West Haven, Connecticut

The town of West Haven was quite an interesting town. It looks more interesting in retrospect. It seems like a place with clashing values of different people coming together to form an altogether different picture of small city America. It is not quite a suburb, but not city enough for its own residents to confuse it as a suburb.

My perspective, despite having lived there for two years, remains that of an outsider. The town left this eerie feeling in me, the feeling that it is not the place I would consider moving into in my future. No, I did not live in a hellish town with strange people, but I lived in a very different place. I was amazed when I realized that a good number of my friends did not have both parents living under the same roof [reluctant to call it a broken home]. It was the shock of a culture very different from what I was used to in Saudi Arabia that may be responsible for these feelings. But, I have lived in New York for a tiny period, nothing can be more shocking than that. Perhaps it was the fact that I did not meet what I expected. I was afraid of a huge white culture and even dreaded having to begin High School there. Instead, I faced a relatively mixed culture (about a third were African American in town). The only problem was, the blacks and whites seemed to mix like oil and water (or maybe my perception was twisted). Race aside, the place was, well, depressing. The town itself did not have much things of interest other than plenty of car garages and seafood restaurants. But, knowing me, that should not be a thing to complain about.

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