Week 3: My Relo Life

My Relo Life

As I read Brooke’s “Suburban Life and Place-Conscious Education: The Problem of Local Citizenship,” I recognized myself as part of a Relo family. In my early years, my family’s moves were partly based on my father’s spirit of adventure, and only partly based on his career aspirations. Once my father learned that it would be difficult for my mother to stay in America if we were out of the country for more than a year at a time, we began living the Relo life.

We lived in what my father called “bedroom towns” in Massachusetts. In our first town, Hudson (maybe not quite a Relo), I thought I was in heaven since before this, I was in Taiwan and quite lonely for kids my age. In Hudson, we had a street full of kids from different cultures. Our next-door neighbors were from England—and so were some neighbors further down the street. The neighbors across the street had an Indonesian father and a Dutch mother. The mother liked to joke that when they fought, they would fight in two different languages so that neither one’s feelings would get hurt too much. Another family was Italian. Many of the families were new to America; and if they were not new to America, they were new to life in the suburbs. I remember playing hide and seek in the woods, riding bikes, swinging on swings, and the older kids playing ball in the street. I still keep in contact with some of those families—families that lived there their entire lives. When I got back in touch with my old next door neighbor to see where he had moved, he said he had moved away from Hudson; then he said he moved a whole three miles away!

Now my future neighborhoods in Glendale, Arizona; Northboro, Massachusetts; and Colorado Springs, Colorado were more likely what is meant by Relovilles. We lived in new developments, where people did move in and out quite frequently. In Colorado Springs, especially, the city is known for being a place no one is from. Honestly, this was one of my favorite places growing up. I liked it because it seemed that there were more things to do (skiing, hiking, biking, panning for gold,…) and endless places to visit. Maybe it was just a Massachusetts thing, but we never went anywhere in Massachusetts except on field trips to historical sites. We were entrenched in Revolutionary War history, and it seemed that every year we would visit Lexington and Concord and stand on a field. As a child, I was not impressed.

Colorado Springs

I really didn’t understand why anyone would care to live in one place until I met my husband, who felt a very strong connection to his home and family.

In my family, the job came first. If my father could get a promotion by moving, then we would move. Of course, his nature was to look for such possibilities, but we never questioned the moves. Usually, he would ask me if I wanted to move, and I would always agree. Brooke writes, “For the young people who grow up in any form of suburbia, the dominant message is of migration in service of career.” This was also the expectation for us, and when I finished my M.A., I simply went where I was offered a teaching job. I know others aren’t as lucky to find a job so quickly, but I sometimes wondered if people weren’t being too picky about where they lived. I had several full-time jobs before my husband and I both found full-time jobs in one place, and here we are. I’m afraid if we were too committed to staying in one place, we would not be able to do what we love.

In my Intermediate Writing class, I once taught this poem as part of the unit on places:

In the Suburbs
by Louis Simpson

There's no way out.
You were born to waste your life.
You were born to this middleclass life.

As others before you
Were born to walk in procession
To the temple, singing.

But my students did not get it. When I pressed them further, one of them said, “Living in the suburbs is my dream.” This student had grown up in poverty, and her only hope was to be able to afford a safe, stable home. For those who grew up in suburbia, what they remember are the sleep-overs, games of tag, swing-sets,… I don’t know that they think anything is missing unless we tell them there is!

For me, even though I always lived in suburbia, once my mother learned to drive, we would spend a lot of time with recent immigrants or refugees. My mother is from Northern Thailand, but her native language is actually Lao. As she met recent refugees from Laos when we lived in Massachusetts, we would spend quite a bit of time at their houses. Some of her best friends lived in an apartment complex in Worcester on the top floor, and the place terrified me. If you read my first blog, you know I was a scared child anyway. Next door to the apartment building was a liquor store with bars on the windows. My mother never seemed to be worried about the neighborhood since she sent me to the store to get cigarettes for her when I was a kid. But I would run back up those steps as fast as I could.

At home, I was at least safe. I imagine that is what draws so many people to the newer developments. They don’t want to have to hear gun shots or worry about their kids playing outside. My students are going to school so that they can live in these “nice” places.

As for Sobel and Bishop, I do believe that place should be a strong part of the K-12 curriculum (I'm still thinking about its incorporation in my own college classes). It seems that it already must be a big part here in Nebraska since my kids have no desire to ever leave Nebraska! My fifth grader, who doesn’t like to read, loved reading Spring Came on Forever, a book about the pioneer experience.  Even though it is sometimes practical to leave a place in search of a job, the more people committed to a place, the more unified the community will be.

For me, my family has always been my “place.” I never minded moving, but now that I’m older, I sometimes wish we had just stayed near my great aunt and uncle in our first home in America. Now that they’re gone, it seems that a lot of time was wasted looking for that perfect place, perfect job. My family encouraged this individualistic sense, but sometimes I wish I hadn’t listened. Now, my father's in California, my mother's in Colorado, my father's remaining relatives are in Tennessee, and my mother's remaining brother and his family are still in Thailand. I feel very lucky that my younger sister decided to live near us and lives in Nebraska now.




My mom is in yellow, my uncle Meechai is second from the left, but the others are family I do not know.

It is hard to think about the family we do not see often--or even know well enough to miss. Something was definitely missing in my family's pursuit of the perfect place. I hope I can create a more grounded life for my children.