As I’ve been working at WHEDco for the past few weeks, I’m beginning to piece together my research and start interviews with community leaders, and members which include small business owners. As I’m spending more time in the Bronx and observing the Bronx, I’m relying and reading through Carolyn McLaughlin’s book, South Bronx Battles. Carolyn McLaughlin writes this book through her lens as a social worker, activist, and someone who has lived in the Bronx for decades fighting for social justice alongside community members and organizers. She has even created the widely-known BronxWorks, a non-profit organization based in the Bronx that used to be called the Citizens Advice Bureau.
As I read through the book, I notice that the voices of community members and organizers are uplifted and we listen to their narratives as the truth about what is going on in the South Bronx. WHEDco’s Community Needs Assessments and other important documents that I’ve read through regarding rezoning and more combined with McLaughlin’s book provides critical insight about the ways in which the South Bronx folks have and are being deeply affected by policy issues. While the book focuses on the perspectives and narratives, and experiences of folks in the South Bronx throughout several decades, it has also been an important source of understanding the South Bronx’s history in regards to social issues as well as land, architecture, and more.
Furthermore, I find that the book aligns with ethical research in terms of not looking at the Bronx as a city of urban decay, poverty and hopelessness as Carolyn states in the book. Rather Carolyn, and myself, view the Bronx as a city that demonstrates their ability to organize and build up the community they want. As mentioned in my mission statement, I don’t desire to see the South Bronx community and the Bronx overall as a city that is full of struggle, despair, and more. Rather, I want to focus on the ways in which community members have organized themselves and worked with organizations to fight against policies that have displaced members of their community.
In the coming weeks as I’m beginning to conduct interviews and interact more with community members, leaders, organizers, and more, I believe that it will be interesting to notice if certain perspectives about the South Bronx have shifted as the book was written in the years of. Furthermore, the pandemic has demonstrated the state and country’s inability to provide actual support for Black and Brown communities who were disproportionately affected throughout the pandemic. The Bronx is an example of a city that faced higher rates of death as they have been predisposed to certain health conditions, and these health conditions in turn have been caused by the pollution the South Bronx experiences on a daily basis due to infrastructure, heavy traffic, and more. While the book took place prior to the pandemic, I think it will be incredibly important to view the changing perspectives of my interviewees. Perhaps they felt a certain way about the South Bronx prior to the pandemic and their thoughts, opinions and hopefulness about the Bronx changing could have shifted or strengthened.
McLaughlin, Carolyn. South Bronx Battles : Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Renewal, University of California Press, 2019.ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5739610
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