See other Immigration Articles
Title: "Get Out When You Can," Says Her Friend. "I'm Moving To An American Neighborhood
Source:
www.natallnews.com
URL Source: http://www.natallnews.com/story.php?id=1994
Published: May 31, 2006
Author: natallnews
Post Date: 2006-05-31 10:15:31 by Mind_Virus
Keywords: None
Views: 169
Comments: 10
"Get Out When You Can," Says Her Friend. "I'm Moving To An American Neighborhood Posted by admin on: 2006-05-31 Whites being ethnically cleansed from Orange County, Ca. ORANGE – The Hills left East Vine Avenue two weeks ago. The Wigginses plan to leave in a month or so. And just last week, the Hansons put up a for-sale sign. In a few months, most of Carol Fulton's longtime neighbors will be gone. And in a flash, summer barbecues, Fourth of July parades and baseball games at the East Vine cul-de-sac will become distant memories. Fulton (right, with her husband) sits on her front porch, pensive and surveying the neighborhood. It has changed drastically, she says. The familiar smells and sounds of backyard barbecues are replaced by mariachi music and the honking horn of a shaved-ice cart. Fulton sees unfamiliar cars and people streaming onto the street. Overcrowding caused by boarding homes - more than two leases on the same property - is an issue that city officials and residents have grappled with for years. "This used to be a fun neighborhood," says Fulton, 56. "Kids stayed outside until 10 or 11 p.m. I figured we'd live here until we died. We never in 100,000 years thought it would change." On most days, Fulton caps off the night at 10 with a cigarette in her garage. But these nights, she does it with the door closed. "We were always outside. In the summertime, I was a free spirit," she says. "Not anymore. We don't go outside anymore." Fulton has to decide if she, like her friends, is going to go. Fulton moved to Orange in 1986 with her husband and two daughters from a previous marriage. She loved the clean neighborhood. There were other families with children. And everyone called each other by their first names. The house they rented had no air conditioning. Fulton cooled off under the tree in her yard. A year later, they moved across East Vine into a three-bedroom house they bought for $175,000. The Fultons, whose family grew to five kids, envisioned growing old with their neighbors. Orange had deep roots, a city with generations of families where grandparents and parents settled and their children held onto the threads of their childhood. The neighborhood transformation was subtle at first. Some families moved away and a more transient community began to develop. Unfamiliar faces filtered in and out of several houses. By the late '80s and early '90s, longtime residents complained about a parking crunch caused by dozens of people crammed into the neighborhood's first boarding house - the big house they called "the Fortress." The city eventually required parking permits, and the problems subsided. In the late '90s, Fulton caught people peering into her rooms, urinating in her yard and making catcalls at her. It was common knowledge that there were multiple families and dozens of men, mainly day laborers, living in the homes, she says. Drywall was delivered to the homes and quickly disappeared. People built additional rooms without permits. Blinds were closed and no children played outside. The houses stayed tidy and well maintained on the outside. The street, by day, looked like any other in Orange. But Fulton and some neighbors said that in the evening, droves of cars came into the neighborhood. The idea of not knowing who lived on their street began to rile the residents. One by one, Fulton's friends talked of moving. East Vine Avenue had become intolerable, and they didn't want to wait for things to improve. "We've been here for years, and now everyone is bailing," Fulton says. In February, city officials tried to crack down on overcrowded houses, tightening the definition of a boarding house and creating a task force to look at the problem on streets like East Vine. The city tried to discourage illegal garage conversions and room partitions that allowed multiple families to live in one house. The city code does not allow more than two lease agreements in one home. Violators are told to comply, and city officials say most do. "It runs the gamut," says City Attorney Dave DeBerry. "You get the allegations ... gathering evidence is very hard. Maybe people are telling the truth and maybe not." Fulton testified at council meetings about the overcrowding problem. Visits to East Vine by city officials and code enforcement officers did little to appease her. "These are houses but this street is becoming an apartment complex. They are not touching each other but they might as well be," Fulton says. Language and cultural barriers also make it difficult for some neighbors to connect. When Fulton's son accidentally hit a baseball into someone's window, she promptly went over to apologize. Her neighbors nodded and smiled and did not understand English, she says. But race is not the issue, Fulton says. She would be incensed at any neighbor who disrespected her privacy and property. "What burns me is that we're middle-class working people who didn't have extra money to buy anything. We all worked hard to get here," she says. During her free time, Fulton helps a neighbor pack for her move out of the county. "Get out when you can," says her friend. "I'm moving to an American neighborhood." They plan a night when they will lay out blankets on Fulton's yard and stare at the stars. And they will have a Fourth of July parade for old time's sake. She says she is too tired to fight anymore. But she cannot let go of her memories. Fulton, unlike most of the old neighbors, says she's staying for now. She hopes city officials will listen to her concerns. She says things will get better if the codes are enforced. Until then, when she has her evening smoke, she'll keep her garage door closed. Media Link http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1161076.php
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
#1. To: Mind_Virus (#0)
Very sad, I can relate to this. The neighborhood I grew up in, in the South End of Boston was a very urban, inner city neighborhood in the 50s and 60s but was very multi-ethnically diverse. We had people from damn near everywhere, but everyone worked hard and everyone learned English. We had English, Irish, Canadians, Greeks, Lebanese, Latvians, Chinese, Gypsy, Black, and God knows what else all within a couple of streets of each other. Then it all changed in the late 60s and early 70s and all the whites began to leave as southern blacks and hispanics began pouring into the neighborhood and it just became too dangerous to stay. Like this woman, we used to stay out until midnight frequently - most of the neighborhood would be out doors in nice weather, sitting on stoops, talking, playing horseshoes, whatever. The new people did not fit into the neighborhood and there were so many of them that they just formed their own alliances and brought their own ways, and they apparently viewed us as enemies, or prey. Jewish businesses in other neighborhoods were actually fire bombed to drive them out, and they were replaced by southern blacks (and then hispanics). My family, that had lived in this area for a couple of generations, were among the very last whites to leave and it had become incredibly dangerous by that time just to walk down the street in daylight. We lived through the race riots of the late 60s, and the invasion by drugs, especially cocaine and crack in the early 70s and the start of the crackhouse phenomena. It was sad to see a neighborhood die. Eventually all the poor people, black, hispanic, and remaining white, were driven out by yuppies looking to take our tiny apartments and boarding houses (the South End was full of boarding houses for the working poor) and turn them into condos. Now the only people living there are the well to do and the very poor. There seem to be very few families where once the streets were filled with children.
The "middle class" is disappearing in Vermont and sections of New Hampshire, as well. It is part of an agenda.
Yeah, I figured that out a while ago when I was still a FReeper. I'd post about how the middle class was deliberately being exterminated and I was always accused of fighting "class wars". I notice that the people who are most accusatory of that are usually very very well to do indeed. It's unfortunate they suckered so many people into this "class war" nonsense - the irony is, that this is exactly what happened. A class war HAS been going on - by the elites to eliminate the middle class. And they're succeeding.
Easy to accuse others when speaking from behind the walls of your gated communities.
There are no replies to Comment # 10. End Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#6. To: mehitable (#1)
Now the only people living there are the well to do and the very poor.
#7. To: who knows what evil (#6)
#10. To: mehitable (#7)
I'd post about how the middle class was deliberately being exterminated and I was always accused of fighting "class wars". I notice that the people who are most accusatory of that are usually very very well to do indeed.
Replies to Comment # 10.