My neighborhood is full of culture. It's set upon a hill, surrounded by buildings with historical meaning. I live in a 7 story apartment building right across from the old live Theater, and a block down The Hill, is this cool little arcade bar that different types of people flock to on warm summer nights. Often times, especially on the weekends in June and July, you will see a line of people waiting to get in. A few blocks up is the nearest city park. It's pretty big considering the part of town it sits in. Encircling the park is concrete, with tall stairs poured into the wall. During the frigid winter months, homeless people set their tents up in neat little rows along the sidewalk and along the wide steps. It doesn't snow much, but it rains, and the torrential down pour in the mid-winter months often tends to make it difficult to keep warm. Setting their tents up close together, in the center of town rather than out in the jungle, keeps them much warmer. They're also within reasonable walking and transit distance to the only family center for miles, where they can bathe and shower. What I love about my city though, isn't the beauty of the historic nature- the tall proud buildings, the architecture that is spattered through-out the varying levels of the hills that roll down towards the ocean. What I love about my neighborhood is the culture of the people themselves. You see, Hilltop once was the most notorious neighborhood on the West Coast for gang violence. You still hear stories, even three decades later, about the federal government officials and the DEA sweeping through like a broom, trying to clean the streets. The people, they don't forget. Stories are still passed from generation to generation, on through to transplants like me, of those days. The people work hard, even though it's still considered one of the rougher 'hoods' in the entire city, to keep it cleaned up. They still care about what goes on in their city, on their block. They say that if you're white, you shouldn't walk around the Hill after dark. Truly, I believe that this warning is reminiscent of the old days, and it is tinged with the sour taste of social conditioning. Perhaps it is that I am just dark enough to pass for a not entirely "white-girl," or maybe Hilltop recognizes me as one of their own, someone who is just as painfully aware of the reminders that constantly plague our nation. Reminders that racism, cultural conditioning, and assumptions are made out of ignorance and fear, even in a city that is supposed to be a cultural melting pot Utopia. I know one thing: no matter how far I roam, the Hilltop is home. I feel alive walking those streets at night, meeting people who have more quickly and rarely nefariously offered me a jacket than to rob me. It's a place where laundromat owners have stayed open just a few minutes later so I could charge my phone when I had no where to escape from the rain. It's a place where I have sat, believe myself to be invisible, huddled against concrete store fronts on the most grey dreary of nights, only to have someone stop and look me in the eye, hand me a $5, and tell me I'm beautiful and valuable.
