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Media Summary:

Reading Summary: 

Avila, Eric. Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City. University of Minnesota      Press, 2014. (1-87)

Introduction

Eric Avila’s “The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City” introduces the reader to the way that communities of color were negatively affected by the construction of the freeways. It begins with the Federal Aid Highway Act, which won unanimous support from Democrats and Republicans (Avila 2014, 1).  Avila explains how the men who led the freeway movement were all white men which in the 1950s, were highly regarded and respected by Americans for their expertise on technological command. However, he notes that not everybody was happy with having a structures run right through their cities. He describes how the dominant narrative of the freeway revolt is a racialized story, telling the victories of white middle-class or affluent communities and that the freeway revolt found the greatest success in wealthy cities like Princeton and Cambridge (Avila, 2014, 2).

Furthermore, he explains how the book attempts to tell the story of what  “inner city people think about the freeways that fracture their communities” and goes on to state that “Los Angeles models the very conditions that sustain a vibrant folklore of the freeway: its ubiquitous freeways and their marking of socioeconomic divisions its history of civil rights struggle and racial unrest, and its diverse expressive cultures that deploy creativity and imagination in the absence of political and economic power” (Avila, 2014, 7).

In addition, he introduces the theme of unexpected consequences of building the modernist city through Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann and the “Haussmannization” that required “tens of thousands of people [to evacuate] from old buildings to make way for streets, bridges, quays, and buildings. The city’s poor were banished to the periphery of the city, their homes replaced by government and commercial buildings or by new apartments beyond their means” (Avila 9). The construction of Interstate, H-3 created defiant expressions of indigeneity and created new levels of racial conflict on the island. (Avila 16). Overall, the introduction provides a glimpse of the racial tensions and activism that Avila explores throughout his book.

The Master’s Plan The Rise and Fall of the Modernist City

The Interstate Highway and Defense Act highlighted the needs of the nation to connect cities in the 1950s due to the suburbanization that was happening. The 1950s nation had the car, which allowed people to move efficiently and privately. “The construction of these highway infrastructures presided over the birth of the modern ghetto and barrio shaping the age-old barriers of race and class into defined concrete lines” (Avila 19).

The experts that were “armed with hard data, state, and federal highway engineers presented themselves as men of science, justified in their bold interventions into the urban fabric”(Avila 23), but it was not all ran by the most wealthy and connected, it  “also enjoyed strong support from construction and trucking companies and from labor unions such as the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers, whose stake in building urban freeways contributed to an image of consensus around the interstate highway program” (Avila 26). Avila goes on to emphasize how these constructions tore into the cities fabric, ignoring the environmental and social consequences. However, the revolt of communities was led by “forming neighborhood committees, leagues, and councils, by packing public hearings, by launching phone campaigns and petition drives, and by utilizing contacts in the media and city government, concerned citizens of disparate American cities made urban highway construction a public issue” (Avila 30). With very few exceptions like the Boston Inner Belt multiracial victory, the communities that won were those like Beverly hills and Princeton, where white upper middle class.

As the barrios and ghettos took shape, the “freeways added insult to injury, ravaging neighborhoods that were already bearing the brunt of disinvestment, deindustrialization, and decline” (Avila 39). The federal government implicitly mapped racial communities to create invasive highway projects like the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration  “considered many aspects of a neighborhood in addition to its racial profile… [but] the social component or its inhabitants ranked first.  Ranged in “ethnic and nationality groups, laborers, and even foreign born” (Avila 40-41).  In this struggle, urban communities of color did not win the fight against the freeway. One Baltimore activist referred to the freeway as “The snake, if not racist, certainly seems to know that white is more threatening to it than black” (Avila 52) exemplifying the way that communities of color viewed this infrastructure. It stepped over communities of color and privileged upper class white communities by providing them with faster routes and modes of transportation.

“Nobody but a Bunch of Mothers” Fighting the Highwaymen during Feminism’s Second Wave

The secondwave of feminism examines the revolt through a gender lens that tells the ,“tale of two struggles- of white metropolitan women- mothers, homeowners and shrewd organizers who led communities to fight against highway construction and of working class women of color who summoned artistic talent and creative imagination to assert an indictment of highway construction as both a sexist and a racist enterprise” (Avila 55). Highway construction represented a threat to parks, families, and communities. Shirley Hayes’s Joint Emergency Committee for instance became ‘the mother of a citizen activist groups” and its tactics involved collecting signatures, rallying local officials, writing editorials, and packing public hearings- inspired "nationwide strategies to defeat state plans for highway construction" (Avila 61). Another strong activist was Jane Jacobs  who although “railed against the interventions of government and its audacious figureheads”(Avila 67) she ignored the gentrification that was occurring and  “said nothing about the radical forces of capitalism that ravaged her neighborhood, pushing out factories, affordable housing and struggling artists while enforcing broader disparities of race, wealth, and poverty” (Avila 67) 

Avila then introduces the readers to the artistic talents of Chicanas like Patricia Preciado Martin who wrote “The Journey” in 1988. Her poetry criticizes the damage that the freeway has caused in her neighborhood and the negative effects that it has created. (Avila 75) and Lorena Dee Cervantes who’s poem depict how “California’s highway builders destroyed the barrio community that cradled Cervantes’s youth” (Avila 76). He also emphasizes the physical ways in which activists took over the space, like  Judith Baca’s  mural Division of the Barrios and Chavez Ravine where “A serpentine freeway writhes between and around these figures, and its supporting columns crash into the homes of the barrio below. (Avila 77-78) and Hitting the Wall  where a woman triumphs by breaking the tape of the finish line which breaks the wall on the freeway (Avila 79). The imagery alerts the viewer of the reality behind the history of many Mexican American families in the Los Angeles are during the 1950’s and 1960’s, as it reflects Baca’s own experiences growing up in the San Fernando Valley.

Analyses:

In comparing the first half of Avila’s “The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City” and Isella Ramirez’s story on the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice website, there appears to be a consensus on the damaging repercussions and long term effects that freeways have created in their surrounding areas. These structures both invaded and continue to destroy communities of color and low-income households. Nevertheless, both sources also serve as empowering material with messages of hope and an present an urgent call to action. Although these environmental and social issues began in the second half of the 20th century, they have certainly crossed decades and are hurting the next generation of citizens who live around these highways.

Furthermore, they both also show how poor working class communities of color were assigned to suffer the consequences of these structures because they didn’t have the resources to stand up and fight against the freeway. There were already too many other things to fight for like schooling, finding a decent job, learning another language, providing food etc. People with this particular background are forced to live in places like Commerce due to factors like affordable housing. However, they pay the consequences of serious health illnesses. It is critical for organizations like EYCEJ and the East Los Angeles, Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA) that Avila mentions to stand up and fight unwanted infrastructures. Through community organizing, residents can see the power that they have to overthrow and stand up against unwanted invaders.

Articles on Freeway Pollution found in the city of Maywood:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/maywood-pollution_n_1073960.html

LA Freeway Expansion, the I-710 Corridor Project, Could Improve Public Health: Report

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/la-freeway-expansion-the-_n_1719518.html

Discussion Questions:

Aside from freeways, what are current infrastructures hurting low-income immigrant communities and what are some unexpected consequences?

As college educated students, what role, if any, do we have in the environmental justice movement, particularly revolving around freeways?

Highways and cars have become the best mode of transportation in California but as we have read, they are also the causes of gentrification, environmental damage, and health concerns. In what ways can these sites be transformed into positive spaces?