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Lynwood's Racial Patterns

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From 1980 and 2010 my hometown Lynwood experienced residential patterns, where class and race intersected creating a new atmosphere when Hispanic minorities arose causing racial stereotypes to be imposed on my education while living there. Over the decades from 1980 to 2010, Lynwood experienced class shifts: from middle to poor and working class. The same social patterns that Hunter observed in the Seventh Ward, including urban decay and gentrification, occurred in my neighborhood through the years (Hunter). In LA County, education and class played a huge role in creating these patterns that reflects my city. For example, 14.48% of the population would obtain an education below high school, 14.39% obtained a high school diploma, and 19.86% …show more content…
During the 1980’s the total population of the LA County was 7,447,503; 52.87% being whites and 27.7% being Hispanics. In 2010 these numbers changed in Lynwood, Hispanics made 87.7% of the population in my neighborhood while whites made only 39.3%. Hispanics being the dominant race caused my neighborhood to be subject of generalization where educators believed that minorities were not as academically advanced as other races. To contradict this, Ramon and Hunt state, “The education received by most of the graduates was hardly comparable to the education received by their white and asian american counterparts.” What caused disadvantage in my neighborhood was not that we were the minority but the fact that we were short in resources (Hunt and Ramon). Resources such as AP classes and after school programs that my neighborhood could not afford since we were not part of the upper class. Tracking became a social construction while learning since my educators used my race to generalize how smart I was. Educators believed the stereotype that Hispanics tend to drop out of school and become part of the school-prison pipeline ( Lecture, August 19). Class and race intersected in my education because I was primed to believe that I was not good enough because of my race when in reality I was always at a disadvantage due to the social class that I was born into. (Word Count:

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