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Jazmin Navarrete
Professor Rodrick
English 115
12 November 2016
A Life in Los Angeles
To everyone outside California, Los Angeles is such an amazing city. They see a
beautiful city with great restaurants, tourist attractions, and celebrities. To the residents though,
they are just used to it that they do not notice much of it. Its so much more than an
overpopulated city. There so much to learn about life in this city. As a resident the person is in
such a distinctive and diverse place that teaches them and helps them grow, or maybe it doesnt
help them grow, but it changes who they are and what they think. It gives them a new perspective
of life. For outsiders who move to the city have a hard time adjusting to it because its not what
they expected. In Another City, the reader encounters Judith Lewis short story Interesting
Times. The way Lewis lived her life in L.A, the people she encountered, and the events she
experienced started shaping her into a person that was capable of living in the city.
In Lewis story she talks about her adjustment to her new life in Los Angeles due to a job.
She starts off by saying how weird she feels about living there, that to her it feels like such a
strange thing. She mentions how the life in the city didnt appeal to her and she believes its not
the life she was chosen to live. She is in a dilemma because a part of her is sure she is adapted to
life in L.A and adapted in personality wise too, yet she also feels that who she is now is not who
she really is. As she settles in her new life, she goes through many hardships, one being her cars
keep being stolen one after the other in her neighborhood. She was also living there during the

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1992 police riots. Its these riots that started changing the way she saw the city, like she mentions
Some new version of the city began to come into focus(8). After that in 1994, the big
earthquake hit Northridge and she was there and felt it herself. This type of adversity somehow
made her want to be a part of not only the earthquake, but the misfortunes that happened in the
city. She mentions a talk she has with a friend where she tells her she didnt want to be
anywhere else when the earthquake struck. With all this she soon realizes that the city wasnt as
bad as she used to think. After a decade of living in Los Angeles, she comes to realize that it
treated her well and that it had become her home. It gave her battle in the city life to overcome
and it gave her, as the title says, interesting times. She states at the beginning what foreshadows
how she will feel about her life in Los Angeles at the end of the story, ... I have become an
Angeleno. I have grown into this scene; absorbed its perverse aesthetic by osmosis, along with
its polluted air. Impossible beauty standards, and bad driving habits. This comes to show that
she accepted how her life turned out to be in L.A and that to her it is now home.
In the video Los Angeles Expectations vs. Reality, by Nastazsa, shows some
expectations versus reality in living in Los Angeles. People who arent residents obviously have
a certain image of it that is not true. The video is just simple expectations, but it gets straight to
the point. If a person moves here to Los Angeles it will be so different than what theyve known
they hear and see things from the outside, but will not know the truth until they move there. And
life in L.A is pretty hectic and full of so much. It takes real patience to learn to care for this city if
one is an outsider. It also takes time to learn how adapt into the person the city will change them
to, because of all the of what living in the city means. This video gives in idea of how Lewis

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must of felt when she moved out to L.A because in her mind, she pictured something that was far
from reality.
https://youtu.be/sfXBt7F5L3o
Diversity and culture is a part of this storys theme or idea because the author changed.
Not only did she change herself, but the way she used to think about her life in L.A. She saw it
with different eyes. And maybe one of the reasons was that horrific event being the earthquake
that changed her perspective that L.A was not giving much to live for, but she was already
changing way before it happened. Los Angeles is a very big diverse place with so much culture.
A person that lives there the will encounter it anywhere and any day. It would not be L.A without
it. People are influenced by their surrounding, environment or people, thats just human nature
because we need it to survive. So being surrounded by all this it is hard and very unlikely to not
be influenced. In this online article it states, In society today, most people view diversity as a
good thing because it gives people the chance to experience different things outside of what they
are normally accustomed to(T.). Which is exactly how it goes for Lewis. She eis faced with a
new city in which diversity places a big role that throws so many experiences her way. In the
book we encounter Judith Lewis story about how she came to understand and in a way love Los
Angeles due to the diversity and culture and life changing life thats lived there, that make a
person realize so much and also grow. Since she arrived she felt wrong being there, but she soon
adapted to her life and to whom the person she was becoming. Diversity plays a major part in
everyday life. Being in such a diverse place made Lewis see things in a new perspective. She
started adapting herself without realizing to make her stay more comfortable so she wouldnt feel
strange to be there.

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Judith Lewis moved to a place thats all about its people that bring their culture and
diversity into it. She shaped her identity by accepting the life that L.A was providing her and
adapted herself to it. Los Angeles gave her a new and exciting life that she had new known
before, thats why it was so hard for her to want to live there. She soon became comfortable with
what the city was throwing her way and she adapted, became accustomed. Because diversity
place such a big role into the world and everyday life, she was influenced by this new place that
she was forced to encounter, yet ended up feeling like it had become her home.

WORK CITED
Lewis, Judith. ""Interesting Times"" Another City: Writing from Los Angeles. By David L. Ulin. San
Francisco: City Lights, 2001. 5-10. Print.

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By Sarah T., Missouri City, TX. "The Importance and Benefits of Diversity." Teen Essay on the
Environment. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
<http://www.teenink.com/opinion/environment/article/465407/The-Importance-and-Benefits-ofDiversity/>.