It has been really difficult to live in a state that is notorious for gangs, especially gangs that don’t resemble me. It is even more difficult when it comes time to apply for a job and I am faced with hiring committees that often are dominated by one gang, or another. It is even worse when it is a gang that seems to have money and power in this state. I was denied a summer job today after being interviewed by a team of all Latino managerial staff members. I have never been one to say I felt uncomfortable being the only white person, and only female, in an interview session, but I feel like I need to say it now. It made me uncomfortable. I could see them exchange looks to one another, while on the virtual camera, as if to insinuate that I didn’t fit in with their clique. I had the qualifications as a first responder for this job position, and have been previously employed by that employer. I even made a rescue that was noted in a previous year. I hate to say that, because it sounds like bragging, but it is part of my job experience.

I know someone is going to comment to the effect of, “why can’t you just apply in another California city where the hiring committee looks more like you?” My answer: “you want me to go apply in the hills and hope the skins take pity on me?” My blood type is NOT rh+. Why does that matter? Because California is full of blood gangs. There. I said it. I can’t just go sit at a different lunch table with all the other white people, as a metaphor for this instance. I’m not one of them, and it has been like this my whole life. So who can I sit with? I hate to make employment sound like a prison yard from a TV show here, but in some ways it is.

I used to think it was just the way my peers behaved in high school, but I soon realized girls on my volleyball team would never speak to me because it less about “people who went to their church”, and more about people who were part of their blood gang. Their church was a cover for a white blood gang where everyone was rh+. I was more than welcome to play tennis, even though many of my teammates didn’t look like me. Why? Because they weren’t part of some huge blood gang that was pretending to be a clique formed around a church group. Where are they now? Who knows. Maybe they joined that “church”, or maybe they moved out of California and had families of their own. Well, why doesn’t my older sister have these problems, then? She isn’t my biological sister. Apparently, she’s just a distant cousin that was raised with me, but I’m not really supposed to discuss it. There are a lot of issues like that with family, and how people are related, or not related.

Long story short, I feel like I need to move to another state. So where to? Alabama? Texas? North Carolina? I’m a registered democrat who gives blood every eight weeks to save the lives of newborns at the children’s hospital in this area. Most of the time, the babies saved by my blood are Latino/Latina. Oh, and the child I rescued in 2021, was African American. It doesn’t matter. As soon as groups (god forbid I say gangs) see my face, all they care about is the fact that I don’t look like everyone around here. Suddenly, I’m the enemy and I didn’t even do anything wrong. I’ve spent my whole life in California, for the most part. I have over 600 relatives in the South. You think they want to meet me? You think they’d like me? No, probably not. So where the hell am I supposed to go?!?