Growing Up in San Francisco- Personal Narrative Although I was born in Salem, Oregon, my earliest memories are from San Francisco, California. My parents came to California to start over and find a better life. For a while we lived on a bus parked in front of a friend's house. When I was three years old, we moved to Potrero Hill, an area of low-income housing projects in the big city. A very famous man, O.J. Simpson, grew up there, but that was before my time. Potrero Hill was a bad neighborhood, so bad that you could not get a pizza delivered there and forget about calling the cops because they would not come. I remember the first and last time I saw a cop drive through our neighborhood. Three men from the neighborhood chased his car with baseball bats and smashed his window. The only bad thing that ever happened to my family was getting our windows broken out with garbage cans. This occurred almost every night for the first couple of months we lived there. Eventually we had to put boards over the glass to prevent ...
The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this particular incident. This type of ethical deviance is something the public has not seen since the civil rights era. Little did Chief Gates, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the LAPD know what the consequences of their actions would lead to. Moving forward in time to the verdict of those police officers being acquitted of the charges, the public sentiment spiraled into an outrage. The disbelief and shock of the citizens of Los Angeles sparked a mammoth rioting that lasted for six days. The riots led to 53 deaths and the destruction of many building. This is a true but disturbing story uncovering the ethical deviance from the LAPD and the L.A. riots. The two perspectives are from the Rodney King incident are the LAPD and the L.A. riots.
I began to realize that most other people viewed me as a threat, despite my inherently unthreatening nature due to my state as a Black male in the United States. As a child who has failed to fully perceive themselves in a fully conscious state, I had no way of understanding this. However, the Zimmerman trial forced me to understand this. The inability to understand your own perceived "threatening" nature could prove to be a fatal mistake, as with Trayvon Martin. I have even further learned to realize the perception of myself as I have grown. The Trayvon Martin has forced me to analyze my own experiences, particularly with White women, and determine whether my unfair treatment has ever been the result of complicit bias due to my state as a Black
When horrific crimes occur in large cities, many of them can be chalked up to gang violence or to the larger population of that specific city. But when horrific crimes happen in small cities like Lincoln, Nebraska, people begin to ask questions like who did this and why. In 1958, a nineteen year old man named Charles Starkweather put the entire state of Nebraska and possibly the entire nation in a state of terror. With his murder spree taking only three days, Starkweather had collected a body count of ten bodies, including two teenagers and a young child. Understanding Starkweather’s past and state of mind begins to answer the second question of why.
In the early 1990’s in Los Angeles, California, police brutally was considered a norm in African Americans neighborhoods. News coverage ignores the facts of how African ...
I grew up in Hemet, California in a neighborhood filled with friends that I grew up with. I remembered a lot about my home that I grew up in mostly because I remember details better than most people. I may remember details, but I love looking back on memories I had with my family and friends.
As a minority, coming from an international country to a foreign nation has been the most crucial decision that my family has concluded to live the possibility of the "American Dream". However, growing up as an Asian-American student wasn’t simple; I was faced with the challenge of malicious racial slurs, spiteful judgment, and unjustified condemnation that attacked my family's decision to come to America.
It was the fall of 2010 and little did I know that my world was about to change drastically. We had moved back to Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2008 after living in Mexico, and I was starting to enjoy my life in the dairy state. My 6th Grade classes had just started at Bullen Middle School. It was right at this time when my world seemingly got flipped upside down. My parents had a family meeting and informed my siblings and me that we were moving to a small Iowa town called Orange City. I had feelings of nervousness, excitement, and sadness all mixed together.
As a child, I moved around most of my childhood. From the violent city of Compton, California to the upper middle class of Los Angeles, California, Then later to Elk City, Oklahoma.
Locallo describes the Bridgeport case as being a “heater case”, not only because of the social impact that it will create in the community, but also because of all the media attention it will receive which will influence his possible reelection once his term is over (Courtroom 302, 31). When Frank Caruso Jr. decided that he was going to beat Lenard Clark, an African American boy he created the spark that society needed to get back at the Caruso family for all of the crimes that they got away with in the past. During the past several decades, society has tried to make the Caruso family take responsibility for their crimes, but all those efforts just strengthened the family ties and political positions.
Growing up for me some would say it was rather difficult and in some ways I would agree. There have been a lot of rough times that I have been through. This has and will affect my life for the rest of my life. The leading up to adoption, adoption and after adoption are the reasons my life were difficult.
I come from a small family of three. My family is composed of my mom, Sandra, my dad, Matt, and myself. We live in the small town of Crawford, Texas. My parents moved to Crawford from College Station, Texas in 1995. I was born in November of 1996, and have lived in Crawford my entire life. My mom and dad have been exceptional role models, and with their love and support, they have shaped me into who I am today.
When I was six years old, I moved from Ottawa, Ontario to Edson, Alberta, then later to Sylvan lake, Alberta. Even though I was young when I moved to Sylvan lake, I remember the area, the house, and the people perfectly. I was around eight years old when I moved from Edson to Sylvan Lake. We moved from there because it wasn’t a good area for children to grow up. Edson was full of people who did drugs, sold drugs, and wanted drugs. Edson was filled with people who were secretly in groups of bad people who did bad things. My mother didn’t want my brother and I to grow up in that environment, hence why we moved to Sylvan Lake.
“Mom, when I grow up, I’m moving to New York City!” I remember telling my mother at the tender age of twelve. That dream of living in the Big Apple stayed on the back of my mind until it finally became a reality. At was twenty years old, I was ready to come into my own, so I made one of the most significant decisions of my life; a decision that is most responsible for the evolvement of a young boy having to quickly become a man. I moved to New York City. Soon, I would learn that along with all the excitement and responsibilities associated with this new chapter of my life also came a ton of fear and many lonely nights. Fending for myself would be the only way to survive. After all, this was an enormous unfamiliar city
many complications and crimes within. I was happy that I grew up here because I
To be a Chicagoan is to be a witness to the beauty of adversity, amazing food, and impossible diversity. Growing up in Chicago has engendered my passion for community organizing, and the importance of traditional and holistic education.