Postcards from the Great Recession
Postcards from the Great Recession
First appeared in New America Media in April 2009
BY KY-PHONG TRAN
In the working-class neighborhood where I grew up, you won’t see abandoned homes or foreclosure signs swaying like white flags of surrender. Hemmed in by two freeways, an oil-storage facility and train tracks, North Long Beach, California is not that kind of neighborhood. People didn’t speculate on homes here; they bought them to live in. Imagine that.
To understand the effects of the current economic crisis, you have to talk to these folks. So I got into my car and drove this part of town, one of the most diverse in an already diverse city.
In an indiscreet strip mall polluted by the dust and rubble of the metal recycling plant next door, I met with the woman who’s been cutting my hair for almost two decades. The soft-spoken Cambodian woman says her customers come much less often, and when they do, they spend only for the basics. She offers free services like styling and extra coloring to entice them to return.
At the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Artestia Boulevard, just bordering Compton, I found more of the same. My auto mechanic used to fix almost 20 cars a day. Now the Vietnamese man with the big smile is lucky if seven are brought in for service. The giggly Vietnamese ladies at the nail salon across the street sometimes go whole days without customers. While getting her nails done, a nurse worries about her mortgage payment increasing next year. The young pretty Black woman bought her first home here two years ago.
In the local skate part, a pack of pierced and tattooed teens chill on a concrete bench. While skaters soar behind them and two cops make a stop to the side, they tell me no one needs employees. Not Wal-Mart. Not KFC. Not even the city, which has frozen new hiring. A scraggly-haired white kid, one of the few that still live here, breaks my heart when he tells me with a straight face, “There’s less food in the house these days.”
On my street, where the houses look well-kept and the lawn tended, we’re used to lean times so you have to look carefully to see how we’re dealing with this economic downturn. In the morning, notice the weary eyes of the young man coming home from the late shift of his second job at the airport. Or in the afternoon, see the grandma watching a whole slew of grandkids so their parents don’t have to pay for childcare.
In areas already zoned for duplexes and triplexes, look for windows and doors added onto garages, which now serve as extra bedrooms or rentals. Or late at night, note the four or five cars (mostly late-model imports) that fill each driveway and crowd the street because we live two or even three generations in our homes. Like the probation officer who resides nearby tells me, “We stick together around here. We make do.”
The other night, full of worry, I went outside to get some fresh air. It was one in the morning and the road was quiet. As streetlights formed a low constellation, I looked down the row of boxy World War II-era homes and thought of my neighbors. Across the board, from nail salon to auto shop, and dry cleaner to skate park, one thing is clear” Everyone’s income is down about 50 percent.
But what exactly does that number even mean?
I wondered about the Mexican family that just moved in next door. They have young kids and their mom stays at home with them. What’s going to happen to them if their dad loses his job, gets his hours cut, or their mortgage readjusts beyond their means?
And I think of the Vietnamese girl who lives in our duplex. The high school senior’s mom is already disabled by a stroke, and now her dad is on furlough two days a month as a state employee. She’s been accepted to Cal State Long Beach to study nursing, but I wonder if she can afford to attend now.
On my street, Plymouth Street, we’re hardy folk. Our histories prove that. Many of us lived through the Vietnam War. Others trekked north through the deserts from Mexico. The neighbors across the street survived the Khmer Rouge and genocide in Cambodia. And together, we all lived through the riots in ‘92.
I know we’re tough and we’ll make it through this recession. As the hungry white kid at the skate park says, “What can you do, but just deal with it?” But how we’ll look when it’s over is another matter entirely.