 Hello, my name is Jesus Sierra. I was born in Havana, emigrated to the Mission District when I was 12 I lived half a block from a Michelin rated restaurant, Pacos Tacos It was I was that was that was the bomb back then Anyway, I'm gonna read from my essay Soul Music on the things just wait for including me in this And it's about about what's happening in the mission these days, and this is really the middle of it I can't read the whole thing so In the 70s neighborhood garage parties and red black with red or black lights were also crowded Smokey and yes, we all drank then too But like the subtitle the final stars break through 1971 album our Latin thing. It was indeed Nuestra cosa our thing Couples swayed as if riding the same wave mirroring each other steps the bass the drums the ta ta ta ta ta of the clave The of the clave rhythms while the horns burst out the melody and the vocals kept us in the groove Not just with the music, but also with each other There was ease to it all the ease that came with the familiar our moves felt inevitable like breathing Here at the cigar bar the music seems to be background noise to the dancers It seems as if only alcohol or maybe wanting to appropriate our cultures or as their own Spurs them to the dance floor This type of cultural appropriation is not different in that that different from what I see these days in the mission My old neighborhood what used to be a predominantly Latino neighborhood is now a host hosts to a proliferation of new residential condo buildings unaffordable to the working class The new buildings are named with words like vida life as if baptizing them in Spanish word in Spanish words will somehow preserve the heritage of the neighborhood The past is being rewritten by these modern-day Columbus's Developers and the rich settlers who inhabit inhabit their their new buildings. I reminded of this when I see a bar called amnesia the Alamo draft house Which now occupies the old new mission theater they kept the marquee sign from the original theater because it was deemed to be historic Since and held this it held some level of architectural significance the crown theater across the street used to alternate Mexican movies with American films It house innumerable memories for many of us But it holds no such historical significance significance to them It too is now gone The new structures replace old stores like new berries and 23rd admission. I used to buy shoes there as a kid There were two large bins on the sidewalk in front of the store one filled with left-footed shoes The other with right-footed shoes If you found the one you like one that you like that fit you needed to rifle through the other bin to find a match It was always fun to barter with if you happen to find someone yet someone else holding the matching shoe Although those memories remain the landscape and the people who evoked evoked them are largely gone. Thank you