Week 4: Koreatown

 On Saturday, I took a trip with some friends to Koreatown, a place I had never visited before. I was the “co-pilot,” helping my friend from out of town navigate through the streets of Los Angeles. We drove down Wilshire Boulevard, passing the luxurious skyscraper hotels and multi-million dollar company buildings. It was night time and the streets of Beverly Hills were lit up, looking pricey as expected. We drove less than half an hour until we hit the edge of Koreatown. Driving along the streets in the residential area, not far from million-dollar residential areas, were small homes and much older looking apartments. We passed many liquor stores, contrary to what we saw in Beverly Hills. Koreatown had many different shops,restaurants and one thing my friend pointed out was the huge signs on their churches There were several Korean barbecue places and shops that had Korean lettering on them. The buildings in Koreatown looked very narrow and tightly spaced. The shops were cramped together in an l-shape and had very little parking for the massive amount of vehicles there were. The roads were in-tact, but definitely did not have as many lanes as they did on Wilshire. The vehicles were also different because most of them were compact and middle-class vehicles such as the ones shown on the picture below.  There was a mix of Honda's and mid-class SUV’s. The borough did not have any sky-rise buildings, but only one-story shops that looked outdated. There was not much vegetation, which was not surprising in this urban setting.  It was a very different ethnic place, but once we got to the all-you-can-eat Korean Barbecue restaurant, it looked a little more familiar to what I am used to.

                On the side of the restaurant there was a familiar ethnic scene, a 711 with men of differences races standing around outside. I saw a billboard (picture below) that was in Spanish, advising mothers to be precautious about what they feed their children. I found this particularly interesting because there was a Spanish billboard nestled in the middle of Koreatown. There was also a ‘Los Amigos’ market close by and a Guatemalan restaurant. I found this peculiar because as we were waiting outside the restaurant, it was mostly an Asian demographic.I think I was the only Latina in that shopping center as we were waiting outside to be seated. The only time I saw other Hispanic people was inside the restaurant, where they worked as cooks. Although I saw many Asian people in Koreatown, it had a mix of people and their roles seemed specific, but not confined. The Korean people were the business owners, and the Hispanic people were the workers and cooks of the restaurant. From what I saw, the people outside were mostly Asian families, groups of teenagers,and groups of college students. What I learned from observing all of these aspects of Koreatown and the people there was that race was not a major division in this metropolitan neighborhood. Latino & Korean businesses were conglomerated into this substandard neighborhood.  That reinstated the idea that ethnic divisions are not as great as class divisions. People could relate more to people off their own class than people of their same race and different class.  The stark differences between Beverly Hills and Koreatown were more outstanding than the fact that there are many Latinos living and working in Koreatown.

                This idea relates to this week’s reading, “The Truly Disadvantaged.” The reading acknowledged the term of ‘underclass’ that incorporates people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, such as Koreatown. It also clumps together those individuals in this area as being the unfairly charged ‘ghetto underclass’ as they have similar minimal resources at hand. Therefore I suggest that the socially constructed “underclass” is very prominent among those living in poor neighborhoods and has more to do with economic difference than race. 

Week 3: Place 60 miles from LA

Over the weekend in my hometown of Oxnard, California I took a short drive to two places near my house that were a clear contrast of one another. I went to Silverstrand, which is an affluent beachfront community a few blocks from my parents’ house.  At Silver Strand, my city seemed like a whole other place. The demographics were an anomaly from the rest of the city, because the city is 73% Latino (US Census Bureau) and by judging the looks of residents, they were mostly white. The structure and look of the area was especially significant. There was no center of the neighborhood, just a few markets and surf shops. The houses were all very large and very well maintained. Some of them even looked like mansions. There was hardly any vegetation, except for the landscaped front yards of the multi-million dollar beach houses on the strand. The vehicles in the area were mostly all luxury cars. The area definitely showed where the rich have their summer homes or getaways from the central district of Oxnard. It was on the outskirts, surrounded by a base and a beautiful beach with a long stretch of sand. The social groups that I saw were surfers and older people. What most stood out about going to Silverstrand was that the residents/locals looked at me as if I did not belong. However, when I went just a few miles away near downtown it was a completely different story.
I went to a street named “La Colonia” just on the other side of town. It is where my mother grew up, but also notorious for a violent street gang and as one of the ‘ghettos’ of Oxnard. It is considered one of the worst places to live in my hometown because of its substandard housing, crime, gang activity, and general poverty. Passing through Colonia, I noticed the people outside were mostly all Hispanic. The structure of the neighborhood was poor and most of the buildings looked poorly constructed and crowded. Along the street, there were walls infested with graffiti and substandard facilities. There were a lot of children playing in their front yards and many liquor stores located on that street with men hanging around. The housing was dramatically different from Silverstrand. The houses were one-story, small two bedroom homes with many cars parked in front of them. The people of this neighborhood were an entirely different demographic than the previous location. These people were mainly Hispanic, working class, and living in substandard housing.

Social difference is clear when comparing both of these neighborhoods that are within miles of each other. Their inhabitants, class, ethnicity, occupations, and lifestyles separate these places and show the unequal areas of the small town of Oxnard. It is false to assume that the people that inhabit the rough neighborhood of Colonia are anything less than the people of Silverstrand. Most of the people of Colonia were immigrants and assumed work in a Sunkist factory of citrus, a factory without windows that remains there to this day. Low wages working in factories stalled these immigrants, many of who do not speak English, from attaining the resources offered to people who grew up elsewhere. The inferior schools, gang activity, and general neglect from local government of the area permitted the misallocation of resources between the two neighborhoods. While there is an obvious economic difference, it is more tremendous that there is such a large disparity between lifestyles in such this city. I relate this to the David Sibley reading 'Mapping Pure & Defiled.' Although the differences from these two neighborhoods are not as extreme, it reiterates the idea of spatial difference and inequality. Cities are reshaped to keep 'others' (minorities) at a disadvantaged central location (such as Colonia) from harder to reach places such as Silverstrand. 

Silver Strand is located west on this map next to the beach. Colonia is located in the center (more or less skewed northeastern.) 

Week 2: Car Trip

I drove from Westwood to my hometown of Oxnard, California this weekend. As soon as I drove away from my apartment, the first things that caught my eye were the tall skyscrapers along Wilshire. I also noticed the dense traffic and luxury cars such as Mercedes, BMW, Jaguars and Range Rovers. The drivers in this traffic seemed to be coming from the downtown area to West L.A. and the more suburban part of town. I noticed many of them talking on their phones and preoccupied with other things throughout the daily grind of driving through the infamous Los Angeles traffic. On the other hand, I also observed the people out on the street. I observed a white homeless man asking for change right before the entrance of the 405. Yet, I saw a Hispanic man selling roses around the traffic. While one man was working hard and struggling, another seemed helpless begging for change. The stark differences in class, race, and occupation were very apparent just outside of my apartment.

 As I was driving along the narrow roads of the 405 North, the types of vehicles started to change. I saw a lot of work trucks and every day Toyotas, Fords and ‘middle class’ cars. Classism was apparent with the types of cars on the road, the people in them, and the quality of buildings along the freeway. The size of the buildings became smaller, but seemed to look a lot less modern than the skyscrapers on Wilshire. The traffic along the freeway was crowded, but not as much as the city was. Also, the roads were narrow and dense with traffic on the 405, but became wider and had a newer looking surface on the 101. That astounded me because the 405 area besides Brentwood, Santa  Monica, and Westwood seemed to be much more affluent than Reseda. I had driven past there many times but never stopped to notice these details. The social differences between West Los Angeles and Ventura County were very prominent on my car trip because of the vehicles and preoccupations of the people on the road.  

My car trip back home is related to this week's post-suburban article because it includes the greater Los Angeles area as part of one of the “major metropolises of the world.” The infrastructure and easy access of highways allows for these areas to contribute to the greater Los Angeles area and be a part of its economy. Not only does it tie these areas together economically, but also by the diverse people, landscapes and architecture seen on the freeway. It also relates to the chapter on the ‘Growth of the City’ on how expansion and transportation, as I saw this weekend, allow for people to commute back and forth from Los Angeles to the suburban cities close to it. Although I think my car trip was similar to how busy, diversified, and expanded city life is throughout the Los Angeles Metropolitan region, the article clearly shows a greater distinction between ethnic groups that were not as apparent on the freeway. 

Week 1: Intro

Hello everyone!

I want to share with all of you my understanding of "social difference" in this melting pot of a city! "Social difference" to me is the separation of the population by various factors that shape the role people play in society. For instance, people are inherently distinct in terms of culture, customs, race, class, gender, and most importantly social mobility.  However, their collaboration despite these differences maintains the functionality of the urban city, but also causes conflict, segregation, and inequality.

This blog will include photos and most importantly my view on urban city life and social difference. I am interested in learning about the mix of people in densely populated areas. Growing up in southern California, I feel as if I have a good understanding of the conflicts and divisions between race and class in a dense urban context.  I hope to discuss and also learn from all of you about what makes a metropolis such as Los Angeles, function with great diversity of race, class, and gender.

Some places I would like to visit would be the coastal areas of Los Angeles, such as the Port of Long Beach, Malibu, and Venice Beach. I am familiar with those areas but I would like to explore them with the ideas of this class in mind. I am looking  forward to traveling around L.A. and really getting to explore the city I live in. :)