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Stacey Clark

Garrett Cook

26 November 2019

“In Search of Respect”

After moving into “El Barrio” and immersing himself in street culture during the crack

epidemic in East Harlem during the mid-to-late 1980’s to study “the experience of poverty and

ethnic segregation in the heart of one of the most expensive cities in the world,” Philippe

Bourgois highlights a few key points in his book “In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El

Barrio” that he believes characterizes street culture during this time period: social and economic

differences and tensions between members of the community, hyper-masculine (and often times

violent) displays and showings of pride and power, and the paradox that is formed by the

utilization of street culture’s ideals and codes, as it ultimately works against those that employ

them.

The social and economic differences and tensions between members of the community of

El Barrio are one of the main components of street culture, as described by Bourgois. There is a

general disdain for members of the community that do not fit the middle-class, mainstream

image of most Americans, especially those of Puerto Rican descent, like the majority of the

characters in this book. Bourgois, who fits this middle-class, mainstream image, was questioned

as soon as he moved into the neighborhood; from the moment he stepped foot in East Harlem, he

had to work twice as hard to earn everyone’s trust, all because of his ethnic background being

different from the people around him and the fact that members of the neighborhood were not

used to normal interactions with someone of his race. “Primo, Benzie, Maria, and everyone else
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around that night had never been tête-a-tête with a friendly white before, so it was with a sense

of relief that they saw I hung out with them out of genuine interest rather than to obtain drugs or

engage in some other act of perdición. The only whites they had ever seen at such close quarters

had been school principals, policemen, parole officers, and angry bosses. Even their

schoolteachers and social workers were largely African-American and Puerto Rican. Despite his

obvious fear, Primo could not hide his curiosity. As he confided in me several months later, he

had always wanted a chance to “conversate” with an actual live representative of mainstream,

“drug-free” white America” (41).

Not only did Bourgois have a rocky start in adjusting to his new surroundings, but the

Puerto Ricans from El Barrio had just as much, if not more trouble adjusting to life in their brief

stints in corporate America. Time and time again, these characters are rejected by the

conventional economy, whether they are subjected to holding the least dignified lines of work

(such as dishwashing, night shift security guards, asbestos remover, etc.), being treated horribly

at their jobs, or being fired first or barred access before anyone else for no real reason at all. In

Chapter 4, for example, Bourgois details how Primo taking initiative in his job at a mail room

only led to him being banned from answering phone calls because the company was ashamed of

someone with his accent representing them by phone: “It’s like they hear my voice, and they

stop…There’s a silence on the other end of the line. Everyone keeps asking me what race I am.

Yeah, they say, like, ‘Where’re you from with that name?’ Because they hear that Puerto Rican

accent. And I just tell them that I'm Nuyorican. I hate that.” (136).

Hyper-masculine displays of pride and power are also a major component that Philippe

Bourgois attributes to street culture. These showings of masculinity include status symbols like

cars, girlfriends, and drugs, as well as the use of violence to command authority in street circles.
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For example, in order to uphold his position as the leader, Ray uses unpredictable behaviors and

vague threats to re-exert his wavering authority over others. This prevents others from crossing

him or cheating him out of any money. In Chapter 1, Ray elicits behaviors that show the reader

that all of his friendships and/or generosity is subservient to his business. Conversely, his violent

acts do the same. The constant threat of this kind of terror and violence caused Bourgois and

other members of the community to internalize and normalize what was going on around them,

which is damaging psychologically. Bourgois explains that, “none of these particular incidents

came close to harming me physically, but their traumatic nature and prominent public visibility

contributed to a sense of omnipresent threatening reality that extended far beyond the statistical

probability of becoming a victim.” (34). Hyper-masculinity was also a problem for Primo and

Caesar in the workplace, as they found it difficult to answer to their female boss, Gloria,

considering their street background, as well as viewing the type of work they were doing in a

corporate setting as less than macho.

The embracing of street culture results in a paradox that is formed by the utilization of

street culture’s ideals and codes, as it ultimately works against those that employ them. In the

late 1950’s, the Puerto Ricans migrated to New York, which essentially called for discrimination

and economic exploitation which entailed trapping the vulnerable population to a more

geographically segregated community. Doing so results in this population suffering from

systemic/structural oppression and becoming absorbed in crime, poverty, and violence. Within

this structural oppression that Caesar and Primo are faced with, following thorough agency

analysis, Bourgois argues that their experiences in finding legal entrepreneurship impacted their

opportunity to improve their quality of life through going down the straight and narrow

negatively, ultimately forcing them to choose the underground economy. The fracturing of
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people’s lives and turning mainstream society further against them is also demonstrated through

Ray. Ray is unable to be a successful entrepreneur in legal work due to his lack of cultural

capital, and his street skill made him appear to be incompetent. Being that it is very common to

not land legal entrepreneurship opportunities due to various reasons, Bourgois tries to balance

structure and agency through his ethnography by informing the readers that the people in El

Barrio have limited structural opportunities, from bad school district to low income jobs that

limit the choices available to them, which, in turn, lead them back to the underground economy.

Psychopathy is another culture that Bourgois came into contact with. Bourgois believed

that psychopathic culture stemmed from street culture, or that some psychopathology and

sociopathology is caused by the violence and/or acts committed in street culture. Originally,

Bourgois believes that this “sick” culture is not one to discuss because some of the acts that

occur in the psychopathic culture is taboo, such as rape. He realized that with his research he had

to face that rape - psychopathic culture - is a part of street culture and adolescent socialization. I

too agree with Bourgois. I believe that some psychopathic culture or behavior does stem from

street culture. The violence and other experiences that come with street culture can ultimately

lead someone to insanity or psychopathy. I also agree that although it is a situation that may be

hard or taboo to talk about, it is something that needs to be discussed. We, as readers, need to

face the fact that all these cultures stem from one main culture, and that is the culture we grow up

around; in this case it is street culture.

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References

1. Bourgois, Phillipe I. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge University

Press, 1996.