Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 01:14:10 GMT From: watcher_2000nopsameja.com Subject: Re: "White Trash"
I especially liked the accompanying photograph which showed her light hair in braids, her light eyes clearly evident, and her dress complete with head scarf which gives her the likeness of "Heidi". She would look at home skipping through the Alps. I thought it interesting that poor, working class White folks from the often disparaged "trailer park" could produce such a child while the whole of the black race-including those who are well off-can not. In article <8nq3ns$vn5$1nopsam1.deja.com>, watcher_2000nopsameja.com wrote: > In article <20000819201549.24048.00000550nopsamu1.aol.com>, > connmoorenopsamcom (ConnMoore) wrote: > Straight from the trailer park. Perhaps I should have made the heading > "Trailer Trash"? > From the Saturday, August 19th 2000 Los Angeles Times, Valley Edition, > section B, page 10: > > She's Only 14, but > More Than Ready to > Hit the College Books > By MATTHEW EBNET > TIMES STAFF WRITER > > FULLERTON-The mother and daughter sit not two feet apart at a table at > Cal > State Fullerton, and it's clear the two still live in vastly different > worlds. > It is more than a generation gap. The mother, a waitress, is 35, and the > daughter, a genius, is 14. But today the two somehow are closer than > ever, > partly because the high-school-educated mother perused her daughter's > textbooks for the first time, but mostly because it's the day they've > come > to Orange County to put a little girl from Idyllwild in college. > Shawna Carlson on Tuesday will become the youngest person ever to > attend Cal > State Fullerton full time. To boot, she's entering as a junior and > taking > five classes, one more than a full load. > "She was my first child," said Cheryl Carlson, Shawna's mother. "I > thought > it was normal . . . how smart she was, how she was walking when she was > 7 > months . . . It took a while to realize what we were dealing with. But > here > we are." > Shawna, who uses phrases such as "layered contextual stuff" and out of > boredom slept through classes at Mt. San Jacinto College, where she got > her > associate degree this year in social behavioral studies, will continue > to > live with her parents in a mobile home in the Riverside County mountain > community of Idyllwild. But three days a week, she'll live with her > grandmother in Fullerton, taking classes two days and studying on the > other. > Does she have trepidation about attending a four-year school? > "When I was [in community college] I didn't really understand pressures > or > that I was different from other people in class. I was studying. I don't > feel any pressure now." Shawna said she might not be old enough to > understand the pressures of being so young at a university. All the > better, > she said. "I'm here for the teachers." > Shawna defies stereotypes. She is not a geek; friends come to her > birthday > parties. She fights with her two younger sisters over compact discs. > It's hard to tell when folks realized Shawna's mind contained such > multitudes. It could have been when she walked before crawling. Or when > she > began reading adult books at 4. Or when she balanced the family's > finances > before she was 10. But her mother figures the realization might have > come > the day Shawna was reading some fat book on the couch. "I couldn't go > near > her. She was in another world. She was 7." > > Wants to Pursue > a Career in Law > > Shawna has read George Orwell's "1984" 10 times. She read "War and > Peace" > twice, but the book bored her. For a while, computers tweaked her mind. > Her > job last summer was to help an Idyllwild man build Web sites and > computers. > She built a PC from scratch. But that eventually bored her, too. She > didn't > want "a life in a cubicle behind a computer. Ugh." > And so she wants to become a lawyer. She's majoring in political > science and > political justice, and wants to be a criminal prosecutor. > But with her brains, why Cal State Fullerton and not Harvard or UCLA? > Cheryl Carlson and her 39-year-old husband Doug, a roofer, simply don't > want > their daughter that far away, or in a town without relatives, or in a > city > whose harshness would break a small-town girl. > Beyond that, the parents say, they weren't aware of scholarships and > grants > that could help her. > Shawna's parents are paying for her education and saving to give her a > laptop, something she's wanted since she was 7. > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.
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