With the popular food trucks in Indy-Mo gone, it brings up questions on gentrification

Stephanie Moschella | Digital Media Manager 

Gentrification is defined by Google as “the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new business, typically displaying current inhabitants in the process,” but I’m sure a lot of people didn’t catch the underlying racist speech in the definition of this word itself.

Poor, urban, Black, drugs, Mexican, Hispanic, uneducated, streets, hood, slums, the projects. The ghetto. 

The shifting of neighborhoods, the betterment of the community, cleaning up the slums. “We’re doing it for the kids!” “We’re making it more appealing for new tenants!” We’re dusting the streets of the people of color that were once there, and replacing them with a year long process of construction. We’re mixing the color of their skin with the cement being poured to smooth and blend out their edges.

We see this pattern repeatedly against marginalized communities. They’re given unreliable scraps of society only to have the rug pulled under them at any given moment to make room for the wealthy, improved and traditionally acceptable. However, this destruction of culture and revenue to the community is only noticed by those who’ve carved a space for themselves through their sweat and blood. 

These renovations deemed for the “betterment” of society only goes to show that the creativity of young, marginalized groups will always be deemed as lesser and disposable. The black square on your Instagram account will never be enough to make you understand, because you will never understand. 

Those that live in the Independence-Monmouth area probably know that the food trucks that were in The Annex left. Whether or not they were kicked out with only a 12-hour notice or asked to leave months ago doesn’t matter — this community has been stripped of a beautifully unique aspect, only to be replaced by “clean” commercial spaces and unaffordable apartments. 

Gentrification colloquially means the process where a neighborhood garners wealth and where the population becomes more rich, more young and more white. There’s no hiding what Indy-Mo is becoming, forcing its residents further and further out. Sure, it’s just Independence to Monmouth, but this exact thinking is what happens when people get too complacent, and eventually, kicked out. 

Contact the author at smoschella20@wou.edu