Word: suburbanity
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Abby Barnes' hand shoots up nearly every time her teacher asks the 19 squirmy first-graders in her suburban Philadelphia public school to match letters of the alphabet to the sounds they make. Sitting up front with her pinchable cheeks framed by long blond hair, Abby, 7, looks as eager as any of her classmates to blurt out an answer. But every time the teacher calls on her, Abby freezes. Her face tightens. She strains to respond. And even if an answer manages to get past her lips, her words are inaudible. She's effectively mute throughout the school...
...recognition. There are equally empathetic, if more sober, nods when Grace Chang Lucarelli, 32, speaking in a soft Texan drawl, recalls "people making fun of me" because she was one of the few Asian Americans in her town. The people around the table grew up in rural Texas, suburban New Jersey, upstate New York, small-town Virginia and the real O.C. But they are the children of parents who immigrated to the U.S. from India, the Philippines, Korea, Bangladesh and Taiwan. What they share, says Korean American Suzette Won Haas, 31, is the sense of "feeling like the hyphen...
...Yohan is, in most ways, a typical Korean-American retiree. He lives in an unremarkable house in suburban New Jersey, volunteers at his church, and passes time watching old cartoons with the volume turned up too loud. But his visions are darker. He sees dead people, and they're not your typical brand of horror-movie phantoms either. They're the victims of his brutal killings 50 years ago during the Korean War. Days at Yohan's home may be filled with recycled Road Runner gags, but nights are a constant replay of the Ghosts of War Crimes Past...
...Chickens Out. The network pulled its summer reality show Welcome to the Neighborhood, because critics complained that its premise -- a group of families compete to win a house on an insular, mainly white suburban cul-de-sac -- was offensive. Problem was, the complainers never saw the show. If they had, they'd have seen a thought-provoking, quality reality series that not only raised prejudices but actually caused its participants to confront and learn about them. Our reality -- that Americans often live in self-segregated neighborhoods -- is offensive. This smothered-in-the-cradle reality show...
...Watch This Show or We'll Shoot This Kid. Finally, speaking of cradles and violence, TV's crime-procedural addiction continued unabated, this year upping the ante with ghastly, manipulative stories of crime against children, on shows from TNT's Wanted (child rape) to CBS's suburban crime drama Close to Home (abuse, imprisonment, etc.). Baby New Year, watch your back...