Perspectives and Positions: Phillip’s Multimodal Literacy Engagement

The findings and analyses presented below reveal insights into how young people and a teacher think about spatial change. In the following section, I present three scenarios, supported by media texts, that highlight how project participants questioned the social re/construction of space. The scenario with Phillip and Khaleeq individually examine the politics of change through local histories and lived experiences. The scenarios with Kim and Samantha explore the ways struggles and identities are connected to acts of place-making, and the final scenario with Mr. T discusses human involvement within a shifting community space as mediated by media culture and literacy. Each scenario reveals how participants construct literacy responses to gentrification while grappling with the inherent value of Harlem-space.

Scenario #1: Phillip’s Video Clip

My work with Phillip and Khaleeq began at Harlem High School with a focus on their writing practices. It quickly moved into examining gentrification in Harlem as a way to create literacy narratives on community change. During our investigations, we discussed the historical relevance of local sites: Theresa Towers, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, etc. Our discussions led to inquiries into what these sites indicate about Harlem’s history and how this history gets re-situated because of gentrification. For example, in Phillip’s video, he offered a narration about the re-situation of history by reading signs of newness in the area: seeing new (and not familiar) faces, being surrounded by new buildings, and living in the middle of gentrification. As he considered these realities, Phillip was able to use the video as a tool that captured one story of gentrification (being pushed out). This eventually allowed him to understand how the process of being filmed contributed to his emerging ability to critique change.

When Phillip viewed his video, he reiterated his unsettling feelings of being “stuck in the middle” and having to face the reality, with his mother, of increasing rent. It was this latter point that led him to confess his fear that many long-time residents of color might be displaced from Harlem (“their only home”). Being videotaped increased his awareness of personal connections to the space of and people in Harlem. He used literacy to express those connections, which is evident in one of his journal entries: “I now see literacy as, like, a way to connect to myself. I can be in front of the camera or even behind it and have thoughts being taped. That allows me to think about gentrification…map out definitions and reactions. And I turn to the video camera to help me keep track of my thinking, because it changes as quickly as Harlem.” Such changes—his thinking about literacy and his disposition towards gentrification—influenced his involvements in the community, especially as Phillip used, held, and stared into the lens of the video camera. His sense of power, embodied within his status as an African American male and youth resident in Harlem, paired with his sense of duty and responsibility to “protect this community from what residents already here cannot afford,” more readily materialized during the filming and viewing of his video.

Another example of this sense of power, duty, and responsibility to Harlem surfaced when we (Phillip, Khaleeq, and I) attended tenants’ association meetings and listened to the stories of residents, mainly older African Americans, who have been living in Harlem for over 20 years (for more information about actions being taken by tenants in Harlem, read about their protests against evictions and gentrification). Their stories of abandonment—being forced out of their apartments at the end of their lease; being told to temporarily vacate their apartments because of capital improvements, but not being able to afford the new rental price; stating that “many of us live in substandard apartments” (unnamed tenant)—are painfully real. Recognizing, listening to, and critiquing these stories were significant for our work because they encouraged us to consider Maxine Greene’s (1995) claim: “Democracy, we realize, means a community that is always in the making. Marked by an emerging solidarity, a sharing of certain beliefs, and a dialogue about others. It must remain open to newcomers, those too long thrust aside” (p. 39). Even in our considerations, we were struck by a stark reality, as articulated by many of the residents in attendance at the association meetings: “What about us?” “Changes bring new things, but what about the things already here?” and, “Where do they think we’ll go? Eighty years old and living on the streets? I’m one face of displacement!” Undoubtedly, in a democracy, it is not just the “newcomers” who are thrust aside, but also the “old-leavers.”

However, in the following video from All Things Harlem, Nellie Hester Bailey, co-founder of the Harlem Tenants Council, explains how the fight to “protect Harlem,” to borrow Phillip’s phrase, is ongoing and will spark further efforts to protect longtime residents.

Taken together, these artifacts (Phillip’s video and journal excerpt and Bailey’s video) and the stories they tell influence how participants take up literacy to critique gentrification. For example, Phillip was able to engage in a process of being filmed in his community, being asked questions about community change that he eventually posed to other participants, and being able to connect video text with print text to reflect on his emerging stance on gentrification. Doing so pushed him to ponder meanings of activism, displacement, and storying, that is, thinking about how local community narratives (like his own) can be storied, re-storied, and storied into public debates on spatial re/appropriation. His video, other public videos on/about Harlem, and his employment of literacy strategies helped him question, critique, and write about gentrification.