La Pulga de Riverside
Nostalgia of the pulgas I frequented as a child in Monterrey lured me like a siren's song to the weekend flea market in this increasingly gentrified Austin neighborhood. The antiques, the smells, the warm plastic tents... They all brought something back; something from a time when flea markets to me meant pirated DVDs and pirated video games– and maybe the latest Pokémon toys straight out of the American racks in Laredo.
Here in Riverside I found none of those things, only piles and piles of clothes and electronics, of toys and me, all of which had been treasured once and were now forlorn in the shade of the plastic tents, some momentarily and some for who knows how long.