It is always interesting to observe peoples’ reactions to changing neighborhoods, communities, etc. We usually get accustomed to a type of neighborhood, with specific people, a certain way. When changes occur, people normally dont favor this and they usually take the decision of moving out (if its that serious). I was kind of surprised when the documentary was talking about how white people were given an incentive to move out of the neighborhoods minorities were moving into. As a result the property value of the minority filled neighborhoods went down making them poverty stricken and the housing value of the white neighborhoods went up, making them the more wealthier class. I thought that this was a pretty noteworthy detail because people often assume that people themselves are incompetent to move themselves forward in life, however, these people forget to take all these structural and institutional policies that have shaped and influenced so many lives.

I definitely feel that race and public housing are interconnected. As the documentary also showed, people start to associate certain types of housing (Example: tenements) with mainly people of color. This becomes a problem because this prejudice stays with these people for many generations because the way the system is constructed, its hard for them to get out of poverty.

It was also interesting to read the relationship between the Italians and Puerto Ricans. The once hated Italians were now “hating” on another group. The incoming Puerto Ricans overshadowed Italians in some aspects and the Italians did not want to have to do with anything related to the Puerto Ricans. There was this fear of being called “black” even among the Italians. Like Alex mentioned, southern Italians were discriminated against by the northern Italians. Their skin color signaled them to be associated with the Greeks which was offensive to them. This is a pretty interesting thing to note because no one wanted to be associated with the lower social class; dark skinned blacks, hispanics, etc because they are put on such a low level in our society. It all comes down to which group has more political power and how our society is structured to better support on group over the other.