Don Palabraz

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Every year before Christmas, LA Chicano All-Stars come together for a community event known as the “Anti-Mall.” Rejecting the big-box store capitalist consumerism of the holidays, the annual gathering provides a space for the city’s local businesses and artisans to congregate and offer their products to people looking for a cleaner conscious when buying gifts for loved ones. This year, El Puente Hacia La Esperanza is teaming up with the Antigua Coffee House to fold anti-mall into a block party! Vendors will include: Imix Bookstore, Yerberia Mayahuel, and Afghan Women’s Mission among many, many others. As always, community musicians will be on hand to keep the vibes positive for this free family event. This year’s block party taking place at 3400 N. Figueroa in Cypress Park from noon until 7 pm is the true Anti-Mall as opposed to…

…what passes for one in Orange County! Unlike our brothers and sisters to the north, raza down south have made few inroads into opening local businesses and organizing events that bring them together with local artisans in the spirit of zapatismo. We are truly sufferers of a putrid real estate apartheid system. Where this vacuum exists, hipsterism flourishes. So while Chicanos band together today in LA, down in OC “the Lab Anti-Mall” in the city of Costa Migra is what is presented as “the alternative.” Nestled just outside of Santa Ana, the permanent fixture of businesses defines itself in contrast to the South Coast Plaza mall of riches. But as the tale of the two videos in this blog illustrates, there is a vast gulf between just how that definition plays out in reality here in OC as opposed to LA…