By Tiffany Chow
Whose Barrio? is a documentary that was screened last week at the New York International Latino Film Festival. The film is a great primer for those who want to learn about the basics of gentrification. The displacement of one community, usually low-income ethnic groups, by structural property takeovers is also known as "developing" a community and it's no new phenomenon. Neighborhoods such as the Mission District in San Francisco or Williamsburg in Brooklyn have dramatically changed faces and atmosphere as the upwardly mobile seek out new spaces to invest in.
A palimpsest effect has taken over the cultural histories of Spanish Harlem and Morales strives to share its devastating effects of those being pushed to the margins. Ironically, these places were originally created to house and centralize certain populations are now being deemed potentially valuable real estate. Morales' main focus is the community's attempt to hold onto its identity as a cultural epicenter for Latinos in the U.S.
We got to sit down with the film's directors, Ed Morales and Laura Rivera. Check out their thoughts on gentrification, culture, community and history as it's unfolding in Harlem.
RaceWire: What do you see as a key difference between the Spanish takeover of Harlem from the Italians and Jews versus the white takeover of Harlem from the Latino community?
Laura Rivera: The period when Puerto Ricans began settling in significant numbers in East Harlem, in the mid-1950s, coincided with the widespread development of suburban housing on Long Island and other places. The populations of Italians and Jews in East Harlem had matured. No longer were they part of an enclave of poor and working-class immigrants. Rather, they had largely assimilated into a higher socioeconomic status. For many of them, moving out of East Harlem - and into suburban areas touted by developers as the solution to the problems of urban life, i.e., crime and poverty (with a strong subtext of discrimination against the newcomers) - was a symbol that they had done well for themselves and their family.
What is happening now in East Harlem, in terms of gentrification, is in some ways the opposite phenomenon. Here you have the construction of new housing stock marketed to owners with higher incomes than the current population. As a result, the neighborhood has seen an influx of residents of a higher socioeconomic class, many of them white. Their ability to pay a rent that longtime residents can't afford, as Jose Rivera remarks in the movie, creates upward pressure on rents in the neighborhood, to say nothing of the housing stock for sale.
