Vazquez 1 Regina Vazquez English 114B Professor Gifford 3/24/14 Modesto to North Hills Coming from Mexico to the

city of Modesto was a huge change for me. The environment, racism, culture, etc were all completely different. But thankfully I adopted to the place quickly because I was just a kid. Modesto is such a beautiful place to relax on and just to live there. I lived on a ranch so my neighbors were like 4 miles away and the stores were 10 miles away. This annoyed me sometimes but there were times where I wanted to be alone and just relax and of course my home was the perfect place for that because there was no one except me, my family and the cows. When I turned 13, thats when everything changed. My parents wanted to try something different so they decided to move to North Hills, CA. North Hills is a community in the San Fernando Valley of the city in Los Angeles, California. North Hills is one of the oldest communities in the valley and was known as Mission Acres. The population is 56,946 and serves as a filming location for various movies and T.V shows. For me North Hills sounded like a good environment to live on and because it was also the valley! People that live on farms or are just isolated from the valley think that the valley is a really great place to be at and I know this because thats how I felt. But little did I know that I was completely wrong. In Fresno our acre was really huge, like 4 long blocks, and our house seemed like a mansion to me. We had 6 bedrooms, a swimming pool, and tons of animals. We had our own privacy all the time, if we wanted to walk at 3 am then there would be no problem

Vazquez 2 the same as having parties, no one told us anything because we stayed up so late. My life over there was perfect. But when I moved to North Hills everything was the complete opposite. I couldnt take walks whenever I wanted to because it was dangerous, especially for a girl, and I couldnt be wearing a lot of jewelry because it was more likely for me to get jumped. Every night before we went to bed, we had to put wood over the windows so the bullets wouldnt go thru. In school it was the same, I was the quiet girl who didnt talk much and dress neatly, while the rest of them dressed like if they were gang members. The life that I had from Modesto was different from the life that I started living in North Hills. In the article Making Sense Of The City it says, How people make sense of their central public square often reflects how they understand what it means to live in a particular city. For instance, living in New York City requires recognizing the role Times Square plays in reflecting the citys reliance on tourism and consumerism; and living in Portland, Oregon involves making sense of Pioneer Courthouse Square (PCS) as a reflection of the various walks of life that comprise the larger city. (Making Sense Of The City). I can relate this quote from what im talking about because in order to live in North Hills you have to act the same way people act there in order for you not to get bully. North Hills wasnt always this bad. From 1959 to 1975, North Hills was a really great place to live in with no crime, discrimination, and drug dealing. On the website from the LA Times, a person mentions, I lived in Sepulveda (North Hills)from 1959 until 1975. I loved growing up there and graduated from Monroe in 1964. The last time I toured the area was about

Vazquez 3 1999 and I couldn't believe the changes, even then. (LA Times). North Hills has been changing throughout the time but its not getting better, its just getting worse. The estimated North Hills crime index is 26% higher than the Los Angeles average and the Los Angeles crime index is 12% lower than the California average. For me this rate is really high because I wasnt familiar with much violence on Modesto other than watching the violence through the news. Violence wasnt the only problem in North Hills but also drug dealing and prostitutes. My dad would always leave work at 5 in the morning and every time he would go out they would just pop out through there window and offer drugs. Sometimes it wasnt even drugs, it was prostitutes. The life of Modesto to North Hills is something extremely different and hard to adopt on. The environment, people, style, etc is all different. I myself thought that I wasnt going to make it to the age of 18. The spaces are completely different like how Las Vegas is to San Francisco. Vegas is an entertainment center where its mostly playing casinos and having a good time with your friends, as of how San Francisco is for family trips. Of how Hawaii is different from Africa or how Mexico is different from Salvador. Everywhere you go, there will always be a different space no matter how familiar it may seem. Space can represent the power dynamics in gender on North Hills. Gender is a big impact in this city because this city is full of men. Having mostly men in a community can be very powerful because they would have the control and if they want to get a women, they would easily get her because they have the control of the community. If there were less guys in North Hills and more womens then I think that the city would be a lot different because most of the girls from North Hills are mainly prostitutes. Class can also be something major in this city because the class that this city has is the lower class. In Modesto, where I used to live, mostly

Vazquez 4 everyone was middle class is we werent that poor or that rich. But since North Hills is a lower class then thats why the crime rates are really high and the drop out for high school people are really high as well. The race isnt that really as an impact but it still has something to do with the environment. In Modesto the race was mostly whites and in North Hills the mainly race is Mexican. Whites are usually rich and have a higher education than a Hispanic person may have. For example, I knew a couple of friends in North Hills that just got to 9th grade and dropped out of school because of wanting to be in a gang or getting preganct. Some of my friends used to steal because they didnt have money to get things for there family. Its something really sad but yet not understandable. Moving from Modesto to North Hills was a big impact for me that took 9 years to recover. But I think that made me the person who I am right now. When I lived in Modesto, I was a really quiet girl that let people talk bad about me. But as soon as I moved to North Hills, it made me stronger and made me stand up for myself. Seeing all this people not getting there education and just giving up so easily made me even more anxious to keep moving forward and prove to them that any one is capable of anything, you just have to want it. Spaces can be something powerful that can make people change who they are. Sometimes for the better or sometimes for the worse.