East L.A. has fucking had it up to here with you telling them where and when to erect light poles. The area, popularly associated with Latinos, wants to become its own city:

“We’re a nationally branded area,” said Diana Tarango, vice president of the East Los Angeles Residents Association, the prime backer of the effort. “We should be making our own decisions about planting trees on the street or putting up light poles.”

Everyone else, though, is kind of like, “Whatever. Poors:”

While outsiders often see the area as gang-plagued and poverty-ridden, East L.A. possesses cultural and political symbolism for Mexican-Americans.

Underminey!

For decades, East L.A. has been a first stop for immigrants just over the border, though these days there are nearly as many Salvadoran pupuserias selling filled tortilla patties as Mexican taquerias selling tacos.

Neighborhoods seem plucked straight from Latin American villages: a backyard rooster can be heard crowing, or a man peddles the rice-based drink horchata from a shopping cart. Brilliantly colored murals of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Aztec chieftains decorate walls of housing projects and corner grocery stores.

Because Latin American villages are all full of rusty shopping carts, chicken droppings and jolly people selling deep-fried foods while singing catchy songs through their enormous mustaches? Anyway. Residents, while all poor and mustachioed, are mixed on the issue:

Some East L.A. residents fear cityhood will cost them more. They worry, for example, that mom-and-pop stores that now manage to operate without business licenses might be forced to obtain them.

“I think it’s good as it is,” said Jacob Salazar, owner of a sporting good store. “I don’t see any reason to change it.”

But supporters say a city council would be more responsive than the county supervisors.

Auto dealer Louis Herrera said local officials would be more motivated to attract businesses like the Starbucks that opened last year. That would boost the downtown shopping district, which is dotted with 99-cent stores, dusty windowfronts filled with gowns for first communions and “quinceaneras,” or Latin sweet-16 parties, and signs advertising Western Union money transfers to Mexico.

Oh shiiiiit. Nobody tell Junot Diaz there’s a Starbucks in East L.A. Excuse our ignorance, we don’t venture into places that are Above 14th Street too often, but aren’t there, like. A lot of white people in East LA? Like hipsters and college students? A fair sprinkling of Armenians? Don’t they come from all sorts of economic backgrounds, from Pabst to Pinot Grigio? Please feel free to enlighten us.

East L.A seeks to become a city of its own [Yahoo]