MACSA - Worth Saving

MACSA - Worth Saving

BY Maryah Samarron

Since 1991, the summers during my childhood consisted of walking over to MACSA to have lunch as part of the Mayfair Community Center summer program I attended annually. MACSA was part of what kept us, the children of community members, safe while our parents worked hard to keep food on our tables. It’s very sad to see it burned down after the battle to keep it open. 

I wanted to emphasize something I learned while taking my Chicano Studies courses at SJSU. What we see is a product of the gentrification going on in our community. Newcomers will call it “beautification” just as the colonizers did while taking over our land throughout history, claiming “Manifest Destiny”. 

“Newcomers will call it “beautification” just as the colonizers did while taking over our land throughout history, claiming “Manifest Destiny”.”

In this think-piece, I also included images of Chicano Park because what is going on with MACSA is a mirror of what has gone on with numerous historical landmarks for indigenous people and members of local communities due to the gentrification of our neighborhoods. They are trying to retrofit and take over what is sacred to our community members. 

I included the words “Worth Saving” at the top because when the colonization of our country began, it came with new religions. These religions claimed indigenous people had “no souls” and therefore justified that our people were not “worth saving”. As we all know, this has led to the ethnocide of our people over centuries. 

The burning down of the MACSA community center is not only disheartening for purposes of nostalgia, but also because it’s a product of the gentrification and colonization we have seen for decades. Saving MACSA means giving our community children a safe space while parents are working, and keeping our children safe means preserving our cultura for generations to come.