Lucky to be from Wisconsin, luckier to know it.
Muskego, Wisconsin, to be specific. I was five years old in 1990 when my parents built their house in a converted rock quarry with a few dozen other families. By 1995, our first major road was constructed, and a Kohl’s replaced the family farm down the street a couple years later. I grew up surrounded by cows and corn fields — and while our little town slowly expanded, the concept of being raised anyplace else was foreign. I was lucky to live there, but I didn’t know it yet.
Here’s how I would describe my upbringing.
My childhood was fun and carefree. I lived in a neighborhood full of kids my age and we ran around playing freeze tag until bedtime. As a bored teenager, my social options were a bowling alley, cruising Hwy 100, or the McDonald’s parking lot. My public high school had one of those well-adored football teams quarterbacked by the prom king. Academically, I was unchallenged but not uneducated. I had good grades, so I got to go to a decent state school. I assumed this is what it was like to grow up in most places in America.
It wasn’t until my Freshman year of college that I started to feel I’d been underprepared for adulthood. In my honors programs I was behind my private school peers, having had a fraction of their advanced placement classes and even less exposure to current events. Culturally, I was behind my urban peers, having finally — at age 18 — introduced myself to my first Jewish person and my first truly “out” gay person. Others were already way ahead of me in the ways of the world, and I was surprised to feel left behind — like the farm house replaced by Kohl’s. For the first time, I felt frustrated that I had not been raised in a more privileged or worldly environment. Even worse, I felt ashamed.
I wanted to understand how my life could have been different. After I graduated in 2008, I joined a Los Angeles Americorps program as an aide and service leader in public schools. I had done youth volunteer work in Minnesota, but I honestly don’t know what I was expecting. It was the kids in Watts who ultimately changed my perception of Muskego. They made me feel lucky. They made me ashamed of my shame.
Here’s how I would describe their upbringing.
Their childhood might be fun but can never really be carefree. In that part of LA, gang culture spans back decades — meaning an uncle or an older brother, even a grandmother influences gang affiliation, so five-year-olds know whether they are Bloods or Crips. They don’t play freeze tag at night— neighborhoods get quiet, helicopters fill the skies. School is one of the safest places to be, but it’s also stressful because rival gangs share a classroom. Sports teams are rare because there isn’t an abundance of multipurpose fields. There aren’t enough teachers or supplies. There are too many distractions. In 2008 just 36% of LA seniors graduated, and it was not hard to grasp why. As I helped kids paint a mural at Jordan High School one afternoon, I heard gunshots just a few blocks away.
Forget Kohl’s. Forget teenage boredom in a McDonald’s parking lot. Forget the self-pitying feeling of not being able to name as many world leaders as my elite classmates, or being called a hick for wearing a Carhartt hat. Forget my shame and anger about feeling left behind in my Wisconsin “bubble.” Compared to Muskego, Watts is a goddamn scary and challenging place to grow up. It’s a wonder anybody makes it to college, much less leaves their hometown unscathed by hate, fear or violence.
My little town of Muskego has a higher graduation rate and average household income than the national averages. There is no gang history — it is in fact safer than 78% of all U.S. cities and towns. Today, 70% of students at Watts’ Jordan High School matriculate with the help of programs like the Partnership for LA Schools. But Watts’ graduation rate will still have to improve by another 25% to match Muskego’s. More starkly, Watts’ average income will have to double. Gang culture will have to die, but that won’t happen before many young people do. For as I learned from my rock quarry cul-de-sac, change is slow.
Since 2008, I have never felt anything but lucky to be from Muskego. I was born into opportunity in a way that babies in Watts and most other neighborhoods in our country are not. I grew up with the inherent opportunity to be average, even the tools to be something more.
Each of us lives in our own bubble. Whether your bubble is coastal, midwestern, liberal, conservative or otherwise, we owe it to ourselves and one another to attempt to understand how our experiences fit within the social fabric of our country. That means sharing our experiences with diverse networks on social media. It means reading and viewing media that doesn’t only pander to our comfort zones. It means resisting the temptation to cut off people who don’t share our own perspectives. It might even mean leaving our hometowns to visit someone else’s bubble. Popping our own bubbles is the first step towards making our country a better place — diplomacy is what will keep us moving forward.
And if we’re lucky, one day we’ll each understand how lucky we are.
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Author’s Note:
To my Americorps peeps — especially those who worked in Watts full-time, Danielle and Cory, my fellow midwesterners, many others then and since — I hope I honor our collective experience. I know you would agree there are beautiful and good people and things happening in all the LA neighborhoods we lived and worked in. Also, someone will have to let me know if the Flo-Jo mural is still up.
References:
Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (December 17, 2015)
