The 'others' in our communities
As I discussed last week, I grew up in the Southside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis is a diverse city, but as is often the case, people with shared identities live in certain areas with their community. This is both an effect of self-selection, as well as property expenses dividing socioeconomic groups- and the legacy of redlining in the city. I grew up on the border of the Powderhorn and Phillips neighborhoods in Minneapolis. My neighborhood is made up of primarily middle and working-class households. There are a large number of immigrants and first and second generation immigrants from South and Central America, as well as Eastern Africa, specifically Somali. Minneapolis actually has one of the highest populations of people of Somali descent outside of Eastern Africa, and the highest population of Somali-Americans in the US is in the Southside of Minneapolis. Often when people immigrate to a new country they face the issue of ‘othering’, and they are treated as outsiders