Racism in Your Back Yard, I mean MY Back Yard

I live in Santa Ana.  I studied Urban and Regional Planning.  I am white and I would consider myself upper middle class, and lately I have been noticing a lot of changes in the neighborhood around me.

This morning I had the privilege of attending a Unitarian Universalist church in Laguna Hills, and I got to hear Gustavo Arellano speak.  If you are not familiar with his work, he used to write the “Ask A Mexican Column” for the alternative newspaper called the OC Weekly, which is VERY alternative such that they have a section just for marijuana (which is legal in this state) and escort services.  You can google him and find a lot of content about him on the internet, but the point of this blog is not to promote Mr. Arellano,   It is to bring this article to your attention.

This happened two days ago, and the school was told that the theme should be Red, White, and Blue to commemorate 9/11 which is in two days from today, and was several days before the event that occurred on 09/09/18, in Aliso Niguel.

Aliso Niguel students chose to make political signs and chanted USA as the Latino Students who were playing for Santa Ana High School lost the game in quite a bit of a landslide.  There were also signs that said things like White is Our Favorite Color and Build a Wall.

As a resident of Santa Ana, I am outraged.  As a person in the world, I am outraged.  This kind of blatant racism has to stop.  It cannot be tolerated.  As Mr. Arellano mentioned today at church, the biggest story about Orange County in the news today was that was that Barack Obama was in Anaheim yesterday.

But the bigger story perhaps should be that the city of Santa Ana, who has been taking on the homeless and Latino populations for the past several decades is bleeding homeless.  Immigration is an issue that should be on the fore-front of our minds, whether or not we live in Santa Ana or not.  This kind of blatant racism cannot be condoned, and allowed to exist in a country that is based on being a melting pot, and a refuge for those who have fled their countries for asylum and the chance at a better life.

What a friend at the church suggested today is that the player’s from both teams should be asked to sit down and have a dialogue with each other.  I agree with this friend.

We need more dialogues.  We need more residents from all over Orange County to be reaching out to the school district and telling them how outraged we are have this kind of racism being promoted/allowed in our schools.  Young minds need to be shaped with openness and acceptance of others, and the team from Santa Ana should not be made shamed for their race, their income levels, or the city in which they live in.

 

I realize I am lacking a lot of historical context here, but I would like to ask you to share this blogpost, so that more people can read this article from the OC Register, so that we can stop thinking about Obama being in Anaheim and start thinking about the real race relation/immigration issues that are happening in the heart of Orange County, California.  Where I just happen to live.