Definition Essay About Community

Community When considering the term “community” one must consider the different contexts of society in which this word fits. As a young girl at a suburban, mostly white school, my personal introduction to the word was simply, the collective of people in a neighborhood or part of town. It was not until I was witness to a particularly upsetting scene that I saw a stratification of particular groups of people within that community that I began to question my place. Many people are born into a community. Others, unwittingly find themselves as a part of one. Still, there are others who see themselves in the position of needing to build a community in which they can comfortably be a part of; a community which benefits them socially, emotionally
and even politically. That last group of people is the group I found myself belonging to, even before I truly understood the scope of what “community” meant.
It was a day in second grade and it was our lunch hour recess.
I was waiting for my friends on the playground when I heard some boys spitting abuse through the chain-link fence at a man who had dropped a grocery bag on the sidewalk. He was wearing pants that billowed with the breeze and a turban the color of the prettiest aqua sea glass. He looked up at these two boys with an unreadable expression, all the while rushing to get his items back into the bag that had fallen out of his arms and into the dirt. Surely most of his haste was in order to get away from these hateful creatures posing as patriotic boys. Somewhere between the yells of, “diaper head!” and “go back to your own country! All 70 pounds of me sprang into action. I hurled myself in between the fence and these boys and screamed at them to stop and learn some respect for their elders. The shock on their faces, which I can only assume was from the suddenness of my outburst, was enough to tell me that they would listen and shortly afterwards, they said their last parting shot of “dirty Indians” as they walked away. After they were finally far enough away for me to let my guard down, I turned to the man who could have easily impersonated my great grandfather, put my hands together and said the only words I knew in Punjabi, “Sat Srii Akaal.” The traditional Sikh greeting that I now know means “God is the ultimate truth” and in that moment, I felt so proud, like I had just protected a part of myself and my
heritage.
That feeling of accomplishment was short lived, because soon after, a couple of nearby yard duties came by to ask me what was going on. I explained the situation as best as I could without getting too riled up and at the end of my story, when I was almost to the point of tears one of the ladies just stared at me and asked “Ok, but why would you get involved?” Even 8 year old me could feel the implication of the question “Why do you care what someone says about some random Indian man?” That was only the beginning of many years of having my motives scrutinized because in these situations, I wasn’t being applauded for sticking up for what was right, I was being asked to explain myself, and when I was able to give a very basic explanation to them, people didn’t seem to believe me or understand it.