Simply Maps (Week 9)

For this week, I'm going to do something a little different.
Instead of exploring the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, I will be looking at some data that i retrieved from Simply Maps from some of the areas I have frequented.

The Map above shows household income in the  the south western part of Los Angeles to downtown. What I noticed first of all, is that there are basically three groups: the low class (0-61K a year), the middle class (61K-99K) and the upperclass (100K and above). Even though, in class we learned that class was not just your income but also the accessibility to resources and the levers of powers you have. In this case, this is how we will look at class. The western side of this map shows mostly the upper classes near the shoreline. This can be explain by the fact that nature has a terrain of meaning and a certain aesthetic value. Nature used to be this big, unknown and dangerous thing and the further away from it the more money you had to be safe. Now, Nature is wanted. people want to live close to the shoreline and only those with money can do it. On the middle side to the right side, there are middle class and lower class. We can say that the downtown portion of Los Angeles is the industrious part of the city and is quite far from nature and that this is why we can see why the region is mostly lower to middle class. Due to the standard perspective of environmental managing, this would lead all the environmental degrading sites in downtown, and thus the lower class would have to "deal" with it because they didn't plan it out with the environment as the higher priority instead of the economy, leading to environmental injustice. This would suit the idea in class of the geographic expressions and nature.
I find it unfair that the lower class can't live near the shoreline simply because they can't afford it. I feel that people should be able to live where ever they want and not deal with nature degrading sites just because they're in a low class neighborhood.

The first of the two picture is the percent of Asians in the orange county region and the second one is the percent of Caucasians in the orange county region. This kind of justifys my posts about the high number of Asians in the Garden Grove region of Orange county and the higher number of Caucasians in Huntington Beach than in the GG region. Notice how you can just place one map over the other and it will fill up, where there is a heavy region of Caucasins, there would be a lighter region of Asians. It really is interesting on how its not just evenly spread out at an even percentage everywhere but i think thats because of the accessibility to resources that not everyone can have to live everywhere. They must live where they can afford or somewhere nice if they can afford it (in this case in HB because its closer to the shoreline)

Axes of Difference: Class *LA Times Article Review* (Week 8)

This week, I will be reviewing a couple of articles from the local section of the LA Times website.

Below are the links to the said articles:

1. Unahppy Wal-Mart Workers Protest

2. Wal-Mart Protesters Arrested

Have you been inside a Wal-Mart or better yet a Super Wal-Mart? Those stores have everything, from fresh fruits and vegetables to electronics and furniture. You name it and you can practically guarantee that Wal-Mart will have it for you to buy. You use Wal-Mart as a store, not as a place of employment but for many others, this is their job. On the bright side they employ the weak, the old, and sometimes the unstable because they cannot find a job elsewhere. They give jobs to people who can't find them and this shines a good light on them.

But a bigger darker light overshadows that light. It has been reported that these workers do not have benefits that they would obtain from working anywhere else and on top of that, they are forced to work long hard hours at minimum wage ($8.81). I can't even begin to imagine their hours this week preparing up to the big event called Black Friday. Some employees were even belittled by their managers when they attempt to speak out about this  atrocity and their horrible labor practices.

This leads us to the two articles from the LA Times about unhappy workers protesting on Black Friday. Employees of Wal-Mart attempted a peaceful protest outside of the Wal-Mart on Lakewood in Paramount. Some were even arrested after refusing orders from police officers to disperse. Of course, the president of Wal-Mart would deny such a protest and even claim that only 50 people of the group of protesters were even Wal-Mart employees and say that this is the biggest Black Friday Wal-Mart has ever seen (Dont believe that because there was nothing good on their ads, trust me I looked.)

This is related to the axes of the difference talked about in class; more specifically, this is the class category of  axis.

In the class lecture, the professor talked about the factories as a site of an actual work site where surplus value is produced and seperation of class is reinforced, reproduced and continued on. These factories are oppresive and remind the workers that they are essentially different from the owners of the factories. I believe factories is not usable in this case but the Wal-Mart can been seen as a factory of its own. It's labor (not technically producing products but its service to sell products) produces a surplus of money that goes mainly to the owners of the store and the higher uppers. These workers at Wal-Mart turn into machine and are seen as different from the owners of the store. Their work habits are ignored by managers and not made optimally for the employees but for the employers who gain most of the surplus.

This leads to the social difference in class and hence the protest that happened outside of the Paramount Wwal-Mart. And even the president of Wal-Mart denies the protest having any affect on the company (because they're making so much and it was such a small protest in terms of all the employees of Wal-Mart) and does not even attempt to comfort the concerns of his fellow employees.

It is depressing to see social differences still have an effect in today's world but its expected in a capitalistic economy.

Bus Adventures!! (Week 7)

Today was the day i decided to take the bus! Now, in Orange County, most people dont take the bus or use it per se. just the people who do not have their own form of transportation for long distance travels, ie a bicycle or an automobile. So this was actually the 2nd time i took the local transit my entire life in orange county because i'm so accustomed to travelling by car. So i took the bus from my house to south coast plaza!

When entering the bus off of the corner of Euclid and Edinger, i noticed a couple of things. there was an elderly African american male bus driver as he took my money and kindly welcomed me onto his bus. The bus was as big as it was on the inside as it was outside. It was quite spacious with places to stand and places to sit. Big colorful comfy chairs to sit side by side with. It reminded me with my elementary years when i took multiple field trips on big yellow buses (even though this isn't the same) I sat down next to a Hispanic lady dressed in her cleaner uniform. i looked around me and tried to notice all the other passengers. All i saw were mostly Hispanics, Asians and a couple of elderly Caucasian folks on the bus.


"you have no idea why they put great big windows on the sides of buses, do you?
...
to humiliate the people of color who reduce to riding on them"
The movie Crash

This reminded me of Stuart Hall on the concept of race. And how buses are floating signifiers which are historically tied to meanings that are produced by communities at sometime and some place.

Members of society would have no reason to take the bus if they have their own car, but instead the members of the low class who cannot afford cars end up taking the bus. People who also might take the bus are people who cannot drive because they lost their license or are incapable of driving. These people of the low class end up being the minority of america.

When you think of the public transit bus, you think of the huge things that drive so slowly on the road and take too much space on the road. But then your mind also comes to who rides it and for most people they think of minorities who ride it. Blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

I'm glad i took the bus and was able to figure out this connection and how there is slight racism in the public transit. Because normally buses have big tinted windows for athletes or important people to ride it to hide their identity. But instead these have big fat clear windows so the outside can see inside and see what race is riding the bus.

Comment Blog (Week 6)

Comment to Sonia Tran's Blog:

Hi there, your blog was certainly entertaining and enlightening to read.
However i believe that the bumps on the side of the structures that you describe may be more than for hobos but also for civilians who skate board along the side walks and would grinding with their boards on the side. The bumps would prevent any grinding action which would deface the surface of the building and hence lower the value of the building. this can also be applied to the carceral enclave in that it prohibits certain civilians from preventing certain acts that are damaging to the building. This isn't to say that the city of Los Angeles is against skate boarders in general, it is just saying that the building doesn't want to be defaced by skate boarders.

And as a resident of downtown, i can confirm with what you saw. The bright lights and lively atmosphere at one end of downtown makes the whole city glow, while the area that is populated by unhoused people seem to darken the mood and even make you feel insecure. However i am surprised to hear about the Hispanic shops because i thought that would be more in the Vermont district of downtown closer to USC. I would like to point out the shops are barred close or closed with metal garage door. this is not something I've seen in my home or even in Westwood, however they are made like this because crime must be frequent in this area and at night, there must be low police patrol and  a high number of criminals. Glass doors wouln't stop a criminal from breaking into your store but a metal garage door would.

I really enjoyed your blog and hope to see more in the future!

Inverted Quarintine (Week 5)

This week, I went to walk to visit my friends house at night. As I went to my friends house in Huntington beach, I had to walk through a couple of blocks to get to his home. The walk wasn't bad per se, the sidewalk was rather stable and not bumpy but kind of narrow (wide enough to fit 3 people walking side by side). Cars were blazing by in the night setting, brushing wind chills up against my body as I venture to my friends house. The sidewalks were poorly lit and there were no other people on the sidewalk beside me for the entire 3 block walk.To be honest, I didn't feel quite safe walking to his neighborhood even though the area isn't know to be high crime rate area and I frequent this walk but only during the daytime. Orange county is not much of a walking community, there are side walks but most people prefer their own automobile or the local transportation train.

When I approached his neighborhood, I waited for him as he went outside to open the community gate for me. This was one of two gates that allowed entry into his neighborhood. then it hit me why is there even a gate? whats he afraid of? A speeding gasoline tank running into his neighborhood of  condos and bursting his whole neighborhood in flames?


It wasn't that. the white gate was served more than a practical value, it was also a symbolic value. Asides from protecting outsiders from getting into their high end neighborhood, it also stood for the high class that this neighborhood is.

This was an example of carceral Archipelago. How the urban planning was build to prevent public access and protect urban order for the home owners in that neighborhood. However i feel like this is such an unnecessary measure because regardless of how they construct their gates, they are still part of the bigger community, the town. And they should engage in their community and not allow the difference in class affect their relationships with others in the community.

I did feel much safer inside his neighborhood though. haaha. And i took pictures of his neighborhood as i walked around, and even though it was dark, I felt relatively safe.

The town of Huntington beach also reminds me of the Postsuburban California article in the fact that it is made as a utopia that is marketed as a middle class suburban utopia (like Irvine) and is known to be a Caucasian community that is pretty well off.