Alfredo Huante, Ph.D.

Taking Race Seriously in Gentrification Research in A Research Agenda for Gentrification, Winifred Curran & Leslie Kern (Eds). (with Steven Tuttle)

In a recent analysis of trends in gentrification scholarship, Fallon (2020) argues that scholarly treatments of race and gentrification tend to treat race as “epiphenomenal to class in ways that do not require a clear racial logic.” This fact betrays the residents and observers of gentrifying minority communities, who often discuss gentrification in explicitly racial terms. Read more here.

Home in Vida and Gentefied: The Politics of Representation in Gente-fication Narratives in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies (with Carlos Jimenez)

The process of gente-fication, or Latinx-led urban revitalization in working-class barrios, has recently gained widespread attention and is at the heart of the popular US television series Vida (2018–20) and Gentefied (2020–22). Both programs serve as windows into contemporary Latinx struggles over belonging, “home,” and identity against the backdrop of multicultural neoliberalism and multicultural whiteness in the United States…Read more here or here.

Sociology and the Racialized Moral Panic Over ‘CRT’ in Contexts (with Michael Rosino)

Over the past year and a half, politicians and media commentators have amplified a growing movement opposing education focused on racism and racial discrimination in the U.S., often under the guise of fighting “critical race theory” (CRT). Like other critical moments of backlash to efforts at racial progress, the anti-CRT movement contains the hallmarks of a racialized moral panic…Read more here.

Planning the Barrio: Racial Order and Restructuring in Neoliberal Los Angeles in Urban Affairs Review

Scholarship examining the legacy of early twentieth century zoning and real estate practices on present-day urban landscapes has provided significant insight into the ways public officials appraised communities of color at the national and city scale. However, less is known about how local policymakers evaluated communities of color through the social movements of the 1970s and austerity policies of the 1980s. Analyzing Los Angeles City planning and administrative archives from the 1970s to 1990s, I assess how local policymakers arrived at regarding historically racialized and disinvested places like Boyle Heights as potential sites of investment during the last quarter of the twentieth century. I find that city policymakers briefly categorized Boyle Heights as a fit for preservation grounded in its socio-racial composition and, later, designated the barrio as ancillary to intensifying efforts to revitalize downtown. Following the evolution of appraisals of land use during this period of transformation historicizes contemporary gentrification processes and underscores how racial capitalism saturates urban landscapes long before processes of neighborhood change germinate. Access Article.

A Lighter Shade of Brown? Racial Formation and Gentrification in Latino Los Angeles in Social Problems

Conventional gentrification literature has meaningfully demonstrated how economic inequality is perpetuated in urban settings, but there has been a limited understanding of how racial inequality is maintained. Drawing from participant observation, interviews, and digital ethnography in the barrio of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles that were collected over five years, this study examines how gentrification functions as a racial project and supports new forms of racialization to maintain uneven development along racial lines. Examining the ways that racial formation processes unfurl at the local scale expands conventional understanding of racial formation theory and practice while, simultaneously, illustrating the centrality of place in race-making. This study finds new race and class formations are developed by casting the barrio itself and significant portions of the Mexican American population as “honorary white.” Despite colorblind and post-racial ideologies espoused in majority-minority cities like Los Angeles, this landscape fostered emerging racial formations alongside gentrification processes which have increased racial, political, and economic inequality. Access Article.

*Winner of the James E. Blackwell Graduate Paper Award, American Sociological Association Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities (2019)

*Winner of the American Sociological Association Latina/o Sociology Section Distinguished Contribution to Research Award (2020) 

What’s at Stake in Contemporary Anti-Gentrification Movements? in Society and Space (with Kimberly Miranda)

The tensions among anti-gentrification activists in a Latinx barrio highlight the conditions of late capitalism which generate new forms of political activism in these historic places. In addition to the ongoing responsibility of scholars to challenge the whiteness of the discipline, the rise in the representation of Latinx populations in the U.S. will necessarily compel scholars to respond to increasing complexity of the Latinx experience across urban geographies to better capture and understand the dynamic ways Latinx communities are (re)imagining, (re)articulating, and (re)making their relationship to the built environment and space. Embracing the heterogeneity of Latinx groups in urban places can better position scholarship to anticipate challenges arising as city populations increase and diversity becomes prevalent.… Read more here.

Is Boyle Heights “Worth Saving”?: The History of Gentrification in a Historic Immigrant Gateway in Boom California

During the early 1970s in Boyle Heights, decades before the neighborhood came under public limelight for its fight against gentrification, residents pressed city planners to ensure the Mexican barrio was preserved within the Boyle Heights Community Plan. As part of planning director Calvin Hamilton’s citizen-planning efforts, Community Plans were rolled out throughout Los Angeles to reverse the historic top-down planning practices, which in Boyle Heights had led to a significant loss of housing stock… Read more here.

Book Review: Gentrifier, by Schlichtman, John Joe, Patch, Jason, and Hill, Marc Lamont in City and Community

Gentrifier offers an important contribution to public discourse and debate on gentrification by taking an unconventional approach in a crowded field. Seeking economic growth while curbing the displacement of long‐term working‐class residents remains an elusive task for scholars and policymakers alike. For the authors of Gentrifier, this puzzle at the center of gentrification scholarship is better understood through the perspective of gentrifiers themselves. To attain gentrifiers’ perspectives, the authors argue that professional urban scholars need to look no further than themselves. Read more here.