The Kids Are Alright - Part 2

On Monday I wrote about my visit to North High School in Denver with ABCD Coordinator Aspen Matthews. Our objective was to interview high school students in the neighborhood about the ongoing gentrification in their neighborhood, and what we found was that the students were as aware and opinionated about gentrification as many of the adults.

The freshmen and sophomores we spoke to first were able to identify and discuss the changes happening in their neighborhood, but many of these students incorrectly identified the gentrification as happening within the last year or two. This is a far cry from the a general consensus found during the ABCD project that place the first signs of gentrification around 2007 or even earlier.

The Juniors and Seniors, on the other hand, generally identified the gentrification as beginning five to seven years ago. This is much more in line with our earlier findings.

What was even more interesting is the varied reactions to gentrification. It can be easy to try to over simplify the issue and assume that the Hispanics and Italians, whose families have been in the neighborhood longer, would be against gentrification, while newer whites might be indifferent to it.

However, that wasn't the case.

Since we talked to students in groups, there may have been group think at work, but we ended up talking to a group of white students that hated the gentrification, a group of Hispanic students that liked it, and another group of Hispanic students that hated it.

Furthermore, Aspen talked to a group of students that had a mutual dislike of gentrification, but found that not everyone was comfortable sharing that. When one of the white students she spoke to stated their dislike for gentrification, a group of Hispanic students responded with, "you can say that because you're white."

For these students, the fear is that they will be perceived as being racist for expressing negative opinions about the changes in the neighborhood, since the gentrification is caused by wealthier whites who are culturally different than they are.

If anything, this only adds to the helplessness that these students feel as they are forced to watch the neighborhood around them change, with many low income Hispanic and Italian families are being pushed out due to rising property taxes and outside pressure from real estate agents.

So, what does all this mean?

While I don't have a definitive answer to that, the variable that I imagine would make these students unique - compared with adults we interviewed - is that they have grown up with the gentrification and the consequences of it most of their lives.

For some, gentrification may feel natural and normal. This doesn't necessarily mean that they do or don't like what is happening, but it may explain why we were able to find students that might be more negatively effected by gentrification responding positively to it or why young Hispanics are hyper aware of the perception their opinions might send to outsiders.

These are just some initial thoughts, not hard theories or conclusions. At the very least, we learned that whether or not they have a name for the concept, high school students in Northwest Denver are aware of the changes caused by gentrification, and whether positive or negative - and in fact, it's mostly negative - these students have strong opinions about it.

- John Putnam, The 32^nd Avenue Jubilee Center Episcopal Service Corps Intern