The White Girl Minority

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Apple Valley, California is populated by approximately 60,000 people; with 74% of those 60,000 people being white, I am, at least on paper, the majority. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). However, washing clothes in the local laundry mat, walking through the grocery store, and buying coffee at the corner shop tells me I am the minority.

To the left of the laundry mat is the 99 Cent Store, which is owned and operated by American Indians (meaning they are from India, not Native Americans). To the right of the laundry mat, on the corner of the strip mall, is a coffee shop which is owned and operated by Mexican Americans. Inside the laundry mat I don't speak the majority language which is Spanish, so my fellow clothes-washers and I have learned to pantomime about who is using which cart and which dryer is broken this week.

While the clothes are drying I go to the coffee shop where I normally don't speak the majority language. Luckily the nice people behind the counter know the English-version of the menu and know the phrases, "whip cream," "extra shot of espresso" and "thank you very much, see you next week." We smile a lot at each other, the person behind the counter and me. When words fail we most rely on body language to display our manners.

The cigarette shop, in the same parking lot as the strip mall, is owned and operated by Korean Americans. Inside the cigarette shop I don't speak the majority language, but the friendly lady behind the counter has made it a point to know the brand my husband smokes, know how many packs he buys every week, and knows our faces. Together, the lady behind the counter and I have formed a mutually beneficial way of communicating: we smile, say "hi", she gives me the price, I pay, and we both laugh as a means of communicating friendship, then we both say "Thank you- have a nice day." We rarely speak beyond that because every time we have tried in the past it failed. We simply didn't understand each other. So now we just laugh pleasantly and say "thank you."

I have heard others say, "If you are going to live in this country then learn the language!" Yes, I agree. It is only polite that one adjusts to his or her surroundings rather than trying to make the surroundings adjust to them. However, learning a new language takes time. Nobody can realistically expect a person to learn a new language the moment they cross any country's borders; between the border crossing to the time the new language becomes fluent a person has to live, to work, to shop, and to continuously build their new lives so it is also unrealistic to expect a person or family to sit just outside the border or inside their new home and not leave until they speak perfect English.

So maybe the coffee shop people, the laundry mat people, and the cigarette shop people and I don't always understand each other's words, but most of the time we try. If that fails, we laugh and smile. When verbal communication doesn't work, we try to express to one another that we still come in peace...and dryer #25 is broken again.

Members of my Community Who Look Like Me...and those who don't

I live in a trailer park. The "trailer trash" jokes run rampant amongst my friends and general acquaintances, which is meant in good humor and I take it as such. On the rare occasion, an African American will move in here and stay maybe two weeks. Other than that, we are all white. I am the youngest person in the trailer park, and I am thirty-one years old. My husband, who is forty-one years old, is the second youngest. Basically, the park is one big group of blue-collar workers or recently retired blue-collared workers: construction workers and truck drivers, mostly. My husband is a truck driver and I am a house cleaner: blue collar white folk who are just trying to keep the weather elements out and the lights on.

The people whose houses I clean are all white with two exceptions: Mr. and Mrs. Bess are African Americans, and Ms. Grace who is Mexican American and a former house cleaner herself. She usually follows us around her house, telling us how she would clean back in her day, but we love her because she is fun to talk with, is always tossing out compliments, and never complains about our work.

The Bess' don't treat us well. To them we never do a well enough job and extra tasks are always expected of us. This is normal behavior for our clients regardless of their ethnic backgrounds: while many of our clients are grateful, gracious, and polite, most of our clients are not shy about our status in their eyes. We are housecleaners and we deserve to work ourselves into a sweat for every dollar we earn. We are housecleaners therefore we must have taken a wrong turn in life. We are housecleaners therefore our morals come into question, our intelligence comes into question, our education and our life's ambitions come into question. Many times we are treated as "less than" by our clients.

It is degrading and it can sting, but we, or at least I, don't carry those feelings home with us. Of course we took wrong turns in our lives- who hasn't? Of course we dreamed of different careers when we were younger, but life happened and bills had to be paid. As my grandfather, who lived through the aftermath of the Great Depression, always said, "Any honest work is good work."

I bring up the treatment I receive at work so that I may bring up my understanding of grouping together with my "own kind". I don't have any rich friends and I feel uncomfortable being with rich people. I feel I don't belong and I feel that sense of not belonging is reciprocated. Being in the trailer park and around other working class people is easy. We understand each other, we understand each other's plights, and we understand the same jokes about uppity bosses and late fees resulting in another bill being paid first. So when I see neighborhoods filled with the same ethnic groups I understand. I understand how it would be easier and more comfortable for Mexican Americans to live in predominately Mexican American neighborhoods, for African Americans to live in predominately African American neighborhoods, and so on.

The sense of belonging is comforting, it is a feeling of ease after a day of being treated like a "less than" by people who don't bother to try and understand someone else's life.

Does the local media represent people like me?

The local media does not represent people like me. On some levels it is nice not to be considered news worthy. The local media focuses on these people: the druggies, the youth, the illegal immigrants, and the rich.

The druggies: methamphetamines (aka meth, speed, crystal meth) is a big deal here. Big. Everyday someone is arrested for using it, selling it, stealing it, stealing for it, killing for it, or killing because of it. See? Sometimes it pays not to be news worthy.

The youth: high school sports and athletics make the local news every edition. This is good because it shows the youth that if you work hard at something people will notice. The youth get into trouble. Nothing new there, but it makes the news when teenagers drag race or steal cars.

Illegal immigrants: a gigantic story that never seems to lose any steam. Taxes pay for illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes, which is the thing I think that makes most people angry. Paying to help people get on their feet is one thing, but paying for people who don't give back to the tax system is another: it is a lot like pouring one's own drinking water into a bottomless well. I have heard the testimonies of legal immigrants telling the illegal immigrants to either do it right or go home. Legal immigrants have worked hard to become Americans and they don't want that work taken lightly.

Another issue about illegal immigrants is that they, in order to support themselves and their families, work, but if they have a job it means that a legal immigrant or citizen is denied that job...well, that is the theory anyway. Steps have been taken by Apple Valley Town Councilman Scott Nassif to ensure companies do not employee illegal, or "undocumented", workers. A company or contractor will lose their contract or business license if it is proven they have hired an undocumented worker. (Orr, 2007, p. 4)

The rich: ah, yes the rich. They are the business owners, the councilpersons, the lawyers, and generally the people who plan the building of Apple Valley which keeps money coming in. It is the rich who decide where the stop lights go, why Super Wal-Mart will never be allowed here yet Super Target is welcomed with open arms.

According to the official Apple Valley website (www.applevalley.org) "Apple Valley is governed by a five-member Council with the Mayor serving as presiding officer at all meetings. The Council also sits as the Apple Valley Redevelopment Agency and the Apple Valley Community Resource Foundation." The website also explains how the mayor comes to be. "At the first regular meeting in December of each year the Council selects one of its number as Mayor and one as Mayor Pro Tem." (Apple Valley Website, N.D.) Basically what that means is that the while the people of this town can vote for the councilpersons the people have only that secondhand, roundabout way of choosing who the mayor might be. The five-member council team is comprised of all white men: no women, no minorities.

Conclusion

I, the white girl, live on the outskirts of town. I communicate as best as I can with those I interact with. At work I blend in with my co-workers but stand out from the customers. At the laundry mat and in the grocery store I stick out. On a good day the upper class ignore me, on a bad day they look down on me.

My grandfather married a Korean woman during the Korean-American war. She learned to speak English after they returned as a married couple to this country. It was during dinner one night at their home that I first heard the word "nigger" being used in casual conversation.

My husband's niece, who was a maid of honor at our wedding, is half African American and half Caucasian. She is a lesbian living with her life partner and their three children.

I was married on Halloween and I write horror novels in between work and school. I am called "weird," "strange," "liberal," "bitch," and "white trash" more times than I am called my own name. Those names I don't mind and those names I won't contradict. At the end of the day, the name I do object to is "majority," especially when this majority label places me in the same group as the meth users and the five councilmen of Apple Valley. I am the minority in all ways except my skin color.

References:

Orr, Ryan (March, 2007) Runner purposes a new anti-illegal immigrant bill. Desert

Dispatch Newspaper (electronic version). Retrieved March 17, 2007 from http://www.desertdispatch.com/onset?db=desertdispatch&id=162&template=article.html

The Town of Apple Valley, CA. (n.d.) www.applevalley.org. Retrieved March 17^th from

http://www.applevalley.org/?http://www.applevalley.org/council/

U.S. Census Bureau (N.D.) United States Census Bureau; State and County Quick Facts;

Apple Valley, California. Retrieved March 15, 2007 from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html