UC Santa Barbara

El Barrio Lindo: Chicana/o and Latinx Social Space in Postindustrial Los Angeles explores how youths and young adults cognitively map and physically traverse space in the postindustrial city. In the neoliberal era, when dominant social groups promote a world that revolves around materialistic gain and hyper-individualism, I reveal how artist activists author and authorize multiple and diverse visions of social membership. El Barrio Lindo focuses on how Chicanas/os and Latinxs re-appropriate social space through painting, music performances, poetry readings, marches and other forms of collective activity, carried out in the backyards of houses, in alleyways, in freeway culverts, in the areas that surround taco trucks, in common areas in public housing projects, and along busy boulevards across the city. I document and analyze repertoires of expressive culture that include “alternative archives” about race, gender, class, and power. These archives provide a critical reading of methods used by Chicana/o and Latinx communities for waging material and symbolic struggles for visibility and mobility. My sources include oral history interviews, community newspaper stories, archival documents, poems, song recordings, visual art, and observant participation.