Compton as a Character and Narrative: Exploring How Place Impacts Identity

• In Event: 34.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 34.095-1 - Community-Based Inquiry as Critical, Caring, and Transformative

Abstract

The city of Compton has long held a notorious connotation and general audiences around the world associate the name and space with gangsta rap and violence. However, the characteristics of the city have greatly changed since it first gained its fame. Limited research has been done on the citizens of the city to explore how individuals negotiate and mediate their own lived experiences with how non-residents might prescribe identities onto them. This paper aims to discuss how youth in the city navigate this process of identity negotiation and how it might impact their education, schooling and adult identity. Youth describe how they resist and demand spaces, in and outside of Compton, for wider narratives.

Author

• Abigail Lopez, Yetunde Price Resource Center