Even on vacation—between coastal drives and indulging my 9-year-old’s joy at Disneyland—I can’t stop thinking about Mayfair.
While exploring one of Santa Barbara’s gentrifying neighborhoods, a street sign caught my eye: Sal Si Puedes—Spanish for “get out if you can.” I was stunned. How could such a loaded phrase be casually embedded in the landscape? I did what anyone would do: I Googled it.
It turns out that, like San José’s Mayfair neighborhood, the name Sal Si Puedes was used to describe an area that was once difficult to traverse—physically and socially. It was a name born from hardship, but also a reflection of how outsiders labeled working-class communities of color…