In terms of language growing up, my dad was a very quiet man and he spoke Spanish. And I think I write from that point of view of having been an insider in both kinds of communities. But I feel very lucky that I got to be in both communities to sort of see the difference. But when I was growing up it was sort of moving in that direction, but there were still real families that were just working working-class jobs. It was kind of a small town beach town community that was a little more evenly split between the Mexican-American population and the White population. Now I will also tell you, I went to high school in a completely different kind of community. However, it's impossible to see those values from the outside because nobody really wants to come in to the community. It was it's all about hard work and being loyal, looking out for your cousins and your family and being respectful to your parents. And you know, I always tell the people, there's different messaging in different communities for the younger generations and the messaging I got was very valuable to me. When you live in a community where maybe others don't value what's happening in that community, or they consider your community to be sketchy or lower class, maybe when you're outside of the community and others ask where you're from, you can be a little bit more vague because you don't want to kind of just label yourself as a National City kid.īut there was a little bit of pride in the community because the families were tight. And I will say we were very aware that we were considered a sketchy neighborhood or the place you wouldn't want to end up. There's the way the community feels about itself, and then of course there's the way others view the community. How others saw my communityĪ community like National City, there's two views of a place like this. And I think when I look back that's what I value most in my own community now, is family and people being together. And it was just good people and good families. My Dad was Mexican, my Mom was White, but they were both born in National City so they were both native to this community. It was predominantly Mexican-American, but my family was mixed. And when I was young, I used to think that this was detrimental to my possibilities in life.Īnd as a person looking back, it's probably the thing I'm most proud of. I grew up in a border community in San Diego called National City. Matt de la Peña: Childhood and Teen Years Growing up in a border community
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