Welcome to Inglewood — Leave Your Aspirations Behind

What a great article. I know this was written several years ago, but while I was cruising around the internet today, I found this on a link re: Inglewood, CA. Inglewood is my hometown, and as you can see, I am now many miles from "home". I grew up there in the '60's, and enjoyed every minute. Thank you for taking me back to a place in time where everyday brought someting or someone interesting...black, white, brown, young, old. I actually remember sitting at the counter at Woolworth's on Market Street, sipping the afternoon away with a cherry coke. I hope in the years since you wrote this, Inglewood is on the upside of improvement.

Good read. I grew up around Manchester and Inglewood Ave as one of the only white families in the neighborhood in the 90's. Save for a few Mom & Pop shops like the tailor, watch repair and shoe repair shops, my family always did all of our shopping in Westchester or further out in West LA.

Even looking beyond the sometimes uncomfortable racial boundaries, there was just really nothing for me in Inglewood. My parents knew better than to send me and my brother to the fairly awful local schools, opting instead to use a relative's address in Los Angeles in order to enroll us in magnet schools in LAUSD. Living in Inglewood was my "secret identity" growing up. My mom and dad often warned my brother and me that if the school ever found out that we lived out of district, they would kick us out promptly.

Every so often as I made my way through school, I found other secret Inglewood residents. We never discussed the details of how we managed to attend school in LA, it was like an unspoken code of silence, but it was always a comforting surprise to know that other kids had to go through the same trouble.