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.)