CAUTIOUSLY CELEBRATING THE LATINIZATION OF U.S. CITIES

BY STUDENT


I am a believer that one should be proud of who they are, where they come from, and that their heritage should be celebrated no matter how dark the past is or how things may look now. However, when I encountered the topic that this blog post had to be on; I wasn’t sure where to start because the word “cautiously” in front of “celebrating the Latinization of U.S cities” was not something I was fond of. It made me think why should one “cautiously” celebrate the Latinization of U.S cities when most of the things that give the city life or the history that was created were due in large part to the Latinos/Latin X communities? Then I read a quote that David Harvey included in his review, The Right to the City, by sociologist Robert Park. It states “man’s most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart’s desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.”


What I got from the quote is that when one tries to remake the world (the city) better or just improve it, it essentially moves away from its’ origins to match a life style that one desires or strives for while also changing oneself. It then made me think about a place where I spent most of my time and life; and where I consider home in my heart: Washington Heights. I was born there even though most of my life, I never lived there. I came to know and love it though because of the countless of hours I spent with my family and friends that did live there. I came to know the area and everything that it had to offer like the back of my hand; and as time went on, so did my love for it. With this time going on though, everyone grew up and aged; and so did the environment and everything around it. This change didn’t just happen out of nowhere or individuals agreed to it. It happened due to capitalism and urbanization which go hand in hand, and Harvey describes the relationship as constant reinvestment to the expansion of the surplus. This means that the constant cycle of placing materials, time, and resources into the surplus gave it value and only made the value go up from where it originally started. This is why the constant change of the environment that I had come to love changed before my eyes. The opening of bars, franchises, business ventures, and the improvements within the community seemed great on the surface; but brought internal pain to those that resided within these communities and sometimes even forced them out. Not only this, but as Harvey also mentioned in his review; the constant expansion of urbanizing the community and environment also brought change within the style of living as well. What was once a very family oriented community that saw most people know each other and look after one another in the area that I knew, now shows little to no trace of how things were before. Brand new faces come and go within the community and as these new faces enter and leave, so do other parts of the community. From what I can recall from my youth to now, only a little business that deals with renting apartments and interior design stood overtime watching the way I did how everything else came and went.

I have come to understand a bit now as to why we have to “cautiously” celebrate the Latinization of U.S cities. It’s in large part due to the fact that whatever is left; and whatever has stood against time and all the changes might be the next thing to go. “The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet the most neglected of our human rights.” (Harvey, pg. 23). Change starts from the things that we desire and strive for and with that said, shapes what we want within our area and ultimately our environment. It’s nice to have certain things in the area of Washington Heights that I love, but it ultimately cost the environment and everything I once knew. What made it nice and seem like home eventually turned into a place where unfamiliar faces walked the blocks and only when I entered homes is when change from the outside faded away. Urbanization and capitalism are a huge reason for the changes that we see every day, but ultimately; it’s the desires and strives of a lifestyle that we seek that bring upon the real change on the environment.



References:

Harvey, David “The Right to the City,” New Left Review. 2008