The neighborhood was well lit with plenty of meters along the sidewalks and an abundant amount of small businesses, like the one featured in the picture below. The small businesses allow more people to flourish financially than would larger corporations that would profit more on surplus value. The neighborhood seemed to be close knit. The meters on the street can also explore the idea that people come through and out of the neighborhood often- therefore parking is not as available as it is in larger streets.
During my
visit I interviewed a friend of mine who has lived in Boyle Heights for 21
years. Jeremy attended Roosevelt High School and said that his community was 90% of
Hispanic decent. He informed me
that the city had one Jewish and one Chinese Temple that everyone was aware of.
He also shared how his school was over populated. With over five thousand
students some of them had to be transported to an occupational center in order
to get an education.
It is
interesting to explore the Chicago School Model and the lecture notes concept that
Individuals are distributed according to “residence and occupation” into
“natural economic and cultural groupings”. This is partly what happened in Boyle Heights. Societies tend to form groups in which people of similar financial needs or cultural backgrounds can relate to one another. This agglomeration ultimately allows people to successful live among one another.
Hi Kathy, I agree with your ideas of Boyle Heights, and how it is primarily served only certain ethnic people dealing with the same economic struggles. Boyle Heights is just one example of the many cities in LA that have served as a place for people of the same struggles to come together.
ReplyDeleteIn your example you mentioned that there were murals and ethnic related art that represent the Latin community and I think that is important because like you said, most of the residents that live there are Latin. The city you live in serves you a purpose in life and you have to feel comfortable with the neighborhood and people that reside in it in order to be content with our lifestyle. Based on occupation I think people are able to connect with one another and understand each other's story more with similarities.
However I wish you would have mentioned if there were any boundaries between Boyle Heights and other surrounding cities or if they are all essentially the same. Also I would've been interested to know the type of transportation that dominated this area, or if it was known for crime or the type of groups that inhabited this area.
However I think its amazing that this city has lit streets, murals and a sense of culture to it. The fact that many business owners keep their businesses small and local makes the city seem more intimate and friendly and it goes well with the concept of people residing in cities where their occupation and and residents are essentially similar to them.
Since you mentioned the Chicago School Model, I would have asked your friend if he has seen changes in the neighborhood since he has lived there for a long time, and how the neighborhood was able to process these changes if any, because that was essentially what the sociologists of Chicago were interested in.
Great and interesting post!
-Erica Mendez
Hi Kathy, I have never even heard of Boyle Heights, no less been there, so I enjoyed reading your blog post and learning a little bit about the area. I like how you chose one particular block in the area so that your analysis could be specific. Your depictions of the murals you observed seem accurate, and I think you are correct in your presumption that the "tagging on the walls and floor can be related more to lower economic communities" since it has often been associated with those groups of people. However, I'm not sure whether you are referring to the picture you posted when speaking of the tagging, but it seems that those words don't resemble to tagging that is usually done on walls/buildings; instead, those words seem more positive and hopeful than most of the graffiti/tagging I have seen.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you had the opportunity to interview a friend from the area (and even more advantageous for the purpose of understanding more about Boyle Heights) that he has lived for over two decades. I find it interesting that 90% of the community is of Hispanic decent, and this brings up the topics from class having to do with class and race. From this week's reading, "The Continuing Causes of Segregation", Massey and Denton consider the idea of segregation having to do with racism. While I do not know the history of Boyle Heights or its class, it seems as though those who live there would fall under a lower social class category according to the small information I have collected from your post, regarding the education system. That being said, I do not mean to imply that racism exists in Boyle Heights; rather, I am trying to get the point across that is brought up in this reading: that is, segregation from the past relates to living patterns spatially in a city. In this sense, the vast majority of Hispanics in Boyle Heights seems to demonstrate this idea.
Furthermore, according to the Marxist view, the fact that your friend's school was "too populated" implies that the community is trying to use the city as a tool for reproducing labor (and it's working; in fact, it's over-working, if you will). In Marxist's view, virtually everything within a city can be related back to the production of goods, and therefore, labor to produce the goods. In class, schools were described as "factories for producing labor" and when your friend says that "some [students] had to be transported to an occupational center in order to get an education", this is in correlation to the 'schools as factories' idea, in that education must remain organized in order to effectively continue the production of labor.
Finally, I enjoyed reading your post. Great job!
-Nicole