examples

Growing Up: Subject to the Scenery of Suburbia

Looking back on my adolescence, at first glance, growing up in a

working-class suburb of the Portland-Metro area seemed unremarkable. On

the surface, my upbringing was very typical of any other kid’s suburban

experience, except maybe with an extra dash of evangelical Christianity. Yet

perhaps the typicalness in and of itself of my suburban upbringing is a

testament to the powerful hegemonic forces at play.

The suburbs are conceptually rooted uniformity and sameness. Our

neighborhood had a pretty strict HOA (Homeowners Association), so lawns

were kept free of trash and yard clutter, and pretty much everyone kept the

grass trimmed short. If someone’s lawn started to get unruly and overgrown,

neighbors would reach out and offer to mow the unkempt lawn. It wasn’t a

hostile thing, usually, lawn owners would happily accept the help as a good

neighborly deed. This kept each lawn on the block looking as neat and tidy as

the one next door, and the next door down, and so on. As far as families go, I

don’t think there was a single family on our block that didn’t have two

cohabitating parents with a gaggle of kids ranging from 2 to as many as 4

(that was our family, I have 3 sisters). There were a few older couples with

grown children who had moved on to have families of their own. I remember

there was one nice lesbian couple who gave out the best candy on Halloween

and would let us use their pool in the summers, even when they weren’t

home. Everyone was white.

The hegemony is a funny thing because although it’s self-protecting

outcomes can be detrimental to society in big ways, it operates quietly in

such a way that it often goes unnoticed by its participants. You could

hypothetically live your entire life happily, passively submitting to a cultural

hegemony you’re completely unaware of, but once you veer, knowingly or

unknowingly, from the prescribed path of these hegemonic forces, you’re

either obligated to self-correct or bear the unfamiliar weight and discomfort

of non-conformity. Whichever path you choose to take, what’s true

regardless is that you’re then forced to face facts: the unconditional

acceptance you’ve always been accustomed to is no longer unconditional,

and it never really was.

Being subject to these hegemonic forces, like neatness, heteronormativity,

whiteness, evangelical Christianity, and the nuclear family to name a few,

shaped my childhood in its entirety. As we all know, childhood experiences

often have a profound impact on the way we carry ourselves as individuals

and sometimes even reverberates throughout the way we choose to lead our

lives as adults. I often wonder what my life would look like now, had I been

subject to a different set of hegemonic forces in my environment and

inherited belief systems during my formative years. The results can be hard,

even impossible, to quantify but I do believe that by looking over our

shoulders at where we’ve been and choosing to examine the subliminal

cultural messages that have been internalized by us, we are then able to have

more active control over the forces that are shaping us in the present, and in

who we finally choose to become.

This music video isn’t entirely related to my suburban experience, but I

thought it touched on some interesting hegemonic themes in suburban life.

For those that are sensitive to violence, there’s a smidge towards the end of

the video (fistfight) so if you’re not into that I’d recommend looking it up on

Spotify and giving it a listen there. The song is called “The Suburbs” and it’s

written and performed by the band Arcade Fire. Thanks for reading! Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2noOPCt-o4c