East Harlem (El Barrio) Analysis in In Search of Respect

The neighborhood where Philippe Bourgois lived and conducted his research for In Search of Respect in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Located in Upper Manhattan, East Harlem (called “El Barrio” by many of its Latinx, especially Puerto Rican, residents) includes everything north and east of 96th street and 5th Avenue. It has been Manhattan’s poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhood for many decades and gone through successive waves of immigration, most significantly Italians in the early 20th century and Puerto Ricans in the decades afterward. During Bourgois’s research, the neighborhood becomes a center of the crack cocaine trade in New York. The people Bourgois befriends and studies are largely New York-born and raised descendants of parents who migrated from Puerto Rico to East Harlem.

East Harlem (El Barrio) Quotes in In Search of Respect

The In Search of Respect quotes below are all either spoken by East Harlem (El Barrio) or refer to East Harlem (El Barrio). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Anthropological Research and its Consequences Theme Icon

“Man, I don’t blame where I’m at right now on nobody else but myself.”

Related Characters: Primo (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 1

Explanation and Analysis:

Cocaine and crack, in particular during the mid-1980s and through the early 1990s, followed by heroin in the mid-1990s, have been the fastest growing—if not the only—equal opportunity employers of men in Harlem. Retail drug sales easily outcompete other income-generating opportunities, whether legal or illegal.

The street in front of my tenement was not atypical, and within a two block radius I could—and still can, as of this final draft—obtain heroin, crack, powder cocaine, hypodermic needles, methadone, Valium, angel dust, marijuana, mescaline, bootleg alcohol, and tobacco. Within one hundred yards of my stoop there were three competing crackhouses selling vials at two, three, and five dollars.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 3

Explanation and Analysis:

The street culture of resistance is predicated on the destruction of its participants and the community harboring them. In other words, although street culture emerges out of a personal search for dignity and a rejection of racism and subjugation, it ultimately becomes an active agent in personal degradation and community ruin.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 8-9

Explanation and Analysis:

Furthermore, as the anthropologist Laura Nader stated succinctly in the early 1970 s, “Don’t study the poor and powerless because everything you say about them will be used against them.” I do not know if it is possible for me to present the story of my three and a half years of residence in El Barrio without falling prey to a pornography of violence, or a racist voyeurism — ultimately the problem and the responsibility is also in the eyes of the beholder.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 18

Explanation and Analysis:

Most people in the United States are somehow convinced that they would be ripped limb from limb by savagely enraged local residents if they were to set foot in Harlem. While everyday danger is certainly real in El Barrio, the vast majority of the 110,599 people—51 percent Latino/Puerto Rican, 39 percent African-American, and 10 percent “other”—who lived in the neighborhood, according to the 1990 Census, are not mugged with any regularity—if ever. Ironically, the few whites residing in the neighborhood are probably safer than their African-American and Puerto Rican neighbors because most would-be muggers assume whites are either police officers or drug addicts—or both—and hesitate before assaulting them.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: Chapter 132-3

Explanation and Analysis:

Primo, Benzie, Maria, and everyone else around that night had never been tête-a-tête with a friendly white before, so it was with a sense of relief that they saw I hung out with them out of genuine interest rather than to obtain drugs or engage in some other act of perdición. The only whites they had ever seen at such close quarters had been school principals, policemen, parole officers, and angry bosses. Even their schoolteachers and social workers were largely African-American and Puerto Rican. Despite his obvious fear, Primo could not hide his curiosity. As he confided in me several months later, he had always wanted a chance to “conversate” with an actual live representative of mainstream, “drug-free” white America.

Related Characters: Philippe Bourgois (speaker), Primo, Benzie, Maria

Page Number and Citation: Chapter 141

Explanation and Analysis:

“Everybody is doing it. It is almost impossible to make friends who are not addicts. If you don’t want to buy the stuff, somebody is always there who is ready to give it to you. It is almost impossible to keep away from it because it is practically thrown at you. I f they were to arrest people for taking the stuff, they would have to arrest practically everybody.”

Page Number and Citation: Chapter 270

Explanation and Analysis:

East Harlem (El Barrio) Term Timeline in In Search of Respect

The timeline below shows where the term East Harlem (El Barrio) appears in In Search of Respect. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

The Crack Trade and the Underground Economy Theme Icon

...the place he studied: economic growth, the increase in Mexican migration to New York and East Harlem , the widespread jailing of “the poor and the socially marginal” under the guise of... (full context)

Poverty, History, and Public Policy Theme Icon

...switched to marijuana. But three were in jail, and many young people in neighborhoods like East Harlem remained “completely superfluous to the legal economy.” This is unsurprising: the United States is the... (full context)

...he “was forced into crack against my will.” In 1985, when he first moved to East Harlem (“El Barrio”) to study “the experience of poverty and ethnic segregation in the heart of... (full context)

...marginalization and alienation,” of which drugs are “merely a symptom.” Given their official incomes, most East Harlem residents should not be able to survive in Manhattan—half live below the poverty line, and... (full context)

...second subheading, “Street Culture: Resistance and Self-Destruction,” Bourgois argues that the cultural exclusion youth in El Barrio feel elsewhere in New York has led them to create what he names “inner-city street... (full context)

...confront the overwhelming reality of racial and class-based apartheid in America” immediately upon moving to El Barrio . His “outsider status” is obvious: dealers yell and scatter when he walks by, assuming... (full context)

...American and Latinx areas are “too dangerous” (including most of Bourgois’s friends). In reality, few East Harlem residents are ever mugged, and whites “are probably safer” because, as Caesar explains, “people think... (full context)

...of terror” leads people to distance themselves from the marginalized people living in places like El Barrio . Like those around him, Bourgois feels he has “to deny or ‘normalize’ the culture... (full context)

In the section “Internalizing Institutional Violence,” Bourgois reveals that his friends in El Barrio feared police brutality far less than what they would suffer in the holding cell in... (full context)

Under “Accessing the Game Room Crackhouse,” Bourgois explains that his first goal upon arriving in El Barrio is convincing Primo he is not an undercover officer. Bourgois is brought to the Game... (full context)

In “African American/Puerto Rican Relations on the Street,” Bourgois explains that his Nuyorican friends in El Barrio , even though whites would see many of them as black, are “explicitly hostile to... (full context)

Despite El Barrio ’s racial politics, “everyone in Ray’s network” ultimately accepts and likes Bourgois, although those “on... (full context)

After an epigraph from a Catholic priest decrying the danger of East Harlem in the 1930s, Bourgois explains the importance of historical context, and especially the “oppressive colonial... (full context)

While likely unaware of Puerto Rico’s social history after its transfer to U.S. control, El Barrio residents are the direct descendants of the mass migration after World War Two, during which... (full context)

In “ East Harlem ’s Immigrant Maelstroms,” Bourgois turns to “another historical legacy of social marginalization,” that of the... (full context)

In the section “The Italian Invasion of East Harlem ,” Bourgois explains how East Harlem became, according to the New York Mayor’s office, “probably... (full context)

Under “The Puerto Rican ‘Invasion’ of El Barrio ,” Bourgois reveals that the Puerto Ricans moving into East Harlem just before World War... (full context)

In “Poverty and Ecological Disrepair,” Bourgois looks at the wealth of literature decrying East Harlem as Manhattan’s poorest and dirtiest neighborhood, a body of work catalyzed by the neighborhood’s location... (full context)

In “The Reconcentration of Poverty in Easternmost East Harlem ,” Bourgois notes that the part of East Harlem where he, Ray, and their network... (full context)

...to Crackhouse,” Bourgois explicitly turns back to the problem of substance abuse and crime in East Harlem , which was originally filled with tobacco plantations and then overrun with speakeasies in the... (full context)

...and Cocaine,” he notes that these drugs have been a fixation of the literature about East Harlem since the 1920s, and that pictures of La Farmacia and clients who buy Ray’s drugs... (full context)

...in the Underground Economy,” Bourgois explains that “the historical continuity of visible substance abuse” in East Harlem “repeatedly socializ[es] new generations of ambitious, energetic youngsters into careers of street dealing and substance... (full context)

...Mexican, African, and Dominican immigrants who they believe are willing to work for much less. El Barrio Puerto Ricans deride and attack Mexicans in the 1990s just as Italians did Puerto Ricans... (full context)

...competing cultures and often feel like they are forced to betray one or another. An El Barrio resident named Leroy says that those who work in office buildings “wanna be white” and... (full context)

...make his friends feel that he has “betrayed” them when he goes back to visit El Barrio . He is used to his white neighbors fearing him and shouting racist insults at... (full context)

...to steal cars and radios from rich neighborhoods, especially the Upper East Side that borders El Barrio . According to Bourgois, this is Primo’s way of taking revenge on a socioeconomic system... (full context)

Gender Roles and Family Violence Theme Icon

...“Adolescent Gang Rape,” Bourgois explains that this was a common and profoundly troubling phenomenon in El Barrio : Ray and Luis coordinated gang rapes of teenage girls, and Primo and Caesar gladly... (full context)

...(Felix) was mistreating her and decided to shoot him, Bourgois explains that gang rapes in El Barrio , the subject of the end of the previous chapter, are not an aberration but... (full context)

...Patriarchy in Crisis,” Bourgois writes that women are actually slowly gaining rights and power in El Barrio , despite the horrific violence they continue to face. Patriarchal norms still dominate street culture,... (full context)

...13. (Eloping to escape abusive men, whether fathers or husbands, is accepted practice in the El Barrio community, as long as women always stay under a man’s control.) In fact, Felix and... (full context)

...Bourgois notes that fears about the moral degradation of the youth have been omnipresent in East Harlem since the early 20th century. Bourgois, too, sees many young people “fall apart as they... (full context)

Under the heading “In Search of Meaning: Having Babies in El Barrio ,” Bourgois notes that people were not reluctant to have kids given their socioeconomic troubles—in... (full context)

...mother-child relationship is one of the few potentially stable ones in the social context of El Barrio . (This is, for instance, why Candy stopped using drugs and tried to set her... (full context)

...could not take care of them. This is a similar situation, except that kids in El Barrio tend to suffer and die in their teenage years. Harlem is more dangerous than the... (full context)

...escape from reality” (meaning his child and poverty). He also notes that the dangers of El Barrio life skew the gender balance sharply toward women. (full context)

Sometimes, when they are legally employed, the men in El Barrio do live out the nuclear families they idolize. In his youth, Primo works, has an... (full context)

For Bourgois, the abject conditions of East Harlem represent the confluence of “state policy and free market forces,” and these conditions lead even... (full context)

...time with another former salesman of Ray’s, Nestor, who shot a Mexican immigrant (tensions between El Barrio ’s Puerto Rican residents and new Mexican immigrants remain high). (full context)

Bourgois notes “the everyday violence against children that is routinized” in places like El Barrio , and that he has to acknowledge it anew every time he visits. He includes... (full context)

...from 2002 emphasize “the institutional violence of the new panopticon that enforces ‘quality-of-life crimes’ on El Barrio ’s streets.” In fact, a cop fines Bourgois himself for drinking on the street, but... (full context)

East Harlem (El Barrio) Term Analysis

East Harlem (El Barrio) Quotes in In Search of Respect

East Harlem (El Barrio) Term Timeline in In Search of Respect