Burlington High School
Burlington, Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
The Good, The Bad, and The Diverse
By Megan Handley
12th Grade
Most people don’t realize that all the things we do are a part of our community. The air we breathe, the car we drive, the people in our everyday lives— they are all a part of it and we never take the time to ponder our real existence.
My community has been very much changed in the last couple of months— more so than many others around me. The people I’m around everyday, the home I live in, the places I can go, the things I can do are all different because of one small but large change.
My unique community is my new home. I don’t live with my parents anymore so the fact that I have a different environment to go home to every night is something very unique in itself. I live with a great friend who has a great family who welcomed me with open arms. To think about how that has affected my life is amazing. People never realize that we are nothing without the people we interact with. The fact is, there would be no way to be myself if I didn’t have someone or something there to show me how to be different. Being in a different home each night is something that really makes me open up my options.
Being myself is not completely my fault. My nuclear family, my parents and little brother, are the foundation that was laid before I found my own plans of what I wanted to do. I was supported throughout anything I wanted to do; [my family] helped me…realize that I can do anything I want to. I feel strongly [about] the reasoning behind their actions, and I understand that they are trying to help. I could not ask for more.
My parents were also raised under a good arm. Both being the babies in their families, my aunts and uncles, whom I love and care for also, were always looking out for my mother and father. Most of my more extended family has passed, but the ones that we still have affect us in every way every day. They are the people that we turn to when we have a problem. The younger [generation] turn to them as role models.
We must also take in to consideration that my ancestors have also played a big role in how we are raised. They built the tradition that has kept going through all these generations and…they did something right because we are still following in their path years and years later.
There are many similarities in one’s local, national, and worldly communities. Everywhere we are trying to be individuals and yet everyone is exactly the same. In our local community, many of the teens are starting to [understand] themselves and are breaking out of the little box small-town America has put them in. I, for one, broke out of that box a long time ago. Our community is not very supportive of anyone; we get judged for what we wear, how we act, and what we listen to. I think that if small towns took some lessons from the rest of the world there would be a lot more diversity all across America. The nation as a whole is somewhat okay with respecting peoples’ wishes about being different, but I think with some breaking out, we could be so much better. Also, the world as a whole, all of us, needs to take respect lessons because all the nations here and in Europe should try and make some more attempts in respect and peace.
I look at my community in a new way because I am in a new environment. I interpret the way people act and dress by looking at the way they live. I believe that if a person is in a community where everything is the same one is more prone to breakout. I think that is why I don’t act like everyone else. I am in a new environment where everything is exactly alike so I am more likely to break away due to the restrictions in this society.
[I] think about all the diversity that goes into making a community what it is, I think about all the communities in the world that don’t accept diversity and shun it. In my new community I believe it is important to accept all types of differences because there is no one type of person anywhere. Everyone is different and to stereotype would be to criticize the whole town…. [Without tolerance] I don’t think there would be any communities at all.