"Gentrifying Choice and (Un)Freedom: Selling Out to Survive in Gentefied" examines the Netflix series Gentefied and its efforts to make sense of the tangled social and personal issues that inhere in the complex processes known as gentrification. Centered on the primarily Chicano barrio of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, this essay begins by suggesting that Gentefied’s understated blend of comedy and drama cleverly resists the urge to package gentrification as either a tragedy or an uplifting fable of family-triumphs-over-all. Instead, Gentefied emphasizes, in articulate but at times ambiguous terms, the costs and opportunities that come with navigating the rapidly shifting economic and cultural terrain of a neighborhood in active gentrification. Using the “rational choice” framework of philosopher Ruth Chang, this essay proposes that Gentefied’s contribution to what might be termed "Gentrification Studies" is that way in which it articulates the raft of impossible “choices” that residents face in trying to make sense of, and adapt to, the economic and social changes wrought by neoliberal notions of progress, development, and renewal. This essay concludes by suggesting that, as such, Gentefied is urgent, essential viewing for those interested in understanding the human cost behind the ubiquitous, structural, global processes that mark contemporary gentrification.

Authors:
John "Rio" Riofrio, College of William and Mary, United States

About the Presenter(s)
John Riofrio, "Rio", is an Associate Professor of Latinx and Hispanic Studies at William & Mary. His publications focus on Latinx cultural production including Literature and Film, as well as the theory and practice of mentoring.

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