What America did you grow up in?

[Caliman73]

I have seen a few comments recently, in response to the horrible laws passed in Texas, and other parts of the country which seem to be going after vulnerable people. The comments are usually something like: "This isn't the country I remember.." or "... I grew up in" or something to that effect.

I am American of Mexican heritage. I live in California which is presumably a very "liberal" state. However this is the country I grew up in. A country where when I spoke Spanish at school, I was scolded. Where when I interacted with White people until maybe 5 years ago, I was asked "No, where are you from..? after having told them I was born and raised in the US / California. I grew up in a country where in the 1940's Latino men were called "hoodlums and rioters" and arrested when Sailors attacked them because of the suits they were wearing. Where the last lynching in my liberal state, took place in 1947, the year my mother was born. Anti-Miscegenation laws were only struck down, the year my sister was born. Our own Californian "papers please" law, Proposition 187 was passed in 1994 though it never really took effect because it was challenged in court and found to be unconstitutional.

So, what America did I grow up in? An America that has A LOT of potential and A LOT of wonderful people, but also A TON of problems with race, gender, poverty, and other equality issues. A country that has a good human rights framework that it has absolutely failed to live up to.

A country worth fighting for, but a country where people need to really wake up to the history of.

What America did YOU grow up in?

[Doc Sportello]

1. Thanks for posting this

Well said and the kind of thing those of us who didn't grow up in that America need to hear.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. I've seen those posts too.

The country I grew up in was in which {the term used for gay people} were, by default, mentally ill. They could be involuntarily committed to mental hospitals. You could forget about pursuing any career other than flower arranging or interior decorating. You could be kicked out of school for your own good.

Yep, those were the swell fifties and sixties that have people crying about the good old days.

Good for some people.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. This country has always been what it is.

[gibraltar72]

4. It wasn't the country I thought it was. Or hoped it would be.

I had really hoped I could say the national anthem again. It won't be in my lifetime after all.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. I grew up in country where my father told me the nuns cracked...

cracked his knuckles with a ruler when they caught him writing left-handed.

I grew up hiding under my desk in school when we had practice air raid alerts.

I grew up in a neighborhood that was half Jewish, and some of the older ones had numbers tattoo'd on their arms. My father was drafted out of law school to fight their oppressors.

I grew up in a country where the rule was to fit in somehow--minorities weren't hated so much for skin color or origin, but simply because they didn't fit in.

Lot of other things, but it gave me the education I needed.

[Dave in VA]

6. Jim Crow in the south

Everything was segragated; schools, doctor's offices with seperate waiting rooms, white and "colored" water fountains, bars and restaurants, etc. You get the picture. Voting was taxed, you had to pass a literacy test, etc. When Brown v Topeka was decided, Virgina's governor decalared a state of "Massive Resistance", (googe Virginia and massive resistance, you'll get the idea.)

Many of us old white folks worked our asses off to get these things to change. Very disapointing to see a new generation try to recreate this version of our country.

Everything old is new again as the saying goes.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. YEah

I grew up in a medium sized Midwest city where a cross was burned on the lawn of the first black family to move into the neighborhood in the early 80s. I also had gay friends who always went everywhere in groups because assaulting someone because you thought they were gay was just widespread accepted.

America has made a lot of progress, progress that the regressive Right is trying furiously to undo. The fight is never over, the rights are never fully won without risk of back sliding.

[Caliman73]

8. Thanks to all who replied.

By no means to I mean this thread to be a bash on America. I am just wanting to have a discussion about people's perception of the American experience versus what has been taught and expressed by media and culture about America.

I wish that America was the "land of liberty" that is discussed in school history classes. I have just not seen it. I definitely love living in the US and don't know where else I would go, but I realize the problems that we have are great and that we need to address them if we want to be the country we say we are.

[Delmette2.0]

9. When I was in first grade the teacher didn't want me to be left handed.

My Mother already saw what my older brother went through when he favored his left hand and has to change. Mom told the teacher flat out that she was left handed and didn't see it to be a problem. I am still left handed.

Thirty years later my youngest son was going to be held back in first grade . Because 1. he started his zeros at the bottom instead of the top, 2. He couldn't skip, 3. He didn't play much with other children. I stopped her right there. Because I start my zeros and o's at the bottom because that is where my pencil is, my son also taught himself to ride a bike without training wheels just a few months prior and he did play well with other children. I told the teacher " He will be a leader not a follower.

We don't need to change our children. We need teachers who accept the difference in each child as good things.


P.S. I am still growing up and learning.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. The same one you did, mostly

I grew up in an America where my (white) grandmother had a black housekeeper who walked a half a mile every morning from her shotgun shack on a dirt road (in the 1980s, in case anyone thinks this was pre-Civil Rights era); where homophobia was generally seen as socially acceptable until about 25 years ago; where overt racism is *still* seen as socially acceptable, in some places (as long as one is among fellow whites, anyway); where nearly half the population voted for an overtly racist authoritarian. A lot of people are deluding themselves about what America is really like (or they're white, cisgender, heterosexual, and middle class, and don't see anything outside their own bubble).

[Boomerproud]

13. Your last line summed it up perfectly.

My own family , most of them, live in that bubble.

[Caliman73]

14. You can't learn the lessons of history when your history is actually mythology.

People have a tendency to externalize problems as "Something that happened long ago". We see that personally when someone commits some horrendous crime. That person is typically "othered" like, "Oh, that guy is CRAZY" or something to put that person outside the range of human behavior.

In stead of accepting that people have treated and still treat each other HORRIBLY and we need to find out why and address those factors that contribute to it, we "whistle past the graveyard" hoping that, I don't know... something changes how we act.

This is the reason why the whole "Critical Race Theory" is actually an important issue. If we are to progress as a nation we need to have a sober look at our history and how that history affects how we live today.

[Efilroft Sul]

11. The carefree America post-Vietnam but before Reagan

Of course, it wasn't perfect. But what a time to be alive, no matter your age.

[sanatanadharma]

12. Pictures of Washington and Lincoln were on the school-room walls

I was educated by a public school system that followed a post WW2 plan* of raising up a generation that would transcend racism and jingoism and all 'isms' highlighted by the then recent nazi-ism.

I remember civics classes and human history and shop, art, music, plus good math and physics and maybe also the sciences that less interested me.
I grew up along-side a classmates who went on to do things like be the lead architect of the last O'Hare airport remodel.

I also grew up in an America being told to avoid the north and south ends of Main Street because 'ethnic' and 'ethnic'.
Main Street had a multi-story old-school department store and a fantastic used book-store, with an new book annex, two movie theaters and much more. There were no Mac Donalds but there were Friendly's.

I grew up being warned about nuclear war and the reds. Back then republicans were wrong but not red.
It was a time when co-eds could not be out of the dorms at curfew times and the city of Milwaukee, WI had a curfew for kids; the TV stations all said each night, "It is ten o'clock. Parents, do you know where your children are?"

Birth control was not available and without internet everyone was ignorant; abortion was a crime.
B&W TV scenes of dogs and water-hoses and bombed churches showed this child the immorality of racism and white-supremacist apologists. The Vietnam war apologists did not convince me.

I grew up feeling the promise of America, feeling like part of the commonwealth, then Reagan happened.

* Google The Springfield Plan (Massachusetts). A news movie was made.

[Caliman73]

15. Thanks...

I tend to see that time, during Carter's Presidency as the "fork in the road". When Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech happened and he laid out the two paths America could go down. Then "Reagan Happened"... really, the new "conservative movement" came in with Reagan where he basically said, "You know that Carter guy asking us to be better... fuck him. We are "THE BEST" and we don't need to do anything but be the best" The he and his cronies proceeded to try to gut the New Deal and make the US into the country that could elect Donald Trump and pull back from all of our ideals.

[csziggy]

16. The one where is was not acceptable for whites and "others" to socialize

As a kid, my family lived in a not so upscale part of town. Only a few blocks away were the shacks where migrant workers lived when they were local to pick oranges. Somehow the segregation laws in our state did not include those migrants' children - maybe because they were only there part of of the year, or maybe because so many of their children dropped out around the time we transitioned from elementary to junior high school.

In elementary school, I was friends with a girl named Bianca. She was wicked smart but was never pushed by the teachers the way they pushed even dumb white kids. Sometimes we'd walk home together - at least after the point my mother felt I was old enough to walk the four blocks to and from school alone. I knew instinctively that my mother would not approve of my friendship with a migrants' child. (Though maybe I was underestimating my mother and it was more a fear of my father's reaction that influenced me.)

Bianca and I had a lot of fun together and I was always sad when it was time each spring for her parents and family to move on to the next crop picking job. I'd look forward to her return in late fall - but one year she didn't come back. Somewhere about that time, the migrant shacks were torn down so there was no where near where I lived for them to stay. The company owned migrant housing was moved away from town into more isolated areas.

Soon after the schools were desegregated. Deep down I hoped that would mean Bianca would return but she never did. A lot of people forecast major problems in the schools. My aunt and uncle put their kids into church schools so they would not have to attend with "those people" but my mother insisted that we would have to live in the real world and refused to let my Dad do that. We never had any race issues in our schools - the worst issues were when the Christian teachers were no longer permitted to lead every class with a prayer, but that died down quickly.

Our little town was the first in Florida to have a black Mayor in the 1960s. At the time everybody pretended to be so proud. I don't think there has been a black mayor since.

So I grew up in a small town where there was not as much overt racism, but it was institutionalized so much it was not obvious. It was always there and in the last ten years it has gotten worse. I haven't lived in that town since 1972 so I can't give solid evidence.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Glad you wrote this

My experience? I grew up in Western NY - in the 70's and 80's - as a black little girl of mixed race heritage - majority white town.

Neighbor tried to run me over when I was five.
Another person painted "keep america clean kill all the nr's" in my parents garage when our house was being built.

I could go on and on - like - I wasn't allowed to be homecoming queen in 1991 - because I was black. Won hands down - down - but the Parents association at my prep school made the decision.

In college - Poli Sci class - had folks complaining about 'free rides by minorities'
Um - I paid full tuition and the only kids standing in line for the free books at the bookstore were white kids from the Appalachians, Quebec and NY City Area.

Yeah - America is rotten. Always has been, hopefully always won't be. We were ALWAYS filled with MAGATS - just Trump gave the MAGATS freedom to be rotten.

[Caliman73]

20. Sorry about your experience.

I can see how having those adverse experiences would lead to thinking that America is "rotten". The thing that gets to me sometimes is when people say how "America is the best country in the world" without really understanding your kind of experience and to a MUCH MUCH lesser extent, experiences like mine.

Best for "who" and how so?

Like I have said in other responses. If we do not honestly look at our history and how it has affected how society is structured today, then we may always be that "rotten" version of America that you have experienced.

It will take an active effort, especially by people who have more power and privilege in society, to lead us to living up to the goals aspired to in our founding documents.

[WarGamer]

18. I grew up in an America...

(and I'm younger than the avg DU'er)


Where I used to buy glass bottles of Coca Cola from the machine inside stores where opening the big metal door allowed one bottle to be removed after you dropped change in the slot.

Where I used to buy "Army" comic books and look in the back for cool stuff to buy. I'd send $1.50 to an address in an envelope and a couple weeks later I'd get a package with a squad of plastic army soldiers.

I played in corn fields and to this day I believe that kids that play in the dirt, roll in the mud and drink water from garden hoses develop stronger immune systems...

During summer vacation, I'd disappear at 8AM on my bike and roll back home around dinner... no helicopter mom, no cell phone to stay in touch.


Yes, I'm ignoring social issues because at that age, I never noticed any.

[inthewind21]

19. I grew up in

An America where her dark side was hidden and denied and everyone acted as if it were a place of utopian perfection. It was easier to hide then with no cell phones, internet, social media and cable news blaring in your face 24-7. The problems of today have always been there lurking in the shadows an out of sight. But over the years, with Regan, the 2 Bushes, Sara Palin and the T baggers, oops, I mean Tea Party, and then finally Trump, all of America's hidden sludge that had been denied for so long is walking out in broad daylight for EVERYONE to see.

[Caliman73]

21. When Hitler praises and copies your "racial laws"

in dealing with the "Jewish Question" then you know you have some work to do.

People tried in the 1950's and 1960's but it made A LOT of people uncomfortable and by the end of the 1970's it seems that people were willing to go with an affable fool who lead the effort to try to gut all of the progress made by the New Deal and Great Society programs, as well as dismiss the Civil Rights movements that were still trying to keep traction.

Jimmy Carter put a choice in front of America in the late 70's and much of America answered him with a middle finger, and we have continually stepped on the "rake" of race since then.