Capstone Prototype Progress

I have lived in the same apartment, on the same street, and around the same people all of my life in the Villa Victoria, South End, Boston. During my transition to college, I found it very hard to integrate myself into the NYU community because of my strong ties to home, that was all I knew. I would often be homesick and felt guilty for leaving my home to pursue higher education.

I have a strong admiration for my community and have always dreamed of giving back to it. Although I do not know exactly what my project is going to be, I know that I want to create something that I can place inside of my community that celebrates it’s history, highlights pride and emphasizes joy.

The Villa Victoria is famously known within the work of Sociology and serves as a national model in the areas of civil rights, community organizing, and affordable housing. In the NYU Online Database, I actually found a whole book dedicated to it called “Villa Victoria : The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio.” When I came across this work, I got the shivers because I didn’t know there was scholarly work discussing my neighborhood. I was so eager to read all about it and it was all so familiar to me. Yet, it was published in 2009 and it made me wonder what has changed within my community since then.

What makes the Villa Victoria interesting and special? Well, the city of Boston saw a wave of migrants entering the city in the 1950s-60s due to the opportunity for employment. My grandfather was among this wave. When he arrived to the South End, it was considered a slum and was cut off from the wealthier sides of the city. In 1968, the city planned to scrap this slum in order to maintain the city’s reputation and promoted an Urban Renewal Project. This project would displace many poor families, predominately Puerto Rican.

Yet, they weren’t going to leave without a fight. They held many protests and organized activist groups (IBA, ETC) in order to fight the city on its urban renewal project. They were so persistent and determined that the landlord gave up on their efforts and actually gave over the land to the residents. They were given the rights to develop their OWN community.

The residents believed that education, health, safety, culturally vibrant environments are fundamental to individual and community empowerment.

Growing up, I have these colorful and joyful memories of parades, murals, neighborhood kids playing outside, etc. but over the past few years, so much has changed. I am interested in preserving my community’s prideful energy and give the next generation something that they can remember and be inspired by, just as I was. I definitely feel like there’s a big lack in this right now and that may be from my ignorance on current programs or resources, but that is why I want to research more about this.

In order to do this the right way, I think it goes without saying that I need my community’s input! Luckily, I have many ways of getting that. My first source is my family, my neighbors, and my friends that I grew up with. I can schedule a time to sit down with them and have a real conversation about it.

I want to see if we share this mutual feelings that things have changed. I want to know their relationship to our community and what they wish to see more of in these 5 blocks. I want to know how they arrived in the Villa and what being Puerto Rican means to them! I want to center my project on stories and voices in my community. I want to give them a greater platform to be seen and heard. I want to present these stories through the lens of a new generation! Interviewing my family and friends will hopefully help me pinpoint themes that I may want to further explore and visually translate within this project.

I am interested in learning more about trauma, love, grief, displacement, what people consider home, history, generational gaps, and cultural roots. These topics are really personal and I want to treat them with respect so I will communicate this to the interviewee prior to the conversation to make sure they are okay with talking about it!

Potential Interview Questions:

Who are you? How old are you?

How long have you lived here?

When and why did your family move here?

What do you know about the establishment of the Villa Victoria?

What does being Puerto Rican mean to you?

How does the Villa Victoria remind you of Puerto Rico?

How do you feel about being raised on the mainland vs the island?

What is a joyful memory you have here? a not so good memory?

Do you like living here? Do you ever want to move out one day?

How has the neighborhood changed over the years?

What would you like to see more of in your neighborhood?

What do you wish for, in general?

+other questions as the conversation flows!

I also have the resource of my community’s residential organization, Inquilinos Boricuas En Action. They are staff and volunteers with connections to the Villa Victoria. They have valuable archives and data. I used to work here as a teen and still have connections to the staff. I could try to set up an interview with them as well to see if this project is possible.

Potential Interview Questions for Staff

-Who are you?

-What is your role here?

-Why did you decide to work here? What is your connection to the neighborhood?

-What is your favorite thing about the neighborhood?

-What are some issues within our community that need to be addressed?

-How is your team trying to better the community?

-How do you think the neighborhood has changed over the years in both beneficial and negative ways?

-What would you like to see more of within this community?

-What is a joyful memory? a not so good one?

-What do you wish for, in general?

+other questions as the conversation flows!

I hope to gain a sense of reoccurring themes. I also want to be able to give a new lens and style to the new generation of Puerto Rican youth growing up here.

Centering the project on the stories of the people was inspired by an installation I saw by Pepón Osorio entitled Badge of Honor. He followed a family who was challenged with surviving while their father was in and out of prison. The installation focused on projecting the father and son conversation’s about how the father’s imprisonment was affecting the family which centered around trauma, grief, and loss. While the conversation was being held, Osorio recreated a version of the son’s room and of the father’s cell.