Table Of ContentThe Right to Home
Exploring How Space, Culture,
and Identity Intersect with Disparities
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
The Right to Home
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
The Right to Home
Exploring How Space, Culture, and Identity
Intersect with Disparities
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA
ISBN 978-1-349-95945-7 ISBN 978-1-137-59957-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59957-5
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To my family
P
reface
Some readers might be perplexed by this book. As important as the stories
the book tells might be, equally important are the stories that are left out.
The book builds on the experiences of members of five cultural groups to
explore how people construct meaning in the home—Hmong, Somalis,
Mexicans, Ojibwe, and African Americans. “Why these five?” one may right-
fully ask. The answer lies in Chap. 2, which tracks my personal journey to
uncover how to construct home in displacement and how that turned into
my scholarship’s focus. In short, following my work with Internally Displaced
People (IDP) in Cyprus, I focused on refugees displaced internationally,
connecting with Hmong and Somalis as they are Minnesota’s largest refu-
gee groups. Stretching the study beyond refugees, I turned to Mexicans, the
state’s largest immigrant group. As the effects of the historical (and in many
ways on-going) displacement endured by the Ojibwe (the state’s largest
Native Nation) and African Americans (the state’s largest minority
group) continue to this date, I concluded the study with their stories.
Equally puzzling can be the terminology used to refer to each group.
Take, for example, Mexican Americans. Additional optional terms include
Mexicans, Mexican-Americans (with a hyphen), Chicano, Hispanics,
Latinos, and Latin Americans, each loaded with political, historical, social,
and cultural connotations (Delgato, 1994). The same goes for the inter-
changeable use of Native Americans and American Indians or African
Americans and Blacks. As Nations, the stories of indigenous groups are
better captured by their tribal name, but even here questions arose about
which name and spelling to use: Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or
Anishinaabeg? I opted for Ojibwe as this is the spelling used by the Mille
Lacs Band of Ojibwe to which most of the interviewees belonged.
vii
viii PREFACE
Confusion may also arise due to specific cultural practices discussed in
the book, such as the veiling practice of Muslim Somali women.
Undertaking a study of the veil’s spatiality can be construed as arguing
“for” the veil and as advocating for an architecture that is supportive of a
tradition that many consider a means of keeping women subservient to
men. Engaging in this discourse is beyond the scope of the book. Instead,
Muslim women’s veiling is discussed alongside other cultural and religious
practices that have implications for home spaces.
With academia still largely operating on exclusionary disciplinary
knowledge, the book’s interdisciplinary character might raise credibility
questions. Although I am educated in architecture and social science, I
draw on theories and knowledge from fields such as anthropology, geog-
raphy, sociology, psychology, public health, medicine, and economics.
Furthermore, any study using human subjects can be biased, including
the methodology employed in collecting and representing these stories.
The book heavily relies on narratives provided by interviewees in their
homes. Interviewees were heads of household over the age of 18 and were
identified using the snowball sampling technique (where existing study
subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances) and con-
tacts with community organizations and institutions: Hmong (10),
Somalis (8), Mexicans (25), Ojibwe (13), and African Americans (25). To
include diverse perspectives, interviewees were pre-screened to solicit men
and women of a range of ages, incomes, marital status, educational levels,
years in the U.S., legal status, and types of accommodation (rental/owned,
apartment/single-family house, on/off the reservation).
Inherent biases include the fact that the viewpoints expressed by the
interviewees may not be representative of all members of their cultural
group. It could be that the people who agreed to let researchers into their
home had their own agenda, and had specific messages they wanted a
researcher to hear about in terms of how culture and identity are con-
structed and produced. In addition, interviews conducted with heads of
households leave out the perspectives of children and others, including
elders. The male perspective is not as thoroughly represented either as
most of the interviewees were women. Practices discussed can also be
biased, and one can only wonder what other activities that occur in the
home were missing from these stories and why. One example is sexual
intimacy, which was not mentioned by any of the interviewees, indicative
of American society’s uncomfortable relationship with sex (Planned
Parenthood, 2014). As not all of the interviews could be included in the
book, the selection of particular stories to be featured can add more fuel
PREFACE ix
to concerns around biases. My goal was to include a range of experiences—
a range of incomes to show the breadth and diversity within these groups
and a diversity of perspectives and life experiences, from single mothers
with children at home to married couples and single adults, from people
living in single family houses to those living in apartments.
The book is built on the premise that the interviewees’ experiences
expose a direct glimpse into the lives of these community members and
the challenges they face, providing a forum for stories that are little known
and perspectives that may not be voiced to come to the surface. It is
beyond the book’s scope to comment on the validity of the interviewees’
perceptions. Instead, the analysis centers on the behavioral and spatial
implications of their home-making experiences and how these relate to
disparities. Stereotyping is one of the biggest dangers of working with the
notion of culture. As a researcher, my fear was accentuating and feeding
stereotypes, particularly since the book’s emphasis is on the interviewees’
cultural identity—be that Hmong, Somali, Mexican, Ojibwe, or African
American—and how this intersects with other facets of their lives, such as
being citizens, members of the workforce, community members, parents,
spouses, siblings, children, elders, friends, and neighbors. Many of these
stories might seem to perpetuate stereotypes, but turning to strategic
essentialism is often a way to start dialogues and frame questions, as well
as a means for giving people voice and visibility (Veronis, 2007).
Lastly, my etic approach might be seen with skepticism—how can I
speak for people with a different background and history than mine? I am
not Hmong, Somali, Mexican, Ojibwe, or African American, and one
could argue that their stories should be told through an emic lens, from
one of their own. Navigating the trauma of displacement as both a refugee
and an immigrant presented me with a dilemma that re-defined my pur-
pose. I had to choose between continuing to scratch the wounds of dis-
placement and better understand how people restore temporal, social,
cultural, spiritual, and historical continuity, and pursuing scholarship that
is not aggravated by polarized, divisive, and political tensions. The never-
ending wars and continuing flow of refugees, the global threat of terror-
ism, the horrific deaths of “illegal” immigrants as they pile in the backs of
airless trucks to cross the border, the distressing shootings of Black males,
and the hundreds of lives lost to trafficking, illness, and suicide made my
choice an easy one. As a scholar and an educator, I could use my voice to
mobilize the question: “What does it mean to be human?”
Minneapolis, MN Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
x PREFACE
references
Delgato, F. P. (1994). The complexity of Mexican American identity – A reply to Hecht,
Sedano, and Ribeau and Mirandé and Tanno. International Journal of Intercultural
Relations, 18(1), 77–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(94)90005-1
Planned Parenthood. (2014, January 30). Half of all teens feel uncomfortable talk-
ing to their parents about sex while only 19 percent of parents feel the same, new
survey shows. Retrieved from https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/
newsroom/press-releases/half-all-teens-feel-uncomfortable-talking-their-par-
ents-about-sex-while-only-19-percent-parents
Veronis, L. (2007). Strategic spatial essentialism: Latin Americans’ real and imag-
ined geographies in Toronto. Social & Cultural Geography, 8(3), 455–473.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360701488997
a
cknowledgments
Support for this book came from the University of Minnesota’s Grant-in-
Aid, the Office for Equity and Diversity through a Multicultural Research
Award, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Department of Design,
Housing, and Apparel, as well as the McKnight Fellowship in the Arts and
Humanities.
I would also like to recognize Kristin Shardlow, who served as a
Research Assistant and conducted many of the Mexican, Ojibwe, and
African American interviews; the 2010 and 2018 Fellows of the Institute
for Advanced Study whose feedback shaped the book’s approach; my
interviewees who opened their hearts and homes to me; Traci Lesneski,
Principal, MSR Design and Cathy Bennett, Urban Land Institute
Minnesota for their insights and support; Blanca Morales, whose story
inspires me and gives me the traction I need to continue this line of work;
and my Editor, Rachel Daniel who believed in the book’s potential. I
would not have been able to complete this book without the encourage-
ment of my doctors, Dr. Anne Blaes and Dr. Mark Migliori, and the
countless airline employees who for many years have helped us safely cross
the Atlantic. The book is dedicated to my family, who helped me construct
a sense of home: my husband Nikos, daughters Vasiliki and Katerina, and
parents Zacharias and Katerina.
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