Sustainability and Social Justice

Where Do We Belong? Urban Adolescents' Struggle for Place and Voice

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Through a telling of key events in the history of the "Teen Action Center" (TAC), a drop-in youth center located in downtown "Unionville," this story demonstrates how 'youth' is an important diversity category. The community conflict highlighted in this story centers around the 1997 arrest of TAC's Executive Director and two youth leaders (all Puerto Rican) because a small group of Latino and African-American youth was smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk in front of the Center. This conflict brings into focus divergent views on where Unionville's youth of color belong in the city, both physically and figuratively. The lessons learned in this story have wide application as Unionville, and other cities undergoing demographic transformation and economic decline, are likely to continue to experience these types of clashes, where the dominant paradigm of economic development overrides the realities, rights, and interests of marginalized groups. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

Publication Title

American Journal of Community Psychology

Publication Date

6-1-2006

Volume

37

Issue

3-4

First Page

293

Last Page

301

ISSN

0091-0562

DOI

10.1007/s10464-006-9041-8

Keywords

community psychology, diversity, economic development, urban, youth of color

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