Commercial Gentefication as Occupational Activism: How Business Owners Work to Preserve Latinx Barrios in Southern California

Abstract

This article examines how small business owners in gentrifying working-class Mexican-majority barrios (neighborhoods) in Southern California engage in occupational activism, using their businesses as platforms to benefit others outside of their workplace. Through interviews and field research, we address the following: What types of occupational activism occur among business owners in Latinx barrios? And how do business owners navigate the dilemmas and challenges posed by participating in Latinx-led gentrification as financial activism in the barrio? By examining how business owners creatively enact their work roles to promote or resist social change amidst threats of cultural erasure via white-led gentrification, we highlight their workplace dilemma of balancing economic interest, cultural empowerment, and representation. Business owners leverage their workplace roles for community resilience and cultural solidarity, reframing business ownership in the barrio as a form of occupational activism rooted in resistance. As occupational activists, business owners incorporate cultural symbols, ethnic pride, and political messaging into their products and services to preserve cultural identity in the barrio. Our findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge on occupational activism by highlighting small business owners as key actors in the communities where they work, strengthening cultural ties, and serving as agents of social change in vulnerable communities facing gentrification.