Selling Crack in El Barrio

"El Barrio" Spanish Harlem

    In the story, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, by Phillippe Bourgois. Mr. Bourgois moved to Spanish Harlem, in the 1990's  to study the racial segregation and economic marginalization on the inner city. He explores the struggles and tensions with living among, working with, and writing about poor, inner-city minorities. Many people living in the community lived in constant fear. The neighborhood had a lot of drugs, violence, robberies, gang rapes, and countless of other illegal activities. Ray, was a big time drug dealer, well respected, and had a lot of power on the streets. He had a group of people working for him. Ray, had a lot of street smarts, but not much book smarts, he did not know how to read. Bourgois, put him on the spot when he asked him to read an article he was in. He had a hard time, and stumbled over the words he walked out in embarrassment and shame. Primo, had to warn Bourgois, to make himself scarce around the game room for the next few weeks for fear of what he would do to him.

    Ray, lacked the "cultural capital" necessary to succeed in the middle-class, or even the working class world. Ray, had dreams to buy an abandoned building, renovate it, and establish a legal business. But, despite all his cars and wads of cash padding his pockets, he never had a drivers license or any other form of legal identification. He was helpless outside of the streets. Ray, had no concept of how to deal with bureaucracies. He attempted to open up a laundromat, but was unable to wade through the bureaucratic maze of permits, and gave up after a few weeks. The "structural violence", Ray faced was that he was denied a legal income. I wouldn't consider this employment discrimination at all. He didn't have the proper education and documents needed to get these businesses up and running. Ray, chose to run the streets as a child instead of staying in school, and getting the proper education needed to make it in the working class world. You have to go after what you want to make it in this world. Nobody is going to hand anything to you. 

    I was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, also known as "El Barrio", and reading this story brought up a lot of old memories.  I grew up on 110th Street and Park Avenue in Lehman Projects, it wasn't the best neighborhood, but my mom did the best she could to make sure my brother and I was well taken care of. I remember the days of going to the library on 110th Street between Lexington and Third Avenue, and having to pass the drug dealers, alcoholics, and the heroin addicts nodding off on the street corners. It always amazed me how they would lean forward at the waist, but never fell down. Growing up I never knew how dangerous it was growing up in that neighborhood. I was pretty much sheltered as a child, and was never allowed outside by myself unless I was with my mother or brother. I remember seeing crack vials with the colorful tops, and hypodermic needles under the elevated metro north tracks on Park Avenue. My mother would shop at "La Marqueta", which was a market from 112th Street to 116th Street and Park Avenue, that sold meats, dry goods, and ethnic foods not available elsewhere in the city.

    The neighborhood is one of the largest predominantly Latino communities in New York  City. It is mostly made up of Puerto Ricans, and now has a rising number of Mexicans, and Dominicans.