Briana Muñoz
Why I Refuse to Celebrate the Opening of the 6th Street Bridge
Because of carbon emissions and fossil fuels
Because of the rich profiting, sitting behind their desks
Because of the oil that seeps into the asphalt
and then into the ocean
Because the money invested could be redirected
Because this bridge will provide housing for the unhoused
But the politicians still will not
Because there are hungry bellies living inside every structure of Los Angeles
Because this bridge only feeds the machine
Because of overpopulation
Because the George Washington Bridge supports nearly 102 million vehicles every year
and because the total cost of the Golden Gate Bridge was equivalent to 704.9 million dollars, in our time
Because inevitably, this bridge will also support suicides, and make news headlines
Because this bridge will host road rage
And this road rage is the least obvious form of internalized patriarchy and capitalism
Because this bridge sits on stolen Indigenous land
* Note: The 6th Street Bridge is a viaduct that spans the Los Angeles River, connecting Boyle Heights with downtown L.A.’s Arts District.
When it opened in 2022, the new bridge was broken in quickly by dangerous driving, risky pedestrians antics, death-defying skateboarders, street takeovers, bike lanes dubbed “protected” but also “permeable” by the city, and heavy policing. It was closed immediately after its opening for safety concerns until the excitement settled but that didn’t stop Angelinos from using the bridge as their playground.
about the author
Briana Muñoz is a poet from Southern California. She is the author of two books of poetry including Loose Lips (Prickly Pear Publishing) and Everything is Returned to the Soil (FlowerSong Press). Her work has been published in the anthology How to Reimagine America, Cultural Daily, the Beat Not Beat Anthology, the Oakland Arts Review, Dryland Literary Journal, the Angel City Review, the Somos Xicanas anthology, and several other publications.
Briana is the founder of Poetry as Harm Reduction and currently serving as the board of directors secretary for the Los Angeles Poet Society. She has performed poetry in places like the International Poetry Festival of Havana, Cuba, the 2015 Festival de Poesia in Tijuana, Baja California, MX, as well as at the XXI Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Estudios Hispanicos in Quito, Ecuador.