What does the word “community” mean to me? Community means unity. You cannot literally or figuratively spell the word “community” without spelling unity. Communities are very important. They represent one of the basic social structures A community means to me a group of people that live in close proximity with each other. Communities represent  They have to live in the same vicinity, share many similarities, and may be of similar racial, ethnic, social, or socioeconomic backgrounds. The word “community” is sometimes used interchangeably with the word “neighborhood.” How did my neighborhood growing up foster or not foster community? That question is very hard for me to answer, because as I am working on this assignment, I am one month shy of my 23rd birthday. I was born on April 14, 1991.

Throughout my lifetime, I have lived in different neighborhoods. I have lived in Oakland, Ca; Antioch, Ca; Tracy, Ca; and Santa Cruz, Ca. As I start out with Oakland, Ca, I would say that my neighborhood did not really foster community. I understand that it was a poor inner-city neighborhood. Across the street from where I lived there were drug dealers who were frequently arrested for their illegal activities. As a young boy, I was told by my parents not to interact with them. I could only interact with the other neighbors who did not partake in illegal activities. The streets of East Oakland where I lived were obviously not safe, just like any inner-city in the United States.

When I moved to Antioch, Ca, an East Bay suburb on Sunday, March 9, 2003, I experienced a safer, more affluent, neighborhood. My neighborhood had already fostered community, but our family had just moved in, so we did not really feel like we belonged, which is normal. I had normal interactions with my neighbors. After a few years, from the mid to late 2000’s, I experienced a change. The neighborhood experienced a socioeconomic change. The socioeconomics of the neighborhood had decreased. I would not have said it was a bad neighborhood like Oakland, it was just changing. The streets were still mostly safe.

I then moved with my family to Tracy, Ca, a city in the San Joaquin County, on June 26, 2009, it was very similar to Antioch, it was in a suburban area, with a few areas that looked more urban and rural. The neighborhoods are very safe. My relationship with my neighbors are normal, I do not really interact with them. My family and I have a special relationship to our neighbors to the right because we both have many similarities. They are from the same ethnic group and region in Nigeria as us. We are both Igbo, descended from Southeastern Nigeria,  and we are both Nigerian Americans. Additionally, their children attend UC Riverside, while I attend UC Santa Cruz.