Si | embrando Life and Sowing Care: Refusing Gentrification on West Jefferson Boulevard

Abstract: This essay theorizes Latine maneras de ser (ways of being) as care through an analysis of si | embra , a 2021 collaborative performance and dance event cultivated between various Latine artists and the residents who live and own businesses on West Jefferson Boulevard in Los Angeles. I examine the gossip, partying, and dancing of folx on the block during the planning and presentation of si | embra to consider how performances of Latinidad are engaged to claim their right to exist in the present amid the ongoing effects of gentrification. In so doing, I highlight how care is communally crafted in ways that queer the neoliberal city and refuse banishment.