Race in My Community

I live in a small city called South Lake Tahoe in the state of California. The people in South Lake consider themselves locals as long as you have lived here for more than 10 years. However, locals consider our city a town. Our town is mainly a tourist town, skiers and snowboarders in the winter and campers in the summer. When somebody moves to South Lake Tahoe, it may only be for a few reasons; to be a ski bum, get out of the bay area, or family. The people that move here either make it or they do not because of financial reasons. It is very hard to make a decent living here. To say it short and simple, a person can move up here with money or they learn to live paycheck by paycheck.

Our community is mostly Caucasians and Hispanics. According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000 the population of South Lake Tahoe was 31,884. In that number, 26,717 were White, 221 were African American, 274 were American Indian, 1,550 were Asian, and 6,792 were Hispanic or Latino. As you can see the majority of people in our town is White. Hispanics are the largest minority in South Lake Tahoe and their population is growing fast. With these numbers of races, our town does not need to deal with a lot of racism or discrimination.

In my community, I am part of the small percentage of Asians. To be honest, the only time I really see Asians in my community are at the Chinese and Thai restaurants. There are only a few members of my community that look like me. I have only met a handful of Koreans that live in my town over the past 11 years. The Asians of my community are nationalities such as Filipinos and some Japanese. If a person did not know the difference between Asian nationalities, they would believe I look like all the other Asians in my community. I have been mistaken many times for other Asian nationalities. To myself, I look completely different than others in my community.

Here is a little history about South Lake Tahoe. Our land belonged to the Washoe Indians; they spent their summers in Lake Tahoe and their winters in the Carson Valley. I work at a horse stables in the summer, which is sitting on top of a large Indian Burial ground. It is considered very sacred. The Washoe were eventually pushed out of the area, when wealthy families came into the area. Even to this day, American Indians are still trying to remove the discrimination to them in the Carson Valley. I do not understand why they have to deal with racism and discrimination when they were the original residents in this area. In 2004, the American Indian students of Carson Valley High were singled out just because of who they are. The American Indians were not being singled out by Caucasians, instead, they were being single out by Hispanics. The tension between