erased & invisible histories

1. Heriberto Yépez
read his work.


2. Pocho Research Society of Erased and Invisible History
shout-out to the Pocho Research Society for their latest brilliant spatio-historical intervention against gentrification and the erasure of working class, queer, chican@/latin@, and other “unacceptable” histories. in their latest effort, the PRS placed plaques at the former sites of four gay and drag bars around echo park and downtown l.a. while i was in durango, i spoke briefly with L, the lucky “driver” of the getaway car, via cell phone the day after the action. he told me about it as he was on his way to re-photograph the plaques for documentation the next day. unfortunately, he’d already been to a couple and they had already been removed. this really sucks for many reasons, especially because the plaques are so nicely made and, i imagine, not cheap. of course, the ephemerality of the markers only serves to underscore and reiterate the point they make in the first place. but as Guzman-Lopez notes in the interview below, PRS artist “Sandra” “urges residents to fashion their own historical plaques, so their neighbors can better understand what came before.”

(slant-note: a few years back, inspired by taggers who started using u.s. postal service label stickers on buses, i liberated several reams of differently sized Avery mailing labels from an office job, printed poems, text fragments, political statements, etc., on them, and then put them up around town in various locations.

so, you know, just some alternatives so we can all get involved and contribute to this effort...)


~Adolfo Guzman-Lopez’ radio piece about the Pocho Research Society on KPCC. you can listen and/or read the transcript at:
http://www.scpr.org/news/stories/2007/06/28/00_latino_gay_bars_0628.html


~the Pocho Research Society’s website think tank at hijadela:
http://www.hijadela.com/projects/prs/prs1.html


~the public announcement released by the PRS:
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Public Announcement

The Pocho Research Society of Erased and Invisible History Announces:
Echoes in the Echo
A Series of Public Interventions About Gentrification In and Around Echo Park

What? Clandestine historic plaques placed on sidewalks outside of various hipster bars
When? June 24 2007
Where? The Echo, Cha Cha, Bar 107,
Contact: pochohistory2001@yahoo.com

A group known as the Pocho Research Society (PRS) has installed “unofficial” plaques in public spaces to commemorate formerly queer Latina/o bars in the Echo Park, Silverlake and the Downtown area on June 24 , 2007. The group operates in a clandestine fashion. Since the longevity of the plaques at the sites is unknown, visit the following locations ASAP in order to view before they are taken down.

Site Locations:

Le Barcito, currently the Cha Cha
2375 Glendale Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90039

Klub Fantasy at the Nayarit aka The Echo
1822 W Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90026

Club Fire at the Nayarit currently The Echo
1822 W Sunset Blvd, LA , CA90026

The Score 107, currently Bar 107
W. 4th St, Downtown Los Angeles,

Echoes in the Echo is a series of public interventions that will explore History and memory in and around Echo Park. This phase of the project commemorates a few of many queer Latina/o spaces that were a ‘home’ to many for periods of up to a couple of decades and have since changed ownership and now cater to a new, straighter, younger and whiter clientele. This project takes place while the city, itself, is at a crossroads in its own history. Dramatic increases in real estate prices coupled with commercially driven development projects facilitated by elected officials are two of a multitude of forces that push many working class communities out of the city “core”. Waves of new ‘immigrants’ (albeit from the Midwest) have in the process displaced longstanding cultural spaces created over several decades. Within this massive “land grab” questions like ‘where do drag queens, closeted quebradita dancers and gay cholos go once they been pushed out?’ arise. How and who defines a space? Is a space defined by its present incarnations or does its past ruthlessly resurface like dust in unswept corners?

The PRS is a semi-anonymous collective that investigates Los Angeles history through various modes of public intervention. For this project the PRS collaborated with numerous writers and artists who were patrons and organizers of these spaces. Dedicated to the systematic investigation of space, memory and displacement, the PRS understands history as a battleground of the present, a location where hidden & forgotten selves hijack & disrupt the oppression of our moment.
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