Hoover's is a longstanding comfort food family restaurant in my east Austin neighborhood. When we moved here, just under two years ago, we ate there almost daily for our first few weeks--our house was full of boxes, and we discovered that Hoovers has great food, serves up large portions with lots of sides for reasonable prices, and made for an unfailingly friendly, welcoming experience. We went back often through our first fall here and still do. Today I went in and bought a t-shirt for $15, a present for my food-loving brother-in-law. I chose not to talk about the project with the staff, as it's a place I frequent and it felt odd to "other" this particular transaction.
The experience of spending this money at Hoovers, and of passing by every day in my to and fro, is informed by my gratitude for living in a racially mixed neighborhood (on my little block there are three white families and four black families) populated by businesses owned by blacks, Latinos, Caucasians, Asians, and Middle Eastern folks--especially coming, as I have, from a much more segregated, much whiter community in Western Massachusetts, and especially vis a vis my six-year-old son. This historically black neighborhood in a historically viscously segregated city is undergoing gentrification (of which I'm to some extent undeniably a part) and its attendant economic and cultural harms. In recent years, the city's African American population has begun to decline.
The project also instigated a conversation with my son about race, slavery, and injustice. I've tended to tread very lightly around this issues so far so as to not prematurely puncture whatever early childhood experience of pre-societal influence is possible for him, but this conversation felt grounded and real.
The experience of spending this money at Hoovers, and of passing by every day in my to and fro, is informed by my gratitude for living in a racially mixed neighborhood (on my little block there are three white families and four black families) populated by businesses owned by blacks, Latinos, Caucasians, Asians, and Middle Eastern folks--especially coming, as I have, from a much more segregated, much whiter community in Western Massachusetts, and especially vis a vis my six-year-old son. This historically black neighborhood in a historically viscously segregated city is undergoing gentrification (of which I'm to some extent undeniably a part) and its attendant economic and cultural harms. In recent years, the city's African American population has begun to decline.
The project also instigated a conversation with my son about race, slavery, and injustice. I've tended to tread very lightly around this issues so far so as to not prematurely puncture whatever early childhood experience of pre-societal influence is possible for him, but this conversation felt grounded and real.
One Large participant: LO
Name of black-owned business: Hoover's Cooking
Location: Austin, TX
Race/ethnicity of participant: Preferred not to answer
Name of black-owned business: Hoover's Cooking
Location: Austin, TX
Race/ethnicity of participant: Preferred not to answer
