by Paco Amador
5. October 2008 18:59
I love living in Little Village. Where else can you find someone selling fake ID cards six steps away from the bank of America: the establishment and the underground collide. Where else can you find a tamales cart at the entrance of a McDonalds: the corporate and the home entrepreneurial collide. Where else can you find the cop and the gang-banger, who grew up together, living in the same block: the criminal and the law cohabitating. Where else can you get drugs (the substance abused kind) offered six steps away from the Walgreens’ door. Where else can you buy your ranchero suits, boots, belt buckle and sombrero and spurs right across the street from the gay bar: the macho and the macho-man side by side. Where else can you find kids splashing and swimming in the corner sewer puddles while their neighbors enjoy a barbecue at their backyard pool. Where else will the Virgin’s street procession be followed by Jehovah witnesses handing out fliers six steps behind. One of the reasons I love living in Little Village is its many contrasts. This is a neighborhood of Spanish-speaking adults, raising English-speaking children. Ours is a neighborhood of laughs, fights, gun shots and music. The annoying ice-cream truck is rivaled by the paleta guy walking next to him and stealing costumers. Old women with aprons pushing chicharon carts share the sidewalk with the young mohawked kid on a skateboard. Old dilapidated buildings are surrounded by hot pink, bright green or baby blue shining ones. I guess it is the tension which gives our neighborhood its sweet and bitter taste. Still, I cannot think of a better place in the entire world where I rather live. I love living in Little Village.
