Vassar College Digital Window @ Vassar Senior Capstone Projects 2014 We’re City Lifers: Transformative Community Organizing in Boston’s City Life/Vida Urbana Jonathan Bix Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/senior_capstone Recommended Citation Bix, Jonathan, "We’re City Lifers: Transformative Community Organizing in Boston’s City Life/Vida Urbana" (2014). Senior Capstone Projects. 322. http://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/senior_capstone/322 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Window @ Vassar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of Digital Window @ Vassar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "We’re City Lifers": Transformative Community Organizing in Boston’s City Life/Vida Urbana by Jonathan Bix A senior thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at Vassar College Thesis Advisors: Professor Eréndira Rueda Professor William Hoynes April 2014 “We’re City Lifers” ii "We’re City Lifers": Transformative Community Organizing in Boston’s City Life/Vida Urbana City Life/Vida Urbana is a base-building community organization committed to structural transformation through racial, economic, gender, and other forms of social justice. Its local work currently focuses on preventing evictions as a result of foreclosures. Most people come to City Life out of the desire to save their homes. However, all City Life organizers noted that saving one’s own home appears to have no impact on one becoming a long-term participant in the movement, or a negative impact when this is accomplished through purely service rather than service-supported direct action. People stay in City Life due to the “incentives” of (1) community and a culture of solidarity, (2) radical moral ideology, and (3) the power members themselves have internally within and externally through the organization. These three organizational characteristics are produced through solidaristic cultural practices and community building, radical political education, the development of organic intellectuals, leadership development, bottom-up organizational structure, and militant and effective protest tactics. Through these mechanisms and “incentives” City Life is able to develop a radical organizing project notable for its ability both to build a substantial base and win gains in the present and to build a significant, committed, and talented base for a long-term transformative movement. City Life therefore exemplifies a radical alternative to neo-Alinskyist community organizing models. “We’re City Lifers” iii “The arc of moral universe has never bent towards justice — it bends only where organized groups of people force it to bend.” —Jay Driskell, “Writing History with Wite Out,” Jacobin , March 25, 2014. “We’re City Lifers” iv Table of Contents 1. Introduction--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 a. Reflexive Statement ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 b. Argument-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 c. Rationale--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 d. Literature Review---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 e. Why City Life? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13 f. Thesis Outline-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 2. Studying City Life/Vida Urbana-------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 a. Methodology--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 b. History of City Life/Vida Urbana--------------------------------------------------------------- 22 c. City Life/Vida Urbana at Present--------------------------------------------------------------- 23 d. Structures and Practices of City Life/Vida Urbana------------------------------------------- 25 I. Organizational Structures--------------------------------------------------------------- 26 (1) BTA Meeting------------------------------------------------------------------------ 26 (2) Leadership Team and Executive Committee------------------------------------ 30 (3) Radical Organizing Classes-------------------------------------------------------- 31 (4) Radical Organizing Conference--------------------------------------------------- 31 (5) Comité Latino------------------------------------------------------------------------ 33 II. Movement Building Alliances--------------------------------------------------------- 33 III. Arts and Organizing Collaborations--------------------------------------------------- 34 IV. Education Collaborations--------------------------------------------------------------- 35 3. Community and a Culture of Solidarity----------------------------------------------------------- 37 a. Emotion and Identity: Toward Empowered Individual and Collective Identities-------- 38 b. Reciprocity----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 43 c. Solidarity as Institutionalized Practice--------------------------------------------------------- 45 d. Rituals and Symbols------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 49 e. Radical Ideology---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50 f. Intersectionality----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53 g. Social Relationships------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 55 h. Gendered Solidarity------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 57 4. Radical Political Education------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60 a. Morality and Social Movement Participation------------------------------------------------- 61 b. Radical Political Education---------------------------------------------------------------------- 63 I. Radical Education------------------------------------------------------------------------ 64 II. Participatory Education----------------------------------------------------------------- 66 III. Holistic Education----------------------------------------------------------------------- 69 IV. Experiential Education------------------------------------------------------------------ 70 c. Between “Banking” and “Romantic Experiential Celebration”---------------------------- 72 5. Organic Intellectuals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 75 a. Theory-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 75 b. Background-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 77 c. The Question------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 78 d. City Life’s Organic Intellectuals-------------------------------------------------------------- 79 “We’re City Lifers” v I. Antionio-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 80 II. Melonie--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 84 III. Gendered Habitus--------------------------------------------------------------------- 87 e. Complicating Identity and Lived Experience---------------------------------------------- 89 6. “Power Within,” “Power Through,” and Leadership Development------------------------- 95 a. “Power Within,” “Power Through,” and Social Movement Participation-------------- 95 b. A Balance of Subjective and Objective------------------------------------------------------ 97 c. “Power Through” in City Life----------------------------------------------------------------- 98 d. “Power Within” in City Life------------------------------------------------------------------- 102 I. Leadership Development-------------------------------------------------------------- 102 e. Ideology, Leadership, and Democracy------------------------------------------------------- 104 7. Conclusion: The Strengths and Significance of City Life/Vida Urbana-------------------- 107 a. The ACORN Model----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 108 b. The CBCO Model------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 110 c. City Life/Vida Urbana Compared------------------------------------------------------------- 114 I. Culture and Community--------------------------------------------------------------- 114 II. Ideology---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 114 III. Internal and External Power---------------------------------------------------------- 115 d. Conclusion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 117 e. Towards a Counter-Hegemony--------------------------------------------------------------- 119 Organizational Recommendations--------------------------------------------------------------------- 120 Appendix 1: BTA meeting agendas------------------------------------------------------------------- 124 Appendix 2: Leadership Team agendas--------------------------------------------------------------- 128 Appendix 3: Radical Organizing Class materials ---------------------------------------------------