Ashley Galvan Ramos and Christian Diaz

00:05 My name is Christian Diaz. I am 31 years old. Today is Friday, November 9th 2018. We are in Logan Square at my office Logan Square neighborhood association, and I'm here with Ashley who is my friend and my hero and also my boss because she's on the board of directors of Allison a

00:26 Hi. Hello, guys. My name is Ashley Garza. And Ramos. I am 20 years old. Today's date is Friday, November 9th, 2018. And we're in Logan Square at the office Logan Square neighborhood association in Chicago, Illinois. And I am here with Christian was also my friend.

00:44 So Ashley the work that we do at Allison a I know it's a little controversial to your family. And but I also know that you're kind of a public figure because you know, you have a following on social media and you know anytime we're having an action or rally you're usually at the front I'm leaving the chance leading the charge helping to plan the event and the strategy but how do you do people like our people curious about what you do? Like, how do you talk about what Ellison a is in what you do at a less than a year on Telemundo all the Spanish channels people when I go to parties or I'm outside in the just hang out anywhere people come up to me like they don't come up to me first thing to stare and he just keeps staring and staring into they have the confidence to come up to me and be like, did you are you online Avicii on where you on this article was that you and then that's when my family members and I

01:44 My sister who's always I can use on their will you need to know and you know, sometimes it's hard to explain all the work that we do is we do so much we do so much for a community for our home. Sometimes it's too it's not that we don't have enough time to start a conversation and go through each little detail that we have but I was told him that I listen a is a place where if you was home has a place where everyone is welcome where we all focus on our problems would also give time to others you all. We're on our own Community inside a community giving back to the community and it's always about you know, I was talk about housing guess that's what I work in and that's fine as my passion and I talked about all our kewell peas. Are we doing a Quality quality of life plan? And just how amazing we are. I know that you were part of the Logan Square

02:44 Youth leadership Institute for a while. And obviously you're a Super Rad organizer now, but where you like political before you join the the youth leadership Institute here when I was at josephinum Academy at the end of Humboldt Park in Wicker Park an all-girl Catholic private school and it's always about they always have a goal in the josephinum girls are destined to be social Advocates and that that goal to me. I will it always it always stuck out to me. It was the goal that I wanted but my freshman album to my junior year. I wasn't helping to my senior year was when I was doing a Capstone project, which is our final project and basically determines if you graduate or not I did mine on

03:34 Just like sexual harassment laws and all that stuff in colleges in college campuses and from there everything to sparked up. I have by the end of the year. I got award for the goal 3 award which was for social justice Academy is a Sacred Heart School and it's a network of a different Catholic schools in different cities, and it's me in the all-girls. So we have that connection and they all have ghosts. There is a total of 5 goals and go 3 was a josephinum students are driven to social social justice who then create an action through that you see your problem. You see an issue and you create an action to solve it and some way education background and so tell me about your family. Like, how did your parents get here where they from? I know you were part of this program that we haven't Ellison a Code Brown in Chicago.

04:34 And I know that through that program you did a DNA test and you're clearly somebody's very connected to like your indigenous roots. Oh, yeah, tell me about your family back in Mexico and and how you guys got here to Chicago. My grandma is both both of my grandma's Ashley are indigenous from Oaxaca and my grandma on my mom's side migrated to Puebla and my grandma and my dad side migrated some what are those so they're two different states were really close to each other. So it's not that far away from both of my grandpa's for my dad and my mom mad cuz he work in the fields together how they were all working in the fields. My grandpa had my mom said had a field of sugar canes Tomatoes garlic and all that all the props and making me hungry. He brought my name. I don't know how my grandpa's met. I just knew that they were together and they both stolen land and they all

05:34 Aldi haul work in the fields together and my both of my grandpa's were really they they like the rockaholics for sure. So they were at the bars all the time and there was my dad and my mom was always the one picking up my my grandpa from the bars. So that's how my mom and dad met my grandma from my mom's side. She died when my uncle was at least two years old and then my mom decided it'd be the mom figure in the family and took care of everyone. So there is five of them and my fourth grade fourth grade and from there she chop school and just stayed home and cook to clean there was times when she would go and be a challenge with my with my grandpa in Mexico.

06:34 They don't do a lot of construction the kind of like bring the stuff the equipment. So that's what my mom did for a while. So they really touched her for wearing jeans back then cuz there's like a whole she's gay then we have somebody might just wearing jeans at my mom always kept going. She was a really strong so really sure she didn't care. She just wanted me to bring home some money for basically her kids. So that's how my mom and my dad knew each other cuz my dad always picked up my mom picked up her dad from the bars. So my your mom would pick up her dad and your dad said her dad and bring him home. So then my uncle when he was 16 decided to cross the border decided to you know, he wanted to bring back some more money than besides. Just whatever. My mom was making so he came here to Chicago and he lives by the sea.

07:34 What is now the 606 so he lives on Kimball Kimball and

07:41 And Armitage that was like they're their place where Hitler where he landed. Yeah. Yeah. And so then my uncle my uncle was here, and he got a fake ID a fake ID saying that he was 21 instead of 16. So he was able to do a lot more things just work hire jobs hiring paying jobs and where they always call it. The last oficinas the office is where they wouldn't go line up without an office and wait to begin to be calling gets the job somewhere wherever it was like a good neighbor kind of like to make fun of the situation. And why did your uncle how did he come to Logan Square like wires, Chicago?

08:40 Have any family here, I guess the people from the same level of where my mom and he was over here and they had connections and I guess that's how it happened cuz he always talked about it like all this person. Remember when we were in that basement all living together. He was from this place and he was this place and how his grandchildren are so big and that's what they talked about. But I guess it's because they were from the same Pueblo on the same city, so that my mom wanted to come to the United States and she always talked to on the phone with my uncle and my uncle was like, you can't you can't cross until you get married so that one of those

09:29 Do you know what year? I can't remember it has to be like 23 years ago if you do them at cuz I can't that Matt Damon in June and then they got married in December. So it was a really quick process that they did just getting mad because they wanted to come to the u.s. Well, that's what my sister and my mom and my sister and I say all the time to my mom cuz you just told us recently that they got married in June and got married in December. It hasn't been to the house. Like that's like six months of what how how could you do that? So quickly do not be cool with that. I know I'm so then they got married and a year later in September the both of my parents cross the border.

10:29 And the land in the woods where they land in the basement with my uncle and his other people living on that basement one fridge one bathroom two bedrooms. I have no idea how they did it. But they did it and my uncle my dad started working together in a Furniture Factory disassembly all the nails and screws and everything in for that was needed for the furniture to stay together and my uncle had a van. It feels like those Astro Vans from like the nineties those big ones and my uncle and my dad were on their way to drop off a person invite the noble Charter School in Augusta in Augusta. And by that how we take Highway over there. So they so they dropped off a person there and they were on their way and decided to take an ally to get home easier and in the alley there was a bunch of gang fingers and they wanted to steal the brand.

11:27 So my uncle knowing that he spent so much money and so much time and so much time at work trying to save up money for a for advanced. I did not leave the car. He like make sure you lock the door is just make sure his hands were on the wheel and then move. My dad was not about to fight these people. So he got out the car and started telling my uncle was like come on. I thought you have to get out. It's for your own safety. So get out so he did get out and that's when they hit him with a four-by-four piece of wood on the back of his head close to like the neck, and he didn't go into a coma and then my dad was hit with a glass bottle in the head as well. And so he went to be like fainting on the spot and my uncle ended up calling my mom taking my dad to Cook County Hospital.

12:22 And on the way, they said that they were waiting for hours to get called up and be able to receive some type of care. So my uncle went into a coma then and he was in a comment on December election year and on December he passed away. My mom was he was on life support and my mom

12:43 Then I want to do that doctor said that there was a chance not going to wake up. There was he with his body was just got so my mom decided to disconnected body and she sent the body to Mexico my grandma my grandpa and my uncle and buried together side-by-side and Hometown new Bow Wow, and so was just interesting to hear you share that because

13:27 You know our lives changed so quickly at but we don't often think about the policies that shape the shape our decisions and so for your family, right the the circumstances in Mexico the politics the economy of of globalization meant that there was a a. In Time in Mexico where you could live off of your land, right either by growing and growing things and selling them or even growing food in living off of that food. But the way that the economy changed the man that families had to leave that kind of lifestyle and in Mexico as people left the Campos to go to the cities to work at factories that sort of thing.

14:16 I think I really like to Cherry ated people's quality of life and people search for more like where it where else could I move to it to have a better quality of life. Right? And this American dream that we hear so much about in this country draws our families here, right? My family also moved here from will my mother moved to this country when she was 17 years old as a single mother. Do you know anybody didn't speak the language, but she knew that that we have the submit this idea of the American dream here where if you work hard you play by the rules, you can be somebody and your children can have a better life than you did but I guess where it would I hear in your story is is is you move your family moved to this country. There is no Decades of disinvestment in poverty in our black and brown communities which leads to violence right? Because young people don't have opportunities so they have to turn to crime in order to survive.

15:17 And so, you know, I think of all the policies and the decisions that were that were made from government that led to the two, you know, your family moving here the gang violence in our community and then going to the Cook County Hospital right and your uncle having to wait so long to see a doctor maybe if you'd seen a doctor sooner that wouldn't have happened. You know, it's we don't know but it's just interesting how our lives are impacted by these policies, but we don't think about it because the way we experience is just so normal to us, but we say no like violence is not normal and people having to wait so long to see a doctor is not normal and facing displacement is not normal. And so we fight to change those policies, right and so that our children and our future Generations don't have to live through through the through this pain that week that we did in their parents did so when I hear from your mom is as she's like a badass like

16:17 You know a fighter sorry for her family is the man is the head of the family. They're the one who are supposed to like carry on and we just have that very much Easter culture. My mom. My mom was not like that. Mommy. My mommy is a strong woman since birth. She's always been so strong in her believe she's she doesn't take anything from anyone else. It's about her and her family and she's going to put your family through everything that she goes to where do you think she got that from? I think it's from our ancestor is my grandma was run in the ditch and his tribe from Oaxaca. I'm not really sure what tribe though, but our people are people with strong if they face the clock on Kiest and still survived their bad ass people.

17:17 Do we exist right just shows our strength because the colonization and yeah all the violence that Are People Too Faced people wanted us gone right there people wanted to wipe us out but we're still here and we're driving and in so with your mom being so Fierce and and your parents just being Fighters, right? It's so interesting when you tell me after the rallies that we do or after the marches or the actions or whatever were you wanting to be? So I'm talking about telling your story and you'll tell me that your dad will be like me at 3 call another local traveler the face of a marcher holding a megaphone screaming into it. If you would have told her freshman year of high school Ashley that she would have just laughed it off. She would have believed it. She would just go.

18:17 Turn on with your life and not be bothered by no policies that are there, but I think ever since I started I knew that if so, if someone wasn't going to be the change I was so I took that role and I'm doing that real right now. So I don't think they were expecting that from me so much. I guess it was just expecting someone teaches rent at home and then just let it be but that's not who I am. I have to I have to be out there screaming it out. Cuz if I don't I just internalize it and it's bad for my health mental health and with your parents being so Fierce the way they are and you being so Fierce. Why do you think they why do you think they're against like you're organising or otherwise. Oh, yeah your parents you have to respect your elders and you have to listen to the way that they have to listen to what to tell you and my dad wants told me. I am in control of your life you're not

19:16 So I think now that I'm doing my own thing and just going out there in the streets literally fucking shit up. He gets mad cuz it's a power struggle for him. Cuz once you have me and my mom together, we're cool. Right but once it comes to political political topics yourself that is affecting us. It's a power struggle. You have two powerful women right there. And then we're on the same room and our power just keeps crashing with you to each other we lived in different different times. She lived in a time where you know things when a certain way and she had to go with it and now I'm here in the United States in a different culture that she has no and I'm here being a rebel in their eyes. So it's I think it's just that they're they're scared of something happening to me and also scared of not being controlled my of my consequences.

20:08 Yeah, I think about that a lot the work that we do here being upfront about the inequality. We're facing and the violence in our community that we feel like our city government is responsible for and I think like what I do this work back in Mexico. I don't think I would now cuz it's different over there that could be life-threatening life-threatening like you you are you do something or you bring up something like the when the 42 students from and it's not fun and they've disappeared take to hers of people coming out of that City and you know fighting wanting their tow trailer back and then receiving all that he and then there's cartels in there that you know, we're also Freddy's 4. I like kind of wanted to help these families but

21:01 I'm pretty sure the government is what the current cells as well. So it's also it's a hassle like read about.

21:08 What is the news reporters will disappear in Mexico? So Stephanie life-threatening when you bring something up like this weather is here. We we kind of get this is a little scold me to slap on the other risk. Yeah, I know. It's so dangerous to do organizing and social justice work in Mexico and yet people still do it right there such a rich history in Mexico. I mean the first populist revolution of the of the 20th century happened in Mexico with the with the people, you know that the Civil War in Mexico that there was a spot for the Androids right that eventually led to our families becoming landowners and through land ownership, you know, the masters of our own fate and it's so interesting that our ancestors had that fight back in Mexico. And today we're having that fight now with with the struggle of of being able to stay in the community that we love that we plant tributed so much too that we feel our families have the right to

22:08 The benefit from from the beautification of Logan Square in it. And yeah, I see those parallels so I know that you and your family are too loose. Can you tell us what what is Atenolol and what is how did that start in your family? What does that mean to call Chanello's and everyone in one of those nose with a Chinelo is and if you don't know what it's another way is that you're missing out on something that is where in what I lost they would have these big party using and buy every other Rich conquista Lord and leave the the people of the Pueblo out of these parties so that they got mad and decided, you know, we disagree just going to make our own party out here so they can have pots and pans feathers from the floor and they would make Mask 2.

23:08 Make the faces of these white faced long white beard men in those parties and they just flooded the street. They just decided to go on the streets and make some noise that they wanted to be part of this this party to that. This was their land and they really going to enjoy it. So ever since then eats costume started evolving in different reasons of why there's certain pictures on these costumes and why some of them are from like velvet and other ones are just plain what we call them Manta and Nello's is it something it's kind of like revolutionary back when they were starting update. They wanted to be part of a part of a party and The Mandrell noise made their approach with their own the uprising and now it just became a tradition of the week before Holy Week. They they flood the streets all the time.

24:08 Play the song isn't she in the loss and you have herds and herds of people flooding the streets of people just dancing just party is kind of like a Mardi Gras, but we have Chanello's and yeah, my my my Dad decided to have his own his uncle price of his own group how we started off about three years ago. We were in some dudes comparsa. We were with him and you know, I always been dancing since I was a kid my dad always like Sheldon's videos from his hometown and like my grandpa live recording like you just seen a ghost passing in the street in front of his house and we were used to get those are VHS cassettes and play them in our TV. We would always get CDs of the Pueblos Janelle and my dad always had CDs and he would always play them and right when you heard the first trumpet sound, you know, you had to get meet me and my sister always got up and started dancing and

25:09 And now we have our own group and you know, we do that on the weekends and I hope we do Quinceaneras and weddings whatever you want and then we do it and it's that kind of like when I think Tessa you you're here in the United States, you're not in your Pueblo dancing Chanel's you're in the United States dancing. This people people go crazy. When was Daisy s dang? We actually have these in Chicago. We need to bring you here or more. So it's it's a really good for me. It's on my weekends on the weekends and it's really busy over the summer cuz everyone has party in the summer. So my summers are always booked dancing channels are playing the thumb border. Yes all four of us and the the outfits at the Chanello's where they're from head to toe Rite Aid.

26:09 Abs and sometimes the robes have like stories on them right with the way that they're decorated. And so do you have like your own you're the ones that are really playing their white and blue are they have three stripes on the bottom and three stripes on each sleeve and they have on the test. It's a there blue just like square on it. But on the back you bring out your own Arrow painted whatever you want on the back and we call that what we call that.

26:47 I forgot what it's called now, but I have stuff at the house on my back and my dad is from Montana quico, which is worse about that was born and he's from the same. I guess he had some Revolution and him too. So I have some spots on my back and I always looked up to Zapata. I think it is because I I lift my dad lives. So close to his house and you can stay I still went to his house and it's over there. It's pretty pretty good. I've been in I've been there for eleven Lauderdale in August. I've been there and it gets so nice and they are from from the center at what we call a historical downtown of of the blood low and then from there you just have a big parade to his house and

27:47 His house to give out the money's. Okay, I want to go to that. They have real nighas band has Mariachis. They have all different types of music. I'll just parading towards his house cuz apparently that's the day he was killed. I don't even know the whole story when he was killing all his bit. If you keep going down the same road on how you got to unequivocal you'll find us in that where he was killed. So interesting because I feel like our our history like our form of resistance is through dance in some ways like that so beautiful and

28:29 Yeah, and then I think of how proud I feel about that being Mexican myself and had this really interesting experience. Last time I went to the pit Lost Oak which is where my stepfather's from and it's a really old ancient town really small its most known for being the place where some of the movies from Lane to Buddy our phones. Yeah. And so so anyway, but the last time I was there I love going to the but okay, cuz you know, like you said every town has a circle o has a downtown in the noise like a big church and walking up to the to the bottle again to put the stock.

29:14 It just feels like I'm walking on something almost from another world. Like it says it just feels so old and so distant and but then I learned that despite how beautiful it is. It was built over a pyramid and there's a museum there and and I visited the museum and I talked a lot about the history of of the indigenous people and how they were kind of put to work how they were kind of treated poorly right horribly, you know, the church is built over their paramed, you know, that city is is colonization, right? I was calling his and so I feel so proud of my roots as a Mexican person and yet also conflicted because I'm not just indigenous writer must be so so I'm both colonizer and colonized and I do feel proud, but I also recognize that

30:14 The product of trauma and your trauma that's alive today. And then and now then the newest iteration of that the new colonization that I'm experiencing is gentrification write my parents bought a house in Logan Square in the 90s for $140,000 to three flat and we lived on the top floor. And in the first floor is friends from back in Mexico, and the garden unit is the basement unit is my pee at that it and her kids and her family and they pay I think they pay like $650 a month and the people on the first floor. I think I pay $700 a month and these are like two and three-bedroom apartments like this is just unheard of in Logan Square. Right where we're seeing Studios being built the go for $1,700 a month for a studio like something there walk by those Studios and I'm just like who would be dumb enough to pay that much for like such a small space like

31:13 I don't know. But anyway, I I do really feel like this is a new form of colonization. We have to call it that it's some it's just the genocide of our culture. It's the it's the removal of our culture has the removal of all of our people. It's already Tracer, right? You know, I'm so fascinated by you or your family and how you guys are too and I lost because last October we had to Nello's in Logan Square at our faces of Logan Square event. And my partner was there, you know, my partner's wait. I just rolled my eyes when it's even though it doesn't matter where you are visibly queer.

32:09 And so anyway that you know those were dancing and we were so excited at this festival and these two little white girls are kind of look like Kesha if they had yeah and they went up to read and they were like what's going on is this like Native American day or something like Logan Square Community immigrant community latinx community and these These are the Latinas people were still here celebrating their culture through through a Chinelo performance. Right? And those those young girls are mind was blown why I thought this was like the Party part of with of Chicago. This is like the Hipster town of Chicago and it just goes to show like to your point but gentrification is Erasure. It is colonization of violence because

33:00 You know if we hadn't been there.

33:02 With the Tina laws, like people would never known that we were here and then they started making fun of this other white man who was pretty old was also dancing. They started making fun of him and I got so angry myself. I'm just like, how could you come here?

33:25 Be surprised that we're here. We're living and where in Logan Square and you're here making fun of us. I got to I can't I couldn't process it and it always made me so angry and now that you brought it up the angry say I want I want to know who you are to come for you but yeah, it's just seeing how there's a bunch of bars on Milwaukee Avenue and I came here not a few weeks ago with my friends and that night the streets are just it was not what I saw. I don't even go out anymore at know I learned my lesson from that. I don't need to see white people drunk white people on Milwaukee Avenue knowing that that bar used to be a family and we're gonna Morgan family-owned business where they sold cheap clothes and shoes but they still need the money off of that. I just can't walk down there anymore. It's just

34:23 It's too much to handle and it's traumatic and me being displacement to me coming back into Logan Square. I just feel so sad like this was my home and it is my home and I'm going to come back one day for sure, but will a whole different going to be when I come back and let people still be here or we or will we be completely erased its really traumatic leaving and then thinking about coming back but will tell us tell me about what happened with with your family in your living situation. We received the news that our landlord we got letters in the mail that we're so weird and you know how the remaining letters are there like we used these big words and I don't even know what to translate that into Spanish. I'm so scared. Ya so saying that my landlord hasn't declared bankruptcy and wasn't able to pay for the house anymore, but we were paying him rent day today.

35:23 And so we were confused on the Apple. We just kind of Let It Go February he sold the building and we didn't know he was going to sell the building until the day of his closing. He came to us and said we I sold the building and we kind of knew that he was going to sell it because a bunch of people were coming into our home banging on our door to come in at I open first one. I was just so confused on who this white dude was in and what are you doing in my whole entire world and he just barged in once I open up the door and started attacking the Hall of things and everything happens as an excuse you who are you first of all and second what are you doing here? Me and my family are having breakfast on the Sunday morning when this happened and it just kept happening every single day to the point. We were we've actually he's a lock so you would have come back in and you know showed her our home buyer personal space to someone else who didn't belong there.

36:19 And he sold the building in February by Marsha is March 31st of this year was supposed to be my sister's quinceanera. We were supposed to celebrate Three Kings Day, but that was the day we were packing the U-Haul and took us and it took us a long time to find a new place the stuff that we put into the U-Haul we were put in the basement of our family friend who lives on the south side.

36:43 And we were homeless we really didn't have anywhere to go we were out in the streets sleeping wherever we could wherever was warm. Why didn't you call me? Cuz I had I don't want to invade your space like they invaded mine. So we were out in the streets. We were surviving. However, you could you stop going to school. I'm supposed to be a junior this year, but I'm starting fresh as a freshman and in college and you know, that's a huge disappointment because my mom when I told her that was going to do this. She was like, what are you going to say when they ask about your education?

37:26 And she just kept going on and on about saying how we weren't the space cuz we didn't own in the house later on we had to move out and I just couldn't answer her cuz she was just she didn't understand that. We were just place that we we didn't have a home because of this man who sold his building without telling us first and giving us time to find a new home for a drama.

37:53 And so we found family friend to let us live in her basement. It was a super tiny Space by the size of this room that were in and the front office and we we all slept on the mattresses and put the mattresses on the floor. No, no bed the bed frame or anything just on the floor. It was my dad. My mom and me. I'm the big clean mattress and then my sister on the twin mattress, so we were like that for a couple of months from at least like

38:27 From like June to August. We were like that at the end of August we found a house in in Austin and I never saw the house my parents and said we found a house they were buying it. And the day of the closing was the day I found out I like I saw the house and the moment I walked in I feel so happy. I did I had we had a big leaver a big living room with big windows in the front. We had we had two bedrooms on the first floor and it's a two-flat. It's on the second floor you had three bedrooms and we had a kitchen we had a dining room. We have a basement. So the moment I walked in and started exploring everything. I loved it. We had a place to call home. Now. We had our own please my family my dad and my mom and dad finally. We're home owners see you finally achieved at American dream that they had ever since we walked into American that they

39:27 They were home. How long is now and even though we live all the way on the west side? I had enough clothes really close to Oak Park. I still think about how we were displaced from Logan Square how people from Logan Square now our own people are brown and black and people of color are moving from here because they can't afford to stay here and we're moving to other neighborhood. So we're probably going to start the gentrification ourselves ourselves. And even though I love my new my new neighborhood, I walked there and I walk down the streets and it's a predominantly black neighborhood and I walk around and I'm Brown and it's like I'm sorry for being in your space and I'm sorry for being in your community, but I need a place to call home and I've read every time I walk down. I always I have a have a thing of talking to Nature. So it looks like I'm talking to myself and I'm actually talking to that tree over there or the grass right now and the moment that we walked

40:27 My mom knocked on the door before we went in and we ask for permission from the house to walk in and we decided when we were cleaning we off, you know, we all started taking the house. We were wrong cleaning it and calling it our own stuff and every time I walk down the street to my house, I I always apologize for being in someone else's home and being on someone else's land at the that's not mine. I always apologize and I always say thank you and I always think the grass in front of my house to sidewalk my stairs. I always knock on my door isn't even though I live there but I still ask my house for permission. I still ask ask it for Furnishing to be called my home.

41:13 Then I guess that's what people who are moving into Logan's Grand. I'll need to do you need to ask your house with permission. You need to get yourself involved in with your neighbors don't close yourself a part of the community, but be part of the community that was here before seeing what he could profit from and we needed to change from the house.

41:42 Yeah, you know for all the pain.

41:46 There are people face and have I think there's also a lot of beauty and

41:53 We might not benefit from the white supremacy of this country.

41:59 But we benefit from I think from the moral High Ground that we have cuz I honestly don't understand how white people can live with themselves. Think about how they're walking with her head up high and is walking in their suits with their suitcases and whatever invading the blue line going to O'Hare with their big ass suitcases. Can you live with yourself knowing that you got the color of your skin has so much privilege from TLC's. Like, how can you do that? Like, how can you live with yourself thinking that you're going to be able to make it farther than me a brown person and ended some I remembered Toni Morrison, please show you that clip that writer, you know.

42:46 What are you without whiteness? Are you any strong? Are you any good?

42:52 Do you like yourself? I mean, what does it mean if the only way for you to be tall is to keep others down?

43:01 I agree with Tony. I think she she's so spot-on white people have a problem and they need to figure out what I just feel so grateful to know you and I'm so happy that we can still work together. Even if you don't live in the community anymore. So yeah, I'm just really grateful for you and I've learned so much from you and I'm excited that we got to keep fighting. I know that

43:35 Part of the gentrification in Logan Square was

43:39 Years ago when her mental health clinic was closed. It was one of the two bilingual mental health clinics in the city of Chicago. The mayor closed it to save $3000000 a year, right? Meanwhile, he's giving $1000000 to Mark Fishman notorious developer who profits from the displacement of children in our community and owner of the Logan Theater Logan Square Theater.

44:06 End

44:08 And our advocacy, you know led to this Victory this week right on Tuesday. Everybody was talking about the Blue Wave or whatever that we want to build a new mental health clinic in our community. And I really think you were a big part of that the stories that you told how you led the march with 500 people two weeks ago helped Elevate the awareness around the mental health clinic issue, and I think we're going to keep fighting and we're going to keep winning and whoever the next mayor of Chicago is they need to know. Hopefully you but whoever it is, they're going to know that we're here and we're here to stay.