Being raised in the upper side of Manhattan, you would believe I was surrounded by many white folks but in reality, I lived in a neighborhood with many Puerto Ricans and other small communities of diverse nationalities. I lived in an apartment by the east river and five blocks away from central park. I wouldn’t consider my old community to be a bad neighborhood but definitely not calm. The summer days until midnight was filled with people sitting on their beach chairs in front of the deli next to my apartment, blasting music and dancing to Spanish music. There was never a moment where language barrier was a problem because Spanish was the common language between us. Our elementary school was half a block away from where we lived, filled with tons of children who lived close to me and creating friendships. When the weather was good enough to stroll through central park, my parents would take us after school or during the weekends. I would spend hours playing with my sibling’s, throwing water balloons at each other or spraying us with water from the water gun, while our dad films us from his sony video camera. There were so many good memories I left behind in those communities that I just mentioned but there were a couple of bad ones that I don’t want to relive. In every community you live in or pass by daily, you’ll encounter discourse communities you don’t want to be involved with. I attended an after school program around the corner with my two
younger siblings who would always run to the apartment but my mom would always pick us up so why should we feel fearful in our neighborhood? My brother got a head start and was no longer in our point of view. Once we reached the steps to the front door of the apartment we noticed the Puerto Ricans yelling at someone through the door. “Open the door you sick monster”-” Oh my god, open the door” and yellings in Spanish but once we came eye to eye on what was going on, my brother was on the other side of the door locked with a drunk guy. These are the other communities that my parents have worried us to stay away from but how? When he invaded the safest place we called home. It felt like hours but after a couple of minutes of yelling to open the door, he did and seeing my brother in distrust, broke my heart.
Living there for 15 years, I had so many good memories but a couple of bad ones but that’s life, you need an equilibrium of both. My parents realized that we needed a bigger house because we needed privacy, leading us to be involved in a new community. We moved to Queens, leaving my friends from middle school and creating new ones in high school. It took me a year to adjust because I wasn’t surrounded by Puerto Ricans, instead, it involved Italians, Asians, Mexicans and a couple of Dominicans. The streets were no longer named by Avenues but long streets. The summer days weren’t the same anymore because the strolls in Central Park were no longer five blocks away, instead, it was Flushing Meadows Park located five blocks away from my house. I’ve been living in Queens for six years and I got used to my environment, made new friends in high school who have stuck with me till now, who I consider as family.
I interviewed my sister who experienced the same thing I went through of leaving a discourse community and adjusting to a new but it was a long process for her to adapt then I did. She explained it as “if I have a negative aspect to my day to day routine, I will attract negative discourse communities, she tried to be open-minded because of those who can’t, cannot change anything”. Her experience of finding new friends in middle school became a nightmare because she trusted them when they only wanted to use her. They cyberbullied her for days until she couldn’t and came crying into my arms, this was a hurtful discourse community that she allowed into her life. She got help but it was a long process to heal especially when she started high school because it was starting all over again, how do you know what type of people to allow in? When the people you trusted ended up hurting you. Did she lack social skills?
The struggle of finding a meaning “at an appropriate definition of a “community” and its “tradition” is not simple”. Even though I didn’t get the greatest experience from the beginning, I would say it turned out to be a positive outcome because I grow a lot not just physically but mentally because it allowed me to be open-minded about a new discourse community and being able to adjust. Being open-minded about people tradition allowed me to invite people into my life and theirs and being able to speak more than one language, I didn’t suffer any language barrier which is common in America. Leaving a community to enter a new one, allowed me to open a new chapter.
Reference:
Li,Tania M. 1996 Images of community: discourse and strategy in property relations. Development and Change, 27(3): 501-527.
