Americans who have you lived/grown up in an ethnic enclave: What was it like?

13 comments

1. Not exactly an “ethnic enclave” but I grew up in a relatively strong Jewish community. We had 5 nearby synagogues. I went to preschool and kindergarten at the Bureau of Jewish Education despite being Catholic. I still know a few Hebrew words and a couple prayers. My sister was a substitute teacher at the BJE and my family are still members of the local JCC. I have been a shabbos goy a couple times.

   We had Passover with friends, celebrated Hanukkah with friends, and I built more than a few sukkot with friends.

   If you had asked me as a kid what percentage of the US population was Jewish I would have guessed 20% or so.

   I am not entirely sure how it affected me but I still pay attention to the Jewish calendar and can relate to Jewish people, especially those that are practicing. Being Catholic there is some religious overlap. I have a strong understanding of people that have persecution, even if it isn’t strong in modern society, little things, mostly out of ignorance.

2. I’ve lived in a town that was 80% Hispanic (almost all of Mexican origin.) I’m not Hispanic myself.

   Socially, it didn’t really affect me. Most of my immediate neighbors were actually part of the non-Hispanic minority in the town (not by any planning on my part, it just happened to be that way.)

   Culturally I guess it introduced me to a more diverse array of Mexican food, and to have different standards for Mexican food than I had had before. I also gained more familiarity with the days of the year that are important to some people in Mexican culture, like Mexican Independence Day and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Also certain traditions, like confetti eggs at Easter and marigolds in the cemetery at All Souls’ Day.

   It was also interesting being distinctly a minority. The default in town was to be Mexican, and Mexican cultural expectations and norms prevailed. I found that people would often over-explain things to me. Like it was presumed I knew nothing about Mexican culture at all. I didn’t take offense to it, but it was often more background information than I needed about things that might have become familiar already.

3. Caribbean ethnic enclave. I didn’t have a single neighbor where the home owners or renters were even 1 generation deep in the US. Us kids were the first born here. Obviously we were impacted by the city around us but in so many ways I got a somewhat foreign experience even by NY standards. The way I was raised, the sounds and smells of the area, the community interaction, was not really relatable to my friends from school. I even used to pronounce some words ‘wrong’ (with my parents accent) because the only context I heard those words were at home or in my neighborhood.

   I miss it every damn day. I can’t just *walk* outside and get some jerk chicken or curry goat. I have to *drive* and pay more for mediocrity to satisfy some cravings.

   I also find that general American culture is a lot less communal. The idea that I grew up in a house with 4 generations doesn’t resonate with most. I also became accustomed to and enjoy late night activity. I don’t mean in the NY sense of 24/hr nightlife. I mean that (weather permitting) I could walk outside and see a Jamaican, a Dominican, Puerto Rican, and a Haitian outside playing dominoes, drinking beers, and smoking cigars at 1am. There’s a dude with a grill selling jerk or bbq for extremely reasonable prices. There’s music playing. People are outside. Socializing. Knowing each other. Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles on the porch sitting chatting, a watchful eye over the neighborhood. Good for gossip but also for keeping kids out of trouble. I’ve been to the Caribbean multiple times and visited some of the other islands. A bit hotter year round, limited to one accent/language, but the vibes were the same.

   I think one the biggest differences is how we build. We don’t build for community and interaction. Massive highways go through most major American cities. How can you walk there? how can you have a chance interaction with someone who catches your eye? Or overhear and join in a conversation that sounds interesting?

   We build our homes so separated from one another, and now kids are being killed for going to the wrong address. IDK man. Life in Texas is nice in many ways. The weather especially. People are more polite (I wouldn’t necessarily say nicer). But I don’t feel the vibes out here.

   Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant.

4. The town I grew up in had an Irish, Italian, and French Canadian section. Different churches, different markets, bars, etc.

   I lived on the line of French and Italian sections.

   The Italians had amazing gardens, and the whole neighborhood smelled like tomatoes & grapes in the summer. The neighborhood Italian club was open late in the night all summer, and I could hear the men cheering over bocce games from my open bedroom window on warm nights.
   Italians kind of ran the town and were the bankers and mayors and police chiefs. If you were with an Italian kid you were way more likely to get let go. They literally had families that had 12-14 kids and everyone was each others cousin, by blood or by marriage.

   The French families served me poutine (not the new kind with fries but traditional Acadian dish). They were always back and forth from Canada and my friends families had car (and heavy equipment) theft rings. They’d buy vehicles, drive them home to Canada say they were stolen for the insurance money. They also were truckers and one dad used to steal boxes off his truck when ever it was something good and hand them out to the neighborhood kids and get drunk and play kickball with us. Raoul and Desire were the cool dads.

   One time he handed out boxes of little guns with plastic shooting discs. The whole neighborhood was littered with thousands of those discs for a few years. Whenever I raked my lawn, I’d come up with a few years later.

5. I grew up in an area with a lot of Latine/Hispanic people (and lots of other ethnicities, too). I didn’t think it affected me culturally until I moved to an area that’s like 85% white people. I miss the food the most. The food here sucks.

6. Every family had at least six kids. We had fun.

7. i lived in a town that was 80% white european descendants…it was pretty normal

8. I had relatives who were born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. They had an Indian accent, watched only Bollywood, and cricket until they were around 12. Then they went gangsta for the next four years, then off to Boston for college and now live in Parsipini

   BTW – common pattern

9. I’m Vietnamese-American and grew up in Westminster, CA which is home to Little Saigon. Half of the kids I went to school with were Vietnamese and you needed several pages in the yearbook for each grade to accommodate all the Nguyens. I moved to Dallas, TX a few years ago which has a smaller Vietnamese community but it’s nice to mingle with people of other ethnic groups. I’m fortunate to grow up and live in a very diverse setting. I love learning about different cultures and trying new foods.

10. I grew in up in Southern Brooklyn in NYC which was a major lets call it “Former Soviet enclave”. Originally Russian/Ukrainian Jews built the community but in the past couple of decades alot of non Jewish slavs, central Asians and Caucasians started arriving.

    I grew up speaking Russian in my household, all my friends were Russian speakers, all the clubs I went to for sports were Russian speakers, all my family friends were Russian speakers, and like half my school spoke Russian.

    I would say it has its pros and cons. The pros are obviously I speak another language pretty decently and my mindset is alot more “international”. I think the immigrant mindset that was implanted in me through my family and my community is invaluable. It’s the type of mindset that makes you think “Oh I better make AT LEAST 6 figures after my first job after college”. I would also say there are alot of values like devotion to family that I gained that are very valuable.

    I would say the biggest con is that it’s harder to fit in. Joining the military was a huge culture shock. I remember our instructors in basic telling us “This is probably the first time y’all were in such a diverse place like this”. I thought no it’s the least diverse place I’ve ever been to and where I was from was alot more diverse. It was still a culture shock being around “real Americans”. I realized even though I was born in America it feels like they came from a different world. It feels like alot of our values, goals, and upbringings were extremely different. I went from a place where I did not have a single friend who did not speak at least 2 languages to a place where people were shocked I could speak such an “exotic” language.

    I think what really hammered home how different I was was some of the conversations we had. There’s alot of times in the military where you got jack shit to do and you just sitting in a circle just talking about surprisingly deep stuff. Hearing stuff like “my parents kicked me out at 18” blew my mind. I think one of the biggest disagreements we had was about race and ethnicity. My concept about those things were so different to theirs that it was far more “European” then American.

    The longer I stayed from home the stronger my identity became. I started to research more about certain values or history my family had and it started to make sense. Alot of my friends still live back home and they don’t understand to me when I try to explain to them how unique our upbringing is.

    Unfortunately unlike other ethnic enclaves my type doesn’t exist much outside of a couple of cities in America. Unlike let’s say Mexican enclaves I doubt it will be very strong by the end of the century. My fear is being an old man and the culture I grew up with not existing anymore. I guess it’s an inevitable fate many immigrant groups in America faced but it’s still unsettling.

11. Do super white WASP towns count as ethnic enclaves?

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13. Grew up in NYC Chinatown where everyone was Asian. Didn’t really leave until middle school in midtown and I was like, where did all these white people come from!??