It has been 46 years yesterday since the murder of Victor Jara by the Chilean military police. The singer who put Neruda’s poetry to music and was closely allied with Allende’s movement was but 40 years old when Pinochet’s henchmen took over.

His political engagement was always centered around social justice, which brings me to today’s stroll through the streets of Bushwick, my last travel report from NYC.

The Brooklyn neighborhood counts 114.00 people with 56% identifying as Hispanic and has poverty rates almost twice as large as the average for New York – 27.8%. Housing quality is lousy – maintenance defects including water leaks, cracks and holes, inadequate heating, presence of mice or rats, toilet breakdowns and peeling paint are at 79% according to nyc.gov statistics. It has double the rate of teen births compared to the rest of NY, and incarcerations rates (per 100 000) is 142 compared to the citywide average of 93.

I have been photographing in that neighborhood on almost every single trip to NY over the last decade plus. It is a haven for graffiti artists, and used to be extremely political, with issues of social justice artistically displayed at every corner. That seems no longer to be the case.

Signs of gentrification are everywhere, tourists are descending en masse to see the art, guided by local people who probably roll their eyes behind the visitors’ backs, and the display has lost much of its bite.

I assume that the more serious work has wandered elsewhere, together with the artists driven out of their housing by yet another wave of gentrification, and ignorant West Coast fans like me don’t know where to look. In any case, today’s photographs are from last week.

Music by Jara, a brave and righteous man.

As are Chile’s people.