Racial Dot Map Discussion

I grew up in Denmark in a small village with a population of 1000. The only people that were not white were adopted. The diversity has changed over years, but Denmark is not a diverse country like the United States. My family and I moved to the northern part of Clovis in 2010, where we have lived in two different neighborhoods. In the first neighborhood, we were surrounded by white people, which explains the many blue dots. I noticed at my children's schools that there were many Asians but also Hispanics, which explains the red and brown dots. The second neighborhood, where I live now, is a little different. It is more mixed, but White and Indians dominate. It explains the domination of blue and red dots. Overall, the dots reflect everyday-life.

I was born in LA but raised in Korea. If I were to pick my hometown, I’d have to pick Seoul, Korea. However, the map only shows North America and because I have lived couple years when I was younger in LA, I picked LA. In LA, I lived near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and La Brea tar pits. This was around the year 2000-2003. Back then the neighborhood was populated with all different kinds of race. However, when it comes to ratios, Blacks and Hispanics were low. Asians were starting to move in, many were Whites. Now I see the racial dot map of 2013, it seems like the whites have moved slightly to the left side of the neighborhood and Asians seem to be the majority. The next are Hispanics. It is surprising to see how White people start moving out of the neighborhood when other races move in. Thus, to see the distinction of different racial group's residence this clear was very interesting. In Seoul, Korea, other than US military bases, it is populated with mainly Koreans.

I am from the Selma area, about thirteen miles away from Fresno. Selma has a population of about 24,182 according to demographics from 2013. I have lived in Selma most of my life and grew up mainly amongst Hispanics. This explains why the majority of the dots on the map were yellow, as Hispanics are about 78.5% of the population alone; though I was very surprised to see that there were quite a bit of blue and red dots as Selma is somewhat diverse. On the other hand, there were very few blacks and other races.

I am from Dinuba, CA which is a small town in the middle of Reedley and Visalia. Growing up in my hometown all of my friends were hispanic and majority of the community was as well. I typically was the only caucasian one in my classes. This was represented well on the dot map which showed predominately hispanic along with blue dots for caucasian. There was hardly any dots to represent the african american population, which didn't surprise me at all. My boyfriend, who is also from Dinuba was on of the 10 that I attended school with. In comparison, to where I am living now which is north fresno the dots are more equally distributed, now in classes I attend at state I no longer find myself one of the only caucasians' in class. 

The Racial Map showed me exactly what I had observed growing up. I grew up in a city near Modesto called Manteca. There was a predominantly white (Dutch) city called Ripon that acted like a buffer between the two cities. That is where my family went to shop for groceries because they had themes to all of their stores. My city is an even mix of white and hispanic according to the map which makes sense. The entire city knew exactly where you could find the predominantly white, rich farm children (who then went to a high school together). I went to the older high school where there was a variety of races, but hispanics made up the majority there. My neighborhood was filled with old people growing up. Next door was my grandparents house. My family was the younger household of the street until an Italian-American family moved in to a house next to us. Everyone there is still predominantly white in that neighborhood, but the area is becoming younger. The surprise to me was the neighboring city of Lathrop. It was rare that we visited there, but it appears to be mainly Asian. They were never thought of as that before this in my city.

Tulare county has a long history of exclusion, which is why there are more historically black rural settlements than in some other counties. There are exceptions. Tulare has a long history of African American residents, as many of them came from the failed colony of Allensworth. Otherwise, the Klan was very active in Tulare County.

That said, in the 1980s, the owner of a local Napa auto parts store wanted to move the national headquarters of the KKK to Visalia (out of the back of his store) and there was such an uproar against him, that he eventually changed his plans (and, if memory serves, decided to relocate).

I am from Merced, CA. A relatively small city located about an hour north of Fresno. Merced has around 80k and with the UC being built there in the last 10 or so years, is becoming more and more diverse as people from all of the state are coming in order to get a education from the UC system. Growing up, I always saw Merced as a very diverse place especially because I grew up in a part of town that wasn't necessarily the nicest part of town. I went to Tenaya middle school in which the majority of the population was either Hispanic, Black, or Asian and I was actually considered the minority at the school. As I got older, I started to see that different races and ethnicities tend to group together and all live in the same parts of town. I personally believe this it is more for financial reasons but nonetheless, it happens. As i looked at the Racial Dot map, it was a really good indication that the way I always viewed my city as a child was correct. On the west side of town, it was mostly a mixture of yellow and red while the further east you went, the more the colors dispersed and you started to see more blue. It is actually interesting because there is a street called Loughborough and that is historically where a lot of the Black gangs are located and sure enough when I looked at the map, there was a big cluster of green right around where that street is. Overall, I would say that this map gave me reassurance that Merced is exactly what I always thought it was but never had the facts to prove it. 

I grew up in a REALLY small, rural town near Modesto. So small in fact, that I could not find it on the map. The town is named Hickman. Instead, I chose the town where I attended high school: Hughson, CA, which is another rural town in Stanislaus County. Mostly, I saw blue dots, which indicated a predominately white population. In addition I noticed many orange dots, representing Hispanics. There were also very limited red dots. This does not surprise me. In my community, you were either Hispanic or White. My town was filled with mainly conservative, white farmers and their families. There were a couple of Asians, but I would say they were Indian Asians. In my high school, there was no more than 5 black kids. Although I am Hispanic, growing up in a mainly white community made my cousins, who grew up in Long Beach, refer to me as "white washed" because I listened to country music and I didn't have an accent when I talked. Growing up in the small town of Hughson definitely shaped many of my customs and beliefs that I have. 

I was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Sanger, California. I lived in Las Vegas for about seven years, and then moved to Sanger for the remainder of my years. Growing up in Sanger, I noticed the diversity of the city. A majority of people living around the area are Latino. While I have spent a majority of my life living in diverse neighborhoods, I recently moved to Fresno and have noticed more diversity in my current neighborhood. As shown in the Racial Dot Map, half of the Fresno area seems to have predominately Latino neighborhoods, as shown in the southern part of Fresno, while the other half has white neighborhoods, as shown in the northern part of Fresno. If you look closer you can see that certain neighborhoods only contain people of certain races. The idea of segregated neighborhoods as discussed in lecture, is apparent through the dot diagram. While many neighborhoods are racially mixed, a majority are not. Similar to this, the fault line diagram shows the differing incomes and poverty rates in the Clovis and Fresno Unified School Districts. The poverty rate was 46% in Fresno and 16% in Clovis. These statistics in comparison to the Racial Dot Map, show the racial differences between the two locations. Fresno is more racially diverse than Clovis, which is majority White. 

I was born in Hanford, but spent the first 4 years of my life in Huron so the fact that the Racial Dot Map shows a massive cluster of orange dots is of really no surprise to me. Growing up all i saw around me were Chicano, and Latinos; people who came to work in the fields or the farmland. People who were more than likely going to be in the next town by the time the crop season was over. There was, and judging by the map still is little to no racial diversity in Huron. I was however surprised by the data in the Gun Deaths Map due largely in fact to the multiple deaths I witnessed in Huron growing up. It seemed like every other week someone was being shot be it by police, rival gang members, or even random individuals who were looking for some quick money. However the map showed only one shooting in the past year something I found really interesting. The remainder of my twenty years of life I have spent in Hanford, and much like with Huron the Racial Map showed me nothing truly eye-opening. The majority of the Chicano, and Latino population is located in the south side of town. While the majority of the Caucasian population is located in clusters toward the North side of Hanford with little to no minorities located around them. While there is without doubt more diversity in Hanford compared to Huron as a town, I can not help but acknowledge that despite this diversity each ethnic group remains for the most part in their areas of town. Rarely will you see a Caucasian or Asian individual in the south side of Hanford, and likewise you will seldom see a minority in a North side neighborhood. Even in school there would be a mix of different ethnicity, but for the most part we would all be from the same or very similar socioeconomic class; there were of course some exceptions however they never seemed to last long in our school. The Gun Deaths Map did present some interesting data, while it was no surprise that the gun related deaths were for the most part gang or drug related, nor the fact that they were clustered in the south side of Hanford. What I found interesting was the fact that there were only 3 gun related instances this year. Given the fact that most of my childhood was filled with police sirens, and the constant sight of rest in peace shirts at school. The maps did not show me anything new, but rather reinforced what I grew up seeing, and what I know today. That in the big picture I grew up on the wrong side of town in both instances. Surrounded by poverty, gangs, and racial segregation while not explicitly stated it was obvious, and this map only reinforced the imaginary lines that separate the different ethnic groups in my hometown of Hanford.

I was born in Reedley, California and have lived there for most of my life, up until age 16. I lived on a 20-acre farm on the outskirts of Reedley while attending a predominantly all white school. Growing up, playing sports was major aspect of my life, and looking back on it now I noticed that I was one of only a few whites, as the majority was Hispanic. By participating in sports in Reedley I became aware that Reedley in a relatively diverse city. In 2011, my family and I moved to Kingsburg and it is where I currently live now. After looking at the Racial Dot Map, Kingsburg is a predominately white city. While there are areas that show concentrations of only whites, there are others areas that have a concentration of predominately Hispanic. In fact, according to the Racial Dot Map the separation between the Hispanic families and the white families are separated by CA 99 that passes through Kingsburg itself. The majority of the white population is northeast of the 99, while most of the Hispanic Population is southwest of the CA 99. In looking at the Gun Deaths Map it was not surprising for me to find out that there have been no deaths caused by a shooting in recent years, as Kingsburg is a small and conservative town.

I was born in Mountain View CA, lived in Sunnyvale until third grade, and then moved to Fresno. So, I'd consider Fresno my hometown.
Upon looking at the map, I was somewhat surprised to see how Fresno seems to be split up when it comes to racial diversity. The northern part of Fresno seems to be predominantly white, while the lower part of Fresno is mainly made up of Hispanic, Asian, and Black people. When I zoomed out, it seemed that the majority of Clovis was made up of mainly blue dots, signaling a big white population. I live in NW Fresno, and my neighborhood along with the surrounding areas is a mix of a majority of white people, followed by Asians and Hispanic. On my street, there is a diversity of people, which I am very thankful for. Not only does this mean I get to interact with someone I can learn new things from, but the holidays mean traditional dishes delivered by neighbors in return for some tamales my family makes.

I was born in Los Angeles and raised in the area until I was six. Growing up, I noticed that my neighborhood was not very diverse. The area housed a large population of Latinos. Although there were several cultures within the community, I never really felt like I lived in a diverse neighborhood because our cultures always seemed so similar. Looking at the racial dot map now, I noticed that the population is similar but seems to be changing and including others. After moving to Fresno, I quickly noticed how my neighborhood was more diverse than it was in Los Angeles. Latinos, Whites, Blacks, and Asians lived in my neighborhood. The racial dot map was similar to my current perception of the area. The information I found the most shocking came from looking at the surrounding areas of my neighborhood in Fresno. Not to far from the area I found a large concentration of red dots, which represent Asians in Fresno. I never knew that so many Asians lived in that area so it was interesting to see that. I found very little information on the gun death map. I am not surprised with the little information I found as my neighborhood is extremely quiet and everyone knows everyone. The maps used for this assignment further reinforce that segregated schools are a reflection of their segregated communities. The areas with a larger concentration of minorities in the racial dot map provide evidence in the reasoning behind performances of Fresno Schools.

Driving while "Mexican" in Clovis. Hope you don't have your front windows tinted too dark.