I have always been curious and passingly aware of the Civil War and the darkness embedded in the deep south with race relations and the horrors of Slavery. When I first came to this country, I landed at the Pacific coast in the golden state where the conversations and the way of life seems oblivious or untouched with the dark pasts of this country. California in perspective is a metaphor for the Great American Dream and Land of Opportunities which every immigrant comes with the mythical joy and charm to make it big.
With a pre-dominantly Spanish heritage and an expansive Latin population, life seems a fast track of speeding cars where all everyone cares about is reaching their goals, making some bucks and go to bed with that contentment of one's efforts for a better life. No one seems to waste their time hating each other, or dwell on the past and on the contrary, the cities thrive with the best of the continent's weather, scenery and travels. Living around my university campus in the vicinity of downtown LA, there are some striking realities of homelessness, violence infested neighborhoods and fears of mugging, carjackings and burglaries. And of course, the thriving presence of the Latin population in all social statuses gives you the perspectives of the different social structures visibly distinct in LA.
You have the affluent neighborhoods sprawling in the northern suburbs close to Hollywood and the poor latin/Black suburbs in the southern, central parts of LA. There are warnings and advisories in traveling by foot in the later parts of the day around downtown. I also happened to witness a shooting in broad day-light in the western parts of my campus where I was at a friend's rental accommodation, and someone just came out of a car in the house opposite to ours a few lots ahead, and shot someone in point blank range. Both subjects happened to be Black and we all ran inside while the sirens of cop vehicles diminished the whole scene.
Living in the northern campus which was deemed safer and Whiter by many peers, you could walk past the fraternities and sororities and notice the vibes of a college charm with weekend starting on Wednesdays, strolls of boys and girls hanging out in drink parties, walking around in groups of fun filled talks and exhibiting the plush spoils of bachelorhood in the primes of their youth. The white gentry pre-dominantly chose the Arts, Humanities, Law, Business and Cinema while we Asians, were mostly confined to the Engineering Divisions.
Getting around in LA without a car for a student can seems challenging with the limited amount of public transportation. The glimpses of the poor population in the bus rides made me ponder on the failures of a capitalist society with widespread poverty and limited opportunities to make a living in a sprawling urban dwelling. Going around the landscape, one can notice its a dense city and whole neighborhoods which portray a Latin way of life, with trucks lined with blue collar work, multiple families sharing a house and poorly maintained street infrastructure.
When I approached the end of my college days and the struggles to find a job began, I scrambled to pass a driving test on 3rd attempt and managed to get a used broken car on the college campus from a Korean Ph.D student in $900 cash. He told me car is not in good shape but looking at the cheap price I agreed to buy it. I took the car to a Mexican auto shop after I got a contact from a friend. He asked for cash and a day to fix the axles, belts and oils to make it work. I ended up paying him $450 after some heated negotiations and was joyous in driving the Hyundai Sonata around town. That was my first automobile experience in the US and I was thrilled to get around in a zip for groceries and speeding the freeways. I also had to get new tires with a total investment of $1900 in the vehicle. The car was really useful in getting me from USC to my office in Santa Monica for a good 3 months.
I happened to do my internship in Santa Monica and after my graduation, my boss relocated me to Chicago to my employer's engineering office. I dreamed of traversing the 2000 mile journey in my recently acquired automobile discovering the American landscape and my boss in Chicago encouraged my to take the time in sightseeing the beauties of the interior US. My sister had fears and reservations on my adventure and forced my to sell my car and fly to Chicago instead. I reluctantly agreed and put an ad in Craigslist and soon got an interested buyer who wanted the car for his college going daughter. I managed to sell it for a cost of $1600. Looking at the time it helped me in LA, I had no grudges in losing $300.
My first experience of Chicago was a well laid out and laidback midWestern hub with a large European presence compared to LA. The suburbs were spread nicely with lot of diverse neighborhoods. My office mates in Chicago were all of Russian origin and in fact the cab I took from the airport had a Russian driver. It seemed a pretty common profession among the Russian immigrants to drive cabs who frequent the suburbs of Chicago. When I got my driving license and managed to finance a used car at a steeply high interest rate (12%) since I had hardly any credit history, I got my hands on my lllinois license plate with the proudly visible design of Land of Lincoln. From there started a keen drive to learn about Abraham Lincoln and his connection with Illinois.
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