Joan Yoshiwara Interview, September 11, 2022

Here, which was '92. There are people still had, like, the remnants of the integration of Adams school and Morgan school. So this neighborhood really was mixed and you would walk down the street, and from one part of the block—the starting part of the block to the end of the block, you'd be listening to Spanish music, or Mexican, or it's all the way Spanish. And that is not true now. So I mean literally. And in certain parts of Mount Pleasant you could smell the fish sauce because of the first generation of immigrants that came with the refugees. I mean, you could tell it was totally mixed around this one [Adams Morgan] and Mount Pleasant, mixed everything, okay. And actually when people come back now one the things that keep saying is, "man, there's a lot of white people," [laughs] everywhere around here in the neighborhoods that became gentrified, and Adams Morgan totally cannot be afforded by anybody working class anymore. That's it. No more. And I have a theory—which I can't prove because I'm not going to sit there, do all this research—that It started with the war and contractors. The Iraq War one and Iraq War two. Because before that, I would go from here to College Park to go to work every day. There was a ton of abandoned houses, there'd be a fire once a week, and I remember the control board, and Williams, [several cars honking begins] and they had to start making a lottery for the houses if you had the money in the bank.

I think, you want to pause for a second? [honking continues, gets louder]

Salvador.

Yo, was there an election? Or just—[honking continues from cars passing on the streets behind]

[honking starts to get quieter but continues] There's a guy's face on those cars. Normally, this is when there's some election victory in the country of, but I don't know what that is.

You guys have Google, you can look it up. [honking birefly stops as the first set of cars goes by]

[A car or two that fell behind comes by honking] Also, I wonder if it's a church. Because that doesn't look like a politician, you know, it looks more churchy. It looks like a church thing actually. I'm not really sure, but— Alright, actually, perfect example of what the neighborhood—anything that happened that was a big deal in specific countries of Central America, or culture events, or religious events. You'd have a mini version in Adams Morgan. Not anymore. That's because of who lived here. The Hispanic Festival used to be right, smack—it got to be too big and they moved it, but anyway, the point is that's who lived here. Now there's a lot of lawyers and programmers. It is really not that diverse. It's really a certain income level. Which I'm kind of sorry about.

And that obviously impacts housing, like you talked about cost of housing and these new developments especially, so how is it impacting other spaces in Adams Morgan?

There was a period where you would get bribed for 20 grand to move out. And some people—there are very few people who figured out you can't live anywhere in the city on 20 grand, right? But 20 grand is appealing if you have no money. And there was the 90/10 rule, so that people could flip a condo building and they change that, a lot of things happened where people, low or middle [class], couldn't afford anymore, they just moved. Now it's become one of the most expensive cities in the entire United States, but this was one of the neighborhoods because they started in Northwest, right? And then they moved, now they're in Northeast, Southeast—I mean, they're all over the damn city. But I remember I moved here when it was really cheap. Because it was the murder capital, but it was really diverse. So, that would be the same for even the restaurants you would eat at and stuff like that.

What am I thinking? Oh yeah! So back to my theory about why it happened, a lot of people say it was Williams and the control board, but if there was no money coming in I think really it's the war that—9/11 and the war. All of a sudden it's just tons of money coming into DC and it was a dramatic change. You think it was that it? You think that was it?

What I can tell you—I'm going to sit over there so I don't have to holler. What I can tell you is at that time, after 9/11 they created Homeland Security, they put billions and billions of dollars into building new headquarters with high technology over in Anacostia for the Coast Guard, for the Defense Intelligence Agency, for reconnaissance, there's three or four. They all have their own building, so it's not the old banks anymore, it's called a unified [unclear]. That influx was bringing something like, maybe 20,000 people into the area. And so that is the money. That's why they need the money to bring in these skilled workers. And most of them were not necessarily trained at MIT or University of Southern California, they were trained by the military. They would be detailing them, they would not be over in Virginia at Quantico, they would not be at Fort Myers, they would be right here in the city. So you've got Coast Guard, you have FEMA, you have DC Emergency Management all in the same compound, and the rest of the defense agencies down on the base. Every year you'll see a new mega building. You'll say, "I don't remember that," but it's there. Those are thousands and thousands of employees who are working there and they are not District of Columbia residents.

Well, they became—

They became DC residents, but you know most people who are residents here, I don't think they come to stay, and they don't change their voter registration. They're still voting in their home states. And I mean that needs to be verified, but yeah, you are right about that. Absolutely, 100 percent right, which is why Barry Farms, and the pressure to change that. And if you notice all of the subsidized apartment buildings, they are regentrified people who are there, they are not senior citizens like myself who needs, badly needs a place to live. So, I will end on that, very smart.

That's what I wanted to say! I kind of—

No, you were right, you were saying that! I think that that's the facts!

Yeah, no, no! They keep saying, "oh, it was Williams and then Fenty," I'm like, no, no, no. They had to have money coming from somewhere.

That money was allocated a long time ago, and I think the other thing I saw the news, you notice how we used to have really community-oriented Red Cross workers? We don't have them anymore, because we were down on K Street and I was on the Disaster Assistance Relief Team, they changed it and this General all over the Red Cross. And so he just kind of co-opted the Washington office. You know, the international offices here, and the national offices here, took over the local office. And it just kind of wiped us out. And then those of us that were in the community, they told us we weren't coming downtown anymore. They got rid of that space on K Street. They sent us up to Montgomery County on East-West Highway. That's a fact.

So we're talking about this national security corridor from here to almost Baltimore, or to Baltimore. Tons and tons of money, and what I remember is something as local activists—even labor issues, minor stuff that we're trying to improve in DC—all of them, they started putting people's names inside of national security databases for crimes. Everything became a national security threat.

If you were Black, if you were Asian, if you were anything but one of those employees, yeah I think a lot of us ended up on the, they call it the watch list.

Fusion, Fusion Center list, yeah.

And that's scary. I've been on that list.

So this is all post- 9/11—

So if you go to the airport, they can't keep you from flying but they can slow your entrance to the place.

That's when they started, all those guys at the airport—

And they did that back during J. Edgar Hoover's time, and in World War Two they had those same kinds of list. J. Edgar Hoover also—any black person in America, or person of color, who was above a GS5 in the United States government has an FBI file. Mine is probably like this [gestures height of the file]. But that's real. And that's a horrible thing. I also think that's a part of criminalization which made it difficult for people of color or people who had different political persuasions to get security clearances. Although now it's not supposed to be like that, I don't know.

I said I can't. You got a specific question?

I don't know, I feel like we've covered a lot.

Yeah, no kidding.

You went all over the iceberg!

Are there any changes you're hoping to see in the neighborhood versus that you are seeing, what would you maybe? Either to stop changing or new stuff, anything like that.

So, the people who built the hotel and who bought up that building over there, and—there's still the bubble aspect to real estate speculation. I don't know that they're so sure about it anymore, because [shrugs].

I hope they go broke.

Well, there was one crash, and it looks like another one might be looming—anyway, I really don't—this is what comes when you've been here a long time.

There anything more you want to add or anything?

You never went to Avignone Freres?

I did.

Tell her about Avignone Freres. That was my favorite.

I'm sure there's pictures in DC—

But you're a living person who remembers it.

Most of it, people wanted to be at the outdoor cafe, and it was—wasn't it run by this Central American? And there used to be a lot of Central American activists because they had—the wars were going on, Salvador, Nicaragua—

Guatemala.

—right. And so their educated people were fleeing and coming [points at the street behind her], and you could hear Spanish between all the tables. In fact, wasn't the Chilean contingent who got here first because of the overthrow of Allende? Right, so we're talking about all the activists, the artists, theater people. It became a gathering spot.

This is where the FBI had a field day just trying to catch up, they couldn't because it's like a maze around here.

But, this is totally a sidepoint, this is not Adams Morgan. So the activists from [points]—Where the hell's Kiki from, El Salvador?

I want to say El Salvador.

[points again in the same direction] So them being educated Salvadorans, they basically started running the building that the charter school is in on 16th. What's that called? Yeah. Latin American Youth Center used to be in that big building, and then they move to their own building. That became the center of punk music, and there was a place to play because the Central American activists were like, "sure you want a punk concert?" [laughs and starts to remove the mic pack]

And there was an audio-visual company that was on 15th Street, right around the corner from them where they could get all the equipment, and then somebody opened up the medical clinic, which is still a medical clinic but it's run by different people.

Alright, I'm still recording, so if you want to say one more thing?

[Shakes head no]

No, alright.