Confronting the White Renaissance: Educational Advocacy and Gentrification in the New Latinx Diaspora

Abstract

Allentown, Pennsylvania is one of many small-to-midsize cities experiencing substantial and sustained Latinx population growth. For the past fifteen years, city officials have solicited tax-subsidized, corporate development in low-income, Latinx and Black neighborhoods. Although development was presented as good for the economy and community, the public school district continued to face severe underfunding and debt, and the average cost of rent and eviction rates continued to rise.

I used critical ethnography to examine city politics and educational advocacy efforts of Allentown’s Latinx population, which recently surpassed 50 percent. I investigated 1) the state of neoliberal reform in the city and its impact on education for Latinxs, 2) how Latinx community members navigate racialized city politics to advocate for educational resources, and 3) processes of racialization of Latinxs through local public discourses and access to educational resources. I collected data across the following sources: city council and school board meetings, interviews with Latinx community members, field notes from community events, legislation, and newspaper archives. Drawing on a conceptual framework combining Critical Race Theory with racial formation, I employed critical discourse analysis and discourse tracing to analyze these micro-, meso-, and macro-level texts.

Results from this 10-month study indicated that local business and political leaders used a “renaissance” discourse to justify expending public funds towards private development which displaced low-income, Latinx residents through gentrification. Developers and administrators rarely addressed the direct impact of the affordable housing crisis on students, while Latinx educational advocates addressed immediate needs of students and families through non-profit work and resource sharing. Crucially, formal political processes of resource distribution held many barriers for Latinx participation, and anti-Blackness within the Latinx community remained a significant barrier to coalition building.

I included suggestions to address gentrification and displacement that has disproportionately impacted low-income Latinx and Black families. My suggestions include: leveraging city administration to impose an affordable housing ordinance related to new development, heeding Black and Afro-Latinx calls for dismantling anti-Blackness within the community, addressing barriers to political participation among marginalized populations, and a reassessment of organizational missions to center systemic change and equity over private interests and philanthropy.