Poetry With a Purpose

By Diaris Alexander, January 24, 2008

• Comment Now
• Email
• Print
• Reprints
• Share

Turn the Beat Around: Located in the last historic Puerto Rican neighborhood in Chicago, Batey Urbano youth center serves as a model for communities struggling against gentrification.

Stepping past the first huge 56-foot Puerto Rican flag on my way to visit Batey Urbano, I was immersed into what seemed like a different world. The term "batey" is derived from Puerto Rican history and refers to the space where all family and local cultural functions occur. I suddenly felt a part of a living, breathing museum whose primary exhibit documented the effects of a modern-day Puerto Rican / Latino community in America facing the threat of gentrification.

I strolled past beautiful paintings on plant containers and public objects, tastefully placed by students from local alternative high schools. I also saw creative political statements expressed in magnificent visual art on the sides of businesses.

As I walked down Division Street in Humbolt Park, the home of Batey Urbano and an area called Paseo Boricua among locals, I witnessed diverse groups of people out enjoying the nice June weather. Multiple age groups with different hair textures, clothing styles, musical preferences, and interests filled the businesses and schools on Paseo Boricua.

Like its umbrella organization, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC), Batey Urbano was created based on the ideology that self-determination, actualization, and sufficiency of the Puerto Rican/Latino community leads to positive development. Moreover, PRCC's motto is to "live and help to live."

Similar to many inner-city populations across the nation, Paseo Boricua has high incidents of gang violence, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, poverty, and high school dropouts.

After a devastating weekend of violence in July of 2002 when 25 shootings resulted in five deaths, Batey founder Michael Reyes realized that "there was no organization to address gang violence and the drug trade in this community from the perspective of young people." Across the collective, all members agreed that Batey needed to exist to create an inclusive space where both the victims and culprits of the notorious weekend were welcome to partake in activities and discussions.

Today, collective members of Batey bring resources to the community in an effort to promote youth civic engagement and to strengthen self-esteem. Many of these resources come through the medium of expression young people in the neighborhood relate to most -- hip-hop.

Batey looks like it could be a youth program in the "Beverly Hills" of any region -- well-funded, admired by the city, well-designed and constructed. Batey Urbano's space has different areas sectioned off for its many programs. The storefront display houses its radio station and music studio. Batey also has a computer center where members can get homework help and use the internet.

In another room, backdrops for sets of a play were arranged. Here we were introduced to Tato "Jesus" Laviera, an acclaimed Latino playwright from New York, most known as one of the first writers in America who used Spanglish in mainstream literature and poetry. At the time of our visit, Laviera was working with youth in the Batey theater project.

Batey Urbano's success as an organization stems from its partnership with the neighborhood, and from being a unique, accessible space for young people who are passionate about hip-hop and the performing arts. Its success is so exceptional that Batey's role in the community is studied as an effective model to replicate across the nation.

A Common Struggle

On the day of our visit, Janeida, our guide, invited us to take a tour of La Casita Don Pedro. It was an art installation put on by members of Batey and youth from local high schools that required visitors to see both sides of development -- starting with a bubbly real estate agent and turned over to a young person illustrating the impact of displacement. The tour was created to illustrate the effects of gentrification in Humboldt Park. The community event brought people of all ages and walks of life, from young infants to people over 70.

But this isn't just about one neighborhood in Chicago. Reyes said the primary goal of Batey Urbano is to combat the devastating issues of the community, and to create a future for a people that have been isolated and left to fend for themselves in this country. Reyes noted the desire to be a model for addressing an issue that is not unique to Humboldt Park, but extends to other neighborhoods across the nation and to the island of Puerto Rico. Accordingly, Batey Urbano encourages the start-up of other "Bateys", including the recent Batey Orlando project in Florida.

The Community Support

This story of Batey begins and ends with the PRCC -- a Humboldt community stronghold and the parent organization of Batey Urbano. The PRCC is directed by Jose E. Lopez, a public intellectual and visionary leader who uses his university connections to shed light on the struggles of Humboldt Park. "Intellectual production doesn't exist in the academy, rather, the academies use community to study. ... [Communities] are places where we actually make history, where we make sociology, psychology and all of the other things we study," Lopez stated at the introduction of a recent conference the PRCC was hosting for the University of Illinois.

The center has also sponsored the creation of a family service center and alternative high school. Though Batey is for youth and led by young people, Michael is quick to point out that the program would not be possible without the support of the PRCC and the mentorship that is provided through the relationship.

After the tour and making a few stops along Paseo Boricua, we ended up at Nellie's - one of a handful of local restaurants that feed the youth in Batey local, healthy after-school snacks. The healthy snacks help them remain focused and accomplish their daily goals at Batey. This also builds a relationship between the youth and local businesses and helps prevent the development of chain restaurants and businesses. The food at Nellie's was served buffet-style and tasted like a real, home-cooked meal, similar to the West Indian dishes my parents cooked for me growing up.

How Batey Supports the Community

Though Batey is run almost entirely by volunteers with no budget, they provide many integrated programs. Barrio Arts, Culture and Communication Academy (BACCA) is essentially an after-school program hosted by Batey that creates a space for youth to get homework help and computer access. BACCA consists of three individual programs: La Voz: Journalism and Newspaper Layout Design Academy; Radio Batey: Online Radio Broadcasting Academy; and Batey Theater: Production and Performance Academy.

Juventud del Ambiente Boricua is a group whose primary purpose is to provide a safe place for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) individuals to discuss their sexuality and combat negative or ignorant perspectives in the community.

Batey Tech occurs four days a week with the mission to assist the academic development of youth using technology while also fostering their critical thinking skills. Besides tutoring, this program also provides college preparation workshops and encourages students to assume leadership roles.

The Batey also serves as a venue for a various community performances. "Poetry with a Purpose" is a regular event that provides an audience for writers and spoken-word artists of all levels. Collective members, the majority of whom are poets, believe that creative expression is a valuable form of resistance, and that their role is to tie everything to history and promote personal development and civic engagement.

To this end, once a week Batey also hosts a "4 Elements of Hip-Hop Expression" event. Each night begins with an open mic and closes with a cipher. Events may include breaking, MC battles, DJ exhibitions and battles, and other performances.

Putting "Neighbor" back in the Neighborhoods

The Participatory Democracy Project is a joint endeavor of Batey Urbano and the PRCC, the 26th Ward Organization, and the Puerto Rican Agenda. The groups collaborate to ensure the social, economic, and political development of Humboldt Park residents as they unite to fight gentrification.

As part of the Participatory Democracy Project, Batey teaches young people about being of service to the people around them. Aside from talking about politics, the participants conducted neighborhood surveys where they asked residents about their quality of life in Humboldt Park. Young people found out what the residents needed -- like new garbage cans or new lightbulbs for streetlights -- and then made sure their community got what they needed. Many of the neighbors they help struggle with language or other cultural barriers.

Best Practice - Local Solidarity

The highlight of my visit, however, was the festival that took place in Humboldt Park. It was reminiscent of Carnival weekend in the San Francisco's East Bay area (where I was raised). Large groups of young people filled the park for the festivities through the night -- rides, games, food and craft vendors, dance and MC battles.

The week of the festivities led up to the People's Day Parade -- a homegrown parade down Paseo Boricua that the whole community is welcome to take part in. Batey's collective members hosted seven events throughout the course of the weekend. This parade was held in addition to the "main" parade celebrating Puerto Rican culture that has become highly commercialized, held in downtown Chicago and featuring such figures as Daddy Yankee and America's Next Top Model winner Jaslene Gonzalez.

At one point during the tour, our guide from Batey, Janeida, was asked to perform a spoken-word piece. She was surprised and unprepared, but gladly obliged. Community members cheered her on as she began, and enthusiastically chimed in on passionate, climactic phrases within the poem:

"Is it because I don't look like a banana threw up on my head? Is it because I don't frequent the neighborhood hookah bars? How about you take the fact that I won't let you turn Humboldt into a dog park or Sir Mendes into a Windsor Pilates studio that offers spinning classes, yoga, and step aerobics." [The crowd joins in,] "Now stuff that in your hookah pipe and smoke it."

Hearing the piece for the first time, I was in awe to see so many members respond to Janeida's piece as if it was their own. A sense of pride filled the air for the resident poet, and it became clear that community members agreed with how Janeida voiced her views on the changing neighborhood.

Diaris Alexander, 19, discovered her interest in social change and community empowerment through performing arts during her involvement with Oakland-based Youth Movement Records. She is now the Hip Hop Director within the UCLA's Cultural Affairs Commission. The Jackie Robinson and Gates Millennium Scholar, she intends to graduate in 2009 with a major in Psychology and minor in Civic Engagement.