Woop…There Goes the Neighborhood!

In my life, I have moved 7 times. Every new neighborhood we joined was the same; everyone kept to themselves, the people you knew on the block were people you went to school or work with (occasionally). Until reading & hearing others’ blog on this topic, I didn’t think unified neighborhoods existed anymore; that they only existed in movies or way far from the city. Despite all the times I moved, I lived generally in the same area; in a square going south from 25th & Cicero to 67th & Cicero, east to 67th & Western, north to 25th & Western, & back west to 25th & Cicero. In the places I’ve lived, the vast majority are Hispanic/Mexican. However in this area, there are Blacks, Whites, & Asians. But all the races tend to have an area where it’s mostly them. This square is where I grew up, & I’m certain there are no neighborhoods where people are really unified. (Of course I may be completely wrong because we keep to ourselves because it seems that’s what’s done.) People come and go. But there is one thing that makes people in these neighborhoods think, “Damn. Well, there goes the neighborhood!” That would be the plague that is gang violence. 3 of the 7 times I’ve moved have been because of increasing gang violence & currently we’re looking to move again because gang violence has slowly been increasing (and others) in my current neighborhood.
This has been my brush with “there goes the neighborhood.” Several times gang violence & members moved in and my family, along with others, thought “There goes the neighborhood.” How do/did we handle it? Well the first sentence says it all, we move, but not immediately; this obviously doesn’t happen overnight & we don’t run at the first sign of trouble; we notice that there’s a steady increase in this activity, as it increases, our tolerance decreases. Once we’re at the tipping point, the next thing that involves gangs we hear, whether it be groups of people screaming at night or gunshots in the morning, we make the arrangements to move. So this is my blog on ‘There goes the neighborhood!’ Hope you enjoyed. Carlos Out!