Neighborhood faces the imminent challenge of gentrification. 


DALLAS - Very little remains of "Little Mexico," a Mexican-American neighborhood in the heart of Dallas that flourished in the 1920s and survives today surrounded by giant buildings and multimillion-dollar skyscrapers. Little Mexico itself faces the imminent challenge of gentrification.
"It was more or less in 1910 when people fleeing the Mexican Revolution began arriving in this part of Dallas, which was close to the town center. At that time priests and nuns gave a great deal of aid to Mexicans in need and the neighborhood began to grow," Leonor Villareal, a member of the group of volunteers trying to preserve the historical character of the area. The few Mexican-American families still living in the neighborhood have struggled over the past few years to keep the legacy of their parents and grandparents alive.
"We're surrounded by so many big buildings - the only house remaining here is my mother's, which has always been here. There are many memories of all that has happened in the neighborhood, families that come and go, and many people still remember this neighborhood because we were a very united community," resident Felicia Hernandez said.
Socorro Hernandez Garcia, manager de Fernandez Mexican Foods, recalled that the locals began leaving in the 1950s.

Hernandez Garcia, who runs the little store founded by her father in 1918, said that what "really buried the place was the toll road," a cross-city expressway built in the 1960s.

"The toll road eliminated almost half the heart of the Mexican neighborhood. Then little by little the neighborhood began disappearing and now you can say that this store is about all that remains of what was once Little Mexico," she said.
Big developers have made dozens of offers for the store so they can carry on with their construction of condominiums and office buildings.
"From then on life here changed," she said with nostalgia. "You can't swim against the current and we who have remained in the neighborhood, we too have to leave because the only logical thing is to sell."
Roberto Aristo was born and raised in the heart of Little Mexico. In 1950 he moved to Duncanville, some 30 miles from Dallas, but makes the trip every week to Hernandez Garcia's store to buy meat.
"The neighborhood has changed so much over the years. I remember that we were families of Mexican origin but now it's all different. The area hasn't been the same for the last 25 years," Aristo said.
For Evaristo Chevarria, who was also brought up in the neighborhood, Little Mexico's legacy should not be lost and for that reason travels from the north side of Dallas with his wife and three kids to tell them all he remembers of his childhood.

He said that his parents worked in a factory of construction materials that employed many families and that, when it went broke, he no longer saw many of his friends and "from one day to the next" never heard from them again.
Part of Little Mexico's history is preserved thanks to a group of more than 30 volunteers who in the past 10 years have collected photos from different periods. "Ours were good people, we helped one another. If you didn't have money to buy something, there was no problem because we all knew each other," said Villareal, who looks after the collection.
The photography collection is full of weddings, special events, baptisms, birthdays and even portraits of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Little Mexico who fought on the battlefields of U.S. wars.
"Many people come and recognize family members or friends that they never saw again and that are no longer with us. Most of them cry when they see them," Villareal said.