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Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir Questions
Question 1: Role of Outsiders
In the book “Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir”, the role of outsiders is to disrupt the social order of things in Lakewood. Residents of Lakewood are not very friendly to new ideas and are likely to react when “they see a ripple on the surface of their neighborhood, a defection from predictability” (23). Mrs. A is one such outsider who believes that beneath her house “the military, defense contractors, and the makers of nuclear waste toil and murder” (20). She is a conspiracy theorist that believes that the government is out to get her. One of her outrageous assertions is that “the NASA moon shots were financed by the distribution of a pornographic film of her rape by a McDonald’s fry cook and a professional football team” (21). Another social disruptor is Mr. H, who has covered more than ten tons of junk in his backyard that he probably steals at night during the night as a pickup truck driver. Lakewood resident require commitment and conformity, any other behavior aside from the pages of ordinances in the municipal code would result to harsh punishment, such as eviction or getting sent to jail. Unable to contain the behavior of Mr. H, the residents summon authorities to look into his affairs. As a result, “[he] spends more than sixty days in the county jail in downtown Los Angeles [and] when he returns from jail, the yard is empty, and the bank forecloses Mr. H’s Mortgage.” (26)
Question 2: Role of Shopping Center
The Weingart’s shopping center was an iconic landmark in Lakewood that became “a model for suburban retailing for the next thirty years” (56). According to XXXXX (70), it became a one-stop shopping mall for Lakewood residents with shoe stores, jewelry stores, chain clothing stores, office buildings, a hospital, a motel, a bowling alley, a post office, and county government offices, not to mention the large parking spaces that accommodated thousands of vehicles at a time. Joe Eichenbaum, who leased the whole property from Ben Weingart, ensured there were shopping malls at the intersection of the main streets, where “housewives walked to the store, often two or three times a week, pushing babies in strollers or pulling older children in a red wagon behind them” (87). This successful strategy was used to address failures of previous shopping centers to arouse consumers’ impulse buying behavior. The shopping also acted as a defense plant with fallout shelters that featured “half-mile-long service tunnel beneath the stores” to protect thousands of residents in the event of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union (71). In addition, the shopping center became a form of a navigation point for aircrafs during the night thanks to its massive size that towered above every building in Lakewood and the large neon “four letter Ms, each facing a cardinal point of the compass” (69). Lastly, the shopping center became a cultural center, where “decorations were installed to indicate seasons” and loudspeakers played continuous music during Christmas holidays. (71)
Work Cited
Waldie, D. J. Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. W. W. Norton & Company, 2005.