Part of Belt's Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook is an exploration of the Motor City's hidden corners told by the people who live and work there. It seems like everybody in Detroit thinks they know the city's neighborhoods, but because there are so many, their characteristics often become muddled and the stories that define them are often lost. Edited by Aaron Foley, the author of How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass , The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook is a genuinely felt, wide-ranging collection that gives unique perspective on a city that many people think they have figured out. A homegrown portrait about the lesser-known parts of the city, it showcases the voices and people who make up: - Cass Corridor - West Village - Minock Park - Warrendale - Hamtramck - and almost every other spot in the city. With short essays and poems by Zoe Villegas, Drew Philip, Hakeem Weatherspoon, Marsha Music, Ian Thibodeau, and dozens of others. In this guidebook, Detroiters will recognize their hometown and the stories it tells, while readers from outside Detroit will get an insiders' look at an oft-misunderstood American city. Aaron Foley grew up in Detroit, which gives him more street cred than a lot of others. He has written about Detroit for several local and national publications including CNN , Jalopnik , and MLive . He is the author of How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass . He lives in Detroit. The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook By Aaron Foley Belt Publishing Copyright © 2017 Belt Publishing All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9989041-3-9 Contents Foreword Aaron Foley, Introduction: Motor Nation Zoë Villegas, Dispatch from SW Detroit: Seven Generations Seeking Good Home, Good Faith, Strong Will, Hard Working A.K.A. Get Your Own Damn Holiday and Stop Dressing Up Like a Fucking Mexican Michelle Martinez, What Wikipedia Won't Tell You about Delray, Michigan, 48209 Scheherazade Washington Parrish, Cass Corridor #1 Joel Fluent Greene, Cass Corridor Elias Khalil, Tiger Stadium Vince Guerrieri, Fiction: Steve's Place R.J. Fox, Jos. Campau Avenue and Parke-Davis Historic Site Heather Harper, Seeking Solitude in Rivertown Jeff Waraniak, West Village: A Five-Year Reflection Julién Godman, When Ruby Jones Was Here Lakisha Dumas, Just off Mack Avenue, on the Detroit Side Monica Hogan, Alleys Michael Constantine McConnell, War Hero Hakeem Weatherspoon, Poletown Drew Philp, A One-Year Stand in Hamtramck Aaron Foley, Interlude: Be Safe Justin Rogers, Highland Park: Stories within Stories in a City within a City Bailey Sisoy Isgro, Long Live the City of Trees Marsha Music, Six Mile, Dexter, Plymouth, Gratiot, and Grand River Lhea J. Love, A Home in Russell Woods Jill Day, Minock Park Erin Marquis, "No, it's not the East ..." Sara Jane Boyers, What's Really Good? April S.C., Bused In and Bused Out: How Judicial Rulings Changed Warrendale Lori Tucker-Sullivan, Warrendale, a Chance Medley with Lines from "Brother of Leaving" Cal Freeman, Our Bungalow on Braile Ian Thibodeau, Plymouth Rock Landed on Me Lhea J. Love, Bagley Barbara Stewart Thomas, Palmer Park: A Glorious Crossroad for Nature, Recreation, Creativity, Community, and More Barbara Barefield, Biking University District John G. Rodwan, Jr., Sherwood Forest Gail Rodwan, Sing, Shout, "Green Acres is the Place to Be!" Maureen McDonald, Closing: Detroit: Exodus Will T. Langford IV, Contributors, Acknowledgements, CHAPTER 1 Dispatch from SW Detroit: Seven Generations Seeking Good Home, Good Faith, Strong Will, Hard Working A.K.A. Get Your Own Damn Holiday and Stop Dressing Up Like a Fucking Mexican Michelle Martinez On the dawn of Cinco de Mayo, I brace for another rowdy celebration, droves of drunk settlers descending on my backyard, leaving urine, vomit, and trash in their wake. Cinco de Mayo, a holiday Mexicans and Mexican Americans rarely celebrate. But a holiday, nevertheless, to which this Latinx is forced to bear witness every year. Every year, I cringe at the sombreros and ponchos, the fake mustaches. I want to write an open letter to those who don them, about why this is akin to blackface, or Native American Halloween costumes. Perhaps we can work through the intellectualism of the violence of colonization, othering, and erasure, enter into dialogue about our bodies, and right to sovereignty. But this year, I reflect on this trauma over five generations in a four-block radius, collectively through time and space, and then through the witnessing of the changing in the land — this phase of colonization called gentrification. My family and this land are two clauses within the footnote of some history book, unseen or unwritten. This is a dispatch from Detroit's small Latinx diaspora, SW Detroit, Mexicantown, the US-Canadian border, frontera norteña, from my back window. First, I want to talk what's what since the 1994 signing of NAFTA, the North Americ