Week 4: Lanterman Developmental Center

This past weekend, I went home and ended up exploring somewhere that is fairly close to home. Pomona is a few cities over and quite close by, and I remembered that once a few years ago, we accidentally drove into a gated and walled off area, which I later learned was the Lanterman Developmental Center. Lanterman is essentially a rehabilitation center that provides services and supports people with developmental disabilities who need specialised care or caretakers. I had David Sibley's "Mapping the Pure and the Defiled" in mind when I visited this location. In the article, Sibley talks about how those in higher social positions, for example the wealthy and sometimes even the bourgeoise, often design the city in a way that geographically isolates the poorer. They saw this "as a process of purification, designed to exclude groups variously identified as polluting"(383).

I had to drive about 20 from my house to the location. On the day that I went, the gates were closed, so I parked somewhere nearby and got out to walk around briefly. It's the kind of place you stumble upon; when you actually go looking for it, it's difficult, and it's certainly not close to where the rest of the city lives and works.  It's actually around a well-populated residential area, but they designed it so it seems secluded, with a lot of trees surrounding and a gate in front. I think it's supposed to give the impression of being a sanctuary for the patients inside. However, for people on the other side of that (somewhat-figurative) fence, it seems like they're containing the patients. To be completely honest, I felt a little nervous getting out of my car and walking around, although it was in broad daylight. That I think is also a result of what society teaches us. Mental patients aren't dangerous, but then why do they have to be walled off from the rest of us? Why can't they come back out and live as 'normal' members of society until they've been treated? It used to be that people isolated the poor and dirty (two terms that went hand in hand), but once sanitation methods were improved, people literally were not dirty anymore. Society's boundary shifted, and the "list of 'others'" grew to "[include] the mentally disabled, the homeless, prostitutes, and some racialised minorities"(387). The specific group of people being excluded might have changed, but the underlying idea remains the same. Society makes us think that we should be one way, and when people don't fit into the mold, it's becoming common to exclude geographically.