Welcome to America's Most Diverse City: Sacramento, California, Exams of Asian literature

Download Welcome to America's Most Diverse City: Sacramento, California and more Exams Asian literature in PDF only on Docsity! SEARCH THE TIME ARCHIVE: Magazine All of TIME.com Wednesday, August 28, 2002 Topical Searches Sept. 11 Stock Market Covers HOME NATION Politics Society Education WORLD BUSINESS ARTS SCI-HEALTH PHOTOS MAGAZINE ARCHIVE COLUMNISTS SPECIALS HELP SUBSCRIBE LIFE Magazine Welcome to America's Most Diverse City The country's real melting pot is 2,800 miles from New York. So what's life like in Sacramento  a place where everyone's a minority  and why is there still racial tension? BY RON STODGHILL AND AMANDA BOWER LYNSEY ADDARIO/CORBIS SABA FOR TIME Many William Land Elementary students speak a language other than English CNN: Latest U.S. News Sunday, Aug. 25, 2002 Sequoia Way is easy for travelers to overlook. Nestled in the middle-class neighborhood of Village Park on the south side of Sacramento, Calif., it is an unremarkable stretch of single-story frame houses. But if you stroll a bit along the winding road and visit Sequoia Way's residents, you will quickly realize there's something extraordinary about this street. You will meet Tom and Debra Burruss, who moved onto the street a couple of years ago. He's black and she's white, but on Sequoia the interracial union doesn't stand out. The Burrusses' next-door neighbors are also minorities, a Vietnamese couple named Ken Wong and Binh Lam. Living directly across are the Cardonas, a Hispanic-and-white couple. And nearby are the Farrys, a Japanese- and-white pair. In fact, sprinkled throughout the street are more flavors than you can get at Baskin-RobbinsMexicans, African Americans, East Indians, Asians, you name it. Now head downtown to William Land Elementary School. Here the classrooms are so ethnically diverse that teachers are considering switching from celebrating individual cultural holidays, like Black History Month, Cinco de Mayo and Chinese New Year, to holding a multiethnic festival. Of Land's 347 kids, 189 speak a language other than English at home. Immigrant parents are so common in Sacramento's public schools that one child volunteered that her father is also a foreignerhe's from New York. Or go over to Downtown Plaza mall and chat with teenage couples like Kayla, 17, and Gerald, 18. Kayla's mother is white, and her father is black; Gerald's mother is Japanese, and his dad is black. As they munch pizza in a bustling food court as diverse as a U.N. cafeteria, Kayla shrugs her shoulders at the notion of same-race Click here to visit our advertiser. Click here to visit our advertiser. Amber Alert: Does It Work? Some critics maintain the kidnap-alert system could lead to false arrests  or worse Are We Ready for Pilots Packing Heat? Surprising everyone, advocates are winning the fight to let pilots take guns into the cockpit TIME.com: Welcome to America's Most Diverse City file:///O|/Common/john's request for saving news ...ME_com Welcome to America's Most Diverse City.htm (1 of 3) [10/28/2002 12:58:08 PM] friendships. "Personally, it doesn't matter what color you are," she says. "I am mixed, he is mixed, and most everybody is mixed." So it goes in America's most integrated city, as determined in research for TIME by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. In Sacramento everyone's a minority including whites. Of the city's inhabitants, 41% are non-Hispanic white, 15.5% are black, 22% are Hispanic and 17.5% are Asian/Pacific Islander. Although many cities are diverse (think New York City or Los Angeles), in Sacramento people seem to live side by side more successfully. The city got that way thanks in part to affordable real estate for middle-class households (the black population has dropped in the Bay Area but increased in Sacramento over the past 10 years) as well as innovative housing programs for low-income families. In addition, state-government agencies and college campuses are sprinkled throughout the city, providing stable, well-paid, equal-opportunity employment. But while Sacramento approaches an ideal for integration, it certainly isn't paradise. Beneath the multicolored surface, the city's 407,018 inhabitants vacillate between racial harmony and ethnic tension. You see a Sikh casually strolling into a Mexican restaurant for takeout, an Eskimo and a white punk hanging out together downtown. But you also see black and Hispanic parents outraged because their kids' test scores lag behind those of whites and Asians in integrated schools. And you hear Anne Gayles-White, the N.A.A.C.P. chapter president, saying "There's still too much hatred and racism in a city like this." page 1 of 3 1 | 2 | 3 Next > > Click here to visit our advertiser. SEARCH THE ARCHIVE Magazine All of TIME.com Search all back-issues of TIME since 1985 for TIME's unique perspective on history, people, and the most important events of the day. GO TO THE ARCHIVE See our most-popular articles TIME Book Selections LIFE Year in Pictures LIFE: One Nation LIFE: The U.S. Military TIME: Great Images of the 20th Century TIME 2002 Annual Opportunities Join TIME's Affiliate Program Free Product Info Media Kit Free Internet Try AOL for 1000 Hours FREE! Copyright © 2002 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Subscribe | Customer Service | FAQ | Site Map | Contact Us Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Reprints & Permissions | Press Releases Inside The Secret War Council How an unpaid conservative board that holds private meetings and puts nothing in writing gets heard at the Pentagon Click here to visit our advertiser. TIME.com: Welcome to America's Most Diverse City file:///O|/Common/john's request for saving news ...ME_com Welcome to America's Most Diverse City.htm (2 of 3) [10/28/2002 12:58:08 PM]