Mi barrio

How a racially built environment is completed by its community members to make it a home.

In December the class ventured into los barrios, that is, the communities of a built environment. Never before had I seen mi barrio from a built environment lens. And, never before had I heard of the sustainability of a built environment, “the environmental durability, efficiency, and quality of the physical spaces” where I lived, went to school, and experienced my new country as an 8-year-old immigrant girl. To add to this mind-blown experience, there should be sustainability that comes from the prioritization of community members’ voices who hold the lived insight and experience of el barrio?!!? ¿Qué?

The Built Environment & Poverty Mapping session, in particular, was incredibly notable, providing the opportunity for each of us to adventure and re-experience diverse barrios, specifically those of the BIPOC communities, from our individual life lens. For some, such as myself, it was a nostalgic stroll down a favorable memory lane with all our senses, reviving the colors, the aromas, the sounds, the sensations, and my favorite and as a foodie, los sabores of our homes. For others, this neighborhood venture may have been, at the very least, unfamiliar, and perhaps, a less than desirable neighborhood in which to call home.

The session exercise was to conceptually walk through a Black or Brown community and take note of what we see. I shared with my fellow colleagues that I didn’t need a neighborhood monument sign to know that I’d entered mi barrio, or any Brown neighborhood for that matter. I would know it. I would feel it, smell it, hear it, and savor it. Stepping into mi barrio my eyes would experience a multicolor array of homes, all in bright and vivid shades. Color…

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