little boxes 1.1
LITTLE BOXES | ISSUE 1
In newsstands Winter 2022
With over a billion square feet of warehouses and highways bustling with trucks, 1 in 6 jobs are related to the Logisitcs industry in San Bernardino.* The expansion we have seen since the pandemic has grown exponentially and residents feel this impact every day. A shift in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics, signaled a radical departure from traditional depictions of landscapes. Pictures of sweeping vistas gave way to unromanticized views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance.* Now, more than 40 years later, these photographs explore the violent aftermath of industry; construction, congestion and unregulated growth which threatens the health of frontline communities living next door.
James M Dailey, Fernanda Durazo, Jeniffer Lopez
James M. Dailey
James M Dailey is from Hesperia California. They graduated from California State University of San Bernardino in 2021 and obtained their bachelor's degree in Studio Art in Photography. Their work includes themes of water as a resource, along with space being a diminishing commodity. The work involves using historical archives along with personal photographs as a means to reflect and document the foundation issues that have, and continue to shape the landscape along with the individuals within it. To view more of their work, and read about the images, please follow this link.
Fernanda Durazo
Raised in Bloomington, California. Fernanda attempts to record ongoing social and environmental issues happening in Bloomington, as well as the Inland Empire. Her work is an attempt to archive the land usage of her hometown and bring awareness to the environmental impact it brings to communities around. To view more of her work, and read about the images, please follow this link.
Jeniffer Lopez
Jeniffer Lopez is a published writer based in Bloomington. She writes short stories and poems in hopes to spread awareness and encourage direct action on social issues across the globe. Her works can be found in Issues 39 and 40 of Pacific Review. To view more of her work, and read about the images, please follow this link
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The desert once untouched, ripe
with Joshua trees and quivering foxtails
that swam in a stretch of blue sand
Nonconsensual reaping,
tractors tear through the flesh
of Earth, they drill
Modway Furniture forces itself
on the land, erecting wall after wall
until we breathe cement dust
Inhale lead and exhale fumes
A hybrid radiated form but
we ceased being human centuries ago
The desert bleeds
sand tears, damning your name
it swallows your roads and silences your screams
marks your death in your lungs and laughs at your tears
it has not forgotten how you
ignored its own
Taken to court but of course,
you get off easy,
so you reap around the Joshua trees, tearing
at the roots, letting these toppled trees
to die “naturally”
And the desert is forced
to birth dead Joshua trees
But I can hear the rumbling
of the earth, she is waiting
patiently for you.
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invites the sign, juniper green envelops the iris, the same green
they tear from the ground, a horse in mid-gallop, whose
home is being ripped from beneath, and
a train wraps around our wrists as
pollution shoves itself in our throats
demanding space in these veins, and makes us
kneel with hands over our chests
fifteen warehouses are not enough
covered with signs of space for rent but the displacement
of almost two hundred families is undoubtedly worth the investment
Zimmerman Elementary School, purchased
by Howard Industrial. classrooms filled
with 32 years of memories of crayoned drawings,
school dances, and friendship creations
on the playground could be bought by a corporation
new school willed be across the street of the diesel
truck stop, gas and fumes trickles down the slide, climbs
the monkey bars before sliding down
the pole into your child’s lungs
a series of photos, Bloomington's first archive, became a eulogy
how many months until my own headstone follows
that of the ranches, indigenous, and schools?
Will my grave also be for sale?
pour the bottle over the slab of concrete,
and pray for our souls condemned by those in power
we didn’t have the right to elect for.
goes here
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On pothole filled Santa Ana Street where rain collects
during January, children learn how to
push their light-up shoes on bike pedals.
After a few scabs and bandaids damp
with sweat, they know what it feels like to fly.
crash a few times into the neighbor's
chainlink gate or into the paletero’s cart with steaming
esquite, but they’ll brush off the gravel off their knees and try again.
Here the teenagers learn to skate dodging black cats
and watching out for fast cars through their curly hair.
recording each other’s flips.
Here is where the sun beats on the red skin
of the working class who find refuge in their
vegetable gardens and steal guava
from the neighbors across the brick wall.
The rancheros ride their horses, whose fur gleams
gold, on the side of Santa Ana. Their tan cowboy
hats cast their faces in shadow but you can see
the pride rolling off their shoulders, the same as that of
the horse galloping with its head held high.
On weekends, cumbias y rancheras will blast
from the cumpleaños, the clicking of heels, and
cowboy boots strike the concrete ground and
the savory smell of carne asada grilling
travels three blocks down.
These beating hearts fight for their home. Two years of
protest. Endless emails from the residents of Bloomington and
the calls to impede the bill to pass, the one Howard Industrial has pushed
with every new appointment of officials. A thousand signatures later,
the drilling begins anyway. The trucks plow through
the ecosystem of lizards, ants, moles
.
Yellow helmets watch me as I watch them.
I don't blame those worn faces.
I blame the politicians who worship the buck over any human life.
Children are born with asthma yet, the perfect place
for the truck stop is right next door to the mobile home
park. The current twenty-minute delay between only three traffic lights
in half a mile distance will seem short compared.
I don’t blame the tiresome truck drivers carrying the economy
on three hours of sleep and poor pay. They also believe
the location is disruptive and dangerous to the community.
But a truck stop benefits the four empty warehouses to be built.
They want to bulldoze through the living rooms that once held
giggling toddlers with sticky toys, shouts of who will win
the soccer game, las Chivas o la America, and the laughter
of family who haven't seen each other in months.
They want to reap the soil of these lemon trees and tear
out the chicken coops, scattering feathers to the dust.
They don’t see the kitchen table of loteria gambling or
the dinner conversations with inside jokes. Or the
Hours spend in the backyard, squeezing fresh apples
for apple cider in the month of July.
They see money not yet here but maybe someday when
there is no one left to reap its “benefits”
