With the “Hahvahd” Shirt, Gentrification Takes a Victory Lap

Anyone who’s been to Harvard Square has seen a “Hahvahd” shirt — but they may not realize that shirt’s more sinister backstory.

Having grown up in Cambridge, I’ve seen shirts emblazoned with "Hahvahd" since the ’90s. But now that I find myself inside of Harvard’s gates, I’ve had enough of them. While “Hahvahd” might seem harmless at first glance, it mocks the accent of working-class Boston residents priced out by gentrification — a process Harvard is partly responsible for. The fact that Harvard owns the trademark for “Hahvahd” only adds insult to injury.

Honestly, the shirts wouldn’t feel like such an affront if the graphic were spelled correctly. Harvard is supposed to be an omphalos of erudition, so why has no one bothered to get the transliteration right?! It’s “Hahvid!”

As a native Cantabrigian turned Harvardian, I feel uniquely qualified to speak on this subject. I was born in Cambridge to two working-class Bostonians, and despite my blue-collar background, I attended a ritzy private school down the street from Harvard Square. There, among other things, I learned how not to talk like my parents.

Needless to say, I have been navigating the choppy waters of class mobility and socioeconomic struggle my entire life. So admittedly, these “Hahvahd” shirts touch a nerve with me. But my critique is not merely a bitter lament of gentrification; it’s a condemnation of casual arrogance.

At first blush, the shirt is a playful — if obtuse — nod to the Boston accent. But lurking beneath the surface are the dynamics of wealth, class, and power. Like many regional accents, the Boston brogue is an indelible marker of social class. And while some sport their accent as a badge of pride, still others feel ashamed or self-conscious. A family member once told me they wished they didn’t have their accent on account of the judgment and mockery they’ve faced.

Worse yet, these are exactly the people who have been systematically priced out of Cambridge over the last several decades. We are left with the tragic irony that the people sporting “Hahvahd” shirts are unlikely to have even had a conversation with someone whose diction they’re attempting — poorly — to imitate.

The “Hahvahd” shirt is a microcosm of the worst of the relationship between the University, its students, and local residents. To me, the shirt tells Cantabrigians: “you will be mocked and ousted, but we never even bothered to interact with you enough to get our lampoon of your accent right.”

At bottom, “Hahvahd” is a crude simulacrum of Boston culture, by and for those with no real knowledge of it — and it’s an offense I will no longer brook.

What was ostensibly intended as a cutesy reference to the local character instead comes across as a deeply ignorant gloat. To be sure, the relationship between Harvard and Cambridge is a symbiotic one. But when I see someone in the Square wearing that shirt, I see an interloper.

To the unwitting Harvard first-years who bought the shirt because it was fun, I’m not heaping blame on you. Probably the only time you’ve heard the Boston accent was when you watched “Good Will Hunting,” and that’s not your fault.

However, I will lay blame at the feet of the University. According to the provost’s website, the University owns the trademark for “Hahvahd.” That means that Harvard, long complicit in Cambridge’s gentrification, is profiting off of the very people whose displacement it has fomented. As someone who was priced out of Cambridge, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. Then again, the Cambridge I grew up in doesn’t exist anymore, so there wouldn’t be much for me to come back to.

Fellow Harvard students, all I ask is that you think twice before buying one of those shirts. Better yet, maybe the COOP and The Harvard Shop will quit selling them to unsuspecting customers. But if Harvard won’t stop profiting off of “Hahvahd,” perhaps at least they would earmark that money for financial aid. After all, housing prices aren’t the only cost on the rise in Cambridge — Harvard Law School tuition is set to eclipse $80,000 next year.

At the end of the day, Bostonians are tough people; we can take a joke. But if you’re going to trivialize our local culture, at least have the tact to use correct spelling when you do it. After all, I thought people at Harvard were supposed to be “wicked smaht.”

Randall A. Carter is a Second Year Student at Harvard Law School.