Lessons from El Barrio—the East Harlem real great society/urban planning studio: A Puerto Rican chapter in the fight for urban self‐determination*

Abstract

During the 1960s, the Lower East Side and East Harlem were among the principal contested terrains in New York City, and the emerging Puerto Rican community was being challenged on many fronts. As contested terrains, they were the arenas where transforming forces in American society were being articulated. Responses to these forces varied from neighborhood to neighborhood. Among the responses were groups organized around community development, particularly to fight urban renewal projects. In this essay, I examine a year in the life of the East Harlem Real Great Society/Urban Planning Studio (RGS/UPS). RGS/UPS emerged in a transition period in the development of Puerto Rican institutions. It combined several characteristics of groups organized during those years. It was founded by grassroots community youth; it was also a professionally staffed organization; it was structured around an advocacy model; and it valued its ethnic‐specificity, its Puertoricanness. Its staff's eagerness to speak for the needs and aspirations of Puerto Ricans was a clear example of ethnicity‐based struggle.