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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

New Casa for Casa?

posted by on October 17 at 17:19 PM

Casa Latina may have finally found a home. The service agency for migrant day laborers, which has been looking for a new location since late 2004, is exploring a move to 18th and Jackson in the Central District, according to several sources familiar with negotiations. Last May, they gave up a months-long attempt to move into a vacant Chubby & Tubby garden center at Rainier and Walden Aves. (I learned today that residents call their neighborhood Chubby & Tubby Heights. Great name for a commercial district, if you ask me.)

Casa abandoned its effort to move into the Chubby & Tubby site after neighborhood groups waged a savage ongoing protest, using every chance they could to complain that the day laborers would bring crime and blight to a viable commercial intersection. The resulting acrimony between the Black and Latino communities left up-and-coming Black pol Darryl Smith—who opposed Casa’s plans to move in—with a major dent to his reputation.

Sources say the Central District community actually worked to facilitate CASA’s move. How and why that happened is still unclear.

RSS icon Comments

1

Simple. Darryl (I ran Casa Latina out of the Valley) Smith cant get the white xenophobic folks from Mount Baker all wound up. And he can’t get that Pentecostal church next to Chubby and Tubby up in arms about the Mexicans moving in. But they’re fine with world vision being there, even though Darryl (I’m a Buddhist) Smith was talking all kinds of smack about wanting a big business there to welcome folks into the Valley. Douche bag!!

Finally, and get this through your heads, there is not fight between The African American community and the Latino community, there never has been and never will be, that was just Darryl ( Buddhist) Smith, who if you read his Seattle Weekly blow job of a piece is not close to the African American community because he wants to represent “all” of Seattle.

Posted by SeMe | October 17, 2006 5:35 PM
2
Sources say the Central District community actually worked to facilitate CASA’s move. How and why that happened is still unclear.
Ask a Mexican -- he'll know why!
Posted by h0ratiosanzserif | October 17, 2006 5:37 PM
3

Wow. White people have so much power. The ugliness between CASA and the "community" was not about black vs. Latino. It was about fear. White people living around Chubby & Tubby and in the Mt Baker neighborhood were afraid of anyone not fitting the right profile -- nice, polite, preferably white families who just wanted to be left alone to raise their nice, polite and preferably white children, in a nice, polite and preferably white neighborhood and who believe they are "progressive" people committed to diversity, equality and fairness (as long as you're nice, polite and preferably white). They are against the war, agaist Bush and against homeless people, poor people, brown and black people if they are not nice, polite and, well, you get the idea. Nice, polite, progressive white people stirred up the trouble and tried to create a battle between the black and the brown. Didn't work. The only folks who played their game were others who just want to believe that white is right. Unfortunately that included some black folks doing the biddin' of the master. But the rest of us know better.

shame on you, Stranger, for bringing it up all over again. And I feel sorry for Darryl. He's a swell guy.

Posted by jojo | October 17, 2006 9:44 PM
4

Casa - Good luck, I welcome you to the 18th and Jackson area. I don't know too much about your organization, but support the cause of immigrant rights. All residents of Seattle - White, Black, Latino, Asian, Native - all benefit from the labor and work ethic of Latino immigrants in our city and we should support their organization.

Posted by Reader22 | October 18, 2006 9:34 AM
5

Wow, a writer for the Stranger ripping on Darryl Smith. Keep it up, Angela! Don't let them over-edit you or push you into boring city hall personality politics!

Posted by fresh face | October 18, 2006 9:35 AM
6

I hope Casa comes to 18th and Jackson--that's just a few blocks from my house, where a private elementary school, the MLK daycare, a latino church and a foodbank all share essentially the same block without everyone having hysterics. Casa would be a welcome change from the condo-riffic development running rampant in our area--if people in my neighborhood make a big stink about this it will be a sad, sad day for the CD.

Posted by Courtney | October 18, 2006 9:50 AM

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