This second plot of land is adjacent to the Elementary School and used to be a small orange grove. The trees have been cut down and empty lots stand waiting for development.
I went to school at Highgrove Elementary. The campus is the same size as it was, with a lot more trailer-style classrooms to accommodate the increased number of students. I didn't stop a single Asian kid on campus on the day that I visited.
Highgrove was a very underprivileged school, compared to schools in town like Emerson, where the "smart kids" (mostly children of local professors) were sent. Though I was never given a choice by my parents as to whether or not I would attend Emerson, my older brother was given the option. He visited the Emerson campus when he was in the lower grades and decided against leaving behind his best friends Frank Becerra and Brian Dolan.
Sometimes when I give readings and read the poem "It does a body good," and talk about David L's milkcap paintings for a computer, I talk about the fundraising projects that my elementary school would initiate to try and raise money for more resources. This sign reminded me of these projects.
One big change in Highgrove is the presence of a new firehouse a few blocks from my dad's house, and next to it, a community center which appears to have been built from the donations of residents in the community. One of the Latino churches in the area seems to have played a large role in helping to fundraise money for this space. It includes a modest baseball park with a running trail laid out along its perimeter.
Finally, sometime ago I had blogged about Taiwanese wedding portraits and a book I had been reading on visual anth. My parents did not have a wedding portrait done and this is what hangs above my parents' bed - a self-portrait of my mother in a European-style baroque tapestry made of simple cotton yarn.
Yarn was my mother's medium for much of my childhood. This image was appropriated from the cover of one of my dad's favorite classical music albums - Beethoven I think.
My dad is old-fashioned in his artistic tastes - we're talking birds and flowers. So my mother made a lot of bird tapestries.
