Barrio

At its most basic level, “barrio” refers to a place—a neighborhood, community, enclave, and/or region— that is familiar to many and evokes a range of affective responses. Unlike the term colonia, which conjures ideas of semi-rural spatial formations, barrios are often imagined as decidedly urban spaces—as dense enclaves, which are familiar features of American cities (Sánchez Korrol 1994; D. Diaz 2005; Vigil 2008; Ward 2010). They are places born out of histories of segregation, uneven development, conflict, and marginalization; but they are also the precious spaces that affirm cultural identities, nurture popular cultural production, and provide sanctuary for people with long histories of displacement, land loss, repression, and collective struggle. In this way, barrios share a great deal in common with African American ghettos. According to Diego Vigil, both spaces derived from people’s experiences of having to “settle in inferior places that were spatially separate and socially distanced from the dominant majority group” (2008, 366; also see D. Diaz 2005). This spatial and social isolation exacerbated economic, political, and social marginalization and contributed to powerful narratives of racial and cultural difference, which both stigmatized residents and justified their continued marginalization. But as many scholars, artists, and activists have noted, “There is another side of this view of segregation” (Beveridge 2008, 358). This involves individuals making a conscious choice to live in spaces that circumvent, as much as possible, their stigmatization by whites and to pursue opportunities to “develop on their own in their own communities” (Beveridge 2008, 358; also see Jackson 2001). It is precisely this other side of barrio life—as a space for cultural affirmation, ethnic solidarity, collective determination, and nostalgia—that leads its residents to defend and preserve these spaces in the face of powerful stigmatizing forces. As Raúl Villa notes, the barrio is “a complex and contradictory social space” (2000, 8). In short, el barrio is simultaneously a place, space, and metaphor with a range of meanings for scholars, policy makers, residents, and artists (Pérez, Guridy, and Burgos 2011).