N.

LONG BEACH ETHNOGRAPHY PROJECT

North Long Beach Ethnography

LBS 301

Berenice Tellez, Jacqueline Nava, Denise Aguirre, Janet Munoz, Sydney Roumeliotis

California State University of Dominguez Hills

Broad Demographic Profile

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Long Beach is on the Pacific Coast measuring about fifty four square miles, lying within

the southeastern corner of Los Angeles and borders Orange County. It is the second largest city

in the Los Angeles area, with a current population of 470,130, according to the United States

Census (2016). with 51% of the population being female and the other 49% male. According to

Data USA (2015), the median age of all people in Long Beach, CA was 34.6 but they are getting

older. The highest population by age is persons between 18 and 65 with about 65 percent of the

total population. The ages vary through the city which includes, persons under 5 years with

7.0%, persons under 18 with 24.9%, and persons 65 years and over with 51.0% (US Census,

2010). There are many diverse races living in the city of Long Beach, starting with the most

common race, which is Hispanic with a population of 207,890, White with 131,199, Asian with

58,091, multiracial with 12,142, Islander with 4,872, Native with 2,388, and other with 831

according to Data USA (2013-2015).

Aside from English and Spanish being the top two languages spoken in North Long

Beach, Cambodian is among the language spoken at a 4.3%, Tagalong with a 2.6%, and

Vietnamese with a 1.5%, which are the additional three of the top spoken languages. Other

languages that are spoken in North Long Beach, Includes: Other Pacific Island (0.8%), Chinese

(0.7%), Korean, (0.6%), and Thai (0.2%). Long Beach is the 7th largest city in California and the

36th Largest city and the port of Long Beach is still one of the world’s largest seaports with

handling millions of container every year and is second busiest container ports in America.

According to 10 Facts About.

Specific School Demographic Portrait

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Starr King Elementary School is a public school located in North Long Beach, California.

They are under the Long Beach Unified School District. According to California Education Data

(2017), its grade level is from Kinder to Fifth grade and in the 2016-2017 school year there was

737 students enrolled. As well, is Title 1 schoolwide (California Education Data, 2017). In

addition, 353 students are english language learners and 675 student who have free/reduced

lunch (California Department of Education). Students who are in private schools compared to

public schools in grades 1-8 are 377 students, which is a percentage of 3.3 in Long Beach and

8.2% in the state of California. The school enrollment rates start from around 5% to 18% both

from the city and state.

Presentation of Research Questions

Our group chose Starr King Elementary School because none of us have been to this

school before and we thought it would be interesting to learn more about it by observing the area

and its community. We also chose it because it is an easy commute from school and where we all

live, so it would be a fair drive for each of us. According to the California Department of

Education (2017), the English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics California Assessment

results indicates that 31.48 percent of students are not meeting the standard for english and 26.42

percent are not meeting the standard for mathematics. The percentages are not that high but it

would be interesting to learn more about what the teachers at this elementary do to ensure that

their students are meeting the standards and how they help the students that do not meet and

barely meet the standards. The research question that guided this project was, “What is the

experience of people who live in the North Long Beach community?”. We used this question

because of the diverse culture existing in the city of Long Beach , therefore focusing on this
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small area, is what gave us such rich stories of those residing in such a largely known city. What

made it also interesting was having interviewed different people who reside from the same city,

but came to show how everyone’s story is different yet came in showing us how even though

they all have lived and are living different stories, they essentially come to sharing a

commonality which is the community they live in and the perspectives seen through each

person’s eyes.

Poverty & Social class

Based on our findings through observations, interviews, and background information on

Northside Long Beach, CA we can determine that the area we studied is a highly impoverished

area. It is a predominantly working class area with a median household income of $54,971. In

one of the interviews, our interviewee “Pedro”, spoke about his responsibility to his household

and taking care of his parents. According to Pedro, the idea of one having to dropout of school or

put their dreams on hold because of it isn’t rare. He also mentions a friend in the interview, who

had dropped out of high school because his sick mother’s medical bills began adding up. The

percentage of the entire city of Long Beach has a poverty percentage of 20% and also an

unemployment rate of 20% according to the website City Data in 2016 alone. This means that a

lot of these residents are working class individuals who work to live as opposed to nearby Bixby

Knolls residents where the average household income is $105,986 as opposed to $77,048 for the

general Long Beach area(Point 2 Homes). Another interviewee, Erick, spoke about the hardships

they have to go through just to make ends meet. He was asked why he wasn’t as involved as he

would have liked to be in his children's education. He spoke for himself and his community

when he stated that the majority of his community consisted of Mexican parents who dropped

out of school to work and make a living and now they have to continue to work full time to put a
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roof over their family's heads and food on the table. These hard working families do not have it

as easy as the privileged living on the other side of town. Just by driving through Long Beach

and seeing its many areas you can infer that there is a definite social class and Northside Long

Beach is a minority area.

Language/Ethnicity

The city of Long Beach, California is a well known community. Language is a factor

that makes Long Beach community diverse. Long Beach community have a total population of

462,257 people who speak English, Spanish, or both (American FactFinder, 2010). This can be

just like any community, but what makes it stand out is how it is incorporated into people’s daily

lifestyle, especially in this particular Latinx community. According to a observation, language is

developed as a relationship among the community and schools.

A speaker was asked if their ethnicity or language influence their experience at Long

Beach and they said, “Yes, I will say that some areas like low income places is where you see

more diverse ethnicity compare to the medium or high class there is you see more certify type of

ethnicity.” During the interview I had with someone born and raised in Long Beach, the person

mentioned how ethnicity plays a huge role in the community ever since he remembers. He also

mentioned that this can be based anywhere from where you’re from or live, your workplace, and

even school environment. Based on that can determine a lot of how people can tell where one

comes from.

Education
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One common theme we found within the community of North Long Beach was

Education. We came to this agreement because nearly all of our observations throughout North

Long Beach displayed Education. Education should be important to this community because

Education is a valuable tool to help the community as a whole develop. Education can be used to

better the youth and overall better the community. On my personal interview, I spoke to a

member of the community and he did not once mention Education, which stood out. On the

contrary, another interview displayed a tough situation between a friend having to dropout of

school because of a family illness. From this we learned that people in this community may not

always have the choice to make when it comes to Education. At first glance this community may

not seem to value Education but we learned from our observations otherwise we got to view this

community on a new level rather than looking in from the outside. Along with this interview, he

mentioned a friend that was also forced to put earning money ahead of getting his education.

Many members in this community deal with issues such as these but find a way around it, for

example, this individual helped his family and continued with school when he was able to. The

overall image of the school also gave us an idea of how much money is being invested into the

school and how much money overall the community has to contribute. The school did not look

appealing and seemed very outdated almost caged in. This relates directly to us future educators

and how important an understanding of the community we teach in is to become a successful

educator. Our Grassroots Toolkit states, “Redefining Our Purpose as Teachers: We are 
the

educational servants of students and communities”. This reflects the reason why educators must

be aware of the community they are teaching in, to better understand the youth and be able to

relate to them making their teaching effective. Our book describes how we as teachers are

entering the student's personal space which in this case can relate directly to the community that
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we are entering. Therefore, we need to take this all into perspective to be able to educate the

students within their community effectively.

Conclusion

We have learned that culture has nothing to do with our miscommunications like stated in

Intercultural communication: A discourse approach, because the people in this community are

so diverse but they get together to make the best memories. Like stated before, through

interviews, observations, and data, we have learned about a community that we had little to no

knowledge about and Starr King Elementary within this community. As a group we chose this

area because we wanted to know more about it and did so through this project. This project

allowed us to gain deeper insight into North Long Beach that was deemed as “ghetto” but the

people living in this community are hard working Mexican and African American families trying

to make ends meet for their children. These people are not defined by what their community

looks like and we got a better understanding of who they were through interviews. As teachers, it

is very important to get a better understanding of your community to better understand your

students and their family background as well as be able to find ways in making daily lessons a bit

more personal for them. With this information you can develop a better relationship with them

and be able to create a more positive and successful school year.

Reference List

American FactFinder-Community Facts (2010, October 05). Retrieved from

https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml

California Education Data. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.ed-data.org/school/Los-

Angeles/Long-Beach-Unified/King-Elementary
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Chicago Grassroots Curriculum Taskforce. (2014). Grassroots curriculum toolkit 4.0: A critical
approach to urban praxis. Chicago: Chicago Grassroots Curriculum Taskforce.

Long Beach, California (CA) Poverty Rate. Retrieved from

http://www.city-data.com/poverty/poverty-Long-Beach-California.html

Point2 Homes. (n.d.). Retrieved December 07, 2017, from

https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/CA/Long-Beach/Bixby-Knolls-Demog
raphics.html

Point2 Homes. (n.d.). Retrieved December 07, 2017, from

https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/CA/Long-Beach-Demographics.html

Scollon, R., Scollon, S., & Jones, R. (2012). Intercultural communication: A discourse
approach,
3rd Edition. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

School Profile: King Elementary. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.cde.ca.gov/sdprofile/details.aspx?cds=19647256015416