Locals,Newcomers,and Longtimers: How Business Owners Navigate Culture and Commerce in Gentefying Barrios of Southern California

Abstract

Gentefication or gentrification by “the people” in Spanish is a term to describe Latinx-led commercial gentrification. This area of study has focused on displacement involving the loss of businesses, pushing out residents, and activist movements due to their neighborhoods’ threat of loss. Our research takes a different approach by solely focusing on business owners as the main drivers and participants in the gentefication of two Mexican-majority commercial districts in Southern California, Barrio Logan and Santa Ana. We conducted fieldwork and interviews to understand what types of business owners participate in gentefication and identify three groups: (1) locals, (2) newcomers, and (3) longtimers. We show how local and newcomer businesses, while on the surface present as “traditional” gentrifiers relative to longtimers, demonstrate heterogeneous motivations and narratives around participating in gentefication. By examining gentefication from the perspective of business owners, we unpack what has been previously understood as a monolith of actors.