Puebla Analysis

In George J. Sanchez’s, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945, Sanchez brings forth a new understanding of Mexican-American culture through the presentation of how the culture made substantial adaptations under limited economic and social mobility (Sanchez 13). Unlike other historians who studies the variations of Mexican American cultural identity from a national prospective , Sanchez creatively selects Los Angeles as his site of research because, not only is the city home to the largest Mexican population in the United States, but also because Latinos play a profound role in shaping the city’s culture. Growing up in an immigrant family himself, Sanchez undoubtedly has many personal

In the constantly changing economy of cities, the growth of city housing is oftentimes neglected. In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification” Timothy Williams recounts how gentrification has evolved over the years. Mentioning how cities have changed in order to appease the younger professionals, Williams shows how the city itself is in jeopardy due to the tax increases. Slowly loosing their faithful residents as well as historic culture cities face a big deal. Williams gives quotes from faithful residents, “…long time homeowners are victims of the success story”, (Williams 346). In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification”, Williams uses his credible quotes and modern statistics to generate the reader’s emotions, with desire to change how city officials go about gentrification in culturally infused cities.

Lilia Fernandez is a Chicago native who rights about how the city’s neighborhoods changed in the 20th century. The history that she describes in her book with the newcomers that have settled within the city’s urban spaces have transformed it now in the 21st century in conjunction with the changes in the racial dynamics and the physical structure that were seen during the 20 year span from 1950-1970. She explores the question of how these tens of thousands of Latinos ended up settling in Chicago. Her work traces the roots of Mexican and Puerto Ricans particularly in terms of their historical roots and their migration, settlement and overall experiences in Chicago. She writes about the neighborhoods they lived (Pilsen, Lincoln Park and Humbolt

Mexicantown is a neighborhood in Detroit with a rich history and with many great things happening in the present as well. The EPIC program is one of the great programs that helps the youth in the community prepare for the next step. Without programs like this, the burden of being a first generation student in college is greater and students may feel like they dont have the academic, emotional, and social support that they need during high school and the transition to college. It is a part of a greater organization that helps the community in many ways, is in a neighborhood that is incredible diversity with many things to do, but it also has a few issues within the program’s structure and internal issues amongst the students as well.

To begin, In Latino Metropolis, Victor Valle and Rodolfo Torres suggest that the Latino population is a vital group to the political economy of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles economy was constructed through the manual labor of largely Latino immigrants, which the city today still heavily depends on (Valle and Torres, 2000, 15-16). In their chapter, Economic Geography of Latino Los Angeles, Valle and Torres argue that Latino immigrants working in the labor workforce in the Southeast Los Angeles area (cities such Vernon, Maywood, Bell, etc.) are often discriminated and often depicted by the media, anti-immigrant leaders, and sympathizers as victims and villains (Valle and Torres, 2000,

Both Ernesto Galarza’s “Barrio Boy” and Joan Didion’s “Notes From a Native Daughter” write about Sacramento’s past. Both authors talk about Sacramento during two different time periods. Joan Didion talks about the mid-century and Ernesto Galarza talks about the early 20th century. Although both author’s perspective of Sacramento differs from era to era, there are differences in certain characteristics described by both authors. Galarza’s essay focuses on an immigrant point of view arriving into Sacramento versus Didion’s experiences as a native decedent of Sacramento. Joan Didion’s Sacramento is a very different place compared to Ernesto Galarza’s , for him it’s an

The traditional working class nature of Pilsen is presently endangered by the gentrification of this mainly Mexican-American locality. The Pilsen Alliance, a waged people's organization created in 1998, coupled with city geography classes at DePaul University to carry out a building list of Pilsen in order to spot and coordinate around issues connected to gentrification.

Some people attracted to living a long time in their communities. As a youth, I’m scared to see one day our cities will be full of homeless people, armed robbers, jobless citizen etc. All this is in the name of gentrification. Gentrification is the way of renovating and improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small business. After the renovation, some people thought that the wealthy people will come and occupy the districts. So the low-income people decided to fight for their community. Nowadays, people who live in their communities for a longer period of time find an interest of staying

It is no secret that homelessness is quickly becoming an epidemic in the United States, but the homeless population is not one secular demographic. For every person in the US living on the street, there is a unique story of how they got there; nonetheless, that is not to say that many of these stories are without some commonalities. Along with homelessness, there is another issue plaguing American cities, but this issue is much more covert, and exists under a guise of improvements like fancy apartments and trendy restaurants. Gentrification is defined as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste” (Erikson); but what that definition fails to mention is the discourse it has on the

In today’s society, gentrification is considered a taboo not to be spoken of unless being attacked; however, Justin Davidson, a professional critic, challenges this notion and examines both sides of this custom. As an author, architecture and classical music critic, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, Davidson approaches the issue of gentrification with a unique style of neutrality that leads his audience to question all they thought they knew about gentrifying.

Inequality has been the country’s timeless struggle. Throughout the course of the United States’ history, there have been processes that have given a certain group of people the upper hand in a circumstance, thus fueling inequality in our nation. An ongoing process that negatively effects the lower-class and benefits the upper-class is called gentrification. Gentrification has been defined as “the replacement of the low-income, inner-city working-class residents by middle- or upper-class households, either through the market for existing housing or demolition to make way for new upscale housing construction” (Hammel and Wyly, 1996, p.250). Gentrification is deleterious because it “revitalizes” areas where low income residents reside in, thus causing the displacement and allows affluent residents to flood the given area whilst changing the entire environment from its original state. In my paper, I will be discussing how the process of gentrification begins and what it entails, define longtime residents, and describe the feelings of displacement felt by these residents.

Through analysing the documentary “Boom: The Sound of Eviction” demonstrating the gentrification that has occurred in San Francisco we can examine a trend that has been occurring in the socio-spatial dialect. At the beginning of the film families were interviewed who were living in the community of Mission, typically inhabited by the working class but also artists who were not white. With the increase of technology (“dot.comers”), there was an increase of job opportunities and income for the select few that were able to take advantage of a fast growing industry increasing the gap between them and the working class. However at the end of the film we see that the “dot-comers” economy failed, 80% of the businesses shutting down rapidly increasing unemployment rates. However before it failed the individuals prospering took full advantage, “cleaning up” neighborhoods as white people move in, evicting others who had resided there their entire lives simply because they could pay a

Viewing the complex matter of gentrification succinctly, it helps to uncover how multifaceted it is; in that gentrification involves the oppression, marginalization, displacement of vulnerable populations, particularly, the poor, and the black who are often already negatively impacted by the effects of classism, and racism. Gentrification threatens to erode the communities and livelihood maintained by these set of people because their displacement becomes a precondition for the total transformation of the area.

According to Dictionary.com, “gentrification is the process of renovating houses and stores in urban neighborhoods to fit the middle or upper-income families, raising property value, but often displacing low-income families.” Gentrification has been an idea since the 1960s and had an effect on countless cities and neighborhood communities. Gentrification was first used by Ruth Glass in her book London: Aspect of Change in 1964, she noted that ¨gentrification can progress rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced, and the whole social character of the district is changed.” Nonetheless, gentrification has helped revive many cities and revolutionize them, especially with technological

The dominant group sets out to create their ideal world, which also forces one to understand community as the “imagined world” of the powerful, how it was created, “and how it changed over time” (269). That leads one to see “the study of community as a socio-cultural process” of creation and interaction (267). Consequently, the social interaction between the powerful group and the weaker ones becomes just as important as the interaction within the dominant group. In this definition of community, Los Angeles becomes a case study for the creation of urban communities in the United States, a study that starts with the Anglo immigration near the turn of the 20th century.