OC or LA?

FROM day one in our class I feel like I became the "LA-Hater" of the group. Now that I reflect back on my comments in that first meeting I would not say that I change how I feel, but that perhaps I came on a bit too strong. Part of my reaction came from the various students who hailed from Orange County like myself. I was surprised to hear that so many of them sang LA's praises while slamming OC to the curb. I felt it was my duty as a proud citizen to defend the OC in class seeing as no one else was going to. But this has only unearthed so many different sentiments of mine about Orange County in comparison to Los Angeles.

The funny thing about Orange County is that not one person began referring to it as "the OC" until the TV show came out. I was in eighth grade and the phenomenon seemed to happen overnight. Suddenly there were t-shirts that read "I Love OC", mimicking the classic "I Love NY" design. While the show skyrocketed into popularity for teenagers and young adults, it still left many OC citizens with a bad taste in their mouth. The show created so many stereotypes and misconceptions about how we lived (plus, none of it was even filmed in Orange County, all of it was in LA... as if we didn't have enough reason to dislike them enough already!). Going to school in Santa Ana, a diverse location of OC, I recall my friends saying that it should be called "White People in LA", because that's all it was. When "The Jersey Shore" came out I simply laughed at the furious citizens of New Jersey. It was the same thing that happened to Orange County years prior that no one seemed to care about (but hey, at least OUR show was scripted! Mischa Barton was fed embarrassing lines while Snooki didn't need any help).

Later, I remember being at Freshman Orientation. People laughed at me when I told them how coming to Los Angeles for college would be a huge transition. They didn't think Orange County would be too much of a stretch from the city. But when I tried to convince them differently they were more concerned with where "The Real Housewives" lived. To this day, I still am on a crusade of sorts to educate people about the real side of OC. What people fail to acknowledge is the diversity, community and many unique areas of my county. People are so quick to assume that life in Orange County was full of glamour and privilege. But this is not always the case. For instance, at my high school in Anaheim we had multiple lockdown drills a year and even heard the gunshots occur while out at lunch. I've also worked at many a soup kitchen or homeless shelter in Orange County. Not everything is the idealized or glamorized version of OC that people see on TV. And sure, Orange County probably owes a lot of its success to Los Angeles, but I still think we have established ourselves enough to be considered as two separate places by this point. Like I said, so many of my criticisms of Los Angeles have probably come as a result of defending my own city in Orange County.

-- Reilly Wilson

DEPARTURES -- L.A. STYLE

FOR those of you digging deep into the city proper, trying to get at its elusive heart, local public television station, KCET has been putting together a series of online projects that feature the City of Angels in hyper-local closeup. From the slip of water sliding through a concrete bed we call the L.A. River and the personal stories we find laced along freeway over-passes, pylons and garages via street art to Venice's skateparks and Chinatown's historic treasures, the project, "Departures," attempts to tell the story of L.A.'s diverse and disparate communities -- from the the point of view of the people who live, work, organize, raise-children, plant gardens and plan to "never leave here"; boosters in their own vivid, idiosyncratic way:

Juan Devis, Departures' director of production and program management, recently visited LMU's campus as part of the English Department's LAy of the LAnd conference, sitting in on a panel on new media, blogging and the city as subject. Devis discussed the challenges of covering a city as diverse and constantly-changing as Los Angeles. He also said that the Departure's crew is looking for volunteers to help cross the expanse of the city -- to seek-out, interview, research and gather information about the nooks and crannies of the city that get left out in the larger telling of the city's story. For journalists working in L.A. over many decades, this has been one of more frustrating aspects of mainstream media -- a tunnel-vision style of reportage that doesn't fully educate the reader/viewer about the complexity of Los Angeles , rather confirms the stereotypes that often continue to float by as truths.

Check out their site here to see the range of subjects and communities that the project has already explored. If you'd like to lend a hand as a volunteer you can contact Devis via the site or come speak to me for details.

-- L.G.