Evelyn Reyes

Evelyn Reyes

I’m first generation American. My mother came to the US when she was 19 from the Dominican Republic. My brother and I were born in Brooklyn, New York and we moved to Jamaica Plain in 1975.

I am one of the hosts and producer of Boston Latino TV. Digna Gerena a Puerto Rican woman, is the executive producer, and we are entering 5th year of being on the air. We are a public access show but we put all our segments on YouTube. So if we tape something today, in 2 or 3 days Digna will edit it really, really fast and put it on YouTube, and then our show runs weekly on Saturdays on Channel 23. Our mission is to engage viewers in thought provoking topics with the Latino point of view. In Jamaica Plain we covered when El Oriental burned down- when he had his grand opening we were there, and we interviewed Nobel. We’ve covered the JP worlds fair on Centre Street, several of our friends were in bands and they were playing in the festival, and we covered that. We do some stuff in Jamaica Plain, but we try to cover all the cities in Boston, so we do Dorchester, the South End, you know wherever there’s something Latino going, on we try to be there.

There’s been a lot of changes, people wise, as far as who lives here, the way Jamaica plain looks. I remember Eggleston Station, which is not there anymore, I remember when they put in the orange line down over by where Jackson square is. There used to be this big, black bridge and it would get full of water underneath, and you couldn’t walk under there when it rained. And uh Centre Street has gone through a lot of changes, there are a lot more small businesses then there were before. The penny candy store is gone, Woolthworth is gone. Woolworth used to be where the big Footlocker is over by JP Licks up Centre Street. The penny candy store was a big thing for me. My bus stop- when I went to school- was in front of the penny candy store, so that is completely gone. Several businesses are completely gone. There used to be a beauty parlor next door to Pimentel Market, that was where my mother and I would get our hair done, and that’s completely gone. Dominican women go every week [laughs]. Rolos is like the national culture. We’re very hair conscious.

I love to go to Mangos, I love to dance salsa and merengue so I’ll go to Mangos on the weekends when I can. I love El Oriental de Cuba, I get my café con leche there. I used to work in Tropical Market, which is now called Camilo Market. Tropical Market used to be on Chestnut ave and that’s where my family is. My mother owns a house on Chestnut avenue and Tropical Market used to be right across the street from my house, so I used to work there when I was a teenager, so I’ll try to go in there every so often to get little things that I need. I also go to JP Seafood Café which is further up Centre street. And my new favorite spot is Salmagundi, the hat store on Centre Street. And I go to the Footlight Club as well to catch some of the shows that they do there. There’s a Latino theatre group called Escena Latina and sometimes they put shows on at the Footlight Club.

Property value has gone way up, same as the lady before me way saying. The property value has gone so far up that the people that have lived here for a really long time, if they haven’t purchased something, you know, in the 80s when it was really cheap, now it is very difficult for them to purchase. My mom bought her home in 81/82 and she paid all of $23,000 for a three family house in Jamaica Plain and that’s a down payment these days. So I tell her, “Don’t sell it, you’re not going to sell it, we’re staying there forever and ever and ever.” She gets letters in the mail from people that are part of the gentrification of Jamaica Plain that want to buy her house, offering her money. And I’m like “No!” Rip rip rip, “Throw it in the garbage, we’re not selling.” So that’s a big change in Jamaica Plain, a lot of the wealthier people are coming in and buying up the properties that, you know, the not-so-wealthy people that have lived here for a long time can’t afford. It changes the flavor of the community because when lot of the same kind of people move in it sort of becomes very bland – not bland, but just. excitement is more when you have different people, when everyone brings their culture, their food, their music, how they relax, their style, it adds flavor to a community. When its all the same kind of people its kind of like, you look over here you see the same thing, you look over here, you see the same thing, and in Jamaica Plain in my experience it’s never been that way. There are Syrian people on the street that I grew up in, there are some Asian people, there are some Ethiopian people. I grew up with Italian families all around me, so I’ve been eatin pizzales since I was a little girl and you know in the Dominican Republic nobody eats pizzales because it’s an Italian thing. We grew up having mixed cultures on our street, and that has added a lot to my life, and my brother’s life, as far as enrichment and knowing about other cultures.

What changes would you like to see in your community?

That’s kind of a difficult question for me cuz I kindof like JP the way it is. You know, I like the tiny little shops, the mom and pop places, I don’t want those places to go away but if big business moves in they’re going to squeeze out the little guy and that’s a problem. What I guess I would like is more support to the small businesses so that they can maintain, and expand, and move with the growing technology so it’s beneficial for them to stay there, and beneficial to the residents. So no I don’t want it to change!

JP in three words?

Eclectic … family-oriented … & diverse.

I love JP. If somebody says to me, that lives in Massachusetts, “Where are you from?” I say “JP.” and then they go, “JP?” And then I say “Oh, you’re not from Boston, so you don’t know: it’s Jamaica Plain.” So yea, I love JP. I recently bought the little JP sticker that they have at one of the shops on Centre Street and I stuck it on my calendar cuz I’m so happy to be from JP.