Migration Displacement and Gentrification - SAIC's Second Decolonization Dinner

MIGRATION DISPLACEMENT AND GENTRIFICATION the second annual decolonization dinner

welcome to the second annual

Decolonization Dinner This event was developed as an act of resistance against the historical and cultural erasure the United States’ Thanksgiving holiday. It was established as a space for traditionally marginalized people to reinsert themselves into the skewed narratives surrounding Thanksgiving. The Dinner reclaims the communal meal practice of the “pilgrim” myth, aiming instead to create an inclusive environment where we can spend time together reflecting on the reality of colonial histories and the futures we can create by encouraging community members to engage with one another and be conscious of our social impacts.

The theme for this year’s Decolonization Dinner is Migration, Displacement, and Gentrification. These problems are complex and nuanced.

This publication was not created to be a comprehensive overview of these issues. Rather, the editor’s created it to share our feelings on the matter and to generate conversation on these issues. Please take these thoughts beyond this space. We want to challenge the roles we inhabit and the space we take up in our chosen communities. What can we do to decolonize our engagement? Is “decolonization” the right language for our goals? How can we inhabit our spaces with more intentionality, awareness, and compassion in mind?

It’s especially important that we have these conversations together as we consider the events unfolding around us. #NODAPL and the circumstances surrounding the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline are a continuation of colonization and the desecration of Indigenous Land.

This is also echoed in the sustained illegal occupation of Palestine.

Here in the United States, we are facing the murder of black, brown, and trans bodies across the nation and have been forced to confront the election of a contentious leader. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

We need to come together now more than ever.

A Note on Language Before we dive in, let’s introduce some ideas that we’ll be running into throughout this publication.

Intersectionality is a term coined by black social theorist KimberlĂŠ Crenshaw in 1989. It refers to the levels of privilege and oppression that we experience as overlapping between social categorizations of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, etc and how they apply to a group/individual regarding systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Colonization is when a central power system/nation seizes control of land from its original inhabitants, historically leading to destruction of established ways of life and creating hierarchies that value the colonizers and oppress the prior inhabitants of the land.

Gentrification is a process by which a neighborhood changes to meet middle or upper class needs.

The economy and culture may change as the area develops to accommodate the incoming demographic. Often gentrification results in evictions, forced displacement and fractured communities. While it can seem to be primarily an issue of race or culture, it is in essence an issue of classism, which is a biased attitude or prejudice against those who hold a lower social class.

Displacement is a broader idea. When any household (individuals, families, tenants, etc.) is forced to move from its residence by conditions that affect the home or its immediate surroundings that the household could not prevent, this is displacement. This happens on a neighborhood scale because of issues related to gentrification, but it can also be a result of political unrest or even willful migration.

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Acknowledging The Dehumanizing “I’m still waiting for a comprehensive plan from White Anti-Racists on how they plan to dismantle Supremacy.

Aside from ‘educating other white folks’ – what is the plan? What are the concrete steps that White people can take to dismantle & confront Supremacy in their schools, workplaces, industries, government & communities?”

- Leslie Mac1

White supremacy is the system that was created and is currently perpetuated to maintain a social hierarchy that most benefits white populations and keeps resources away from people of color. White supremacy is the mindset that permitted the exploitation of pre-existing communities through conquest and dehumanization.

But this is not just about race. White supremacy can negatively affect white people too, it comes back to acknowledging the intersections of our identities. White supremacy values straight, cisgender, white males above others.This system keeps wealth and power within the hands of a select few, turning the rest of us against each other.

How is racism upheld by a system? Ask yourself, who is it you see most often in positions of power? And who do you see mostly working service or labor jobs? Consider why communities of color are disproportionately affected by budget cuts, the school-to-prison pipeline, incarceration rates, voting restrictions, and other issues that are present in society today.

Racism is the system by which people of color are oppressed. This includes interaction between people, their chosen environments, and governing bodies. The idea of “reverse racism” is a myth. People of color can feel prejudice towards white people, and while hurt that comes from these prejudices is real, it is not a form of racism because it is not a form of oppression, it does not impact one’s quality of life.

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Effects of White Supremacy In not recognizing racism as a system, it is easy to individualize racist acts without seeing the broader scope of the problem. For example, it becomes easy to claim that cops shooting black people are the rare exception when in fact they are a part of something much bigger. They are a part of the system that accepts the killing of black and brown bodies with few or no consequences. Individualizing these acts makes it easy to ignore the change that needs to happen in order to live in a world that is just for all.

Staying silent, indifferent, or ignorant only aids in maintaining the structures in place. Be aware of this country’s history, one that was often covered up to maintain these power structures, and your family’s role in that narrative. Remember, history is written by the winner. Remember, we are all on land stolen from Indigenous Peoples. It is important that we reflect on where our families come from and the process by which they were assimilated into Western culture. What did they do when they came to this land? It is especially important that we investigate these histories given the context of the Western hemisphere’s history of slavery and genocide.

Facing the dehumanizing history that our country is built on is HARD WORK. Be prepared to sit in discomfort. Recognize that it is a privilege to not have to think about this. While white people may be able to step away from this conversation whenever it gets hard, recognize that people of color confront the negative impact of these systems every single day.

Holding your comfort above the lives of others is an act of privilege.

“Awareness of oppression amongst white folks must turn white guilt, shame, and apathy into ACTION.” - Anthony Williams2

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Decolonization What do we mean when we talk about decolonization?

We see decolonization as a constant process with the ultimate goal of detaching our bodies, perspectives, and minds from oppressive ideas, behaviours, and traditions that have been handed down to us by a culture that was built on the backs of marginalized bodies. It is the undoing of the colonial project, it is a process we are all tasked with, and the work is never finished.

But what does it mean for us to bring our own identities into the process of decolonization?

Decolonizing the Self

Decolonizing the self is hard work. The world that surrounds us is built on colonized social structures.

We need to unlearn all the years of colonial-mindset that have been socialized into us and strip ourselves down in order to build yourself into a mindset that values all people and our world.

You are a part of this narrative. When you are able to define your identity, you can recognize what role you play and how you specifically are affected by colonization. Whether your ancestors were colonizers, colonized, or both, we all have a role to play in dismantling the systems created in the aftermath.

Educate yourself on colonial histories throughout the world, and how these have impacted the development of interpersonal and international relations. This takes time and effort, and is a large task to undertake. Start from the self, from the landscape you currently inhabit. Where and how are you currently affected by colonization? Where and how were your ancestors?

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Trauma lives in the blood cells. We all hold the joys, the dreams, the suffering, the fear of our ancestors in our bodies. If you are the descendent of a people who have been scarred by colonization, listen to your body.

Attempt to understand what triggers you and where those triggers stem from. Understand that it is ok, it is necessary, it is revolutionary to take the time and love to heal yourself.

“Community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.�

- Audre Lorde3

Where is your safe space? Who is your community?

It is important to let individuals recognize their safe spaces and be aware of what other communities are out there. Safe spaces can be vital to recovering from the scars left by displacement, gentrification, and migration. By reaching out to other people who have gone through the same experiences, or simply to connect with others who are willing to listen to your experiences, the community exhibits the crucial feature of care and welcoming. Being surrounded by others who support your ideals and understand your journey is healing.

How may you be of service to your community? Maybe it is your path to heal or educate. Once you have gathered this hard-earned knowledge of the self and the broader implications that colonization has worldwide, consider sharing this information with the public. Come together to learn and share your knowledge and experiences.

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the relationship between

Gentrification and Colonialism Can we draw parallels between gentrification and colonization? Should we? Colonization and gentrification hold displacement and violence in common.

Both are invasive, overpowering and oppressive. Colonization in the Western Hemisphere bred the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the genocide of Indigenous peoples throughout what we now recognize as North and South America. The results of these interactions have instilled many harmful ideologies and practices that we can interpret as legacies of the colonial project in the West. Gentrification is among such practices.

It’s important not to conflate these two problems as colonialism continues to harm populations throughout the world. But we should understand that one bred the other and the pain it brings to communities is real and enduring.

So what are the harmful effects of gentrification? What must be understood is that these neighborhoods have had to carve out their own space within a white infrastructure that often ignores their needs. Living in the diaspora is hard and at times scary. We feel the instinctual, deeply-rooted need and desire to hold onto the people and places we came from. Coming to a new land, such as the USA, we seek people whose paths and life stories, values and culture reflect our own. We deserve to feel at home. The danger that comes from gentrification is invasion of a culture and people without any respect or realization of what is already there. Unlike most other parts of the city, these neighborhoods are not Eurocentric. When people from the outside come in, for any reason, and attempt to overthrow the norm through blatant ignorance or dismissal, families become displaced. This can look like being kicked out of an apartment you’ve called home all your life because now your neighborhood is “on the rise” and new tenants have realized its financial potential, and so they up the rent. It can also look like feeling out of place in the community you grew up in, because you look around and nothing feels familiar. This is no longer home.

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In Chicago Columbus did not discover the United States. There were people inhabiting this land long before Europeans set foot in the Americas. In Chicago and surrounding areas, the Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo nations have been present for thousands of years4. The 1833 Grand Settlement ended the Black Hawk War and Potawatomi settlement in the metropolitan area. The U.S. government quickly sold this stolen territory to hundreds of farmers and speculators5.

These issues have affected Chicago historically, and still hold implications to how our infrastructures operate to this day. Some examples of how living environments in Chicago developed out of exclusionary and racist practices is visible through strategies used in real estate.

Redlining is the practice of denying or limiting financial services to specific neighborhoods, generally because its residents are people of color or are poor. Redlining policies included creating color-coded maps of cities in the US and using racial criteria to categorize lending and insurance risks. New, richer, and racially homogeneous housing communities were denoted by “greenlines,” while black and poor white neighborhoods were often represented by “redlines6.” The use of redlining often left neighborhoods that banks thought were unfit for investment underdeveloped and forgotten compared to their greenline counterparts7.

The act of “steering” was enacted by offering white home and apartment seekers housing options in white areas, while steering equally creditworthy black patrons into black and racially changing areas. In 1979, the Supreme Court in Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood decided that the village and homeowners in a racially changing area have standing to challenge steering practices as indirect victims of housing bias8.

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“You can’t live on the north-west side of Chicago without talking about gentrification. There is a lot of action being taken to counteract it. From civil disobediences on the luxury towers being constructed on Milwaukee Avenue to rallies against evictions throughout the neighbourhood, gentrification is one of the most contentious issues facing our city.

The push for affordable housing is coming from the community, not elected officials. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a slogan called ‘Building a new Chicago’; what does that mean? There is already a Chicago here. There is obviously an agenda to gentrify and attract tourists to make Chicago a ‘global city’. We should be subsidising affordable housing, instead of downtown hotels.

We need rent control and eviction laws. As a lifelong resident of the north-west side of Chicago, I’m afraid of there coming a day when I don’t recognise my neighbourhood, when the stores, the people, the library are all gone. That gets to the root of gentrification: this loss of familiarity and home.”

- Lynda Lopez9

“I grew up in West Humboldt Park and attended an elementary school in the neighborhood... As a U of C educated young person (whatever “educated” means), I consider how I fit into the neighborhood I grew up in. Does it automatically make me different? Has my status changed? What is my role in my community? This feeling of responsibility to family and simultaneous guilt for not always knowing how to address the issues in my community is real. After all, what does this piece of paper mean if I can’t use it to give back?... it became clear that the term gentrification doesn’t capture the dynamics of our experiences.

For us, it’s about building, not dismantling. We love the culture of our communities. We love the people. We love the pride that is exhibited through music, celebration, and identity. We have a vested interest in contributing to the continued vibrancy of our communities. We’re not the threat to that.”

- Lynda Lopez10

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Steps to Fight Gentrification Respect the culture of every neighborhood! There is no denying Chicago is a city with sharply delineated segregation. When entering a space you do not inhabit on a daily basis, recognize that you are a guest and it would be rude to impose your own ideals on an entire community.

Support local businesses in gentrified areas. This gives back to the direct communities who made the product and not outside entities attempting to profit off something they see as quirky or new.

Be educated and vocal in your local politics. Often there are propositions that will support gentrification or displacement of people. Know your local tenant rights laws. By keeping up with these policies and political actions, you can make your voice heard through elections, petitions, protests, and calls made to your local alderman.

Help establish Community Land Trusts. These trusts establish property that is owned and operated by the community itself. This allows residents to decide together how their land and property should be run. Give the power back to the people.

Spread awareness of what gentrification is. Many do not know what it is, what it entails, and how it is actively affecting people in our own communities right now. By spreading word and informing outside groups, the issue will become more visible.

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Allies for Marginalized communities: Should we abandon the current language surrounding allyship? There’s a common frustration that referring to oneself as an ally is a shortcut, it doesn’t create any accountability and doesn’t express any commitment.

Ally is an action verb, not a noun/label/identity!

Some steps you can take to be supportive of marginalized peoples and a responsible member of your chosen community: • Acknowledge what privileges you have • Listen • Research the history of oppression that led to the systems that are in place today • Use your privilege (voice/platform) and new knowledge to speak to your own community.

• Don’t speak over those who are directly affected by systems of oppression, you are there to support and spread knowledge to people like yourself • It’s ok to make mistakes if you are willing to apologize, and learn from them • It’s not about your intent, it’s about your impact

Acknowledging your Privilege as a POC As a person of color it is still possible to have privileges not afforded to everyone. We need to always locate the points of privilege we embody so that we can bring our best presence to our communities.

Often, we choose the communities we live in because we want to be in a place where we feel safe and comfortable; we want to see people and places that remind us of home or the culture we grew up in. We might want to be in a space where we minimize the negative effects we feel from contact with whiteness. However, we have to consider our class backgrounds, migratory or citizenship status, mental and physical health, job security/ opportunity, gender and sexual orientation, household size and so on. All of these elements influence the privilege we might hold over our neighbors and how we take up space in our communities. Remember to be accountable for your privileges and do everything you can to know and respect your neighbors and their own struggles as they may or may not intersect with yours. Just because you are a person of color, does not mean you are entitled to all marginalized spaces.

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How to work from a place of Privilege

Anti-Blackness and Aspirational Whiteness in POC Communities Within our society, many toxic concepts rooted in colonization are still pervasive worldwide. One upheld within communities of color is colorism, which is rooted in anti-blackness. Colorism rears its ugly head when Eurocentric markers of beauty like light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes are praised above features associated with blackness. The idea of “breeding out� darker skin or black features is prevalent in cultures across the world, with the idea that having kids with more Eurocentric features will improve the family bloodline. Anti-blackness is so often upheld with the idea that to distance yourself from blackness brings one closer to the benefits of whiteness. These ideas are oppressive and were born from colonial mentalities.

It is our responsibility as non-black people of color to acknowledge how we benefit from anti-blackness and colorism. There is a privilege that some have for being lighter skinned or being perceived as white and if we are not careful this can result in upholding the white supremacist sentiments that hold our community down. Anti-blackness erases and excludes people from our communities who have always been there.

Black Lives Matter.

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Thank You The Decolonization Dinner was first held in the Fall of 2015 as a collaboration among UNIDXS, Indigenous@SAIC and BLACK@SAIC. Now, in our second year of hosting this event, we’ve put so much into trying to create an inclusive space for reflecting on what it means to choose our communities and how to be responsible in our engagement with them. Our goal in creating this event and this publication has been to spark conversations regarding how we interact with our communities, and so we would be excited to see these conversations unfold further in everyday life and outside of academic realms.

We’d like to extend our gratitude to everyone involved in making this event happen, and to you for coming and taking part in our discussion! We hope that the dialogues you engaged in here were resourceful to you, and that this publication has been informative. For those of you already familiar with these ideas, hopefully you came across something that challenged your perspectives in some way.

At the end of this publication, you’ll find a list with additional resources including local organizations and businesses to support, as well as further readings on the subjects.

Thank you!!! And we hope to see you at our next dinner!

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endnotes 1. Mac, Leslie. Twitter. January 23, 2016. https://twitter.com/LeslieMac/ status/691132868622417920/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw.

2. Williams, Anthony. “What Do We Do With White Folks?” Third Wom an Pulse. 2016 http://www.thirdwomanpulse.com/2016/05/10/what- do-we-do-with-white-folks/.

3. Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s

House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berke

ley, CA: Crossing Press. 110- 114. 2007. Print.

4. “About American Indian Association of Illinois.” About American Indi

an Association of Illinois. http://chicago-american-indi an-edu.org/chicago-american-indian-university-educa tion/About-American-Indian-Association-Illinois.html.

5. Durkin Keating, Ann. “Metropolitan Growth.” Metropolitan Growth.

2016. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/821. html.

6. Hunt, D. Bradford. “Redlining.” Redlining. http://www.encyclopedia. zchicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html.

7. Gaspaire, Brent. “Redlining (1937- ) | The Black Past: Remembered

and Reclaimed.” http://www.blackpast.org/aah/redlining-1937.

8. DeVise, Pierre. “Steering.” Steering. http://www.encyclopedia.chicag ohistory.org/pages/1195.html.

9. Readers, Guardian, and Francesca Perry. “’We Are Building Our Way to Hell’: Tales of Gentrification around the World.” The Guardian.

October 05, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/

oct/05/building-way-to-hell-readers-tales-gentrification-around- world.

10. Lopez, Lynda. “The Complexities Of Gentefication.” Gozamos RSS.

September 12, 2016. http://gozamos.com/2016/09/the-com

plexities-of-gentefication/.

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Resources Chicago Restaurants owned by People of Color • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Oasis Cafe * DeCOLORES Galeria y Sabores* Shawn Michelle’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Ain’t She Sweet Café Nita’s Gumbo Chicago’s Home of Chicken and Waffles Venezuelan Bowl Grill Harold’s Chicken Shack Macarthur’s Soul Food Restaurant La Catrina Café Don Pedro Carnitas Imm’s Rice Beyond Thai Street Food Irazu

Chicago Organizations Doing This Work • • • • • • • •

Chicago Freedom School Grassroots Illinois Action Humboldt Park Area Somos logan square Pilsen Alliance Mujeres Latinas en Accion Axis Lab Foundation for Asian American Independent Media

Links to further readings available in the online edition of this publication! You can find it at issuu.com/unidxs or email somosunidxsz@gmail.com for the PDF We realize this list of resources is small! We encourage you to suggest additional resources to our organizers and your peers!

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Credits Research/Writing/Editing Meli Nava, Mina Nieto, Sophia Padgett Perez, Teresa Zoriฤ Additional Editing Nicolรกs Melo Will Wiebe Art By Koy Suntichotinun

Sophia Padgett Perez Meli Nava Lorena Carmina Barrera Enciso Eseosa Ekiawowo Edebiri Mina Nieto

cover p. 1, 2, 3, 4 p. 6 p. 7 p. 8, 12 p. 10 and zine design

Event Speakers Daniel Quiles

Lynda Lopez

Associate Professor Art History, Theory and Criticism

Jaclyn Jacunski

Research Associate for the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research & Collaboration Office of the Provost

Grassroots Illinois Action

Event Performers Kim Chayeb, BFA 2015 Darius Thomas, BFA 2016

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SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR CATERERS Oasis Cafe 21 N Wabash Ave Chicago, IL 60602 (312) 443-9534 DeCOLORES Galeria y Sabores 1626 S Halsted St. Chicago, IL 60608 312.226.9886 info@decolor.us

ASIAN AND ASIAN AMERICAN STUDENTS AT SAIC

INDIGENOUS

STUDENT WELLNESS SUPPORT GROUP SAIC STUDENT GOVERNMENT SAIC OFFICE OF MULTICULURAL AFFAIRS SAIC CONTINUING STUDIES