No Se vende (Not for sale). An anti-gentrification grassroots campaign of Puerto Ricans in Chicago

  • Ivis García University of Utah, Stati Uniti

Abstract

No Se Vende (Not for Sale) is a grassroots campaign that claims that Puerto Ricans, even those who are renters, are the legitimate owners of Humboldt Park, Chicago. In this assertion, legitimacy and ownership are one and the same, regardless of the legal status of “homeowner”. No Se Vende then contradicts the original meaning that inspired the legal code, property that can be bought and sold which is not based on “use” values. Legality, to some extent, has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of these activists and, therefore, they have decided to claim their rights thought the symbology of language. In this sense, the idea of Puerto Ricans renting in Humboldt Park or simply deciding to stay has become an instrumental right of resistance to the perceived oppression. The campaign has played a key role in the construction of a new sense of legitimacy in the recent housing struggles after the financial housing crisis. This paper employs a single case study through participant observation, ethnography, and Participatory Action Research (PAR).

Keywords: renters; owners; gentrification; Puerto Ricans; Chicago; activism; No Se Vende campaign

Downloads

I dati di download non sono ancora disponibili

Riferimenti bibliografici

Alicea, Marixsa. 2001. “‘Cuando nosotros vivíamos…’: Stories of Displacement and Settlement in Puerto Rican Chicago”. Centro Journal XIII(2): 167-195.

Allison, Erik. 2005. “Gentrification and Historic Districts: Public Policy Considerations in the Designation of Historic Districts in New York City”. PhD diss., Columbia University.

Anguelovski, Isabelle. 2015. “Healthy Food Stores, Greenlining and Food Gentrification: Contesting New Forms of Privilege, Displacement and Locally Unwanted Land Uses in Racially Mixed Neighborhoods”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39(6): 1209-30.

Betancur, John J. 2002. “The Politics of Gentrification. The Case of West Town in Chicago”. Urban Affairs Review 37(6): 780-814.

Braudel, Fernand. 1985. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The Structure of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chevalier, Jacques M., Buckles, Daniel J. 2019. Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry. London: Routledge.

Cintrón, Ralph, Toro-Morn, Maura, García, Ivis and Elizabeth Scott. 2012. “60 Years of Migration: Puerto Ricans in Chicagoland.” The Puerto Rican Agenda. http://www.puertoricanchicago.org/.

Denis, Nelson A. 2015. War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony. New York: Nation Books.

Flores-González, Nilda. 2001. “Paseo Boricua: Claiming a Puerto Rican Space in Chicago”. Centro Journal 13 (January).

García, Ivis. 2015. “The Puerto Rican Identity: Reconstructing Ownership in the Face of Change”. PhD disse., University of Illinois at Chicago.

García, Ivis. 2016. “A Puerto Rican Business District as a Community Strategy for Resistance Gentrification in Chicago”. Plerus XXV(1): 79-98.

García, Ivis. 2017. “Paseo Boricua. Identity, Symbols, and Ownership”. América Crítica 1 (2): 117–138.

García, Ivis. 2018a. “Symbolism, Collective Identity, and Community Development”. Societies 8(3): 1-13.

García, Ivis. 2018b. “Adaptive Leadership and Social Innovation: Overcoming Critical Theory, Positivism, and Postmodernism in Planning Education”. eJournal of Public Affairs 7(2): 19-35.

García, Ivis. 2019a. “2018 Housing Summit: Strengthening the Puerto Rican and Latino Presence.” The Puerto Rican Agenda. http://www.puertoricanchicago.org/.

García, Ivis. 2019b. “Historically Illustrating the Shift to Neoliberalism in the U.S. Home Mortgage Market”. Societies 9(1): 1-16.

García, Ivis. 2019c. “Human Ecology and its Influence in Urban Theory and Housing Policy in the United States”. Urban Science 3 (2): 1-11.

García, Ivis, Rúa, Mérida M. 2018. “‘Our Interests Matter’: Puerto Rican Older Adults in the Age of Gentrification”. Urban Studies 55(14): 3168-3184.

Graeber, David. 2014. Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years. Brooklyn: Melville House.

Harvey, David. 1978. “The Urban Process under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2(1–4): 101–131.

Humphrey, Caroline. 1985. “Barter and Economic Disintegration”. Man 20(1): 48-72.

Marcuse, Peter, Madden, David J. 2016. In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis. London/New York: Verso.

Mauss, Marcel. 2000. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by Halls, Wilfred Douglas. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Molina, Alejandro. 2019. “Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC)”. https://prcc-chgo.org/2015/06/11/puerto-rican-cultural-center-prcc-and-chicago-chapter-of-the-translatin-coalition-will-celebrate-the-coronation-of-the-2015-paseo-boricua-cacica-queens-yeveah-altieri-and-janet-namer/.

Monge, José Trías. 1999. Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Mumm, Jesse 2014. “When the White People Come: Gentrification and Race in Puerto Rican Chicago”. PhD diss., Northwestern University.

Mumm, Jesse. 2016. “Gentrification in Color and Time: White and Puerto Rican Racial Histories at Work in Humboldt Park”. Centro Journal 28(2): 88.

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.

Rúa, Merida M. 2012. A Grounded Identidad: Making New Lives in Chicago’s Puerto Rican Neighborhoods. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Rúa, Merida M., ed. 2011. Latino Urban Ethnography and the Work of Elena Padilla. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Servet, Jean-Michel. 1981. “Primitive Order and Archaic Trade, Part 1”. Economy and Society 10(4): 423-450.

Smith, Adam. 2003. The Wealth of Nations. Annotated edition. New York: Bantam Classics.

The Puerto Rican Agenda of Chicago. 2019. The Puerto Rican Agenda https://www.puertoricanchicago.org.

Unger, Tommy. 2014. “Hottest Neighborhoods of 2014”. Redfin Research Center https://bit.ly/2NyXT5Q.

Pubblicato
2020-01-28
Come citare
García, I. (2020). <em>No Se vende</em&gt; (Not for sale). An anti-gentrification grassroots campaign of Puerto Ricans in Chicago. América Crítica, 3(2), 35-61. https://doi.org/10.13125/americacritica/3886
Sezione
Articoli