Barrio Dreams

Davila writes about the "cultural politics' of El Barrio (aka East Harlem), juxtaposing processes of gentrification and neoliberalism with the neighborhood's continuing "Latinization." She specifically focuses on Latinos in an effort to examine race and ethnicity from outside of a black-white paradigm.

I've been hearing about Barrio Dreams ever since I declared my Met Studies major my sophomore year. Now that I've actually had the chance to read it, I feel like it provides an interesting angle on neoliberal policies that come up again and again in classes that I have taken.

I particularly liked Davila's take on what she terms a "marketable ethnicity" - produced by policies and ideologies that support economic empowerment. The idea that privatization and "development" (read: gentrification) is virtually embraced and encouraged by "upwardly mobile aspirations" is both incredibly interesting and, like some others have already noted, somehow too all-encompassing in terms of capturing the consequences of community sentiment.

However, Davila provides an in-depth study of the historical and cultural development of El Barrio, and examines the ways that different Latino groups interact with one another as well as with Blacks and non-Latinos in East Harlem. This is a thorough perspective that I certainly appreciate after having read about many different theories of racial formation and racialization.