The Isolationism of Palos Verdes
In the beginning, there is the nest, where the baby birds can thrive in their early years of life. Every morning, their mother would bring worms to these blooming birds without ever making them get food for themselves. The birds will sleep every night safely underneath their mother’s bosom, never having to face the cold air. Then, once they reach physical adulthood, these birds are kicked out of the nest to fly and live on their own.
My hometown, Palos Verdes, is more or less an accurate representation of this. This small city is within a beautiful hill on the coast of Southern California and is supposedly the best place to raise your kids. Palos Verdes has been ranked as the eighth safest city in California as of 2018, and that couldn’t be more accurate. According to Safewise, there are only 0.63 violent crimes and 9.71 property crimes for every 1,000 people in Palos Verdes.
Palos Verdes is also very secluded, which can be great in some lights and dangerous in others. There are only two main roads which one can take to enter and leave Palos Verdes, making the city isolated both physically and mentally. Most of the residents living here are kind, moderately rich people who have high education and even higher expectations. We, the youth of Palos Verdes, are given one of the best educational systems in California, where we are given top-notch teachers and very challenging academic courses. Because the majority of people we interact with on this hill are highly educated, we usually do not face social and economic issues that are a reality for many others out there in this country. Again, there are two sides to every coin.
I think that because we are so isolated from the rest of the world in this bubble we call Palos Verdes, we are virtually protected from issues going on in our country today. There are people out there who face racism, sexism, and persecution due to their religion or sexuality every day. However, in Palos Verdes, this is virtually unheard of. Most people in our city are open and inclusive, no matter what kind of person you are. We are told every day at our schools that we are enough and to not judge people based on what they are, but by who they are. Therefore, I feel that my generation, including myself, will be unprepared by what’s to come after we graduate high school and enter the real world.
We will all leave Palos Verdes at some point in our lives. There is only one university in our city, and many young Palos Verdians want to leave their hometown for college. How will we deal when we, like the baby birds in their tree, simply get pushed out without any knowledge of what’s outside of the nest?
Palos Verdes is also very secluded, which can be great in some lights and dangerous in others. There are only two main roads which one can take to enter and leave Palos Verdes, making the city isolated both physically and mentally. Most of the residents living here are kind, moderately rich people who have high education and even higher expectations. We, the youth of Palos Verdes, are given one of the best educational systems in California, where we are given top-notch teachers and very challenging academic courses. Because the majority of people we interact with on this hill are highly educated, we usually do not face social and economic issues that are a reality for many others out there in this country. Again, there are two sides to every coin.
I think that because we are so isolated from the rest of the world in this bubble we call Palos Verdes, we are virtually protected from issues going on in our country today. There are people out there who face racism, sexism, and persecution due to their religion or sexuality every day. However, in Palos Verdes, this is virtually unheard of. Most people in our city are open and inclusive, no matter what kind of person you are. We are told every day at our schools that we are enough and to not judge people based on what they are, but by who they are. Therefore, I feel that my generation, including myself, will be unprepared by what’s to come after we graduate high school and enter the real world.
We will all leave Palos Verdes at some point in our lives. There is only one university in our city, and many young Palos Verdians want to leave their hometown for college. How will we deal when we, like the baby birds in their tree, simply get pushed out without any knowledge of what’s outside of the nest?
