Perspectives and Positions: Khaleeq’s Multimodal Literacy Engagement

Scenario #2: Khaleeq’s Video Clip

Just as Phillip had multiple questions about gentrification, so did Khaleeq. His questions had a lot to do with rent increases, school (un)improvements, and the recipients of change after gentrification efforts. In particular, he wanted to know what it meant for poor and working-class people that “lots of the stores have closed ’cause they’re being out-priced by these big corporate new ones?” Although Khaleeq did not officially live in Harlem, but on the Upper West Side (on the edge of Central Harlem), he did attend high school there and frequently traveled in, through, and across this community. In his video clip, Khaleeq talks about physical indicators of gentrification that pose consequences for who can and cannot afford to remain in the area. Like Phillip, Khaleeq relied on the video camera to capture images of community changes and to consider how these changes might result in the physical movement of people to other boroughs. He did these things by positioning the video camera as a tool that further enabled him to narrate a complicated story of change that was occurring amidst the everyday, routine activities of longtime residents. Specifically, his emerging literacy narrative worked against erasure of history and in favor of historical remembrance (of moments, places, and people). For example, in his video session, Khaleeq directed Phillip to get a shot of the new “tower” being constructed in the area because he wanted to collect visual proof that signs of newness will “move some people out ’cause more and more people gonna see this as a desirable place.”

It is important to address the question of how Khaleeq’s literacy and ability to critique gentrification resulted, in part, from being filmed in the community. He was able to direct Phillip to capture video images of community change as he narrated his previously untold story about the consequences of change: displacement and movement, class differences and dynamics. Then, he talked with project participants about his budding understandings of community and how local histories and lived experiences are central factors in the preservation of community space. More importantly, he employed specific literacy strategies—reading signs, questioning history, pointing to evidence, and foreshadowing events to come (displacement)—in his stories, observations, and critiques on gentrification. These strategies surfaced even more in the following scenario in which Phillip and I interviewed two high school students, Kim and Samantha, about gentrification and its connection to struggle, identity, and acts of place-making.