A couple of weeks ago we spent several hours talking about the state of our community with Adán Mairena, the pastor of West Kensington Ministry.
As we walked around Norris Square, people stopped to chat with us about the the community.
The “Puerto Rico tree” in Norris Park — so designated for the flag painted on its bark — had been damaged by winds, a Parks and Rec worker told us, and he’d had to clear a “widow-maker” branch hung-up in its canopy.

GALAEI — the LGBTQ Latino social justice organization that has its headquarters off Norris Square — was, as we walked, setting out bunches of balloons to mark where it would hold its press conference for Transgender Day of Visibility later in the day.
A young Latino musician, Damani López, made his way into the WKM music studio to put the finishing touches on a CD that would be launched that evening, and a long-time resident stopped to greet Mairena as she hurried along to take care of an elderly member of the community who needed assistance.
Just a morning like many others in one of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.
But the quiet conversation that accompanied our walk illuminates both strengths and challenges that this community in particular faces — the way the community is tightly knit, but somewhat isolated from the rest of Philadelphia.
Mairena tells us about the silkscreening studio WKM has set up, about its clay studio, about plans for lectures and movie screenings. The youth of the neighborhood need opportunities — to build skills, to broaden their horizons — but they are leary of going outside the community to find those opportunities.
And who can blame them?
Just two weeks ago an out-of-context video of a Latina mom with a bunch of misbehaving children on a SEPTA train went viral. They were returning from a visit to an art gallery (outside of the neighborhood) and by some accounts were simply being rambunctious kids until provoked by the person recording the video. It didn’t go without notice that they were Latino and African-American kids — in fact, much of the comment on websites that carried the story  centered on that.
It’s that kind of reaction that makes Latino youth just want to stick close to home. And despite the heroic efforts of organizations like WKM, despite the bootstrap successes of young men like López (look for a story on him from us in the near future), there simply hasn’t been enough investment in the neighborhood to provide decent jobs, educational and cultural opportunities for the youth living there.
How do we increase business and municipal investment in the future of Norris Square, El Bloque de Oro and the rest of El Barrio? Let’s start a conversation about it here — in the Op-Ed section of our website. We invite you to write to us with your ideas, and your plans so that we can help make them a reality.