Burbank: The Smallest Big City in California

Photo above — My father who immigrated from El Salvador to the United States, and my mother who immigrated from Mexico to the United States

My father and mother who have lived in California ever since they left their home countries, lived in San Gabriel for 15 years before moving to Burbank. I have lived in Burbank all my life, and it is the only city that I have ever known. I know all there is to do in Burbank but have never tried to talk to the people who live in this beautiful city. All of the people I know who are from here are my peers, so I never really explored outside of my age group.

My parents were forced to move to Burbank because my older brother attended school in Burbank. My parents worked in Burbank and did not want to leave my brother alone in San Gabriel, but when the school district found out that my parents lived in San Gabriel, they had eight days to move to Burbank or remove my brother from the school. Burbank has changed in many ways, but to me it has changed visually. So many new businesses and freeways that were not there when I was growing up are now there. Some of the businesses that I used to enjoy are also gone now, which makes me sad when I think about the fun times I had there.

This Trump Train event took place last week at a Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank last week on August 21. Many people showed up to the rally that they were having.

A concern that I have noticed is that I feel as if many people in Burbank are misinformed through the things they see on social media. My parents are also victims to the misinformation that is put out on social media. For example, my mom will come up to me and say “Did you see this?” and I read the article and it comes from a completely unreliable source. I get my news from Twitter and I believe that the majority of people in my age group also receive their news from social media. But I believe that the older age groups get their information from the news. I would like to get to know more about how the people in my community get their news and what they see as a reliable source. With this pandemic and everything that is going on in the world, I believe that now is a perfect time to see people for who they really are and what they actually believe in. I also believe that the people of Burbank are not represented enough because every time Burbank is in the news, it is always about the studios here and never about the people. The difference that representation would make would be that people would have a better understanding of the people who live here.