I'm here at Seven Sisters Latin village
on my birthday to
A) score a free empanada
and B) fight gentrification
Seven Sisters Latin village has been earmarked
for redevelopment which means that it
will be bulldozed in order to make way
for luxury flats built by a company called
Grainger
none of which will be priced as
affordable housing or indeed social housing.
This site had been used by 
migrant market traders since 1972
when the department store that used to occupy this site closed down
and because it's
been such a vital community resource for
the Latin community here in Tottenham
I thought I'd come down and talk to some
of the traders
talk to some of the people
who come here
to find out just what it means to them.
I was born here in London
and my parents are from Paraguay in
Guatemala it was through this market
that I learned about my own background
that's when it all just began for me I
got into salsa I got into all the Latin
American music and this is basically
where it all started this is where it all began.
It was completely difficult for me to
provide for my daughter and then to work
at the same time so I was lucky to find
this spot here that I started to trade
here in the market and everything
that's how my journey began and that's how I fell in love with the concept
that we can have a place to help
the community because in reality it did
help me a lot
so the community deserved more than then
than we ever expected and that's why I
have been advocating and I've been
working really hard to preserve this
place.
I actually used to live around the corner from here
when I was a kid just
off West Green Road and since I was little
Tottenham has changed a lot
some of that has been the kind of change
that we've seen all over
London but the acceleration of gentrification
has definitely kicked up
a gear since the riots back in 2011
I was actually talking to a mate of mine
who is an activist and researcher
and he was saying that in 1981 just after the riots in Brixton and Toxteth
Michael Heseltine came out with a report subtly
called 'It Took A Riot'
and this was the Thatcherite agenda of encouraging
finance led regeneration
in order to break up and diminish the power of
working-class communities in urban areas
what happened in 2011 after the riots
which began here in Tottenham after the
killing of Mark Duggan?
Well there was another report 
creatively titled "It Took Another Riot".
The regeneration of wards
corner the destruction of this community
resource this post riot creep towards
getting rid of migrant communities,
working-class communities from the area
and replacing them well essentially yuppies.
They're not thinking about how
beautiful your you've the place is and
how much you love it they there want
money I do respect them because these are
business people but when when it comes
to support the community and what we've
created here we haven't felt that we're
not trusting them because they haven't
earned it so let's be let's be real.
They never realised that we are gonna be such a strong and resilient community
and put up such a big fight the fact 
 that we are here in London
being Latin
American for many different reasons like
refugees and displacement you name it
says a lot like you already you
fought before
so you and and then okay 'the struggle is over'
no it's not and you
realize that it carries on I mean
sometimes I think when this is going to
stop when we going to be able to relax
and have a normal life
because at the moment it doesn't seem
like none of us can
you are living in limbo you are like
on a dead road all the time waiting for
this  execution and not a way to live.
From talking to market traders
here they all bitterly disappointed
that the first Corbyn council in the
country which is led by a Momentum and
NCG member is well and truly behind a
project to demolish
Seven Sisters Latin Village
that's not what socialism should
look like we shouldn't be making it
easier for chain stores and corporations
to take over markets and high streets in
our communities you might not live in
North London you might not have ever
been to Tottenham in your life which is
kind of a shame but I guarantee you that
nearby where you live there is an asset
like this market which needs your
protection which in five or ten years
time
if you don't speak up make your voice heard
defend it vociferously will be 
replaced with the same old
same old chain stores which 
will go bust in the next 20 years anyway.
