“Mexicans Built This Neighborhood!” Gentrification, Organizations, and the Role of Place-Based Identity in Latinx Chicago

Abstract

This exploratory study draws on qualitative interviews to investigate respondents’ perspectives about gentrification in their Chicago neighborhood. Prior research has demonstrated that place-based networks are crucial for the well-being of low-income and immigrant urban residents. A parallel though a previously disparate thread of research discusses the negative impacts of gentrification on long-term residents. I find that residents underscore concerns about their neighborhood’s decreasing affordability, as well as the impending loss of their neighborhood’s local Latinx immigrant identity, as central issues for their community. For residents, “place”, vis-á-vis the neighborhood identity, was central to their own construction of ethnic identity. Concurrently, I find that community organizers viewed place-based changes associated with gentrification as nonstrategic for their organization, whose operations have evolved “beyond the neighborhood”, and endeavor to meet the needs of low-income ethnic Latinx populations across the metropolitan region. I conclude that scholars of both ethnic identity and those studying urban inequalities may benefit from taking a place-centered approach in addressing the gentrification, community organizing, and residential displacement occurring within Latinx communities.