Introduction
Google the South Bronx in 2017, and black and white images from the 1970s will fill your screen. This is because the 1970s rhetoric surrounding the South Bronx as being a bad and foreign land where buildings burn down has not changed all that much today –– at least for many people not living there. Hundreds and thousands of residents in the South Bronx live, work, and are invested in the well being of their community every day, but their images have yet to fill mainstream search results. This has to due with whose stories are being told, who is determining if those stories are worthwhile, and how those stories are being made accessible through the media and public discourse.
(Dis)placed Urban Histories: Melrose attempts to solidify the stories of the residents and business owners in the South Bronx community of Melrose by conducting oral histories and subsequently providing a multimedia platform on which those histories can be told. We believe the residents’ stories need to be shared, that their stories are worthwhile to understanding Melrose, and that their stories should be easily accessible in order to begin shaping a new rhetoric around the South Bronx.
The theme of that rhetoric is yet to be known. In fact, this project will prove that a multifaceted history of a community is too nuanced for one theme. So rather than seeking for conclusions in these histories, allow them to culminate to an understanding of how each person can provide a unique lens on how you view the history of an area. Your view will always be partial as long as there is someone whose story is not told, but your view nevertheless plays a role in how people in that area are treated –– from funding to gentrifying.
I had the honor of conducting an interview with resident Elissa Carmona in which Elissa attempts to unpack the Melrose area using her first-hand experiences, grant-writing research, and thoughtful hindsight. For Elissa, grant writing and music have been a huge part of her involvement in the neighborhood, but at the end of the day, “the more things change is the more things stay the same.” What does she mean by this? Is this true of history?