What I learnerd from segregation in my own town

Learning about the places you live in is a very eye opening experience. It teaches you a lot about yourself such as your beliefs, cultural identity, how you view others ect.. I am happy that I am able to learn about Waukesha and what culture makes up the majority of my city. The way I view my city and its culture has changed so much from the views I started off with. Before I started this project about segregation I had the view that Waukesha was just another city with more of one race than another and you had to be careful of where you went if you weren't of the same skin color. After my learning about Waukesha and its culture I found out that, yes, this city is comprised of mostly people of Mexican decent but they are hard working people trying to keep their cultural identity true to their people. From the restaurants, to the Mexican specialty grocery stores, to the hair salons, they are all working together to make sure their culture feels safe and at home in this city. My interview with my Indian friend made me also see that in a city that has a majority of one cultural group tends to make other cultural groups band together and keep within their own family groups to feel safe and comfortable. Carroll College is at the center of Waukesha brining in people from other states and backgrounds for their education, with this college being here is helps people understand the differences of where people come from and that we can all live and be together even when there is major segregation.

Segregation--Looking at my Surroundings

While traveling through Waukesha, you see many different restaurants and retail stores catered to the cities ethnic population. Since our city has a very large Mexican influence most of our stores are focused on their culture.

Here in this picture we have a grocery store on Sunset drive in Waukesha called "Panos" this store sells ingredients for the Mexican culture that you could not find in regular grocery stores.

Sunsetta is another shop that specializes in ethnic hair cuts. Ethnic hair is very different than the average white persons hair, there is a lot more involved with how you cut it. I am a hairstylist and I have found that people such as Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Indian races all try and go to places with people of the same race that know how to cut their hair type. Places such as Sunsetta make for segregation because cultures don't seem to venture out and try different places, they stick to what is comfortable.

Segregation in Waukesha

Throughout the early parts of my life I grew up out in the country, I'm talking about farm land and not a person for miles. If we would go out into the city (Milwaukee) we always knew what parts of town to stay away from. every part of town had their own culture, there are the Mexican communities, the Chinese or Mung communities and the African American communities. Every culture tends to stay to themselves and don't really take to other cultures intruding on their space. When I was 20 years old I moved to Waukesha another town close to Milwaukee. I noticed that things were exactly the same as Milwaukee but on a smaller scale, with more ethnicities. For example Waukesha has a very strong Mexican influence the majority of the people who live in Waukesha are Latino, even to the point that Waukesha has their own supermarkets specifically for specialty Mexican food that you wouldn't be able to find at a normal grocery store. Despite the Mexican influence there are other cultural influences as well such as a strong Indian community. The college that is in the center of Waukesha, Carrol College is home to a strong diverse community of college students. As a hairstylist in Waukesha I get the pleasure of cutting some of these students hair. I was able to interview one of my clients who I became friends with through the last couple years about his culture. He is Indian American who's parents are from India. Here is my interview with him. Here is the link to our interview! Interview about culture and segregation.

While traveling through Waukesha, you see many different restaurants and retail stores catered to the cities ethnic population. Since our city has a very large Mexican influence most of our stores are focused on their culture.

Here in this picture we have a grocery store on Sunset drive in Waukesha called "Panos" this store sells ingredients for the Mexican culture that you could not find in regular grocery stores.

Sunsetta is another shop that specializes in ethnic hair cuts. Ethnic hair is very different than the average white persons hair, there is a lot more involved with how you cut it. I am a hairstylist and I have found that people such as Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Indian races all try and go to places with people of the same race that know how to cut their hair type. Places such as Sunsetta make for segregation because cultures don't seem to venture out and try different places, they stick to what is comfortable.



Learning about the places you live in is a very eye opening experience. It teaches you a lot about yourself such as your beliefs, cultural identity, how you view others ect.. I am happy that I am able to learn about Waukesha and what culture makes up the majority of my city. The way I view my city and its culture has changed so much from the views I started off with. Before I started this project about segregation I had the view that Waukesha was just another city with more of one race than another and you had to be careful of where you went if you weren't of the same skin color. After my learning about Waukesha and its culture I found out that, yes, this city is comprised of mostly people of Mexican decent but they are hard working people trying to keep their cultural identity true to their people. From the restaurants, to the Mexican specialty grocery stores, to the hair salons, they are all working together to make sure their culture feels safe and at home in this city. My interview with my Indian friend made me also see that in a city that has a majority of one cultural group tends to make other cultural groups band together and keep within their own family groups to feel safe and comfortable. Carroll College is at the center of Waukesha brining in people from other states and backgrounds for their education, with this college being here is helps people understand the differences of where people come from and that we can all live and be together even when there is major segregation.