Gentrification
Part of the SJ Sounds Series
Written by Francisco Alvarez
Audio design by Sarbpreet Buttar
[AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A loose emulation of what a day in the life of Huy typically sounds like. Everyday is business as usual, routines become mundane. However, everyday is not as it seems, as Huy starts to pick up on how his surrounding environment is slowly changing...)
The Present
The sun hasn’t risen past San Jose’s hills yet, and the valley is still dark. An old radio blasts 1430 AM KVVN—really just an advertisement for insurance spoken in Vietnamese by a very calm woman. A thin fingered hand taps the large button on the top, silencing the speakers.
Huy sits up in his bed and rubs his thin gray hair. He yawns. He stands up and stretches his back. He’s still in his pajamas. He wiggles his feet until he hears them pop. He slips on raggedy worn slippers.
He bows before the dim orange light of an altar. There’s a large gold Buddha statue and a gold cross hanging above. In the center of the altar is the photo of an elderly woman, his late wife. A small stick of incense burns. He holds his hands in prayer and bows before her.
“Chao Hiền,'' Huy says as he stands up.
The light barely starts to shift the dark hue of the sky. Huy walks out into his backyard. It’s small, but it is his and that makes it large in his eyes. He has a small greenhouse set up on the left side. Inside is a miniature nursery for a few Southeast Asian plants and trees. But the rest of his yard is a garden full of budding trees and plants of every variety.
Water lazily flows from the hose as he meanders the yard. He speaks to the plants with pride, acknowledging their growth. He thought about his wife and how she used to encourage the plants; he never really thought that he would be back here in her stead.
The sun’s light begins to peek over the yellow hills, and he shuts off the water.
He loads the last of the crates of produce, in this case a box of durian, onto his pickup truck. His truck coughs into life, its age showing. He drives down the streets of San Jose, passing the other few workers whose days have already begun. He makes his way towards Berryessa.
A sign with a cartoon flea welcomes him in the line into the lot. “WELCOME TO THE FLEA MARKET!” He’s a little late, but it’s okay. He doesn’t need to fight the rush—he’s paid rent at the same spot in the market for years.
Once everyone’s through the gate, they drive their cars full of wares right up to their lot and unload. Huy pulls up to his spot in reverse then opens his truck bed. The lots around him are still setting up their goods and produce. It’s organized chaos. Some early birds already have their booths set up, neatly decorated and put together, ready for their first customer to arrive in a few hours. The rest frantically pull their boxes of stuff out of trucks or vans. Entire families of five or more members work together to make their booth function in record time, everybody shouting at each other, mostly in Spanish.
Huy, on the other hand, takes his time alone. He’s not in any rush. He has his process timed out perfectly. He grabs a crate of chôm chôm but finds it a lot harder to lift than he remembered. He grunts as he drops it onto the table. He sees the crates of the rest of the fruit: durian, jackfruit, dragon fruit, longan, star fruit, and guavas. Then the smaller crates of vegetables and another of jars and packages of food brought from Vietnam itself. He still has many crates left and no one to help him. His tired muscles groan. Perhaps he is getting old, he thinks.
“Buenos días Huy! How are you?” a Spanish accented voice calls to him from the side.
He turns to his left to see Rosario Hernandez, his stall neighbor for almost the past decade. He smiles warmly at her.
“Good morning Rosario! I am doing okay. How are you and the boys?” Huy replies, watching as her two preteen boys place baskets of strawberries and other local fruits onto their stands.
“Oh you know, grumpy. Like teenagers!” she laughed. Huy attempts to grab a large basket of durian but struggles to lift it. “Do you need help?”
“I’m fine, it’s okay!” Huy replies, kindly but stubbornly. Rosario eyes him suspiciously.
“Hector! Ayuda Mr. Dương con sus cosas.” Rosario yells to her oldest son.
“Si, ma.” Hector replies with a roll of his eyes.
Huy drags the crates on the truck bed. Hector walks up to him.
“Mr. Dương, my mom sent me to help you!” Hector says politely as he climbs over the tires. “I can grab that!”
Hector easily lifts the large box and carries it off without a problem. Huy carries a smaller box out. As Hector drops the box down, Huy is hit with a memory.
Quý slammed the case of fruit down in frustration.
“Cut that attitude out or I’ll beat it out of you!” Huy, 40 years old, already lost his patience. Maybe he was tired. “If any of that fruit is damaged, you pay for it.”
“This is so stupid Dad! It’s too early! Nobody else is even here!” Quý shouted in his disgruntled 15-year old voice. “Why are we even doing this dumb crap?”
“Because I said so!” Huy said, his anger boiling. He places several crates down onto the tables with ease.
“Stop fighting you two! We’re here early because we needed to get a good spot!” Hiền snapped at them both as she placed a cash box and sticker signs down. “Am said that if we came any later then we’d be stuck at the edges where nobody walks by.”
Quý looked at his father, and Huy looked at his son. They took a breath and sighed.
Huy smiles bittersweetly.
“Mr. Dương, is everything alright?” Hector asks as he drops off the final box.
Huy snaps out of his mind. “Sorry, I got lost in thought. Thank you so much Hector.” Huy grabs a $10 bill from his pocket and places it in Hector’s hand. Hector smiles and pockets it.
“Anytime Mr. Dương! Talk to you later!” Hector says as he walks back to his mother. She looks at her son with a stern look knowing he’s hiding something, and he pretends like nothing is wrong.
Huy writes out prices on orange-white stickers with a large Sharpie. He carefully rearranges his stand exactly the way Hiền had it set up for years. Fruits in the front, the sweeter ones kept in the shade in the back to make sure people look at the other ones too and so they don’t dry out fast, veggies to the left so people can think about their recipes as they make their way around the stand, and finally the other spices, jars and miscellaneous ingredients on the right because it’ll be their last stop. Hiền organized it perfectly. She was always the more thoughtful one, and it seemed to make a lot of sense whenever Huy saw people walk through. Huy figures her ways worked well, and would still work years from now.
His street was the produce and vegetable section of the flea market. A long row of delicious fruit on either side, with some stands hooking corners into the perpendicular paths that flow out and around the rest of the market. Around him, most of his stall neighbors were finishing up their stands as well. Strangely, the stall to his right remained empty. Someone must’ve woken up too late. He took in the moment, to notice a change—it didn’t seem so long ago that the languages around him were mostly Vietnamese instead of Spanish. The faces around him were more like his own, not that he really minded or anything, more of an observation of how much the flea market has changed. He waves to his neighbors in front, the Sanchezes, and they wave back.
The Sun has finally risen, revealing a warm sunny day. Crowds of many different people meander their way through the maze of stalls and booths. They ebb and flow like rivers of tanned skin. Huy holds his hands behind his back patiently waiting for another person to walk into his stall. Some people eye his fruit as they walk by but don’t stop —their children run right past, most likely on their way to toys at the next block. Even as some things change, some things remain exactly the same.
An elderly woman shuffles up to his stall with a reusable bag full of items scavenged from the various stalls in the market.
“Good morning Huy!” Am says happily in Vietnamese. Huy turns around from rearranging some fruits to cover empty patches.
“Am! Good to see you.” Huy replies as he walks up to greet her.
“How are you doing today?” she asks. Huy grabs a couple of durians and a plastic bag, already aware of what she’s here for.
“Oh you know, sold a few pounds here and there, nothing major.” Huy replies, perhaps even missing the true intent of the question.
“Good, good.” Am replies amicably.
Then, a young couple walks into his stall. They talk amongst themselves, lost in their own conversation. They whisper to each other about recipes, what to buy, how to cook it. Huy watches them from the scale where he weighs Am’s durians. These young people are too common now unfortunately, they look and look and look but they don’t buy a single thing. He shakes the judgment away and passes Am her fruits. She passes him a $20 bill. He opens the cash box with plenty of change inside and passes her back $6 and a few cents in change.
“Excuse me, but do you take card?” the short woman in the pair asks. She’s holding a bag of guavas and starfruit. Huy looks at her confused.
“No, no, sorry. Only cash,” Huy laments in his accented English.
“Oh darn. That's too bad,” she says, genuinely disappointed. She turns to her partner. “I don’t have enough cash left to get it all.”
“Aw darn, well maybe we can just get the guavas and get starfruit next time?” she says back reasonably. “Or maybe he takes Venmo?”
“Oh yeah maybe,” she says as she turns back to Huy. “Do you take Venmo?”
“No? What is that?”
“Oh, it’s just like this app that like lets you transfer money to friends and people for stuff digitally from your bank account,” the taller one explains.
Huy looks at her like she spoke to him in gibberish.
“It just lets you pay for stuff on your phone,” the shorter one more concisely answers.
“Oh, oh, no sorry. Cash only,” Huy responds.
The couple places the starfruit back and hands him their bag of guavas. Their weight is just shy of one pound. They hand Huy a fistful of crumpled dollars and a few coins, which he counts as the exact amount.
“Thank you!” the couple says as they walk away
“You’re very welcome!” Huy responds. “Come again soon!”
“We will and we’ll bring more cash next time!” they say as they walk away.
“What was it they were talking about? Ven-mo?” Am asks in Vietnamese as she looks at them then back to Huy.
“I don’t know, some young person thing. I’ve never heard of it before.” Huy responds, dismissing the topic.
“Maybe you could ask Quý, he might know about it.” Am suggests coyly. Huy responds by fixing the fruits that the women had moved around.
“He’s too busy! He’s been working hard lately.” Huy deflects the conversation. “He and Linh have been looking to get a bigger house.”
“Oh! They found a place?” Am asks him.
“Not yet.” Huy answers curtly. He alters the layout of his stand and moves around fruits he doesn’t have to. Am looks at him and gets the hint.
“Well Huy, I guess I’ll be going now. Got a few more stops before getting back home.” Am says a little dejectedly as she waves bye. Huy doesn’t turn around and only offers a passive hand raise. “It was good seeing you.”
“Bye Am.” Huy says flatly as Am walks away. He sighs and closes his eyes.
“Uh Mr. Dương?” Hector asks “I would like to buy $10 worth of fruit please.”
Huy turns around to see Hector holding a small bag with a handful of fruits. He turns around to see Hector holding out the $10 bill he had handed him in the morning.
“Gracias!” Hector says as he jogs back to his mother. He hands her the fruits and she thanks him. Rosario is a great mother.
The rest of the day played out as it normally would. Folks would flit in and out of his stand, he’d sell a few pounds here and there, and he’d drive back home with less weight. Some people left an hour before the market closed —right when the foot traffic would start to die down. Not Huy. He stayed until the very last second he was allowed to at his stand. Every second he wasn’t open was a dollar he missed out on. Besides, there never was a rush to leave anyways, much like the morning’s entrance, the exit was congested with customers and vendors. Huy took as much time as he needed to get stuff back into his truck. Rosario and Hector helped him pack up. Thankfully everything was a little lighter now.
Huy drives along Berryessa as the sun begins to fall behind the dry yellow hills. The radio plays something calming, but the cars roar around him getting started on their weekend activities. He, on the other hand, yawns.
He pulls onto his street in the south east side of San Jose to see a hybrid car parked in his driveway. His relaxed demeanor crunches into a disgruntled frown. He pulls into his driveway next to the newish car. It looks more expensive than it was worth.
Huy walks in through the door, not looking forward to the ensuing moments.
“Ba,” a male voice calls from the kitchen. Huy follows the voice into the kitchen to find his middle aged son Quý, sitting at the table in his business clothes.
“Con,” Huy says bluntly. He heads straight for the refrigerator and grabs a bottle of Heineken. He pops the bottle cap off and walks straight outside.
Huy pulls out a cigarette and lights it. He’s sitting at a small chair and table on the small porch beside his garden.
Quý walks out of the door and stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
“Dad, we really need to talk,” Quý says.
“I don’t want to.”
“Am visited me today.”
“That’s nice.”
“She said you looked like you needed help.”
“I don’t need help with shit.”
“You’re right. You need to retire.”
“Why the hell would I retire? There’s plenty still to do.”
“Well then what are you going to do once the place is gone? You know the city is selling it off right? They’re building the new BART station and turning the place into apartments.”
“You always come over just to nag.”
“Well someone’s gotta do it since Mom can’t.”
The weight of the words hits Huy. The stand will be gone, and another piece of her will be gone too. All that’d remain would be their garden. Huy takes a puff of his cigarette and blows smoke towards his son. Quý pushes the smoke away.
“You know if you keep smoking you won’t get to see your grandkids grow up.”
“What do I care? You hardly bring them around here anyways.”
“Well that might all be changing soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were outbid on the new house.”
“By how much?”
“By $100,000”
“Wow.”
“I came by to talk to you, to see if Linh and I could buy the house off of you.”
“I will never sell this house. To you or anyone. It was your mother's and mine. We built our place here from nothing. Not like you ungrateful kids ever understood that.”
“Ungrateful? That’s what you think I am?” Quý’s anger flares and he grabs the pack of cigarettes. “I am ungrateful. That I wound up with such an asshole for a father.”
“Well I’m ungrateful for a terrible son.” Huy drinks and stares at his garden.
“I told Linh you’d be like this. I don’t know why I bothered.”
Quý turns to leave, but stops in the doorway.
“You weren’t the only person who lost someone.”
Quý leaves Huy with his inebriated thoughts. A chill falls over the garden.
The next day Huy got up, prayed, watered his garden, opened his stall, conversed with Rosario, sold a few things to customers, watched little children run and play, packed up, went home. The weeks passed by without much incident. When the Flea Market was open, he sold; when it wasn’t he tended to his garden. At night he drank and smoked. Some nights he watched the news on his old CRT—they talked about the rising cost of living in the Bay Area, protests, Presidents. One night he tried to bask in the quiet of the dark and got lost in the past—on that night he drank until he couldn’t think. And because he couldn’t think, he slept through his alarm.
Huy flew to the flea market with the few crates he could lift into the truck. He arrived at his stall, to find the layout of his neighbor’s produce unfinished. Huy breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t the only one who was late. He dragged the crates into position, ignoring his pounding headache thanks to the adrenaline. He took his time and arranged everything as neatly as he could. He put the last basket down and realized that he was still in his pajamas. He sat down defeated, the headache finally settling in.
That’s when he noticed that he had new neighbors. A portly man hopped out of the back of his truck, shouting in Spanish to two little girls. His wife came around from the front of the truck carrying watermelons.
“Excuse me,” Huy said “Where is Rosario?”
The family stared at him confused.
“Rosario? She had her stall here for a few years? She was here last week?”
“Lo siento, no sé de quién estás hablando,” the Father said, before repeating in struggling english. “I don’ know who you talking about.”
Huy was taken aback, he nearly fainted on the way back to his chair. A beeping pounded in his head. He looked up to finally see that in the distance there was a patch of land cleared out with a tall pile of rubble and dirt higher than most stands. Large construction vehicles carved out the space for what will become the Berryessa BART station. Huy stared in disbelief. How had he not noticed that before? Come to think of it, he did remember noticing that there was less traffic loading in recently. Were that many people really gone?
He felt alone at his little stall. He stared into the distance, the future, contemplating if anything that he had done was worth it. Head in hands, he stared down, collapsing inward. He only had a small stall left since his retirement, Hiền was gone, and he was admittedly, a pretty terrible father now—
“Hi Ông Nội!” a soft child’s voice spoke from the pathway. Huy looked up in disbelief.
At the front of his stall, a woman and a child no more than 8 years old stood smiling and waving hello. The voice came from his grandson, Daniel, who was holding a plastic robot toy from a nearby stall. Linh, his glowing daughter-in-law, held a hand on her pregnant belly.
“Go give ông nội a hug!” Linh motions to Daniel. Daniel lets go of her hand and runs to Huy, almost tackling him off his chair.
“Daniel!” Huys greets him with a large smile on his face, and a warm embrace. Linh walks up to them both happily. “Linh khoẻ không ? How are you!”
“I'm doing great!” Linh says sweetly as Daniel leaves to play with his toy. “How are y-?”
“You’re pregnant!” Huy said with a mix of heartache and excitement.
“Yes, I am…” Linh said confused and concerned but politely. “She’ll be here sooner than you think!”
“A girl? A granddaughter!” Huy exclaims, emotion welling up. “How wonderful…”
“Is your memory okay, Huy?”
“Yeah it’s fine, fine.” Huy said, with a hint of doubt. Linh scrunched in thought for a moment. “When did you find out?
“Quite a while ago. I thought your son told you a month ago?” A month?! Huy stared in the distance in shock. Was he going senile? No, he never remembered anything regarding a grandkid…but he did remember his son mentioning needing more space…
“He didn’t tell you, did he?” Linh asks, concerned. Huy shakes his head, tears welling up in his eyes.
“How could he!” Linh’s concern shifts to shock, confusion, then frustration. “Had I known, I would’ve told you. I can’t believe he didn’t tell his own father.”
The walking crowds brought him chaos, the station rigidity and fear, but the open blue sky above him brought him clarity and calm. As Linh came to understand her emotions, Huy came to a long needed epiphany.
“It’s not his fault, Linh. It was mine. I pushed him out.” Huy said with a broken heart. “I pushed everyone out…”
“I’m sorry Linh. Is it okay if I stop by for dinner today?” Huy stares into the distance. Linh stares at him taken aback, but softens herself. She nods.
Linh, Daniel and Quý sit at their small apartment’s table, eating dinner when there is a knock at their door. Huy waits outside of the door patiently, and Quý opens the door. Huy immediately lowers his head.
“What are you doing here Dad?”
“I am so sorry, my son, I’ve been horrible. You and your mother must be so disappointed in me.”
Father and son stared into each other's eyes, seeing the painful truth, that there was a piece of them missing, not because she was gone, but because they had forgotten to see it in the other.
“I’m sorry too, Dad, I should have helped you more. We both caused this.”
“I’ll give you the house, but on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“After dinner, I’m starving!” Huy says barging himself into the home. Linh sets a plate down for him with a smile. Quý hands him a beer and takes one for himself. Daniel talks to his grandpa about his school day. Huy listens enthusiastically. They eat and laugh and talk, just like a family should.
Daniel carried his little box of toys into Huy’s house. Linh carried small boxes inside behind him. Huy and Quý carefully moved in the newer refrigerator through the door. They hauled in the new couch. The new bigger OLED TV. Mattresses. Bed frames. Boxes and boxes of everything needed for his family to move in comfortably. The Sun set by the time they cleared off the trucks. Linh sat on the couch with Daniel watching a children’s movie. Huy and Quý sat in the backyard quietly admiring Hiền’s garden with a beer.
The alarm went off before the sun’s rise. Huy stood up from his bed, and opened his door. Another door opened down the hall, and Quý carefully walked out. Huy and Quý kneeled before the altar for Hiền and prayed together. Huy watered the plants, Quý gathered crates and boxes to pack into the truck. Linh woke up a bit later and made breakfast. Daniel woke up from the noise and the smell and helped carry some boxes into his grandpa’s truck.
Their stand at the Flea Market was neatly organized, with new signs, new colors, and new vibrancy. There was new warmth in the stall, along with more family pictures. The stalls around them were occupied by new neighbors. Huy introduced himself and his family and welcomed them. Quý dragged him away holding a screened device with a small attachment to it, he slid a card through and exclaimed that it worked. Together with his family, Huy was heading into the future. The finished Berryessa BART station towered above the stalls of Flea Market, an ever looming threat of the inevitable fate of their beloved market, but the people browsing, selling and thriving there, paid it no mind.
If you would like to take action to help those who have been affected by gentrification in the Bay Area, please refer to the following organizations that are working to help:
We would like to thank Issei Memorial Building for hosting this installation. A designated a San Jose Historic Landmark, and currently houses the San Jose Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), San Jose Taiko offices, and the Contemporary Asian Theater Scene.. To find out more, please visit their website.
SJ Sounds is a collaboration between More Más Marami Arts and Soundplay.Media. This installation is possible thanks to funding from the City of San José through the Abierto program, the support of our fiscal sponsor, The School of Arts and Culture.
