Mapping Latine Inequalities – Reading Responses

Mapping Latine Inequalities – Reading Responses

Author: Leslie Trejo

  • Leslie Trejo Week 7 Response

    In the article, “South Central Farmers and Shadow Hills Homeowners: Land Use Policy and Relational Racialization in Los Angeles,” Laura Barraclough compares two distinct cases of flighting for your community in Los Angeles: the South Central Farmers who are fighting to be able to continue their community garden that allows low income families to sustain themselves and the Shadow Hills Homeowners who are fighting to pass a notion to increase the lot size of their homes to preserve their rural aesthetic. She argues that although the cases may look different on the outside, that the internal factors such as race, property, and economics unify them and show the difference that your demographic can make when advocating for yourself. 

    These pieces relate to last week’s readings regarding the gentrification of South Francisco because they both highlight the unequal representation and distribution of white individuals in higher paying positions and in better living situations than POC. This relationship contributes to the disparities in housing and access to property highlighted by both articles. Although the articles do not deal with housing directly, they show how the government’s interventions are pushing people out of their community spaces that they have inhabited and maintained for years.

    Something that caught my attention in this article was the issue with the youth basebath academy that they proposed to build in the Shadow Hills community. Specifically, their conscious strategy to use their community and homeownership as a way to mask their real issues concerning how the presence of minorities would bring their property value down. It is concerning that they felty free to openly discuss these ideas and put them on a handout where anyone could have seen it. Not only did they affect the youth’s ability to participate in recreational activities which is bad on its own but they also stopped people from accessing the affordable housing that would have been built.

    Something else that caught my attention was how the Shadow Hills Homeowners used heritage as a way to defend their movement while using words that were in Spanish such as “ranchos” and “caballeros” that did not belong to their culture but to the people they did not want to move into or near their community

  • Leslie Trejo Week 6 Response

    In Peter Moskowitz’s book “How to Kill a City: Part 3: San Francisco,” he uses anecdotes to demonstrate how the gentrification of San Francisco has forced out its marginalized residents (artists, African Americans, Hispanics, low income, and queer individuals) into the suburbs via obvious and discrete methods. In Alfredo Huante’s article “A Lighter Shade of Brown? Racial Formation and Gentrification in Latino Los Angeles” he introduces the concept of “gente-fication,” gentrification led by Latinx community, which can either be the Mexican-American middle class investing in the barrios and uplifting the entire community or the Mexican-American middle class becoming “honorary white” and supporting gentrification and white people instead of other Hispanics. 

    Both texts show how the arrival of white people who increase the cost of living and drive out the locals has contributed racial tensions; one highlights the relationship between the city’s minorities and the newly arriving white technology workers while one shows upward mobility can divide a Hispanic community. The first text focuses on minitories in San Francisco as a whole, showing how there is a common enemy 

    The second text makes me think about the divide that exists within my people, specifically how money, and papers, can change you and your support for your community. Frequently when some people in my family feel like they have achieved the American dream, they shift their perspectives from wanting to support the lower class Hispanics who they used to be to wanting to support other communities. This can be seen in their changes in perspective with regards to immigration policies and how they may vote. They are showing the idea of second definition gente-ficiation. When I see this, it strengthens my resolve to go back to Oklahoma after college and support the community that I come from and be able to contribute to the first definition of gente-fication. 

    Being from a smaller community,  I’m not as exposed to gentrification much but when I take the time to observe Atlanta, I feel like it is more apparent. Specifically in Little Five Points, there are thrift shops that are catered more towards making it aesthetic, taking away from the practicality that it once had and how it used to cater towards the lower income community. There are nicer housing options in this part of the neighborhood which creates changing stores to accommodate for white people while the more run down areas lack these commodities.

  • Leslie Trejo Week 5 Response

    Joy James opens his article “The Dysfunctional and the Disappearing: Democracy, Race and Imprisonment” by defining what democracy should look like and acknowledging that the US does not meet these standards, leading to racial segregation, censorship of political views, and torture in prisons. All of which serve as a means to create divide and keep people of color, especially black people, confined to the ideals that slavery believed in. In the autobiography “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” chapter 2 focuses on how he was captured as a child and sold into slavery, documenting the culture shocks he experienced as well as his experiences with the brutality of slavery. 

    Both of the articles focus on slavery or the ideals behind slavery at two different points in time. The autobiography enforces and builds upon what people usually think about when they hear slavery: the kidnapping and selling of people while the article focuses on how these ideas have evolved and found a place in modern day society with the mistreatment of prisoners today. Booth texts include insights about commonly forgotten people in this context: children and women, whose identity changes the struggles they face in society but does not exclude them from slavery or prison. 

    The first article is very numbers based which restates ideas that many people should already be familiar with. Presenting these ideas with the history behind these inequalities as well as various statistics throughout the article makes it hard for people to deny stories like these and pass them off as coincidences or analogies that don’t accurately represent the situation. One of the statistics from the first text that surprised me the most was how the majority of women who were incarcerated were convicted of economic and non-violent crimes and that 80% of women had an annual income of less than $2000. This highlights that the nature of these crimes is survival and how the prisons should not condemn them to more debt and work for less than minimum wage. 

    As for the second text, it was interesting to see a child’s story represented, especially when he mentioned feeling like he was adopted into one of the families that bought him. It reminds you of a child’s nativity and how that was exploited throughout the process. I hope that it attracted people’s sympathy when it was first published.

  • Leslie Trejo Week 4 Response

    In the article, “Still Falling Through the Cracks: Revisiting the Latina/o Education Pipeline” by Hubert et al, the authors argue that the educational disparities that are affecting Latinx students exist all the way from elementary school to graduate school and tenure for those in academia. The wide range in which these problems exist highlights that the education disparities are brought on by the educational system and that while some changes are being made to improve the statistics, it is not enough. One of the key points that stood out to me was the fact that any improvements being made is likely a reflection of the growing population, not because of the measures that have been implemented. One of the main arguments is that providing the students with education about their own culture through Chicano studies and other similar programs encourages engagement with the material and connects them with leaders who look like them, the key in keeping children in school. In the in class documentary, Precious Knowledge, we are able to hear from students and educators in Arizona how Raza studies have changed their outlook on education and life, motivating them to continue with school. 

    It is mentioned in the first text, it mentioned how the Mexican-American studies program ended in Tucson, leaving me to wonder how it impacted the student’s trajectory. I could see how much it meant to them. I doubt that there weren’t any protests or rallying. It also makes me wonder if the classes were having a positive effect on the community, increasing the students’ graduation rates, which in turn can benefit the economy, why would the government change that. It feels as if education and the government are always at odds with one another, especially in today’s news with the Trump administration trying to dismantle the department of education. 

    I think that if I would have had a class like this in high school, it would have been met positivity by the student body and the few Latinx teachers we had and encouraged students in the same way. My school had a ballet folklorico program which I feel had a similar impact on students. It taught students about their culture and even got people participating in it outside of school as well. Programs like these attract teachers who really care which I think is another important aspect of keeping students in school. 

  • Leslie Trejo Week 3 Response

    In Cherly Harris’s publication “Whiteness as Property,” she creates this concept to explain how whiteness is a metaphysical piece of property that grants white people rights based solely off of the color of their skin. This term can be applied to both historical cases such as Plesy v Ferguson and Brown v the Board of Education as well as in modern day settings with regards to affirmative action. 

    The ideas mentioned in why the right side is against affirmative action, specifically the concept of innocent whites,  reminded me of the concept of the settler moves to innocence discussed in Tuck and Yang’s “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Although colonization and slavery, as well as the systemic racism aftermath of slavery, are not the same, the second text’s idea of conscientization comes to mind. Specifically on page 1767, Harris argues that white people acknowledge the wrongdoings of their ancestors but their refusal of affirmative action to undo system racism and the equal access of opportunities, especially education. This is similar to how white people refuse to give back indigenous people’s lands and feel that other initiatives and acknowledging the past are equivalent to decolonization. 

    With the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in college admissions, schools are finding other ways to still admit a diverse class. One way is by “…push[ing] colleges to admit more transfer students from community college, which admit higher numbers of Black and Latino students” (Binkley). Although what the court declared is definitive, each school can choose to use their own interpretations to uphold their own values. This reminds me of the Plessy v Ferguson case with the court’s ambiguity of what blood quantum is needed to categorize a person of mixed descent into either category, instead delegating this topic to each state’s own opinion. Many other cases and mentions in the readings thus far show how the ambiguous law filled with exceptions help cater to the needs of white people and defend their property. This way of the law being obeyed but still trying to undo the systemic racism is a small win in the scheme of things when obeisance of these laws usually benefit white people but are here used to support black people. 

    Binkley, C. (2023, October 16). Colleges should step up diversity efforts after affirmative action ruling, the government says. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/affirmative-action-college-admissions-supreme-court-7630219eaf624bec19bc2e0d2f56c0c7?utm_source=chatgpt.com

    Wood, S. (n.d.). What the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban means for college admissions | applying to college | U.S. news. What the Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ban Means for College Admissions. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/applying/articles/how-does-affirmative-action-affect-college-admissions

  • Leslie Trejo Week 2 Response

    In the second half of “Land as Life: Unsettling the Logistics of Containment,” Mishuana Goeman places an emphasis on the indigenous people’s relationship between the land and the body and how they were both colonized by settlers, changing that relationship and how they are viewed individually as concepts as well. In Tuck and Yang’s paper “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” she fights against the way that the word decolonization has been turned into a metaphor that is no longer used to talk about Indigenous struggles or contributions. She also goes into the different types of colonialism, meaning that decolonization will look different depending on how it is originally colonized. Another important topic was how colonizers use various techniques to appear innocent despite their actions. 

    Both papers talk about people who are of both native and white descent and how native heritage has been diluted as a means to aid colonization. The first paper mentioned how the one drop rule exempts native individuals from claiming land, allowing for their populations to die out and allowing colonizers to take their land once again. The second paper shows how colonizers view native bodies as something to colonize similar to land. They are connected by the implications of colonization and expand upon that idea that land is not the only thing affected. By reading both papers, it allows me to see a more complete picture that shows both how colonization has immediate implications on the current and future population. 

    The second article made me think about the definition of the word colonization and how I feel that it is also used as a metaphor in modern day contexts to express a simple take over which undermines the implications of the original word as well. The first article made me think about how decolonization is something associated with the past because of the de- part of the word but also because it refers to getting rid of colonizer influence but the decolonization must take place in the future. Reverting things to how they were in the past is only part of the goal but the betterment of these communities must also be taken into account. This reminds me how in developmental psychology the goal in helping a recently impaired child is not only to restore their past abilities but also expand and improve upon them so that they are up to speed with peers of the same age. Just because the native community is trying to undo something doesn’t mean that it will be negative but it allows them to grow.