ipl-logo

Personal Narrative: My Life In East Oakland

545 Words3 Pages

I have lived in East Oakland my whole life. To the majority of people, the mention of East Oakland evokes thoughts of violence, shootings, and gangs. I was one of the people who believed in these stereotypes, and for a particularly long time. I was one of the people who saw Oakland as a wasteland, a place with nothing to offer me, and a place I had nothing to offer to. Ever since I was little, I have been hyper aware of my surroundings and analyzed everything in my life from what my parents told me to what I saw on the news, but eventually I came to the realization that I wasn't as aware as I assumed. Some of the vividest memories that I have from my childhood are my parents telling me that if I heard gunshots, I needed to run to the bathroom. …show more content…

I would say it began approximately two years ago. It started gradually, when I realized I wasn't paying as much attention to my surroundings as I assumed I was initially. When I actually paid close attention, I realized Oakland is so much more than what people make it out to be, and I had fallen victim to believing negative stereotypes. Now I see Oakland as a beautiful place full of diversity and people with hopes, dreams, and passions. Once I started loving the city I lived in, I felt better about myself and had more aspirations too. The way I felt about my city and my surroundings had a strong correlation with the way I felt about myself. Prior to this realization, my dreams and aspirations for the future were minimal. I performed well throughout elementary school, and I was moved up a grade because my reading and math skills were advanced. However, when I began attending middle school, the new atmosphere combined with all of the new awareness I gained as I started transitioning from a child to an adolescent ended up in me lowering the expectations I had for myself. Once I regained my optimism and saw that Oakland is not what people say it is, I began seeing life in an optimistic way as

Show More
Related
420 Words | 2 Pages

The overall argument of Robert O. Self’s Introduction, in the book “American Babylon,” are the different aspects of postwar Oakland and the East Bay, socially, economically, and politically. There are three key claims Self makes in the Introduction. First, Self claims there were two controversial political ideologies in postwar Oakland, one being black power, including politics of deference and empowerment, and second a neo-populist, conservative homeowner politics of white residents. Another claim Self makes is the idea that the postwar black struggle and politics of suburban building shaped the political culture in Oakland and the East Bay. The third key claim Self makes is the modernization of space; space as property, as a social imagination, and as a political scale.

Read More
1664 Words | 7 Pages

The author acknowledges that capitalist globalization and neoliberalism have created the deplorable economic conditions in which many Oakland residents live. He alludes to the need to change the “social order” of impoverished communities and the “social contexts” in which individuals make vital choices about their lives. However, he eschews any call for systematic social change and instead hopes that policymakers will change policies and redistribute resources from criminal justice programs to “nurturing institutions.” Such hopes are undoubtedly well-intentioned, but they pale in comparison with the social problems the author has so capably illuminated. In the end, Rios avoids any acknowledgment that the end of anti-working class and racist repression, the progressive transformation of social institutions, and the massive redistribution of material resources will require the abolition of capitalism and the development of a new socialist

Read More
152 Words | 1 Pages

On 12/24/2017 at about 1400 hours, I was dispatch to the are of Craig Road and North Fifth Street in reference to an auto accident that involved a motorcycle (2000 Harley Davidson VIN:1HD1FBW388YY619800, NV PLATE#263522). Upon my arrival, I located a white male adult identified as Charles Higgins. Higgins was laying on the street with lacerations to the bridge of his nose and was unaware of his surroundings. Higgins. Civilians who stopped to render aid to Higgins stated he fell to the right side of his motorcycle and skidded along the roadway for about ten feet.

Read More
384 Words | 2 Pages

I have lived in two distinct communities: the first was the small town of Moraga in the East Bay area of California, the second, and my current residence, is the city of Stockton. The former, Moraga is the epitome of white picket fence suburbia, with friendly neighbors, a high ranking public school system, and a practically non-existent crime rate. Growing up in Moraga, I was able to receive a great education, roam the streets freely with friends, and never had to fear horrors, such as, gang violence, sporadic neighborhood shootings, or drug abuse. Sadly, when I moved to the latter, most of these horrors were apparent weekly, if not daily.

Read More
500 Words | 2 Pages

Like the classic saying has it “You can take the kid out of Brooklyn but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the kid.” Same goes for Chicago this is my story. I was born in the windy city, on the south side. I wasn’t there for that long I was there till my fifth birthday, and then I moved to Boston, Ma with my mother, sister and I. However, I believe that south side raised me because every winter and summer vacation I would visit my grandmother or as she liked to be called “Mo-Mo” While visiting her I’ve seen some pretty harsh situations.

Read More
189 Words | 1 Pages

One night, during the cold winter, I walked along the side walk to reach the local store down the block. As I walked out, before I can realize it, I was dropping down onto the concrete while bullets swiftly passed me. I then began to run back home, but I wanted to keep running. Away from Chicago, away from the west side. Growing up in Chicago, it was easy to assume that there was nothing different beyond the blocks of my streets.

Read More
1074 Words | 5 Pages

In 2008, I moved to an apartment in Rockaway Park located in Far Rockaway. I’ll admit, the neighborhood was far from attractive when I first arrived. The rumor mills stirred up a storm suggesting that Far Rockaway was well… “Rough around the edges” for a lack of a better term. Working on Riker’s Island, most of our patients who reside in Queens often came from Far Rockaway, thereby confirming the rumors that the town was riddled with crime, infested with drugs and plagued with anything one might consider rebellious or unscrupulous were true. And on my first day, I got lost and winded up surrounded by… you guessed it, The Projects.

Read More
533 Words | 3 Pages

At the beginning of this assignment, I choose inner city culture because I was under the impression that I knew at least a little about it. I live in the suburbs of Chicago, and my parents have often worked in the inner city, and so I have heard many stories. However, completing this project has shown me how little I know about other cultures, and how important it is to research before meeting a client. To begin, I have often been told that violence and poverty in the inner city are partially caused by bad parenting and drugs. While those can be a cause of problems in the inner city, just like they can be anywhere, none of my research identified those aspects as ultimate causes.

Read More
202 Words | 1 Pages

When people hear about Oakland they think that it’s all about “Thug life” and that if you go there it will endanger your life. People judge without getting to know Oakland’s community (people). I grew up in Oakland, California and I love it. Oakland is home of the A’s, the Raiders, and the Golden State Warriors. Yes, Oakland may have crimes in it, but that doesn’t mean everybody in Oakland is dangerous.

Read More
1127 Words | 5 Pages

The city of Oakland, located in the northern part of California, is part of Alameda County; It is the eighth largest city in California and has 50 distinct neighborhoods (Szkup-Valdez). Although classified as a very diverse city in the United States (Szkup-Valdez), Oakland’s residents do not live equally because the city is categorized by its disadvantaged inner city and privileged suburbs(Szkup-Valdez). The different groups of people suffer different types of social issues, similarly to how African-Americans and Whites dealt with different social issues during the segregation period. The ongoing difference between suburbs and inner city have caused for Oakland to be racially segregated and has caused for the political attention and funding

Read More
991 Words | 4 Pages

I never realized as a kid that I was different than everyone else who lived in my neighborhood, — different, but not better. Despite how scary it was at first, growing up in the hood caused me to appreciate life even more, and it introduced me to a new world. Its effects still stay with me today. When I was around the age or 5, my mom and I moved back to Columbia, South Carolina from Virginia Beach due to her job.

Read More
371 Words | 2 Pages

It doesn't sound particularly meaningful, but one of the times I'm really proud of is when I got myself un-lost from the lower levels of the streets in downtown Chicago. In Chicago's downtown, there are many streets that are double- or triple-leveled, and the lowest levels are usually full of abandoned cars, warehouses, and people with nowhere else to go. Last summer, I was headed to a friend's house in Hyde Park and had to catch a bus that I didn't know, and the google maps app didn't know, was on the topmost level. The maps took me into the lowest level, and then stopped working right, because it wouldn't give me directions that I could follow. At first, I freaked out because I had never been here before, and it was very dimly lit and, most

Read More
611 Words | 3 Pages

My life in Chicago made me who I am today determined to be greater than what the neighborhood I came from. My parents always made sure I was off the streets putting me in different programs such as Softball, Basketball,Football, Boys and Girls Club, and even the Lighthouse Youth Center. All of those programs helped build a man motivating me to not be only a follower but also a leader. The lighthouse Youth Center gave me my first job at fourteen my last year in Chicago which I thank them to this day for giving me the opportunity. As I transitioned to the South Suburbs my relationship with my parents started to get iffy as I started to have my own opinion.

Read More
1155 Words | 5 Pages

As a young girl, around the age of 10 I lived in the Perry projects with my mother. Previously to moving there I would visit often to see my great-grandmother. When I would visit my grandmother there were not many other people that were African-American. The Commodore Perry Projects had been actually made for white people.

Read More
849 Words | 4 Pages

The past four years of my life hold both my highest of highs and my lowest of lows. High school can be a very awkward time period in a person’s life. Four years ago, I made the intimidating switch from St. Mary’s School to Algoma High School. There were certain aspects of high school which made me nervous, but academics was not one of them. I learned how to be a responsible student in my earlier years, and school had always come relatively easy to me.

Read More

More about Personal Narrative: My Life In East Oakland

Open Document