When Teen Angst and Gentrification Collide
Jade Adia's new YA novel puts teenagers “on the front lines” of conversations about neighborhood change.
People walk past Leimert Park Plaza during a Juneteenth celebration in 2021. The plaza is depicted in Jade Adia’s novel as the beating heart of a fictional neighborhood facing gentrification.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon AFP via Getty Images
After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, teenagers and young adults were among the millions of protesters who marched against police brutality and racial injustice in the waves of demonstrations that spread across US cities.
“They brought Bluetooth speakers, and they were dancing and just bringing a completely different energy to those protests,” recalled Jade Adia, a Los Angeles-based author who writes about gentrification, capitalism and the experiences of growing up Black. Watching those young protesters inspired Adia to write her debut young adult novel that summer — a coming-of-age story about a group of Black teens trying to save their South LA neighborhood from gentrifying.