Constructions of the Ironbound: White, Profitable, Home

Abstract

This thesis focuses on certain place-making strategies in the multiethnic, residential neighborhood that is the Ironbound in Newark, NJ. This work first establishes how the Ironbound has been constructed as a white, Portuguese-ethnic enclave in opposition to Newark’s perceived criminality, danger, and Blackness. The work then describes how the neighborhood’s gentrification processes rely on this specific quaint, flattened European image in order to sell the area to developers and newcomers. Finally, in opposition to these flattened constructions, this text traces residents’ everyday lives by looking at how multiethnic encounters are cultivated and at how everyday grievances are resisted.