A mural spanned from one end of the living room to the other. It brimmed with human faces, iguanas, hibiscus flowers, and avocados, all popping with color. On the wall next to the mural, there were posters of Black and brown heroines:Mother Gaston. Shirley Chisholm. Sylvia Rivera.
“Ms. Lina was an art teacher,” Tyrell said as Sadie marveled.
“I always tell this to the young people: when you can’t do anything about the outside, you care for the inside.”
Prior to this, Sadie had only seen her on the street, hobbling with a cane, but here in her own home, her own chair, she looked like commander in chief.
“Put that wet coat on the radiator and sit down,” Ms. Lina added. “They’ve got the heat on.”
Sadie nodded and took a seat on the couch, and Tyrell sat down beside her. She withdrew a notebook with a list of questions she’d prepared. Yet before she could ask one, Ms. Lina folded her hands on her lap and began speaking.
“Miss Sadie, if you’re going to write a feature about 78 Livonia, I have some things you need to understand.” She nodded at the mural. “It took ten years, but I fought until I got NYCHA to okay that mural. I designed and supervised it, but it’s my former students who painted it. I want you to look closer.”
Sadie turned around and peered at it.
“These are my ancestors,” Ms. Lina said, nodding at the figures on the left. “My people are Taíno and Yoruba. The enslavers, the conquistadores, displaced them from their homelands. And even when that ended, the cycle continued.” Ms. Lina stood slowly, grabbed her cane, and crossed over to the mural. She touched its surface with her pointer finger. “Uncle Sam forced my mother’s people from their farms to San Juan, then from San Juan to Nueva York. My father’s people, from Nigeria to Carolina to Harlem. And I’m not only talking about my family, I’m talking about millions of families, Black and Boricua families. We’re healing from generations of root shock.”
Sadie nodded, hoping some of this related back to the history of the Livonia Avenue lot.
“Oh, so you heard that term before, Miss Sadie? Root shock?”
“Not… not really.”
“There’s root shock in both the Native community and the Black community.”
“And these new families, they got root shock on steroids.” Tyrell sighed, leaning his head back on the palms of his hands. “Brownsville is the last neighborhood people can actually afford. And hundreds of families are coming here every month ’cause they been pushed out of Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene, Crown Heights.”
“And now folks are getting gentrified out of Brownsville,” said Ms. Lina. “We made Brownsville livable again and now they want to take it back.”
Sadie was surprised. People usually referred to Brownsville as the one part of Brooklyn immune to gentrification. That, after all, was why she’d been so interested in the job.
“Have you seen any white people living in Brownsville?” Sadie asked Ms. Lina, trying to say “white people” as casually as possible.
“Oh, all the time. I don’t have a problem with them.” Ms. Lina shrugged. “The problem is, people look around and they think, ‘Oh, Brooklyn has changed,’ but nothing’s changed. Land is still money. Fifty years ago, they made money by keeping our people trapped in the cities, and now they make money by forcing us out. An investment game, same as always. They say the city is moreintegrated, but I don’t see Black people, Puerto Ricans moving to Brooklyn Heights.”
Sadie once again turned to the questions in her notebook. Ms. Lina had another appointment at six o’clock, and they had agreed upon an hour-long meeting. With ten minutes wasted in the courtyard and another ten discussing the mural, Sadie was anxious.
“Ms. Lina, the proposal mentions there was a fire that burned down the building at 78 Livonia Avenue. Would you be willing…”
“We’ll get to the fire, Miss Sadie. Look, there’s a reason I’m telling you this. This is why we don’t need mega-developers building up Livonia. This land should belong to the survivors of root shock. It’s not much we’re asking for.”
“How… uh,” Sadie hesitated. “How would you counter the argument that larger developers have better access to financing for complex projects than grassroots groups? The city gets more bang for the buck working with big developers, don’t they?”
This was the question that her editor, Wendy, had asked Sadie earlier that fall when she’d first written about Ms. Lina’s plan.
Tyrell nodded and sat up, his hands on his knees, his eyebrows rising with sudden seriousness. Ms. Lina prodded the inside of her cheek with her tongue and sighed.
“Where are your people from, Miss Sadie?” Ms. Lina looked at her intently.
Sadie was caught off guard.
“She’s half Chinese and half Jewish,” Tyrell volunteered. “Her family used to live in Brownsville. Didn’t you say they ran—”
“A laundromat, yes.”
Ms. Lina’s eyes lingered on her. Sadie didn’t know why she had lied.
Ms. Lina nodded slowly. “Well, you need to know your ancestors. Because you’re the product of their dreams. And that’s my answer to your question—I know it won’t make sense to you now.”
