Slide Show: In Gentrified Williamsburg, Latino Community Fights to Maintain its Identity

Fi2W is featuring the work of students in the Feet in 2 Worlds course at The New School. 

Watch the slide show

Fi2W Los Sures from Ground Floor Films on Vimeo.

fi2w-williamsburg

Old time residents of South Williamsburg playing dominos on the street. (Photo: Sara Loscos)

Since 1972, the non-profit organization Los Sures has been helping to rebuild the south side of Williamsburg, a Brooklyn neighborhood undergoing rapid gentrification.  Los Sures offers affordable housing, social services and legal assistance to old time residents who do not want to give up their homes.

Ramon Peguero, director of Los Sures, says gentrification is positive in some aspects, and since most of the long time residents are immigrants themselves they are very welcoming because they know what it takes to be accepted. “However, one thing is to open your arms and a different one is when someone tries to erase your identity,” Peguero says.

Preserving the neighborhood’s Latino identity is one of the goals of the Los Sures museum, which opened last year at 120 South First Street in Williamsburg.

In this audio slide show the director of Los Sures guides us on a walk through a neighborhood full of contrasts, recalling the story of the Hispanic community of South Williamsburg since the 1970s.  Peguero highlights the determination of Latino residents to stay in the area and hold on to their identity.

“The people who are coming in are standing on the shoulders of people who gave their lives, some of them gave their sweat, some of them gave their families up… and this is very precious. So to give it up, to allow this to be taken without a fight… I don’t see that happening in this community,” Peguero says.

Fi2W is supported by the David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation and the Ralph E. Odgen Foundation.

 

AboutSara Loscos
Sara Loscos is a NY based journalist from Barcelona. She is a writer for Time Warner Cable NY1 Noticias in New York. She holds an MA in Media Studies and Film from The New School and a BA in Journalism by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has worked as a reporter, host, and writer for Catalan Public Television and several radio stations since 2002. As an actress, she has appeared in several movies, TV shows, and plays.