Saturday, March 25, 2017

LA City Council Votes to Tear Down Parker Center

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to have former L.A.P.D. headquarters, Parker Center, torn down and replaced with new development. The city council also voted against naming the building a historic or cultural landmark due to the police department's past ties to racial discrimination.

Photo by Ted Soqui © 2016
LAPD Chief Beck closing down Parker Center.

The thin blue line at Parker Center 4/29/1992.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

California Poppy Bloom

The Golden Poppy, California's State Flower, begins to bloom.
The California State Park, Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, is at around 75% of peak blooming. Late winter rains didn't help this year's poppy bloom much, which is considered moderate, because they usually need a November rain event to properly germinate. The upside is that there will be a significant wild flower bloom at the State Park and generally all over the Southern California deserts. Those blooms will start arriving next week and last in to late April. Lots of little creatures at the parks to check out as well.

Photos by Ted Soqui © 2017
Road side poppies.

This things are popping up too.

Golden cups of California.

The hills are alive, literally.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Tijuana's Little Haiti

Tijuana, Mexico has a new community of refugees from Haiti.

Most have travelled from Haiti to Brazil where they worked building and servicing the venues of the Olympic Games. From Brazil they made their way up working in Colombia, Central America, and finally through Mexico up to Tijuana.

For many of the Haitians, it has been a two year journey. Some had children on their way, others have met with serious peril and trauma.
They hoped to finally immigrate to the US for work. Rumors spread through the traveling community that President Obama would allow them to immigrate, as long as they made it to the U.S. before Trump was to take office. It was not true as they found out once they made it to Tijuana en masse. Some tried to enter illegally in to the US with little success, others tried hiring coyotes who charged as much as $20,000 per person for passage in to the U.S. 
Most couldn't afford it, and those who did found themselves quickly deported back to Tijuana.

Immigration relief centers, originally made for Mexican deportees from the U.S. are now filled to capacity with Haitian refugees. Many sleep side by side on wooden shipping pallets covered with donated blankets in a recently converted parking area. Several centers are concerned that if the U.S. ships more deportees back to Mexico via Tijuana, there won't be any room for them and it will create a humanitarian disaster.

A small group of evangelical Haitians have decided to stay in Tijuana for now on a church site located in Canon del Alacran (Scorpion Canyon). The giant church now serves at capacity as a dormitory for the Haitians. Donated food and clothing arrives daily.
The pastor of the church has started to build small shacks near the church for the Haitians, and the locals have dubbed the area "Little Haiti." 
Some Haitians have tried to find work in Tijuana, jobs are scarce and the wages they get paid are so low they barely break even after a days hard work. 
On their journey the Haitians developed an amazing hybrid language of French-Creole-Spanish-Portuegese, often making it difficult to communicate with the locals. Many of the locals are fascinated by the tall and slender refugees.

No one is sure where the Haitians will end up. For now they will remain in Tijuana, or as some of the locals now call it "Haitijuana."

Photos by Ted Soqui © 2017
Son and mother in a TJ immigration center.

The Haitijuanans.

Mexican immigration paper for a Haitian man.

Local church pastor helping to build housing for the Haitians.

A young Haitian girl walking down the Canon Del Alacran.

Young Haitian woman with broken bones from her perilous trip.

One crowded room of the giant church which is now a dormitory.

Wash day in the canyon.




Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Eric Garcetti Re-Elected as Los Angeles Mayor

The people of Los Angeles re-elected Eric Garcetti as mayor of Los Angeles.
He won 80% of the vote in the field of ten challengers.

Photo by Ted Soqui © 2017
LA Mayor Garcetti and his daughter Maya at the voting booth

No Justice No Peace 2017

A photo I took back during the Los Angeles riots of 1992 now hangs on a banner fairly close to the place I snapped the image.
The image is of a young kid standing in front of a burned down building on W. Adams Blvd. in South Los Angeles. The banner is for an exhibit at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles titled "No Justice No Peace LA 1992."
I have some images featured in the exhibition.

Drop by the museum and check it out. It will run until August.

Photos by Ted Soqui © 1992 2017
La Brea Ave and Rodeo Rd.

The banner detail.
The photo at CAAM.

The image from 1992.