By Carlos Mare139 Rodriguez
Published by Dokument Folag 2007 Berlin
I’ve come to understand the meaning and purpose of these actions over the years as a result of being influenced by train writings in the mid 1970’s. At first I was aware of the obvious, the environment around me which was a disabled New York City, it was a city torn apart by the divide of the civil rights era, as well as the financial neglect from State and Government. The conditions around me were both hostile and electric, the South Bronx and many of the minority neighborhoods were in a state of urban decay, buildings were being set ablaze by landlords to collect on insurance money, Police corruption was at an all time high and the effects of the Vietnam war were being handed down to the next generation. Drugs and violence were all around me, there was nothing to shelter me from it and nothing my parents could do about it because we were too poor to move elsewhere. Being so young and living in a place where you were forgotten and marginalized it is no wonder we had to invent an alternate reality for ourselves. Initially I recall little of my personal expression or individuality I existed as most ghetto kids, poor and disconnected. My childs play were street games and running around abandoned burnt out buildings and playing in the brick lots of broken dreams. I knew very little of the world outside this existence except for the occasional trip into Manhattan which was a marvel to me…..
Posted by Mare 139 on March 26, 2008 at 09:08 PM
