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mileycfan4eva33 · 4 years

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Fandom: SVU

Title: Covenant From The Heart

Chapter 1: Violent Moment

P O V: Amanda Rollins

(A/N: Noah, Jessie, Billie do not exist in this fic. I own nothing except my ideas and original characters. All others belong to Wolf Entertainment and NBC.)

Saturday, June 2020

Christopher Street, New York, NY

"I hope you don't mind

I hope you don't mind

That I put down in words

how wonderful life is while you're in this world."

The radio plays as I sit inside the back of the Covenant House Van across from my Captain Olivia Benson, along with two trained Crisis Counselors from Covenant House, New York. Andrea O'Sullivan and Robert "Bobby J" Rodriquez. "Thanks for coming again with me, Amanda."

My smile is tight as I look back at Olivia there is a sadness in her eyes as we turn towards each other. "You're welcome, Liv, did Kat give any reason as to why she couldn't make it tonight?" "her mom has to work a double, and they couldn't find a babysitter last minute on a Saturday."

"Yeah, I hear that could be hard." Olivia sips her coffee, trying to keep warm. "I never mind helping Captain. Covenant House is such an amazing place Olivia, I'm always happy to volunteer for whatever they need."

"Thank you, detective Rollins we try. It isn't easy when we have 20,494 youth who are homeless." Andy's statement sends tremors down my spine. I try to hide the fact that I am shivering, as a cop, I knew those statistics. The number of homeless children in the United States is at its highest in more than a decade.

I can even break down the statistics that roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States that's 2,000 kids who go missing every day in the USA. There are 115 child stranger abduction cases, LGBTQ youth represent as much as 40% of the homeless youth population. Between 1.6-2.8 million youth runaway each year in the United States. Children can begin running as young as ages 10-14. The youngest are the most at-risk for the dangers of street life.

Too many people take the attitude of Children who runaway make their own decisions to go. Let them be, they've made their personal choice and must deal with the consequences. If they want to come home, they will. That is so wrong because once these kids hit the streets, they have hours of reaching an inner-city before they become targets for these pimps. Once the pimps get their hands on these kids, they no longer have a choice. They are property of those pimps, and these monsters would take a bullet before they lose their 'product.' It is estimated that many young people, especially girls, begin engaging in survival sex within 48 hours of leaving home. Sex for food and a place to stay can quickly escalate into formalized prostitution.

I've seen what happens to those kids after becoming branded; they learn quickly to harden themselves and trust no one. The treacherous environment in which they must learn to survive is heartbreaking. They do not always outwardly present as sympathetic victims. They also frequently suffer from short–term and long–term psychological effects such as depression, self-hatred, and feelings of hopelessness. These child victims also need specialized services that are not widely available given they often have illnesses, drug addictions, physical and sexual trauma, lack of viable family and community ties, and total dependence—physical and psychological—on their abusers.

"Amanda, do you want some coffee?" "no, thanks, Liv, I'm good." "Sure you are; that's why I can see those goosebumps on your arms, Rollins." Olivia's left-hand grazes across my left arm, which she has now caused to go stiff in fear. Olivia's touch, smile Liv has no idea how she effects me.

Every hair is standing at attention, my heart racing, face flushed. My brain stutters to find words to respond to Olivia. It should be simple to say those words to tell Olivia how I feel; this is 2020, not 1990. I shouldn't be afraid of rejection to tell someone I have a deep crush on that I have a crush. I've told more than a half of a dozen women in my past that I liked them. I am not ashamed to identify as a lesbian.

Which brings me to question why I haven't confided in anyone I have worked with over the past nine years. Swallow Amanda, just swallow and relax. Olivia has no idea how you feel; she isn't asking you to spill how you feel. She's asking you for a drink stop freaking out you'll look like a fool.

"No, I'm good save the coffee for the kids, they need it more than I do. I'm okay."

"Detective Rollins we have more than enough." that's a lie I know before it even escapes Andy's lips she's just being nice to us since it's rare for cops to volunteer to do ride a long's, the department does not sanction them. 1PP truthfully goes out of their way to discourage us from doing them because they are so dangerous because these pimps could recognize one of us and blow our covers in the future. Sometimes I think they fear we will become too sympathetic with a homeless kid because God forbid NYPD cops be human and understand what life on the streets is actually like; we might let these kids go when indeed we are forced to pick them up for simply trying to stay alive.

Saturday nights are one of the busiest nights in New York City, especially for the homeless population in our impact zones. Turning down Bleeker Street, which is alive with nightclubs blaring music. Flashing neon signs obnoxiously calling out $2 dance bars—other signs signaling their bars, clubs, stores. Panhandlers line every corner, many with bloodshot eyes, sniffling noses, and scanning the crowd from our blackened windows. I can see swindlers working in pairs trying to rob the tourists who unsuspectingly stroll among them the glittering, neon buildings. Many are walking with cell phones out, looking for directions.

Olivia and I both exchange a look knowing half of them will be robbed. There's so much we both want to say but don't. Drug deals go down in plain sight to the untrained eye. It would be easily missed, in between the blaring lights and smells of Colombian bakeries, beauty salons, Mexican restaurants, and bars like the Gentlemen's Club advertising beautiful female dancers. People along this stretch of road hand out business cards emblazoned with half-naked women or fruits and flowers all that advertise "Free Delivery" and typically list the hours of operation between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. It's a cover, of course, the cards are marketing tools of brothels that have set up shop inside private homes and apartments.

As the hour is growing later, the tourists are fading away; the clubs are starting to shut down, and the other Christopher Street, the one never mentioned in magazines, or featured on the nightly news and morning talk shows comes alive. This is our Christopher Street teens strutted past in the dark, often stopping to air kiss, catcall, or sometimes brawl.

Young LGBTQ youth in platform thigh-high boots, buttocks-revealing denim shorts, red-pleather boleros with matching caps and tops of the backless, sleeveless, or even frontless variety, those on the nightly parade here do anything but hide. They compete for best outfit, /best moves in nightly dance battles that rage beside the Hudson River to the sound of a boombox on the pier at the end of the street.

The teens are beautiful, but the night-life here is ugly, violent, and scary; the teens themselves often fight turning violent. Customers drunk throw glasses, bottles, or try to take the girls, ripping hair out, beating them. Not every person working is trying to cause problems; of course, there are many just trying to get by to pay rent that now topples over $3,000. I can barely afford my apartment in Brooklyn with my salary.

Cops are lining every street, but we are not here as cops Olivia and I are riding with the covenant house team to help them reach the kids whoa re too afraid to find Covenant House or don't know that help exists. We are reaching to find kids who need food, warmth, and shelter. We provide sandwiches, beverages, ears to the kids if they are ready to tell their stories.

In the van we provide education about sex, pregnancies, STD prevention, we give them condoms. We let them cry, scream, ask questions, or sit in silence; we let the kids choose what they need when they need it. Many have never been given a choice of anything in their lives. We gain the kids' trust and, when ready, we will get them to our crisis shelters, where they're given love and support to permanently stay off the streets. Some stay only a few days and decide they aren't ready to give up the life they know. They have to be willing to be drug-free and make other commitments to stay at Covenant House. Some, however, remain with Covenant House and complete the whole program.

Frequently it takes multiple interactions before the kids will trust those of us on the outreach team enough to accept our offers of help they've simply been burned by adults too many times in their lives.

"So Captain Benson, my boss tells me you've been coming on these rides along's since you joined SVU in 1999. Any specific reasons?"

Andy's question perks my interests in the nine years I have known Olivia; I have never known the answer to this question myself. For the first six years, when I went on these outreach trips, I never knew she went along. I only found out three years ago when we were paired together by accident on a night when they had more volunteers than vans. I never asked myself for fear of having to answer the same question back; it's a part of my past. I have kept hidden for many years. I have no intention of starting to share that story now.

"I was on the job about two months with Special Vics when we came across the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who we had to arrest for selling drugs to her classmates, sometimes in exchange for sexual favors. The whole Squad called her Spoiled Sally because she came from the upper west side, went to a private school. She had all the advantages of a rich kid, yet she chose to squander her life by selling drugs."

"You thought there was more to her story though, Olivia, didn't you?"

"You know me well, Amanda." Olivia has no idea how well I know her how I have spent my whole adult life, and most of my teens years studying her career trying to be half the cop she is. Olivia has no idea that I listen to every conversation hoping to gather a new detail I didn't know already. I know her favorite, color, movie, TV show, her worst fears, her dreams. I know which ice cream flavor she likes best, her favorite spot for ice cream, who her favorite baseball team is, and which sport she hates the most. I know Olivia uses vanilla body lotion but hates vanilla ice cream.

My body shivers despite being June. The temperature is dropping fast the later it gets. "I did think there was more, so I started investigating further. Interviewing her friends, teachers, classmates. Came to learn Sally transferred schools six times over the last year, she had moved from city to city since she was six years old."

Olivia bites her lower lip as she laughs slightly "Amanda you'll love this part, my boss told me to drop it, or he would transfer me, I couldn't drop it, I defied his orders and kept digging. I matched her picture into enhanced facial recognizing came to discover our Spoiled little Sally was Marcella Marginals, a kidnapped girl from Mexico who vanished at age six when her family was on vacation over there. They let go of her hands for two minutes, and she was snatched. Marcella was smuggled into different cities by different men. Who caged her up like an animal beat her raped her, sold her from family to family."

"This last family was an elderly couple who never had kids of their own; the man who sold her to them kept weekly checks on her forced her to sell drugs for him. Raped her weekly to keep her in-line raped the wife weekly to keep the parents quite. When we went to collect Marcella, the bastard was there raping the wife, the husband an 82-year-old man who could barely move was tied to the chair. A battle broke out between the police and the pimp, Marcella was shot in the battle, by my gun. I was devastated. I felt as if it was my fault if I had left it alone, as my boss told me. Marcella would be alive no matter how hard her life was, at least she drew breath. Because of me, that sweet girl was dead."

"All my co-workers kept telling me it wasn't my fault; it was just part of the job. I had to accept it as God's plan. I couldn't though, I mean, how did God see that to be fair? How could any God justify a fourteen-year-old girl being raped, beaten suffering every day as okay?"

"So I headed to my favorite bar to get there I had to pass the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, I wasn't raised in any dominant religion growing up, but I felt drawn to it. I felt like I needed to talk to God, to let him know how angry I was at him."

"At first, all I could do was sit there, staring at the candles, the altar, tears running down my face. I have no idea how long I sat there for; till I felt the gentle touch of Sister Mary Rose McGeady, she sat by me and listened to me. Then she said something to me that has stayed with me my whole life; she replied ours is not to ask God why; ours is simply to close our eyes and listen to our hearts, and believe God always has a reason why. It's hard at times, but I made a promise to God to listen; he has to lead me to my calling to help kids on the street, his kids."

"As you know at the time, Sister McGeady was the president of Covenant House from 1990-2003. She took me to the house and showed me the center; I spoke to counselors, volunteers, and the kids themselves. I fell in love with the mission, with the kids the staff. I knew I had to try to make a difference."

"I started doing the outreach van around 12 years ago, at first, it was just because it was always so short-staffed, not many people volunteer to do something so dangerous. Then it became another passion for me."

I reach over and take Olivia's hand "you know Marcella's death wasn't your fault, Liv. No more than Easter's was mine."

"I know Amanda, up here, I know that." She points to her head, "But in here." Olivia's hand moves to her heart. "that takes reminding I am sorry I couldn't comfort you after telling you about Easter, I should have held you talked to you instead of getting up and walking away. The memories of that day hit me so hard; I think I am moving on, and then I am hit with a wave of guilt so intense it takes my breath away."

"Liv, it's okay. I needed my Captain than you did what I needed. You gave me time to cry, scream you stayed in the room, so I knew you were there, but you gave me privacy. No one can take someone else to pain away. But having you in that room brought me comfort."

Olivia smiles at me as Bobby J speaks "You two should come Tuesday for our annual Sleep-out for Covenant House, we have a line-up of stars who are performing and over 1,000 people who have signed up to raise money for our kids by sleeping out."

"Yeah, sounds good, Amanda?" "I'm in for sure."

"So Miss southern sweet tea, what is your story? I know you got one." My body tenses at his suggestion I feel all eyes on me my heart races as my stomach twists. How am I suppose to get out of this one? "Don't be bashful to spill your game." Bobby J nudges me as I fight to keep my nausea from spilling out onto the van's floor. If Olivia knew the truth, she would never look at me the same ever again.

"Help me!" Loud, intense screams ricochet off the buildings in the side-street where we are parked; a young girl comes racing out of the cover of darkness shadow. So fast her legs stumble, but she doesn't allow herself to fall; she can't she's running for her life. Those skinny legs barely hold her body up, yet she hurls herself forward, never glancing back. I can hear her heavy breathing as she approaches "not here." she points to two streets over. Eyes glance at us. I see the pain and fear "My man he's watching he'll see me get in, I'm dead then, he'll know where to find me."

She's gone in a flash, hurling her skinny body down the side streets in a race for her life, dodging into different avenues. The van squeals to life as our driver Michelle steps on the gas, the girl's arms pump flying as she dodges cars, people she isn't quitting or playing. It's pitch black out here now except the glow of a few broken street lights.

Michelle flips off our headlights as we reach the street the girl wanted us to, we sit in silence the radio shut off now. Our heartbeats are the only sounds slowly. I get out my legs a little shaky from being crouched in a van for hours. Olivia follows me closely behind as seconds tick into minutes both of us praying her man as she called him didn't find her, which we know damn well means her pimp. Rustling has us both turning around I spot her first she comes running full speed towards us, fooling her pimp she had run around the block twice; New York blocks ain't no joke either, they are long.

This girl is in eight-inch heels her feet must hurt so bad I feel tears well up I can barely walk in those types of heels nerve mind run. The girl is only twenty- yards away from us. I can see the depth of fear in her cyan blue eyes. An ocean deep of pain she is so close to safety just within feet of being saved Olivia and I are both tense ready to grab her up. The squeals of tires alert us to a sense of danger; I don't think twice I take off "Rollins!" Olivia yells as I pump my legs harder than they have ever been pumped before. Hoping that this girl can see it in my eyes that she can trust me, she can reach better days if she reaches out, allows me to take her hands. Gets in this van with me, I can help her find the sunshine behind these rainy days. Sometimes one person can make a difference. I close my eyes every day I pray I can be that person.

My hands reach the girl at the very last second my lungs are screaming in pain, I can barely breathe my muscles are straining with every-step. "Grab my hands, don't let go no matter what I got you." My arms wrap around the girl's frail body as my feet make a sudden turn burning my heels. I pull her body racing to the van as doors fly open. "Rollins, get down!" Olivia screams as a hail of bullets rain down on us I push the girl into the van slam the door and bang on it. Michelle takes off my legs give out as I crash to the ground Olivia is returning fire. I can't breathe or think my legs are twitching in pain I can feel my blood filling my mouth as I start to cough.

I can't seem to focus on anything. Every breath is harder to inhale and exhale. "Amanda, it's Olivia we've got to move, they took off, but they'll be back we just cost them a major investment. Can you move at all?"

Olivia's arms lift me pain stabs me at every angle it's mild though so after a few breaths I can put pressure on my legs she doesn't let go of my arm though pulling me along with her as we race to meet the van a few blocks over. Sweat pours down my body as my stomach cramps I feel flushed. I'm losing blood I can feel how weak I am, but I have no idea where or how serious it is. "Amanda that was stupid as hell, we are off-duty you know the department does not cover any injury you get, any action you take as a citizen which means you face the same charges they face. No union rep to cover for you."

"Yeah, I know Liv, and it also means I don't have to play by the rules."

"Amanda, it doesn't mean you get to risk your life."

"It's mine to risk Olivia, and if you ain't willing to risk your life, why are you out here?"

"Uh! Why are all the bad-asses so damn stubborn!"

"That's what makes us hot."

"Yeah, I know that's why the bad-asses like you are always the one who looks the most fuckable."

My ears ring did Olivia Benson just say she wanted to what with me? I stop moving physically, yet my Vertigo didn't get the message. I can't speak all I can do is stare at Olivia, watch her long legs so muscular her statuesque frame so lean and beautiful, long dark hair loosely held back with a decorative clip. Her appearance takes my breath away. She smiles as she slowly moves us towards the van.

All I can do is picture her lying on top of me on her bed as she places her mouth over my clit. A direct hit, her gorgeous lips closing around it and lapping at it with her tongue. Her hands hold my hips as I try to buck against her face; she is a master at getting me off like this. I can feel an orgasm building in my walls, I can feel the heat rising as I writhe under her face, and just as she is about to push me over the edge, she inserts a single slender finger inside as she does I feel the first wave of fire rising and spreading through me. I come hard onto her hand as she rapidly pumps two fingers in and out while she sucks on my clit.

"Amanda, move!" My head peaks up from the daydream of Olivia, and I making love seconds too late as the car comes speeding towards us headlights as bright as the Georgia summer sun. Michelle rushes towards us, Andy and Bobby J throw open the doors. "Get in!" Olivia's hands push my body into the van's. I feel Andy and Bobby grab me pulling my limp body up as Olivia screams at Michelle. to"Go."

Wait, where is Olivia going? Why didn't she get in with me? Gunfire fills the air as I try to stand but am thrown back against the wall hard as Michelle takes off, tires squealing. "Calvin!" I hear Olivia's scream as my head slams into the floor, sending me crashing into a world of blackness. All I can do is pray; God keep Olivia safe.

A/N: For More information on how you can help Covenant House and Homeless Youth visit their website

Our Youth deserve a kinder, better world than the one we have today. Let us commit to building this world together. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13643440/1/Covenant-From-The-Heart

#svu #Rolivia #AmandaRollins #OliviaBenson #HomelessKids #Youth #LGBTQ #Fanfiction

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sdconnection-blog · 7 years

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By Michael Good

Let’s rethink the historic designation process by populating architectural homes with historical homeowners

For better or worse, California’s Mills Act has come to define what it means for a house to be historic in San Diego.

A house can qualify based on a number of criteria but, basically, historians are looking for a “yes” to any one of four questions: Is the architect or builder a recognized master? Is the house a significant part of an already designated historic neighborhood? Does the house represent an outstanding example of a recognized house type or style? Was a former resident a historic figure?

It’s the answer to that last question that most people associate with historic houses — in the popular imagination it’s not enough that a house is architecturally significant. People want to know that something historical happened there — and that it happened to an historical person. George Washington was born there. George Washington slept there. George Washington had a beer, had an argument, made a plan, started a revolution, told a lie, chopped down a tree, danced with his wife, danced with John Adams’s wife. Something. But in reality, very, very rarely in San Diego is a house declared historic because of a former resident.

The reason is simple: There are no established criteria for what makes a person historic in San Diego. For the builder, there is a list. Getting on that list is the result of a steady drip, drip, drip of evidence. It’s like a court case where circumstantial evidence piles up until the verdict is inescapable: The builder was responsible for five houses in an historic neighborhood; six more of his houses in other neighborhoods are excellent examples of Spanish Eclectic architecture; he apprenticed with Richard Requa; he partnered with master builder Carl B. Hays; he built more than 100 houses in Mission Hills, North Park, South Park and Kensington. The evidence mounts. Eventually there’s a tipping point, and the builder gets added to the all-important list of master builders.

But there’s no list for historic homeowners. And it doesn’t really make sense to have one, since this historic house process starts with, well, a house. What we need is a framework for establishing whether a person — not a house — deserves historic designation. Here are my suggestions:

Anyone who had anything to do with the 1915 Panama California Exposition. The 1915 Expo is the biggest thing San Diegans have ever agreed to do together. And this is a city that has a hard time agreeing on anything. Airports, stadiums, football teams, how thoroughly to sanitize our sewage. But pretty much the entire city agreed on the Expo — and attended it.

Admittedly, “anyone who had anything to do with” is a pretty wide net. But a good place to start is with the 100 or so tuxedo-clad fellows who attended the epic dinner party where the plan was hatched. (The guest list was printed in the newspaper, so we know who was there.) The principal architects of the Expo — Goodhue, Davidson, Collier, Spreckels, etc. — deserve a nod, of course, as do the movers and shakers listed in Richard Amero’s book on the Exposition.

Political figures. Let’s at least start with the mayor. A president or two would be nice. A governor perhaps. But if a sitting mayor conducts business in his home, from his bedroom, while propped up in bed, really, that should be enough to designate the house as historic. (It wasn’t, however, in a case from a couple years ago.)

Industry leaders. Particularly industries that have shaped our city: The military. Fishing. Airplane manufacturing. Aerospace. Telecom. Bioscience. Education.

Those who lived in infamy. History is not always pretty. How society actually works becomes clear when someone screws up. The backroom deals only become apparent when someone gets caught. San Diego has had its share of scandals. And we’ve usually had the press to record them. And Genealogy Bank to look them up. And Ancestry.com to check if the woman our infamous historical figure took that cruise to Hawaii with was really his wife.

Hidden figures. In recent months I’ve written about women builders, architects and designers. Some, such as Louise Severin, were for many years all but ignored by history (and the Historic Resources Board). Others, such as Alice Klauber, seemed to court anonymity. Klauber’s behind-the-scenes negotiations to get women accommodated at the 1915 Expo weren’t widely reported at the time. Her decorations for the women’s building were. She was too well-mannered to require recognition. People of African, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese and Native American descent were also often overlooked by history. It’s not that they weren’t out there doing stuff, it’s that polite society wasn’t there to record it.

Trendsetters. We recognize the architects who were on the cutting edge of fashion — for example, the first to bring arts and crafts to San Diego. We should recognize people who set social trends as well. Not just the first woman president of a college, but the first woman president to wear a pantsuit, flash the peace sign, join a commune and retire to raise alpacas on Mt. Woodson. And lets not forget the first guy to mount skateboard wheels to a flexible board, the first San Diegan to ride a redwood surfboard, and Ted Williams, the first Major League ballplayer to emerge from the shadow of the water tower, who became a great ballplayer because he happened to live across the street from a baseball diamond in North Park (and why isn’t that house designated?).

People who built houses, but weren’t master builders. The carpenters who designed and built the built-ins. The stained glass artists, the tile designers, the guy (still unidentified) who designed the pyrographic, art deco style front doors for Spanish houses in 1929 and 1930. We already recognize the master builders. Let’s celebrate the master plasterer who could make stucco look like stone and the master painter who rag-rolled ceilings to look like clouds at sunset.

Establishing historic significance for residents should be no different than determining master status for builders: It would require the steady accumulation of evidence. Being the mayor is good. Being a civil engineer as well as mayor is better. Designing a magnificent suspension footbridge that has stood the test of time would seal the deal, as it should for Mayor and City Engineer Edwin Capps, who designed the Spruce Street Suspension Bridge. (Having a street named after you doesn’t hurt either. Capps even dipped his toe in a juicy, or at least damp, scandal: he hired rainmaker Charles Hatfield in 1915.)

Let’s consider another mayor, Enrique Aldrete, who was the president of the municipality of Tijuana at the time of the Mexican Revolution in 1913 and 1914, Mexican Consul in San Ysidro after that, and secretary of the Baja government prior to those two appointments. In 1929, Aldrete moved to a house on Marlborough in Kensington that was recently designated historic by the HRB (but not because of its first owner).

The Enrique and Esperanza Aldrete house during restoration, in 2015, master builder Carl. B Hays. (Photo by Michael Good)

Aldrete later wrote a book about his experiences during the revolution. He was also a custom broker, had an early version of a department store (Cinco de Mayo) in Tijuana, operated a store on this side of the border as well, and was, with his brother Alberto and Miguel Gonzalez, among the first Mexicans to live in North Park (he and his brother also lived in South Park and then moved with their families to Kensington in the late 1920s — during a time when many neighborhoods had deed restrictions designed to keep Mexicans out.

His family owned land in the center of Tijuana (which became the country club), he was the president of Tijuana Chamber of Commerce, and the Aldretes were among the oldest and most established families in northern Baja. He was related by marriage to the Estudillo family, one of the oldest in San Diego (their house in Old Town is now a historic museum). Aldrete was also friendly with mayors, governors and presidents. Two Mexican presidents, when they retired, moved to Kensington, presumably because the Aldretes lived there. (President Abelardo Rodriquez purchased his brother Alberto’s house.) Enrique could cross the border without papers, because the agents knew him by name (this according to a border agent’s notes on Aldrete’s crossing card).

Enrique Aldrete

So … Enrique Aldrete. Trendsetter, check. Major politician, check. Hidden figure, check. (In fact, he had been pretty much forgotten on this side of the border until the current owners of his Marlborough house looked him up at the San Diego History Center’s research library.) Aldrete was also a business leader; he was a founder of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce and the Tijuana Country Club. Online I found an account by his daughter Carmen, on the occasion of her 100th birthday in 1913, remembering fondly Jefferson Elementary in North Park, which she attended, and the house on Marlborough, where she lived as a young woman. She also recalled how when she and her father crossed the border, everyone on both sides, Mexican and U.S. agents alike, greeted him by name.

Like a slowly dripping faucet, the evidence accumulates and pretty soon it just seems reasonable and prudent to stop fighting it and accept that Enrique Aldrete is a historic person. In fact, he represents someone who can’t exist today: a binational businessman and politician who could freely cross the border and exist with feet planted in both countries. Rather than look for reasons why he can’t be considered historic (such as the claim that his biggest accomplishments were on the other side of the border) we should consider how he represents a historic type that has long gone unrecognized, a member of the Mexican aristocracy that provides a bridge between the California of the Dons and the California of the dot-coms, between Mexican Territorial-era San Diego and 21st-century San Diego in the age of the Great Big Beautiful Wall.

We don’t know where the future will take us but we do have the opportunity to discover where we’ve been — and to find, perhaps, a clue to our future.

—Contact Michael Good at [email protected].

The post A modest proposal appeared first on San Diego Uptown News.

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Original Article Provided By: SDUptownNews.com A modest proposal By Michael Good Let’s rethink the historic designation process by populating architectural homes with historical homeowners…

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