Eraser Tattoo

Gentrification is the process by which neighborhoods change when more affluent residents move into them. Displacement—local residents being pushed out of their neighborhoods as housing prices rise—is a characteristic effect of gentrification. Gentrification happens in major cities all over the world. In the United States, New York City has been an epicenter of gentrification since the 1960s. Since New York is historically the gateway of immigration to the US, many people of various cultural backgrounds—including those of lower socioeconomic status—settled there throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In the later 20th century, relatively affluent, largely white suburbanites began returning to the urban centers that they (or their parents) had left behind in the “white flight” phenomenon of the mid-20th century. As a result, housing in these urban centers became more expensive, and working-class people—often people of color—were forced to move out of neighborhoods in which they had made their homes for generations. Gentrification is an ongoing phenomenon, one that can cause financial ruin for those who are forced out of their neighborhoods, as well as a general loss of cultural diversity.

In “Eraser Tattoo,” Shay and her family are displaced by gentrification. The new tenants who move into Shay’s childhood home are wealthy and white, and the story implies that they evict Shay’s family. Jason Reynolds paints the new tenants in a negative light—they seem selfish when they bring their belongings into the house before Shay’s family has even left, when they fail to acknowledge Dante even though he speaks directly to them, and when they double-park their car, leaving no room for others. This speaks to how “Eraser Tattoo” portrays gentrifiers at large—as careless and self-centered.

Some argue that gentrification has positive aspects. It can bring an economic boost to struggling areas. In practice, however, this new economic activity is often extractive—capitalizing on a neighborhood’s cultural history while impoverishing those who created that history in the first place, while all the benefits go to the more affluent newcomers. The vast majority of people who are displaced, like Shay’s family, are Black or Latino. Consequently, gentrification increases racial and socioeconomic disparities. Racial tension is also a key factor in the story’s portrayal of gentrification. The first thing Dante and Shay notice about the new tenants is that they’re white. When Dante looks at his freshly wounded skin, on two occasions he thinks “white where brown used to be” (13). He’s referring to the change in his skin color, but also metaphorically to the fact that white people are displacing and replacing the residents of Brooklyn.