A revealing look at the real me
I can’t tell you which peer group I’d fit best because I’m a social chameleon and am comfortable
in most; I will instead describe my own social situation and the various cliques I drift in and out
of.
My high school’s student body is from a part of town that is much more diverse than the rest of
the city, and the city as a whole is more diverse than most of the state. The location of my
school, only a few blocks from the University of Oregon, is greatly responsible for the social
atmosphere. Whereas the other high schools in town draw mainly from middle-class white
suburban families, mine sits in the division between the poor west university neighborhood and
the affluent east university one. East university is hilly and forested with quiet residential streets
and peaceful, large houses. A few blocks west, using the university as the divider, the houses
become small and seedy. On the west side of my school there are many dirty apartments; crime
is high and social status is low.
The result is the presence of two very distinct social scenes in the school itself. What is ironic
although not crucial to this essay is that the school, a squat, gray-stained concrete sprawl, is
divided right through the middle, just as its surrounding neighborhood is. The west wing ends in
a gym, a symbol of lower-class recreation, and low aspiration, while the east wing holds the
auditorium, the stronghold of sophistication, highbrow musical and theatrical achievement. On
the east side are artsy wall murals, on the west side only graffiti.
The west parking lot holds mostly dirty pickup trucks, low-rider gangster cars and dilapidated,
inherited little Hondas. The east lot is the home of numerous Mercedes and Chevy Suburbans,
the gas guzzlers and the late-models. The A.P classes are strongly rooted in the east end; the
remedial ones are clustered around the west athletic facilities. I burden you with this
description in order to display the split, both social and geographic, that characterizes my
academic life.
My classes are almost entirely on the east end of school; I’m attracted to them in a polar fashion
as if I were a positively charged little scholastic particle, happily magnetized to the center of
learning. However, despite the fact that I am fully integrated and comfortable in the intellectual
east-end society, the stereotypical education robot is something I am not. My primary social
scene is a contrast to the nerd-set.
Understand that I’m a snowboarder and that the Oregon snowboard culture is not some
obscure athletic fringe group; on the contrary, it is quite defined, almost established in the
mainstream. It is complete with its own dialect, style and customs. The rest of the
snowboarders in school are undeniably members of the west halls and their houses are on the
wrong side of the university.
I spend my lunches with my fellow nerds. We go to coffee shops and delis. I’m accepted as one
of them. My larger-than-normal pants and similar statements of snow-style are recognized as
superficial. However, I spend my weekends with the other crew. We go to parties and up to the
mountain. We share the same discoloration of our faces, tan and leathery on the cheeks and
forehead, pale around the eyes. Our faces hear the scars of wearing snowboarding googles too
often in the bright sun, and are proof of our membership in the snow posse, as indelible as the
ornate tattoos that show gang alliances. Our trans demand respect from the kids in the west
halls, for they are our social credentials in that end of the school, equivalent to standing on the
varsity football team. Once associated with grungy skateboarders, the snowboard culture has
found its own niche, just as surfing did before it. We now show much more similarity to jocks
than to skater punks.
When I’m with my classmates, I’m one of them-a cultivated, upper-class young man. I’m invited
to their houses and speak to their parents on a polite first name basis. When I hang out with
boarders and jocks, I’m invited to their refuges and speak the rapidly shifting socialect. Very few
of the recent American infatuation with the alternative sub-culture, my classmates give me
respect for embodying an unconvential trend while preserving my proper social standing. In the
same sense, my clan from the wrong end of the school respects me for remaining faithful to our
culture while succeeding academically; in their eyes I have found a way to get out of the social
hole without selling out.
I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact that I don’t have one single social identity. I think that if
only felt comfortable among kids from a certain end of the school, my life would be less
interesting.