Segregation Today

Regardless of the Civil Rights Movement or any laws resulting from it, segregation definitely still exists today. A drive through my ordinary suburban area proves it. There is clearly residential segregation in effect. The neighborhood that surrounds my middle school is almost entirely Hispanic. The houses are all about the same size, which would imply that the socioeconomic status of the residents is similar. In contrast to this neighborhood, I live in a neighborhood that is almost entirely Caucasian, with a few Asian and Indian families. Once again, the socioeconomic status of the people in my neighborhood is about the same. Why didn’t the people in my neighborhood choose to live in the neighborhood by my middle school? Why are there not more Hispanic people in my neighborhood? An explanation for this is residential segregation. Many of the students who went to middle school with me were Hispanic students who spoke Spanish in their homes, and celebrated Quinceañeras. Their families still had very strong ties to Mexico. It makes sense that these families would want to live near each other, because they shared a common culture. The neighborhood around my middle school could be considered an enclave; these immigrants were not forced to live there, but chose to, perhaps to support each other in a new place. While the people in my neighborhood do not share a common ethnicity, they still chose to live in my neighborhood for a reason. My neighborhood is not much older than I am, and there are many young families and children in my neighborhood. There is a whole group of 7th grade boys who live in my neighborhood who my brother likes to play with. There are almost many recent high school graduates in my neighborhood. These parallels make it seem as though all of these families where drawn together because of their similarities in family structure.