Moving here felt like moving to a different country. I think it took a year to feel comfortable–to know where to find parking, where to shop, how to get around–to master the details of daily life.
Such narrow streets. So many pedestrians. Crazy, horn-blowing, illegal U-turning drivers. Where were all the usual chain stores and restaurants I knew and loved? Even Safeway felt foreign, with a security guard watching me as I roamed it’s small, crowed aisles. Every day, it felt like an accomplishment to come home and park–two wheels up on the curb so emergency vehicles can get by–safely in front of my house after a foray downtown.
The community, though, is warmer and friendlier than I thought it would be. I was prepared for cool detachment, people too busy with city life to have relationships. I was wrong. People have deep roots, and many have grown up here, some in the same house for generations. The small shops and unique restaurants, the streets lined with shady trees and old, quaint homes felt solid, anchored. I did not expect that. I thought I would find isolated people, superficial relationships, a cold and hard place.
The city feels like a small town. It’s the rootedness, the focus on local businesses. It feels connected also because the school district actively integrates the schools, by busing students and by having only one large high school. Your neighborhood includes much more of the city when your school is all the way across town. Without these sometimes-controversial policies (the district has been sued for reverse discrimination), there would quickly become “good” schools in the more expensive neighborhoods and “bad” schools in the less pricey areas. The Hills and The Flats.
These policies became real for us when our kids were not assigned to the the lovely elementary school two blocks away from our house; they were bused to a school downtown, while others from down the hill come up to our neighborhood.
My first thoughts were not joy at this tangible example of justice and equality. They were more along the lines of feeling wronged, judged by my race and zip-code. It’s not fair that I should have to suffer, that my kids should ride the bus for an hour each way to attend a school with lower academic performance. I started thinking about how to protest, force the issue, get what I wanted for my children.
Another thought came tumbling in, though: an awareness of my privilege, my power, and a sense of how flexing those muscles runs counter to the ideals I said I wanted my children to discover and own. I agree with the purpose of the bussing. I love that Berkeley cares about every child receiving a good education. Can I then say I don’t want my kids to participate?
Here’s the reality: My kids have everything they need. They have supportive, involved parents. They are never cold, hungry, or alone. They will go to college if they want to. They lack nothing, really. I don’t have to go scraping and scratching to snatch up the best of everything.
Now, all have moved through elementary and middle school, and looking back, I’m satisfied with their experience at their school in The Flats. It was an involved, caring community. They made good friends, and met back up with some of them in high school after going to different middle schools. It was a broadening experience for all of us. Not what I would have chosen. Better than that.
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