Extending the rich literature about women-of-color activism, this article analyzes the ways Chicago-based Chicanas and Black women maintain, build, and expand low-income residents’ access to and ownership of the city. I draw on 30 months of community-engaged, ethnographic fieldwork within high-poverty Mexican- and African-American neighborhoods and on interviews with 22 women-of-color activists across Chicago. Combining the cultural signifiers “ratchet” and “rasquache,” I highlight the strategic use of discursive and aesthetic frames to disrupt negative narratives of these women’s activism and their often-vilified communities. As a framework, ratchet-rasquache activism counters urban development practices that marginalize Black and Chicana/o/x communities. Emerging from African-American communities, “ratchet” connotes unruliness and low-class behavior. In Mexican communities, “rasquache” similarly connotes negative or low-class behavior but also means making the most with the tools one has. Both concepts, rooted in working-class sensibilities, can subvert narratives of racial uplift and reject normative whiteness as the standard for both activism and community development. Deploying “ratchet” and “rasquache” as positive attributes, Chicago-based women-of-color activists used nonhierarchical community-organizing tactics to operate as neighborhood strategists. Acknowledging the strength and expertise within marginalized, impoverished communities, they embraced a working-class, asset-based, ratchet and rasquache strategy, while striving to build something from something.

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We explored how highly educated and middle-class Kenyan female immigrants perceive their encounters with the police in the United States, including the decision to access the criminal justice system in response to their victimization. We found a positive correlation between perceptions of procedural justice and cooperation among Kenyan women immigrants. Conversely, prior victimization was inversely associated with help-seeking among these women. When Kenyan female immigrants perceived high police effectiveness in dealing with IPV, they were more likely to feel obligated to obey the U.S. police. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The stories we tell about ourselves and our communities have the power to impact perceptions of marginalized communities, both positively and negatively. Narratives affect how people view themselves, their town, and other members of their community and thus shape personal interactions, local culture, social situations, and even decisions about allocation of resources. When those stories are rooted in discursive frames-what we can understand as the links between ideology and narrative-they can also perpetuate and reify power inequities. Within rural America, local elites and residents alike use narratives and discursive framing to erase or exclude communities of color and, at times, poor whites in unique ways. This happens through explicit and willful ignorance of narratives of difference that could both complicate normative assumptions and highlight histories of dispossession within rural towns. Drawing on 30 interviews and 12 months of ethnography in the midwestern town of Moses, we provide a case study that demonstrates how narratives perpetuated by both decision makers and residents, across racial and class backgrounds, are rooted in colorblind racism and classblindness regarding African Americans, Mexican Americans, and poor whites. These narratives frame perceptions of residents and neighborhoods, influence town-level decisions, and erase local histories.☆ We are deeply thankful to Nancy Eberhardt and William Hope for insightful comments during the early stages of this project. We would also like to thank Debi Osnowitz (QEPD) and Lauren Rubenzahl for their keen eye and helpful suggestions during the writing phase. We are also grateful to Angela Fillingim, Chantal Hailey, Manata Hashemi, Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, and the reviewers for their extensive comments on previous drafts. Many of the people we would like to thank will remain anonymous, these individuals provided housing, fellowship, and key introductions during data collection. We are deeply indebted to our many interlocutors who took time out of their busy schedules to talk with us about issues in their town. This project was funded through a seed grant at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, of which we are thankful.

Chapter 3 looks at complementary aspects of trust and mistrust in community development. Using a framework of development from above versus development from below, the author analyzes the tactics, strategies, and programming practices implemented by two distinct types of community groups: nonprofit lead agencies and grassroots organizations. Whereas the lead agencies focused on the goals of the New Communities Program, including social service provision and relationship building, the grassroots organizations combined community development practices with community organizing to expand local development and increase the leadership skills of residents. Grassroots actions included expanding public transportation, holding aldermanic summits, and transforming negative perceptions of their communities. These processes highlight the growing divide between formal development policies, which aimed to transform the individual, and local responses, which aimed to transform structural inequities while also developing local leadership potential.

Drawing on the author’s own experiences growing up in Chicago, the introduction provides background on redevelopment initiatives within Black and Mexican communities in the city. It outlines different approaches to redevelopment that have continued histories of dispossession for communities of color and highlights the importance of community organizations in ensuring resident inclusion in urban redevelopment initiatives. The author introduces the New Communities Program, a ten-year, multimillion-dollar redevelopment initiative that was spearheaded by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. Finally, the introduction provides context on the ways that trust and mistrust are rational responses by marginalized populations to urban policies.

This chapter describes the New Communities Program as it sought to create a common culture, using particular language regarding development in the target neighborhoods. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation staff built deep relationships of trust between their partner lead agencies and powerful city elites who could steer resources into these communities. Although these partnerships did infuse money and technical expertise into the targeted neighborhoods, they also restricted advocacy and controversial development projects. Applying the discourse of professionalization and policy neutrality, the author argues, these trust networks socialized members into a single organizational culture—one that focuses on remedying the shortcomings of individuals—at a cost to local neighborhoods.

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