My Neighborhood

5 Pages 1288 Words

My Neighborhood.
Growing up in a large, sprawling urban center like the San Fernando Valley, I was basically color blind. I was raised in a very diverse ethnic area and since elementary school I had friends from many different races. Living in California, I had more that just a binary experience with different races and cultures. (Almaguer pg. 151) The differences we all had in various skin colors, cultures and attitudes did not seem important until I reached Jr. High. It wasn’t until we all reached puberty that the multi-racial friends I knew separated into various ethnic groups and became aware of the divisions within our neighborhood. Then we all dealt with such issues as gangs, busing and interracial dating from various perspectives. Since that time, it seems the lines have blurred again, or perhaps become so familiar as not to be noticeable. Racial issues have become less relevant to me personally, but they still exist in the background and we deal with them every day living in such a multi-racial environment.
Historically, the San Fernando Valley was viewed as predominately Anglo, middle-class. This was news to me as I remember growing up with friends from many different nationalities. We were a middle class family, and I went to a middle class school that seemed to me to be very diverse. I had a friend named Marjoram who was of Indian culture, Curtis who and Angie who were black, Ted and Becky who were both white and of course Augustine and Chan who were Mexican and Korean respectively. We all lived near each other and played together, my experiences do not reflect a predominantly “white“ culture. I was aware, that there were differences in our family lives as a child, and occasionally we called each other names etc, but I thought that kind of individuality was normal.
In fact, as children, it seems that we respected and valued each others cultures. For example, we all thought it was cool that Marjoram’s dad had ...