YOLANDA CHAVEZ LEYVA
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Fierce Fronteriza
Picture

Her favorite time

2/14/2017

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This poem is dedicated to the people of east Austin who shaped my life and inspired me throughout my twenties. I worked for an emergency assistance program in those years, among the children and grandchildren of Austin's African American community that had been purposefully segregated and impoverished by the municipal government's 1928 plan. As I read the plan, I imagined what a young woman living in the "shacks" would have seen.


“The topography is very rough and it is at present occupied by the cheapest type of negro shacks, whereas the property immediately adjoining is more valuable…” A City Plan for Austin 1928
 
 
Spring was her favorite time
Before the suffocation of summer
Watching the tentative green stems
Breaking through the dirt.
The way the mint plants returned
Each year so she could
Crush the sweet smelling leaves
Between her fingers
And bring them to her nose
To smell the crispness
That tingled in her nostrils.
She loved the buttercups that
Closed at night
And the daisies
That bloomed close to the ground
In white clusters.
She loved the tall grasses that grew
Behind her house and the way they
Swayed when the breezes blew.
Spring was her favorite time.


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Picture
My father used to tell me about sneaking into this theater to watch movies as a kid in the 1910s. It showed Spanish language films. In the 1940s, it was transformed into a "whites only" theater but that didn't last long. By the 1950s, it was headquarters to the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union, a radical labor organization. Before it closed, it housed the Mine and Mill Bar.
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This message is painted on the east side of the old Mission movie theater.
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The bell tower of Guardian Angel Catholic Church, built in the 1910s to serve the growing Mexican immigrant community in what was then the "east side" of El Paso.
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This pinata shop caught my attention as I was driving west on Alameda Street on my way to work.
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Hawaiian dancer, Alameda Street.
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Unicorn pinata on Alameda Street.
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Proud graduate pinata.
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Love message on the east side exterior wall of the old Mission Theater.

Segundo Barrio
Father Rahm Street
​July 2022

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Looking into Padre Pinto Plaza, Sagrado Corazon Catholic Church.
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Treasures on the window sill.
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La bici
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Tres vatos.
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Esperando el bus.
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Two generations.

 La Virgensita en la frontera
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Woman reflected on la Virgencita, Segundo Barrio, 2021.
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La Virgen de Guadalupe, 12 de diciembre 2017, Centro de Trabajadores Agricolas, El Paso
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Protecting Barrio Duranguito 2019

 Cd Juarez downtown
​December 2017
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Raramuri father and son musicians, downtown Juarez, 2017.
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The smell of copal, downtown Juarez, December 2017.
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Ciudad Juarez limpia, downtown, December 2017.
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Selling at the mercado, downtown Juarez, December 2017
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Telcel payaso, downtown Juarez, December 2017


 La Mariscal, Ciudad Juarez, 2017

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Dos perros, La Mariscal, December 2017
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Mujer con cabello verde, La Mariscal, Juarez, December 2017.
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Beautiful death, La Mariscal, Ciudad Juarez, December 2017.
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Tin Tan, La Mariscal, Ciudad Juarez, December 2017.
 
Montana Vista 2019
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Red high heels in the desert 2019
 El Centro July 2022
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A tree reaches out to Oscar Zeta Acosta (mural by Lxs Dos), El Paso, Texas July 2022
  • Home
  • Fierce Fronteriza Blog
  • Callegrafias Fronterizas
  • What I do
  • Publications
  • Comunidad
  • Connecting
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • South Central - Alameda Street
  • Untitled
  • Callegrafia