The Eviction Machine, Tenant Mobilization, and Growing the Grassroots

• In Event: Asian American Empowerment: Marginalization and Voice

Abstract

This paper will investigate the democratic consequences of displacement by focusing on how tenants in Manhattan’s Chinatown are politically responding to evictions and landlord harassment. Drawing from three years of ethnographic research and interviews with tenants, judges, court interpreters, lawyers, and community organizers, I document the critical role of grassroots organizations like CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities and the story of how tenants at 90 Elizabeth Street successfully took their predatory la ndlord to Housing Court in a joint Housing Part action lawsuit. Bringing together literature on race and ethnic politics, Asian diaspora studies, democratic participation, housing studies, and comparative immigration, I provide a nuanced understanding of the conditions under which Chinese immigrants are active in the making of urban space and urban politics, shifting way from a common narrative that portrays them as disengaged from democratic processes. This paper uncovers how Chinese immigrants come to understand their relationship to American politics and contextualize their existence in the political system through their encounters with displacement and uprootedness. Fundamentally, the research and findings broaden the scope of how we think about American politics and where it unfolds on the ground, importantly shaping how we understand democratic citizenship in Asian immigrant communities.

Author

• Diane Wong, Cornell University