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Every year before Christmas, the Los Angeles Chicano All-Stars come together for a community event known as the “Anti-Mall.” Rejecting the big-box store consumerism of the holidays, the annual gathering provides a space for the city’s local businesses and artisans to congregate and offer their products to people looking for a cleaner conscious when buying gifts for loved ones. This year’s block party organized by El Puente Hacia La Esperanza took place in Boyle Heights yesterday with food, live music and over fifty vendors. LA’s Anti-Mall is a once a year event, but may soon expand to occurring seasonally four times a year. It may even make its way down to Orange County via hookups with El Centro Cultural de Mexico in Santa Ana. But wait, doesn’t OC already have an “Anti-Mall?”
We do…kind of. The Lab “Anti-Mall” in Costa Mesa is a permanent fixture with restaurants and stores like Buffalo Exchange. It, in a sense, is defining itself as “the alternative” to the mall shops of the South Coast Plaza. But a truer “Anti-Mall” spirit can be had in Orange County that digs deeper into the arts and the ideals of conscious commerce. There are plenty of local artisans, community musicians, some local businesses like Calacas, and activists who could very easily pull off a closer emulation of Los Angeles’ “Anti-Mall.”
Maybe it will even happen sooner than you think!
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