Losing Fresno’s cultural history: Letters to the editor, Sept. 5, 2021

Destroying Fresno’s cultural past

It was sickening to read the headline, “ Fresno’s oldest theater gutted….”, The Bee, 8/12/21.

After calming down and reflecting on the incompetence of those responsible for the preservation of Fresno’s history, my anger slowly wilted and my agony calmed to almost a saddened whimper of a cry.

How could these fools overlook what is the heart of our past. Either they don’t care horse pucky about history or are too young to share in the nostalgic emotions attached to those Sundays seated in immensely beautiful houses of entertainment in yesterday’s halcyon memories of 100 years of life in Fresno, when nickels and dimes brought joy into ones’ life.

Heads should roll. This blunder begs the question, does preserving our past reveal our values? Does our sum of our cultural past need shepherds who understand these values, understand who we are? Understand what makes Fresno unique?

To my chagrin, we have lost many of our theater palaces, our heritage: the Whites theater, essentially the Sequoia, and Chinatown’s infamous movie houses. I relished those Westerns, Audie Murphy, the Cal theater, Lyceum, and my grandma taking me to see Mexican movies, eg., “Nosotros Los Pobres,” at the Azteca theater as a young boy. How I dreamed of watching Zorro, the Cisco kid, Tim Holt and many heroes at the Mayfair, where I spent my childhood.

If not cautious, we are heading into the new century, for that fact, the new millimia, bent on destroying the past century of Fresno’s finest cultural assets.

Misses popular songs about love

Social media and misinformation are toxins. Too many people have become addicted to social media and talk TV and radio shows. Whatever happened to listening to popular songs about love, kindness, and doing the right thing?

Power must be shared equally

What is up with conservative white people these days? They are making up outrageous lies about Trump winning the election without any credible evidence whatsoever. They are restricting voting laws to disenfranchise people of color using the “big lie” as justification. They are up in arms about the teaching of critical race theory, threating to recall all members of school boards who would allow such teachings.

The reason these folks are embracing white supremist groups, trying to peddle outright fantasies as truth and attempting to dismantle our democracy, is that they are terrified that white people are losing control of this country. They view this land as belonging to white people and are afraid to share what has always been their total dominance of our society with nonwhites.

However, changing demographics indicate that in the near future whites will no longer be the majority group in this country. These folks need to come to the realization that we are all Americans of equal standing, regardless of skin color, as our Constitution mandates. This country will only become truly unified when people of all races are treated equally and power is shared fairly by all demographics.

Promises not kept, lawsuit considered

I read where Mr. Kashian is filing a lawsuit over Campus Pointe — poor Mr. Kashian. I wonder who is going to sue him over all the promises he spoke about when Francher Creek was being discussed.

No time to delay on climate change

Recently we saw the release of the IPCC's latest report on the climate crisis, and what we saw should alarm all Valley residents. We are seeing impacts worse and decades sooner than scientists originally predicted. Historic wildfires and heat domes are now a yearly occurrence. Only weeks ago, while in Boston, I saw and breathed the smoke and haze from over 2,000 miles away. As I write this letter, the Dixie Fire is raging on in our beloved Sierra Nevada. But it does not have to be this way.

In the IPCC report, it also predicted we have one glimmer of hope: strong, immediate climate action. Renewable energy at a scale never before seen. A price on carbon. Decarbonization of the whole economy. Yes, it is asking a lot, and no, it will not be easy. But we as a country have handled crises like this before. And we can do it again if we tell our representatives our future matters to us.

If we do, we will have the honor of leaving a clean and bountiful world for our children to inherit.

But first we must act. We can delay no further.

Contact your electeds on climate

Recent climate news has been depressing: catastrophic fires in California, Turkey, Greece and Siberia; devastating floods in Germany and China; the just-released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which says that this is the new normal if we don't drastically reduce our emissions. Am I the only one who feels overwhelmed?

Joan Baez once said that action is the antidote to despair. One quick and simple action we can all take is to contact Reps. Costa, McCarthy, McClintock or Nunes to urge them to do something big for climate, and support a price on carbon.

Many scientists and economists agree that putting a price on carbon would be the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed required by the climate crisis.

Learn more and contact your representative at cclusa.org/house.

MLK visit before Watts uprising

The recent Fresno Bee article on the Watts Riots it brought back sad memories. I lived in Orange County at the time,and worked in a bank at LAX as a loan officer. All bank employees were travelling to and from work with guns on their passenger seats. I remember driving onto the Harbor Freeway on my way home the first day of the riots. Looking along Century Blvd towards Watts and seeing a gas station & several burning vehicles.The freeway was patrolled with National Guard members with mounted machine guns!

The day prior to the outbreak, Martin Luther King visited our bank at LAX. We nodded to each other as he walked to the tellers counter. His visit only lasted perhaps 10 minutes, and many of the bank’s employees recognized him. The curious thing was that there was never a mention of MLK’s visit in the press or the news.

This story was originally published September 5, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Losing Fresno’s cultural history: Letters to the editor, Sept. 5, 2021."