saw pigs riding their bikes on the sidewalks, but it didn’t last. What’s more permanent are the structures of new condos a couple houses down to be filled with “nice citizens” or the apar tments at the Van Nuys/Plummer intersection with people that are moving from some other fucking place unaware that their so-called home could’ve been a public space, instead, or simply more affordable units for a low-income community. Not a single green space has been considered in the area, even though the neighborhood council people complain about being “park poor” and they don’t care much to do anything about it. Every year it keeps getting hotter. LAPD is still a criminal gang. The panorama is (un)changing.

PINE TREES

Jamie Price @enigmatic_aberration_

Pine Park Trees

Interconnected

A Young Boy roams the Labyrinth in which he resides The Sun begins to settle into the Night A Provider and a Spouse are on the right And a Man in Rugged Rags steps into the light

“Young Boy, you have cement and mortar scabbing on your jeans We share the art of building foundations Running through our genes”

Paying no mind to the Man, The Young Boy continues to walk But the Man in Rugged Rags Decides to interrupt him once again

“Young Boy, could you spare me some change? Times have been tough; it’s been a lifetime since I had a meal”

The Young Boy replies “I wish I did have some change to spare I was robbed The money I made after a long week of working is gone”

“Then pay no mind; I pray you see better days” Said the Man in Rugged Rags

They part ways And continue their separate journey through the Labyrinth Only for them to reunite again

The sun begins to settle into the Night A Provider, a Spouse, and their children are on the right And the Man in Rugged Rags is in front of the light

Owen Montoya-Lazo

“The last time we met you had cement and mortar scabbing on your jeans; Tonight you are covered in barley and wheat”

The Young Boy takes deep breath and stands still for a moment

The sunlight fades away as the sky turns gray The verges of the road are brittle and brown from the lack of water Tears run down his face

“Pray for me, for I am a laborer at the mercy of thieves posing as politicians Once again, I was robbed; not for money but for my tools A Policeman stripped me of my Hammer and Sickle because he believed them to be weapons of destruction, not tools for building foundations”

The Man in Rugged Rags shared a sigh of empathy

For the Young Boy is beginning to understand That the world indiscriminately inflicts malice upon its inhabitants

Whether they carry a good heart or a demon on their back

“Sounds like you have a cruel fate ahead of you”

The wind whistles between the walls A tumbleweed stumbles across the pathway

The Young Boy and the Man in Rugged Rags remain still Sharing a moment of silence

“Godspeed” said the Young Boy to the Man in Rugged Rags as they parted ways and continued their walk throughout the Labyrinth

Only for them to reunite again

“Our destinies are intertwined Our lives tethered by a cosmic force” Said the Man in Rugged Rags The cosmos open up and give the world a new light The stars do not shy away from teary eyes For The Young Boy could not help but cry

Suddenly, the skies birthed a cloudless rain fall The verges on the road thanked the universe For answering it’s prayers

“My back has grown weary From carrying bricks and stones Meant to pave our road A road that leads to nowhere It simply keeps going until the Earth has no more earth to till Endlessly consuming the life this planet gives”

As the Young Boy expressed his truth In efforts to give the Earth the essence that was stolen from Her The Young Boy followed the Man in Rugged Rags “Let’s take a walk, we’ve been in the same place for too long”

The Man in Rugged Rags guides The Young Boy through a path new to him Wandering the apparatus for his whole life, The Young Boy feels the joy of uncertainty As everyday of his life was nothing more Than the repetition of malice inflicted upon him Only to be left with whatever pride he had left

“You seem to recognize the grim truth of your existence: Someone trying to stay afloat in this Wasteland An endless Labyrinth that reaps Your means to live Your tools to create for the sake of keeping Your heart filled with hate

But as long as you know where you’re from, You will never feel lost within this labyrinth You will find solace within yourself If you feel lost, do not look outward for guidance Look inside for the signs you have ignored all along

“I just want to get out of here”

Dig deep

Your hands will shake, Your nails will break All before your spirit aches

When it comes to finding your roots; You must go the distance So dig deep Look for your ancestors For their knowledge To build pyramids To cure disease To read the starboard That was stolen from them and repurposed To pollute the sky and cloak the coordinates All because they, whoever they may be, do not want you to know who you really are”

The Sun gracefully spills amongst the clouds The Young Boy and the Man in Rugged Rags come to a halt And peer at their reflections on river at their feet

As the twin images surprise the Young Boy The Man in Rugged Rags lowers his hood And shows The Young Boy How the Future and The Past Are Interconnected

I really needed that

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Un Trauma Silencioso

by Noemi Romo @noeminotnaomi

As a minor, I passed by a liquor store when a man in his 30’s whispered loudly, “Chupa me mi pito, baby.” Encabronada, I turned the hell around, loudly yelled “No debes de decir eso a las niñas chiquitas!” as I kicked his backpack, followed with an even louder “IT’S 11 AM!” as I walked away--how was I to know he had a six-pack of beer in there? He yelled at me and threw the sixpack at my head--I ran back punching. Eventually, someone from inside the liquor store came out, grabbed me and yelled at him. As they argued, I took the harasser’s bike, left it in the middle of the street, and marched home.

As an even younger minor, I wasn’t even five steps outside my building’s door when a man in front of a van asked me which way Sepulveda was - “Has un u-turn, sigue derecho - por ahi ‘sta.” He asked me if I could show him, to which I said no. He took a step towards me and I immediately went back inside. I thank my lucky stars that he didn’t try the door--that lock had been broken for well over a year.

As an adult, I was stalked for almost an hour. This path home became like a date night with myself throughout the pandemic. I needed to know if this person was following me, so I spoke to my friend on the phone as I clutched a littered box cutter I found. I had seen this person at an encampment near the Panorama City Rock Garden. I needed to know if this person was following me.

He was like an animal hunting prey--a block and a half distance between us, making sure to pop behind some bushes when I turned to look.

Completely dissociated and disturbed the next day, my trauma yelled at me, scolded me. How could I be so stupid, so ignorant--did I not know where the fuck I’m from?

It took months for the trauma to settle into a murmur of caution. Courage gathered, I tried my path again--then this happened:

A houseless man biked past me slowly as he checked me out.

Man: Do you need help with your backpack? Me: No.

Man: Oh okay. Can you give me five bucks? Me: No.

Man: One? Me: No. Man: A hug? Me: No.

Man: Well then fuh-UCK YOU BITCH!

He came at me with his bike, pushed me back then rode away. Not one person stuck in traffic paid the incident any attention. A man harassing a woman. Just another day in the San Fernando Valley, I guess. I wonder about these two houseless men - did they grow up here? My gut tells me they did. They remind me of a lot of the kids I grew up with, the ones who felt that being “gangster” and “ghetto” were synonymous with being a “true” Mexican-American. I recently saw a former classmate who fits this bill graffitiing in the Pacoima Wash.

In her poem titled Girl Awash, my sister writes about a moment our mother witnessed from her window. At the time, there was a homeless encampment of about 100 people--it was a mess of drugs and violence. One night, a mother came for her daughter, desperately pleading for her to go back home, crying out “¿Que ya no me quieres?”.

Nothing--not all the middle of the night screams, the physical and sexual violence, the drug use, nothing--pained my mother to witness as much as this.

The only moment that compares were the children yelling “Mommy! Daddy! Stop!” in the middle of the night. We couldn’t see them… we could only hear their cries, echoed by the structure of the wash.

At night, you can hear an orchestra of frogs coming from the wash. At times, they go silent due to the low LAPD helicopters, ambulances, the year-round fireworks, or whatever. They go absolutely silent. Then from one end of the wash, you hear a tiny chirp. From the other, you hear a croak. Then they erupt in song together - it never fails.

When I came back home after running away years prior, I cried as their chorus filled my heart again. I had long forgotten that there was beauty in Panorama City. I just had to tune my ear to listen.

Just like that, the way I interacted with my surroundings changed. I obsessively recorded their songs and posted them on Instagram - I was not alone in finding their tunes mesmerizing. I began to record a hummingbird that I named my Lil Hummie. I paid more attention to the bugs around me, to show that they too are beautiful and worthy of admiration. I started making comics with screenshots of my videos, in an effort to make sense of all the madness we were seeing in this country. I looked over the fence and into the wash, longingly--but my trauma yelled far too loudly for me to climb over.

I found my power as an artist by displaying these beauties throughout the pandemic. Some people I grew up with couldn’t believe that all our lives, amongst the garbage and abandoned furniture and concrete and freeways and so on, these creatures were here.

One day, I raised money for a local non-profit by auctioning off videos of whatever creature a donor wanted to see. Someone requested a frog. I waited and waited, but no frogs made their way out of the concrete river.

I waited and waited. I listened to their chorus. I waited some more.

Eventually, their song became louder than the cries of my trauma.

I jumped the fence and made my way down. There were dozens upon dozens of baby frogs! Just like that, I suddenly noticed the red-tail hawks, the different species of bees, the dragonflies, the damselflies, the ducks - oh, and there was more than just one species of frog in the wash, too! I spent a lot of time with these creatures. This was the first of many expeditions here.

I ended up spending so much time there that I got to know some of the houseless people who now call it home. I reflected on the houseless people my community grew up with. Who else remembers the man with the blue eyes and empty stare to match, with the long white hair and beard? What about the man with one leg (the only time I know of that he accepted help was when my sister bought him a bag of cheetos at Target)? What were their stories?

There have always been those among us who have shown that the system was failing our society in some important ways. Here’s what those among us have shown me.

Some struggle with addiction.

Some struggle with a bad attitude.

Some are mentally ill.

Some are immigrants.

Some are artists.

Some are kind.

Some are sketchy.

Some are one or more of the above - is this not just like the rest of us?

They are part of my community--and yours, whether you like it or not.

One was expecting a baby, said “screw rent”, and let go of his apartment to save up instead due to the cost of living. He made money by fixing up bikes for the houseless community. I haven’t seen him since the birth of his baby. Maybe he told his

truth to my friend. Maybe he lied about his experience to my friend who told me the tale. My friend and I chose to trust in his word.

My friend introduced himself through my fence. He is a friendly, respectful, older, and much smaller Guatemalan man who rides his bike up and down the wash, always happy as can be. He found me sitting outside of the fence. He asked why he hadn’t seen me there for a while. I explained that I got harassed by some dudes I suspected of selling meth while I was botanizing in there. I was too scared. He told me welcomingly and absolutely free of arrogance, “Vente cuando estoy aquí! Siempre estoy de las 6 a las 7 pm. T’echo un ojo, no te preocupes.”

Trusting him, I went back in and found not one but two California Poppy plants, growing amongst the invasive weeds and syringes and abandoned shoes and game consoles and so on. I thought about the potential to sow wildflower seeds in this stretch of the wash for the native pollinators. There was so much potential, just some hand-weeding in some areas. But how could I possibly remove everything that would make it hard for the wildflowers to sprout and take root?

Then it hit me.

I knew when the next opportunity to sow seeds would come--the next time someone’s tent blows up, the city will come to remove everything--the garbage, the plants, the people, the animals. That’s what they did last time, and the time before that, and so on--with no regard for all the creatures and the houseless alike.

The first time I saw it happen the skies were an ominous orange from all the fires. It took days for me to welcome the damage into my reality. I climbed through a hole in the fence, and made my way down, tearing up. It was all gone. I looked desperately for signs of life. Then I saw a hawk and - wait, what?- two dragonflies attacking it? I could hardly believe my eyes. Every time this hawk swooped down for a small bird, these two dragonflies would hit it, go back low, attack each other, only to attack the hawk once more.

I looked around and saw about 30 ducks - more than I have ever seen there before. Clearing the wash exposed the duckweed in the water, and so they came. If everything and everyone hadn’t been removed, they wouldn’t have come.

I learned a lot about resilience and community from these creatures - no, these teachers - that day.

The loss of habitat broke my heart… but hope was sowed in the clearing.

Since then, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful moments. I saw a man with a little girl on his motorcycle (a cool 5 mph, don’t worry), followed by a little boy on a tricycle pedaling with all his little might to keep up. There’s a young couple that climbs through the fence. They just sit and hold hands and talk with each other for hours. There’s a group of friends who gather there to walk their dogs. There’s the mom and the nature loving son who walk laps around there almost every morning. People being people in the Pacoima Wash.

The wash is ultimately what has kept me sane throughout the pandemic. It helped me fall just a little bit in love with home. How could it not, with all the beautiful moments I have witnessed there? It made me want to fight for it because all of us - every last person and creature, here, right now - deserves better.

Following the wash’s path led me to get involved in community organizing. It led me to get involved in building California native habitat at the Panorama City Rock Garden. It is what makes me want to leave this place better than I found it.

There’s a saying that goes “You can’t heal in the same environment where you got sick.” I am coming to understand that this is true for me. My trauma knows how to make conversation in the valley a little too well.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t get the trauma down to a whisper, to a sound tan silencioso, that I can help this place heal.

Because this place, with its various forms of trauma, is worthy of healing.

And so am I. And so are you. And so is our community.

Together and alone all at once.

Contributors

Nicole Villanueva:

IG: @el0cinn

Jennifer Baptiste:Jennifer Baptiste is a writer with a background in school librarianship (PK-8), minimal child-friendly sketches on redbubble, and creative interactive videos for colleagues and kiddos under @WheresMsB on social media platforms. She loves creating relatable writings with underlying emotional themes to promote healing. Jennifer grew up in Houston, Texas and is currently living in Los Angeles, CA.

IG: @WheresMsB

Rebecca Gross: (she/they) is a writer, educator, and researcher living in unceded Tongva Territory // Los Angeles, CA. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Off Menu Press. Gross has spent the last two years teaching first-year college students rhetorical arts, a social-justice based class that encourages students to think across disciplines, through multimedia, and beyond canons. She recently graduated with her masters’ degree, and will continue working towards her PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz in the fall. A few badass publications Gross has had the privilege of publishing their work in include: Stone of Madness Press, Seiren Quarterly, Terse Journal, Variant Literature, Teen Belle Mag, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Los Angeles Progressive. When they aren’t writing, they drum in a punk band called Lady Starshine. Find more about Rebecca at rebeccagross.com, on Twitter: @becsgross, or on Instagram: @rebeccalynngross.

IG: @rebeccalynngross

Jeanette

Benitez:

Jeanette Benitez is a San Fernando Valley photographer who documents the environment around her as it is constantly changing. She captures moments that others might have not seen or even notice that are/were a part of their daily lives.

IG: @sfvalleyphotos

Matthew Saldivar: Empathetic Realist

IG: @50c878/@xtendedrelease

Contributors

Susana Radillo: Susana Radillo, is a Chicana multidisciplinary artist from North Hollywood. She specializes in illustration, painting, photography, ceramics, sculpture, and animation. Susana’s dream careers is to be a high school bilingual art teacher, a university bilingual bart professor, a freelance artist, and a art gallery store owner. Currently, Susana is doing her teaching credential program in Art at California State University, Los Angeles.

IG: @suzy_the_artist

Reign: Hello, my name is Reign and I’m a 21 year old Latina that loves to write and draw. I suffer with depression and anxiety but my writing and drawing is my only escape. Through writing I can make my own world and in my drawings I no longer have to answer back that I’m not sad. My art is my escape; my breath of air.; my freedom.

IG: @reign__of__sadness

Ari Kloke: is a San Fernando Valley / Tongva lands-based photographer exploring the sacred everyday. Visit her at ycfotostory.com

IG: @ycfotostory

C.C. de Vere: C.C. de Vere is from Sherman Oaks. She blogs about dead French people in Los Angeles and is eight years into compiling a map of historic French LA. She likes to build scale models of lost Los Angeles landmarks and is proud to have one displayed at the Valley Relics Museum and another at the Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library.

IG: @ccdevere

Thrill Touch: Fast, slow, loud, quiet, louder. Thrill Touch is an experimental post-rock trio that was born out of the sun-bleached haze of the Mojave desert. Their combination of high-energy melodies, dissident whispers and explosive noise form a cocktail of controlled chaos matched only by their turbulent and off-the-wall performance. Members: Michael Gross, Bianca Ascencio, and Misty Steppe. Check out their music at thrilltouch.bandcamp.com/music

IG: @thrill_touch

Dominick Ortiz: Dominick Ortiz is a Chicano photographer from the San Fernando Valley. He specializes in street photography and enjoys taking photos while out riding his bike. You can find more of his work on Instagram

IG: @dominick__ortiz

Contributors

Francis Robateau: is a printmaker/multidisciplinary artist. He graduated with his bachelors in Art with an emphasis in printmaking and a minor in philosophy from Cal State Northridge 2020. He is currently a MFA Student and Teachers Assistant at Cal State Northridge. His mixed media work, on closer observation, hold moments pulled from every day life. Images of figures and newspaper clippings are concealed and revealed behind gestural, impasto paint. Some photographic content is visible in collages relief print, and fast brushwork combined to to create a gestural abstraction from afar, and up close a sense of chaos that captures both my past and current experiences of memory and self-perception through the traumas of racism, migration and colonialism; attached under the umbrella of an identity crisis. He is navigating what it is to be a multicultural Belizean American whose existence is a direct result of those traumas of slavery and colonization of the Caribbean. You can view his work at www.francisrobateau.com.

IG: @francis_robateau

Brie Harvey: My name is Brie, I live in Porter Ranch but I’m originally From Sacramento! I would describe myself as a creative Black woman.

IG: @spiciesthoney

Araceli Romo: My name is Araceli Romo, I was born in Dallas Texas but have lived in the San Fernando Valley since 1990 when my family moved here from Mexico. I have experienced the city of Los Angeles in its entirety as I have lived in the Valley, the West Side and Downtown L.A. Through my work as a hair stylist and my days in the swing dancing and rockabilly scenes I got to know the streets of Los Angeles from Chatsworth to South Central and see it all as the same place. The valley has never felt like a suburb to me, rather an extension of the city, its outskirts. Develoment is such that there isn’t a patch of grass to separate “the city” from the valley. From North Hollywood to Silverlake, from Pacoima to Huntington Park, between traffic, road rage, trendy eateries, taco stands, over priced housing and crime there is very little difference (if any) in lifestyle. Well, here’s that dreaded valley heat; and I for one, can take it.

IG: @madhats_writes

Jamie Price: Jamie is a queer visual artist currently based in New York City. In the past years, she’s been working on projects that focus on intimate and public explorations of femininity, queer identity, class, race, as well as on ideas about ecology, as a critique to the dominant and oppressive societal values. Find her work at https://jamienicoleprice.wixsite.com/artistjnp

IG: @enigmatic_aberration_

Owen Montoya-Lazo:

My name is Owen Montoya-Lazo and I am artist from the San Fernando Valley formerly known as Haichuko Shogun. From a young age, I was exposed to a kaleidoscope of artistic influence that made me gravitate towards various instruments, sound engineering, and writing poetry. I studied Psychology and Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge, where I decided to pursue my creative endeavors with the same tenacity to excel academically. My art revolves around the concepts of breaking unhealthy cycles, healing trauma, and persevering against the odds.

IG: @haichukoshogun

Contributors

Noemi Romo: My name is Noemi Romo and I am a 26-year old Mexican-American person figuring out the kind of change I want to be in the world. My first step into activism was making political and cultural commentar y with a Snoop Dogg doll (iykyk) that I stole from my sister (who is also featured in this zine! Shout out to the most sisterest sister to ever sister!). I am an activist and organizer in training. I am a guerilla gardener who is building habitat with California native plants (heal the land, heal the critters, heal yourself). I am trying to get in touch with my indigenous roots by reading one nahuatl poem at a time. I started making comics when I lived in Mexico. I love to draw, write, read, and observe. I love sandwiches and iced pour over coffee so much.

IG: @noeminotnaomi

Editors

Madi Parsley: Editor-in-Chief & Creator

Madi Parsley is a journalist from the San Fernando Valley who received her BA in Journalism and English Literature at Cal State Northridge. An intersectional feminist, she focuses her reporting on the sociopolitical issues affecting womxn and San Fernando Valley communities. Her love for feature writing, poetry, and visual art has inspired her to create her own print and online platform Drifter Zine, which is dedicated to showcasing the creative and journalistic work of San Fernando Valley locals. In her free time, she creates absurd collages and illustrations under the name @thiscatcollages on Instagram and can be found walking around with Lola, her trusty Minolta SRT 102 that she sort of knows how to use.

IG: madi_parsley

Iván Salinas: Assistant Editor

Iván Salinas is a poet based in the San Fernando Valley experimenting with words, images, and sound. His literary work has been published in a variety of journals and magazines including Curious Publishing, Dryland, Drifter Zine, Backlash Lit, and more. He earned a B.A. in English, Creative Writing at California State University, Northridge where he’s advocated for quality of education that addresses racism and social justice. Iván happens to be undocumented; born in Ciudad de México, he immigrated to Los Angeles when he was ten years old to reunite with his family. Since then he’s lived in a state of Nepantla: in-between lands, languages, y culturas. In his free time he enjoys DJing and interviewing artists and musicians from Latin America.

IG: ivansali_