Race in the Community

The United States of America, considered as the melting pot of different cultures and racial backgrounds, the town I live in the city of Hemet Riverside County located around 90 miles east of Los Angeles was first inhabited by members of Cahuilla Indian Tribe in the early 1800`s. It became a cattle ranch for Mission San Luis Rey and called Rancho San Jacinto, the Mexican government broke up the missions, and the land awarded to Jose Antonio Estudillo in 1842. The community one lives in is mainly older White couples age 55 and over, this area is also made up of family style housing two bedrooms, and two baths, with two to three children, only a few Black Americans live in this community so the people do not appear as one does.

Hemet faces racism from different groups of individuals such as White Senior citizens, Hispanic/Indian gangs, and Mexicans from across the border “illegals,” White skinheads, and a mixture of Black gangs but it has not been a problem in this area as far as one knows. Hemet is a small town that has grown in recent year`s, the illustration below shows the population in this area, and my community off Ponderosa.

Total | Retired workers | Disabled workers | Widowers | Spouses | Children |

8,030 | 5,250 | 1,150 | 760 | 355 | 515 |

Racial Relation

Outside this community when walking down the street older White people will clutch their purses as one walks by, and ask questions such as and my favorite “what do you people want to be called”, I reply my name, in the mall while shopping security will follow Black people because of the stereotypes associated with Black people. One has a friend ‘now’ that thought Black people lived in poor run down houses and the men would force women into prostitution; she thought that I could not make it in Hemet. Because she belonged to a White, supremacy group, that had runoff other Black families in the area. Once she called me a “Nigger’, and before one turned and walked away I asked if she thought that...