The Suburban Burden

As a society we demand too much out of our suburbs. We expect them to be affordable, to be clean, to be safe, and to be homogenous. We turn their streets into playgrounds, their parks into birthday party venues, and their trees into makeshift houses. Adults see in them the California dream. Children see in them what their parents allow them to see, usually happiness, sunshine, and laughter along with the occasional butterfly or rainbow. The point is reality tends to be a completely subjective construction based on one's perspective. Choosing to hear, see, and speak no evil by no means prevents it from happening. We have been conditioned to believe that acknowledging the shortcomings of the suburbs is somehow a reflection on the people who live there. The true "reality" is that the suburbs often turn out to be more than some bargained for.

The secret of the suburbs that I came up with revolves around the idea of personal responsibility and accountability. Too often mischievous activities go unchecked or unpunished in the suburbs. Last year Tesoro High School in Orange County had a pair of students write in their assigned journals how they planned to torture, mutilate, and kill their teacher. Various articles go into great detail and get extremely graphic in describing the students' plot. Both students were suspended for a short period of time and as one article cited, "This being California however the two have continued to play on the school football team." In another copycat death threat, two students at my alma mater left threatening and graphic notes depicting the death of their teacher lying on their desk's after class. Sure enough my former honors chemistry teacher found them and reported the students, fearing her life. Once again the students went before a school board hearing and were allowed to return to school without any consequences. Even the principal of my high school had recommended the two students be expelled. My local paper noted, "We are astounded that a teacher could have death threats and the students be allowed to come back on campus with the perception that they got away with it," Sepulveda said. "They are back at our campus getting high-fives."

In the wake of numerous school shootings, I am amazed that more severe disciplinary action was not taken against these students. I guess what these stories really expose about suburbanites is their relentless avoidance of scandal at all costs. Acknowledging that a larger problem exists would be incriminating for many people. These children are products of their environments and their upbringings, nothing more nothing less. The real secret is that the suburbs don't always do their part to produce fine and upstanding citizens as most of us expect them to.

Here are the two links if anyone is interested:

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_334220021.html

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1152152.php

The knife

I have lived in the same neighborhood for my entire life. Have known all of the same people. And everything has always seemed so normal and safe. I would run up to my best friend's house every night to go play with her and my parents would not have the slightest worry in their heads. One night, my friend and I were sitting in my window-seat which looked out to the front of the house. I saw something move in the bushes across the street. The same bushes that I have just ran past a couple of hours earlier. "What is that?" We stared in the direction and the bush moved more. Then we saw a head of a man peek over towards us. He had caught us. Or had be caught him? Was this Jim who lived next door? Chuck up the street? No, this man was scared that we have seen him. He tried to hide, but we knew he was there. The next morning I woke up only to go outside and try to piece together what had happened the night before. I walk outside and am looking towards the bush on the other side of the road, when I notice something a little closer. I looked down on the grass right in front of my house and there was an huge, old rusty knife laying on my grass. Was this man trying to threaten me? To this day we have no idea who this man was or what he had meant by this knife.

What I Know

First let me preface by stating that as a science major, I have been intimidated by writing a blog that honors English majors could construe critique and criticize. However, I have decided to simply write about what I know, unembellished and unapologetically. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a very limited view, particularly concerning the suburbs. I was born not too far from my current home and I have never moved. I went to private school and grew up in a conservative, republican, Christian home with one older sister and two parents that met in high school and are still married. Despite the homogeny between my self and my family as well as between my family and others, we were different. I was different. I am a first generation Californian and even further removed, I am a first generation American. Being born and raised in California, I never viewed myself as “the other.” It wasn’t until I encountered racism at a very young age did I realize that I was different. The existence of racism in the suburbs is a secret that many would like to deny; however, it is alive and well. Racism is an area with which I am all too familiar. Hopefully with our generation being more educated than ever before, racism will slowly die out, and it will no longer be a secret of the suburbs.

Who's got a car?

Are their any folks out there who'd be willing to give us freeloaders a ride to Chris's house? Let's organize!

Horror in the Suburbs

This fall a 13 year old girl was raped by a man in his 20s. Apparently he had been hanging around the middle school for about a month. A week before the rape, the girl had stayed after school to watch her friends play basketball, and on her way to the bathroom the man approached her. She kicked him and ran away, but did not report the incident to her parents, friends, or school officials because she didn't want people to worry.
Both of the girl's parents work, so she usually walks home from school and spends the afternoon alone. The afternoon of the rape she did not lock the door behind her because she was in a hurry to go the bathroom, so it was easy for the attacker to follow her inside.
Two other girls knew about this and decided to keep it a secret. When the victim wrote her friend a note about how she was planning to kill herself, the girls told their parents, who then contacted the victim's parents. Over winter break the family moved to another apartment complex and all three girls had to give police reports and visit therapists.


This is so horrifying because people move to the suburbs specifically so that they will be able to protect their families from these kinds of incidents. Yet in order to afford to live in this community, parents must work full time, leaving their children home alone for several hours every afternoon. No one is really safe and even in the nicest communities, there are dangerous people. They can easily follow you home without you knowing it, it is easy to forget to lock the door, and you might assume that schools are a safe place with enough people around to notice something out of the ordinary.
Furthermore, this girl did not report this rape in part because she did not want to cause more problems for her parents. In the past few years they have had financial problems, job changes, and they have moved several times, so she thought that her rape to just add to the list of things they had to worry about. The fact that three 13-year-old girls tried to deal with this without the help of any adults also shows that the suburban attempt to protect innocence failed.

Film idea?

Hey guys! What do you think about this for an idea: I want to analyze the "politics" that exists in the suburbs. For instance, the measures that are taken in order to keep the homes in a uniform fashion, as not to disturb the flow and cause a stir up. Also, the actual politics that exists in the burbs, well at least these in places like the OC, that effects everything from the development of the city to funding of certain programs.

Is the suburb the place we think it is?

I believe that the stereotypical suburbia is represented through the idea of similar homes, families, and relaxation. These descriptions almost imply that suburbia is seen as a place of happiness, where all is equal, families are together and relaxes at all times. However, the reality of suburbia is actually far from these stereotypes. Through living in a suburb for all of my life, I have come to learn that not all is what it seems or is described on wikipedia. I have come to learn that suburbia is realistically described through the following phrases: 'spread-out entertainment', 'lacking nature', and through the idea of business parks. These realistic descriptions seem to pertain more negatively than that of the stereotypical image. The idea that there is spread out entertainment does not make entertainment extremely accessible as that of the relaxation of a stereotypical suburbia seems to exemplify. The idea that the suburbia is lacking of nature is interesting in that this place that is stereotypically seen as a nurturing place for a family. However, it is interesting that these communities are completely man made, and lacks nature. I believe that nature is important for individuals in order for them to appreciate, rather than simply seeing identical houses in rows over and over again. Where there is barely any means of reflection through the sights of the patterns of the suburb, nature provides a means for an individual to come to his/her roots and obtain a unique serenity.