barrio

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Barrio (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbarjo]) is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.

Usage

In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days.^{[citation needed]} In Cuba, Puerto Rico and Spain, the term barrio is also used to denote a subdivision of a municipio (or municipality); the barrios are further subdivided into sectors. Previously, in the Philippines, the term also referred to as rural village and now changed by law to barangay - the basic political unit of government.

In Argentina and Uruguay, a barrio is a traditional division of a municipality officially delineated by the local authority at a later time, and sometimes keeps a distinct character from others (as in the barrios of Buenos Aires though they have been superseded by larger administrative divisions). Here, the word does not have a special socioeconomic connotation, except that it is used in contrast to the centro (city center or downtown). The expression barrio cerrado (translated "closed neighborhood") is employed for small, upper-class, residential settlements, planned with an exclusive criterion and often literally enclosed in walls (a kind of gated community).

Some locales called barrios in the United States include Boyle Heights, California; East Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Oakland, California; Roma Creek, Texas; Avondale, Arizona; Coachella, California; La Puente, California; San Bernardino, California; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Huron, California. Some of these are referred to as just "El Barrio" by the locals and nearby residents.

Urban barrios portrayed in national media and pop culture include Spanish Harlem, East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, California; Chicago, Illinois; Oakland, California; Pilsen, Chicago; North East Side (Denver) in Denver, Colorado; Washington Heights; Jackson Heights in New York City; Mission District, San Francisco; East San Jose in San Jose, California; and Segundo Barrio in El Paso.

In communities with Hispanic (in this case, Mexican-American) majorities or pluralities such as Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso of Texas; the unincorporated community of East L.A.; Boyle Heights; and Santa Ana, California among others in Southern California; and South Phoenix and South Tucson in Arizona - "barrio" may refer to neighborhoods with a long history of being ethnic enclaves, as opposed to middle class or suburban residential districts that merely have many Hispanic residents.^{[citation needed]}

At the edge of Hispanic American colonial cities there were places where work, trade, social interaction and symbolic spiritual life occurred. The places became known as barrios. These barrios were created to meet the space needs of local craftsman and the shelter needs of the working class. At times they were designed to meet municipal norms, but they usually responded to functional requirements of the users. Barrios were built over centuries of sociocultural interaction within urban space. In Mexico and in other Latin American countries with strong heritages of colonial centers, the concept of barrio no longer contains the social, cultural and functional attributes of the past. The few surviving barrios do so with a loss of traditional meaning. For most of them the word has become a descriptive category or a generic definition. ^[1]

Many Hispanics refused to leave the barrio because it offered them the comfort of being back in their home country, this caused the barrios to be looked upon unfavorably because of the fact that it was very possible that the neighborhoods would bring down the property value of many other surrounding areas. This effect was known as “white flight”, which was when the white population would leave their current housing situation due to the influx of a certain ethnicity moving into the neighborhood. The Hispanics have no reason to leave however due to the fact that markets and food distributers that are in the area also provide the residents of the barrio with the foods that they could acquire while living in their home country. Immigrants will lose out on learning English due to the fact that everyone in the barrio is able to speak the language of their home country. The children in a barrio are often torn between learning the American culture, and staying within their parent’s culture. The youth are also drawn to gang violence within a barrio; this can be a result of the lack of importance placed on education and doing the right thing within the barrio.^[2]

In the United States barrios can also refer to the geographical "turf" claimed by a Latino gang; this usage is generally limited to the Chicano gangs of California. The dramatization of gang life in music videos and movies has popularized this usage among the general population. Some gangs spell the word varrio, a common variant as some Spanish speakers (such as Mexicans) pronounce the letter "v" like the English "b". In yet another colloquial usage of the term, ethnic "ghettos" and "-towns" are often referred to by Spanish speakers as barrios appended with the appropriate qualifying adjective. For example, Chinatowns are known as barrios chinos.

The United States usage is also seen in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, where barrio is commonly given to slums in the outer rims of big cities such as Caracas and Santo Domingo, as well as lower to middle class neighborhoods in other cities and towns.

History

Over the centuries, the colonial Hispanic American cities evolved as a mosaic of the various barrios, surrounding the central administrative areas. As they matured, the barrios functionally and symbolically reproduced the city and in some way tended to replicate it. The barrio reproduced the city through providing occupational, social, physical and spiritual space. With the emergence of an enlarged merchant class some barrios were able to support a wide range of economic levels. This led to new patterns of social class distribution throughout the city. Those who could afford to locate in and around the central plazas did so. The poor and marginal groups still occupied the spaces at the city's edge.

The desire on the part of the sector popular to replicate a barrio was expressed through the diversity of the populace and functions and the tendency to form social hierarchies and to maintain social control. The limits to replication were mainly social. Any particular barrio could not easily expand territorially into other barrios, nor could it easily export its particular social identity to others. Different barrios provided different products and services to the city. One might make shoes while another made cheese. Integration of daily life could also be seen in the religious sector, where a parish and a convent might serve one or more neighborhoods.

The mosaic formed by the barrios and the colonial center continued until the period of independence in Mexico and Latin America. The general urban pattern was one where the old central plaza was surrounded by an intermediate ring of barrios and emerging suburban areas linking the city to the hinterland. The general governance of the city was in the hands of a mayor and city councilors. Public posts were purchased and funds given to the local government and the royal bureaucracy. Fairness and equity were not high on the list of public interests. Lands located on the periphery were given to individuals by local authorities, even if this land was designated for collective uses, such as farming or grazing. This practice of peripheral land expansion laid the groundwork for later suburbanization by immigrants from outside the region and by real estate agents.^[3]

Disadvantages of living in barrios

Life in the barrios is a struggle for the most, living conditions are often precarious. Main disadvantage of living in the barrios in that it is very cramped living condition with basic facilities. People living in these areas lack running water, sanitation and face high risks of crime. Lack of schooling and education system becomes one of their huge problems. People are dumping their garbage wherever they feel like it; these neighborhood characteristics present health risk on their residents. People built their own poor structure houses from provided government grants. Living in these areas in nothing more than inviting struggles in your life. ^{[4] [5]}

An example of this was in an early Texas barrio, in order for children of illegal immigrants to be allowed to go to school, they would have to pay a $1,000 tuition charge. This was due to a law passed on July 21, 1977, requiring tuition for all undocumented children. Parents of the children sued the superintendent and the school board for the right to allow their children to go to school without having to pay tuition. After three years the case eventually made its way to a Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled against the Texas law. Afterwards the case made its way to the Supreme Court in June of 1982 where, in a 5-4 decision, the 1975 Texas law was deemed unconstitutional as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.^[6]

Other appearances

Barrio and Barrios are also Spanish surnames. The equivalent French spelling, Barriault, is a common name in Quebec. In Portugal the derived surname Barros is very common.

See also

• Barangay
• Colonia (Mexico)
• Colonia (border settlement)
• Bairro
• Bario

References

Look up barrio in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.