WELCOME TO RICHMOND.

 

Richmond, California has seen a plethora of problems for all the years of my life. I have always been privileged enough to live just outside of the most hostile parts of my city, but as nice as my neighborhood was it didn’t remain unscathed from it’s surrounding poverty (drug houses being run out of neighbor’s homes, convicted kidnapper arrested down the street, Richmond Police murdering our neighbor in his home, etc).

I recently saw this short documentary online, and it made me think a ton about the resliency of working-class/poor people and people of color in general (particularly immigrants and those of African heritage).  PEEP:

As an Asian/Caucasian/Native kid growing up in Richmond, I’ve always felt very “out of place” (so to speak). Those who share my ethnic background(s) generally do not share my class background, and those who share my class background, do not generally reflect my ethnic background(s). 

In school (among other places), I many times felt “ghetto” (for lack of a better word) around suburban white and/or Asian kids, and privileged around Black, Latino and/or Southeast Asian kids. My ethnic ambgiuity helped me to fit into the more “working-class” crowd, but my whale (white AND pale)  skin did not. My skin tone and politically-active upbringing got me accepted into more “middle-class” circles, but my manner of speech, dress and the fact that I was almost always “on-guard,” (had insults ready to go for anybody/ready to fight if I needed to) made me somewhat of an outsider. Add all this to the fact that I am biracial and you get someone who now questions EVERYTHING.     

I now reside in El Cerrito and my parents are doing much better financially than they were during my childhood. When I was born, my Dad sold cash registers and my mom was a secretary at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. We literally went from losing our house for year (a friend rented it out) and staying with my Great Uncle, who was born in the Camps and hated white people, (which wasn’t much fun for my beautiful Mama) to coming home from College and seeing the inside of my house, IKEA’d out.   

I have friends who’ve spent years at Harvard AND in Prison. During Middle School I saw some friends get jumped into gangs AND some be awarded “first chair” in the Symphonic Band. My iPod has Mac Dre AND Coldplay in it. In other words, people who don’t know me usually think I am either: A. Crazy B. Jaded C. Fake or D. Confused. I don’t feel that I am ANY of these but border on (A.) due to the violence, ignorance and disparity on one side of my being, and the opulence, vanity and privilege on the other side.     

Only in Amerika could you get a story like mine. I was BORN to study Amerika and issues of class, race/ethnicity and identity. I received my B.A. in Amerikan Studies from UC Santa Cruz, and what I was generally able to pull from those 4 years of reading, writing, listening and dialouging, is that our country is unfathomably ugly AND beautiful. Only in Amerika could George W. Bush AND Tupac Shakur speak publicly to so many people through a Television set. Only in Amerika could Michael Vick be put behind bars for killing dogs while our tax dollars pay the Amerikan Millitary rape and pillage innocent Iraqi women and children. Only in Amerika could I feel this isolated, alone and disconnected, and at the same time, in love with and connected to everyone I see while walking around the sh*tty-ass Hilltop Mall in Richmond, California.

Do it with Pride & Purpose,

Senbei