Day 26 𖦹 HOME

Day 26! This episode is about Bushwick and gentrification. An incomplete episode, of course, as all of these are. But, hopefully a slice of what's inside the minds and sounds of Maria Hernandez Park on April 26, 2026. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Okay. Day twenty-six.

SPEAKER_07 0:06

Free tea.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Thirty days of free tea in Mary Hernandez Park.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hello, hello. What's up?

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Yo, yo, yo, one, two, three.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

How has uh being in the park every single day of April changed your perspective of it?

SPEAKER_03 0:27

I think I just love it even more. I've definitely met a lot of people in the park that have just been people I've walked past for four years and a lot of park staff like Vincente. Feel like a real connection with. Yeah, this park just feels more like home than it ever has.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

I love you.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

It's like we're all we're all kind of a family here.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you feel like Miles is family?

SPEAKER_04 1:17

He's a brother from another mother's mother. I got family all over.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Is this park home for you, Jose?

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Yes. It's like my backyard. I come out here just to you know play. Oh my god, look at all those faces.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Home is a dynamic place because also most people living in America are the product of diaspora. My parents aren't from here, their parents aren't from here. So home is really wherever you can find it, wherever you can make it, wherever you are so lucky to feel it.

SPEAKER_07 2:08

I guess home is like all the spots that I frequent and have been going to since I was a kid. It's like your deli guy and your Chinese food spot guy, and like just off like repetition and them watching you grow up. I've walked into spaces and been like, yeah, I remember when I was eight years old, like look at me all grown up and tatted. Now that I'm a young adult and there's like a cafe on every other corner when like there are already spots that people relied on. Then you go and look for that spot and it's something else, or the walls are stripped, and there's a for rent sign, and you're just like, damn. It's just a lot of spaces that are closing doors on brown families, and it's sad, it makes me sad. I'm just watching things like deteriorate a little bit. There's just no space and not enough money or care for natives by our city. It's just getting washed. It's all getting wiped and washed. The same things that people admire New York for. The diversity, the culture, the grit, the character is getting washed out by people wanting so badly to participate, but being too scared to initiate that participation with the pre-existing community. They already feel separate. So they're like, ha, I'm not gonna come and engage with you. You guys, I have my own people, so I'm gonna bring all of them here. And we're gonna make a new space for us in your space. We're not technically closing the door, but we're not gonna make it comfortable for you to come inside. Or we're not gonna make it affordable. There's not gonna be anything on this menu that you can read. Like, why the fuck would I walk in there?

SPEAKER_06 4:40

I think that these systems really they really make us forget how important like leading with love actually is. But what leading with love really is, like it's not it's not this performative, like oh I see you. It's like taking the time, like this, this is this is revolutionary, you know, giving out tea.

unknown 5:09

And then we've got green tea with men.

SPEAKER_06 5:17

Or like giving black and brown folk access to land, like these are the things that need to be happening that just often aren't because people are like, I want to be seen on the front lines. I want to show you that I care, but it's also like you're not rooting your care in your community.

SPEAKER_05 5:37

I don't think migration is a bad thing ever. What I do think is bad is being fucking greedy and getting a place in Bushwick when your tax bracket is like nowhere near Bushwick housing, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Like if you're gonna be here, even if it's only gonna be for a little bit of time, you're still having an impact on this place. Don't be a stranger. And then it's like it's mostly the people with capital and power that are driving this force and building all of these despicable luxury housing apartments when there's not enough affordable housing in this neighborhood. And yeah, starting all these businesses that just have no desire to like cater to or take into account people who've been here for longer.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

A lot of people are just very exhausted of living in like you know, these parts of the United States that really have nothing to offer, right? So then they obviously migrate because they're looking for more and they're just like yearning and desiring like some sort of like hope.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

I didn't grow up in the city and I remember always feeling very sad that getting to a park took a long time and I need to go in a car. And this feels very different. This one feels like it's all the neighborhood kids just coming over. There's something about this park that makes it feel much more alive.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

It's the last Sunday for Petcher.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

It's it's on. Day twenty seven!