I was born and raised in San Francisco, and lived there for the first eleven years of my life. If you know about San Francisco, then you probably know that there are sections of San Francisco that people "claim", and I place my "claim" in the Bayview Hunters Point region. It is know to be very urban, and a violent. However, these are all things that people I've encountered have "claimed". I never really paid attention to neighborhood influences, but more so to how my environment at school and home influenced me.
I can't say that my neighborhood, didn't influence me, but it did give me a new pair of eyes to things I did not experience. Growing up in my area with most people the same race as me, and going to a very diverse school could seem like a push & pull situation. However, I seemed to be more involved with the environment that I was not used to: school. I seemed to enjoy putting myself in situations that I wasn't used to, but I still remembered where I came from & the people who were like me, in color. The people I hung out with usually seemed to be a different race than me, and I had no problem with it, but "my people" thought that I was betraying them.
Even though they felt this way towards me, I did not hold any grudges, and change who I was. Instead, I explained to them that I wasn't a different person, but just putting myself in a different situation to see the difference. People who are the same race as me now seem to be coming around with other races and environments. This would not be so much gentrification, but more like a race settings or racism, in general. It does feel like gentrification plays a small part, though. The different ethnicity of students, and my race of people not coping with the fact that I was willing to branch out is an example of gentrification, just without the housing changes.
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