Home Sweet Hometown: Bellevue, Wash.
It is a privilege to hate my hometown of Bellevue, Washington.
Don’t get me wrong — I feel lucky to have been graced by some cosmic lottery to be born in such an affluent American suburb. Yet, as content as I am for my family to afford to send me to Northwestern, I hate the culture my background entails. As long as I pretend those exorbitant North Shore mansions north of Central don’t exist, Evanston seems like a modest man in comparison to Bellevue, which I’d relate as a businessman lounging in a Masarati. However, as much as I dislike Bellevue, I cannot readily reject the city that taught me everything — that would be the easy attitude to hold against my high-end suburban hometown. Instead, I thank everything about Bellevue for forcing me to see beyond its wannabe glitz and glamor and multimillion dollar estates and views. And while that was all great for some time and some reason, I hope never to return.
Original, I know. To hate one’s own suburban hometown — why don’t I just jump on the next closest bandwagon already?
Yet, imagine living across the street from a barely-breathing, barely-there Stepford wife. Imagine driving to a local high school only to realize you feel incredibly inferior in your Toyota because the parking lot is full of BMW’s, Lexuses and Land Rovers. Imagine going out to “Downtown Bellevue” and seeing a woman badly burnt from a poor tanning salon, with stark, platinum bleached blond hair toting a small dog in a designer bag and having no surprising qualms with this appearance. Imagine learning about Juicy Couture when you were 10 years old; even I can barely imagine my parents’ face when I came home and told them all about it.
Driving into downtown Bellevue on I-405, the city’s very own modern waterway that streams seemingly naturally down Wilburton Hill into the dense commercial district, one is immediately shadowed by cranes and skyscrapers. For a city of approximately 200,000, there seems to be a one skyscraper for every 10 citizens. And despite all of its developers’ efforts, Bellevue is only barely a miniature version of the skyscraper carved and etched Seattle skyline across Lake Washington. Real estate agents force office buildings and apartments into the 15×15 block downtown with the same nonchalance I have piling food on my plate at 1835 Hinman.
The one thing that is fantastic about Bellevue and its citizens is that the taxpaying public is ridiculously generous when it comes to public schooling. Late superintendent and former local celebrity Mike Riley pushed intensely for public education to prepare all students for higher education (because as in Prairie Home Companion, everyone in Bellevue is above average and college is the only post-high school option.) Somewhere through the cracks of establishing picture-perfect, movie-worthy high schools a la East High, the Bellevue School District funded my alternative 6-12 grade, 500-person school with tax dollars. The International School was, and continues to be, an eclectic anomaly that stands out as strangely in Bellevue as the lone thrift store within the Bellevue Collection, the city’s massive, three-building shopping conglomerate advertised as the Pacific Northwest’s premiere shopping destination.
All through middle and high school, I partially resented the International School (IS) for making me feel less and less a part of the Bellevue norm and more a part of strange Bellevue subculture. In middle school, it seemed I never developed the same interests as the majority of my peers: I hated going to Bellevue Square, simply known as “the mall,” where I felt constantly judged by its haute couture patrons, nor could I keep a conversation with many of my peers past three minutes, especially when talk of the latest MTV show came up. Since it seemed so much of the Bellevue norm was defined and determined by the material I was inherently disinterested in, I felt alienated in my own city as I passed through adolescence. I don’t dare to be announce myself to be above materialism, but I am simply not interested in the same material Bellevue flamboyantly glorifies and values.
So while half of the time spent at IS helped foster this feeling of cultural isolation, during the other half of the time, IS was one of the few places within city limits I genuinely felt accepted and normal. At a school where students referred to teachers by their first names, protested standardization and walked off-campus to catch the breeze of people getting blazed, I felt at ease.
The subculture I grew attached to in high school represented a small, but increasingly growing group of youth that flee Bellevue’s Stepford mentality by attempting to imitate the once-hippie lifestyles of our tempered parents. After school, I regularly flocked to a friend’s house in the epicenter of downtown Bellevue. In the shadow of one of Bellevue’s skyscrapers, we graffitied a shed from Home Depot her parents bought on a whim and nicknamed it “The Cabin,” all while chickens ran around her house (these parents in particular were really into a type of urban farming of sorts). Next door, a 5,000-square-foot mansion complete with a gated entrance and fountain remains empty for the majority of the year — it is a foreign businessman’s “summer house.”
And IS was no ordinary secondary school. By high school, most of my peers looking for a “traditional high school experience” left, leaving the IS student body a strange, awkward, diverse group of students, which attracted equally unique teachers. Instead of following curriculum guidelines, teachers spent periods going on and on about Ayn Rand, a personal admiration of Dutch porcelain, Kierkegaard and their own personal life histories. Over these hours, I garnered an education far beyond what any regimental high school could offer. I never quite learned what a fallacy is or anything beyond the concept of a “mole” in chemistry, but from my teachers I learned what it means to introspect everything, always question authority and how important it is to leave Bellevue.
As a result, I have many thanks for the city I detest: Thank you, Bellevue, for giving me the cultural boot and forcing me to find something better and greater than Bellevue Way. Thank you for encouraging the search of escape routes from the city’s unforgiving societal structure. Thank you for the generous school system that got to me to where I am today. Without Bellevue, I would never be here at Northwestern. I could never have gotten here academically, nor would I have ever generated such an eagerness to leave home. So thank you Bellevue, but good-bye; it’s been a privilege.
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Read about another hometown. Or you can return home.
I FEEL YOU GIRL! SPEAK THE TRUTH! SPEAK IT LOUD AND CLEAR!!
vanessa dopker you are the shit.
Bon Qui
May 20, 2009 at 9:42 am
Bravo, V-dawg!
Zoe
May 20, 2009 at 10:13 am
Vanessa,
I went to Bellevue High and graduated a year before you. I knew a large number of your classmates from IS very well. While I have personally never seen a “woman badly burnt from a poor tanning salon, with stark, platinum bleached blond hair toting a small dog in a designer bag” after working for a year in Belle Square (apparently the hotspot for the materialistic type), I do agree with your dislike for the 10-year-olds in designer clothes and the BMWs that parked next to my Toyota. I personally think you give Bellevue too much of a disservice with this article and fail to point out the rest of the population like me. I grew up, went to school with, hung out and am still friends with many people in Bellevue who are nothing like how you stereotyped. You also fail to discuss that Bellevue encompasses everything out to Lake Sammamish, which is definitely a different demographic. My point is basically this: Bellevue is what you make of it and you will find people you detest everywhere you go. I know this is an opinion article, but I had to say something.
-Patrick
Patrick RIce
May 20, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I grew up in Seattle and avoided the suburbs at all costs. This is really well-written and seemed completely accurate to me. Props to you.
Maddie
May 20, 2009 at 5:57 pm
While Bellevue may not have been a place you liked, it’s not half as bad as you make it seem. Bellevue may be materialistic, but only a select few are and you HAD the choice to make other friends and surround yourself outside of the materialistic culture. It sounds as if you hold a grudge against the people who didn’t accept you who you now say you don’t even like…. Make different friends in Bellevue, do things OUTSIDE the downtown area and travel to other places in the state…Soon enough, you will realize how great of a city Bellevue is and how non materialistic it can be if you don’t sit there and whine about it.
If you feel inferior driving a Toyota, your calling the kettle black by saying you aren’t materialistic..Your clearly affected by your image, and are part of the problem yourself.
karl
May 20, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Wow, sounds like you really broke free of the whole Bellevue culture. I mean, who would ever expect a teenager immersed in a world of excessive wealth and luxury to rebel against the system by hanging out at their friend’s parents’ house located in an excessively wealthy and luxurious neighborhood, going to an “alternative” school funded by never-ending piles of money, and attending the most expensive university in the nation? It is people like you who will revolutionize the world.
perspective
May 20, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Poor baby, you grew up in an affluent suburb! What trivial things to complain about.
This article is an insult to the many intelligent hardworking people of Bellevue.
Thomas
May 20, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Vanessa,
I graduated from Newport High in 2007 and currently attend the University of Washington. Both of my parents grew up in Bellevue in the 1960s, before it became a suburb, and chose to raise my brother and me there as well. While I agree with some of the points you make about the ridiculous materialism that has seeped into some areas of Bellevue, I do not agree with the picture you paint of it as a whole. Most families I know are just regular middle class people who are not snobs and are just trying to give their kids a great education and a great childhood. My family has never felt any shame for driving our toyota cars or working blue collar jobs. I feel like you failed to mention how great the school, community, and sport programs are in Bellevue, which give so many opportunities to everyone and not just the elite. Your portrayal of the stepford wife being the norm is not something I ever saw, and I can tell you my mother and all mothers I grew up around are quite the opposite. It is interesting that you fail to mention that IS is an elite school,so to speak, in Bellevue that everyone is not given the chance to attend. I don’t want people at Northwestern to get this one-sided view of Bellevue. As far as culture goes, the city of Seattle is about a 20 minute drive away from Bellevue and I frequently visited it growing up, perhaps you missed out. I also have many thanks for the city of Bellevue, thank you for giving me a wonderful set of friends, a first rate education, and a safe and fun childhood. I am sorry that you feel like your “privileged” upbringing is something to detest, but I am grateful for it.
Kalei
Kalei Combs
May 20, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Seriously? Granted, it’s not Evanston, where NU students are susceptible to being mugged by high school students wielding pencils, but Bellevue is still diverse enough that it gives you as much as you take from it. Disgusted by the haute couture patrons of Bell Square? Cross the street to Bellevue Park and play a game of Frisbee with some strangers. Not quite athletic enough to do so? Traverse the 2 to 3 miles to Crossroads and partake in its wordly Food Court. Still too classy for you? Try Factoria Square, where its only redeeming quality is the Nordstrom Rack, Target, and the ramen shop. Bellevue is not the 25 square blocks of real estate you portray it to be, and if you were too confined by the exclusivity of International School to explore Bellevue on your own, that’s your own loss.
Also, I’m pretty sure the only ones qualified to complain about the sheer number of BMW’s in school parking lots are those who attended Bellevue High School, so don’t even try to pretend you thought you felt inferior. The angsty hipster bandwagon called and left a voicemail wondering why you haven’t grown up and gotten off yet.
Willy
May 20, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Well, it certainly sounds that you feel superior about your alternative hippie experience in high school, as you portray it. Golly, good for you! Believe it or not, there are actually people who don’t buy into the whole material girl thing, yet manage to enjoy living in Bellevue – it doesn’t have to be one or the other. As Kalei said, it’s too bad you didn’t travel over to Seattle more often, as it seems that that could have been an outlet for your anti-capitalism anger. You barely mentioned how lucky you were to live in Bellevue, which is insanely crime-free and clean, unlike many cities. Maybe if you’d sought out more of the unique cultural things to enjoy in the area you wouldn’t have been so upset about the unfairness of being born there. I thought that once kids like you got to college they would be able to let go of their teenage anger and develop a more holistic worldview, but I gather that Northwestern has not taught you that skill yet.
Erika
May 20, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Only at Northwestern could somebody even begin to think that its okay to complain about having to drive a Toyota. In the real world, which you clearly haven’t experienced yet, an operable Toyota is a blessing.
Another note, I guarantee that Garrison Keillor did NOT have Bellevue in mind when he talked about the people of Lake Wobegon. Anyone familiar with the show would know that Lake Wobegon is a place far outside of the world where kids who attend private schools get to complain about driving a Toyota.
I appreciate your attempts to weigh how power and privilege have shaped your existence and worldview, but, at least in this article, you fail, because you try so hard to place yourself outside of a community that you are most certainly a part of — and whose nurturing you benefited from. Not until you learn to accept that you have been given opportunities in life that the vast majority of the world cannot begin to comprehend; not until you recognize that how smart you are, how social you are, and how talented you are are actually products of living such a perfect life (a life so perfect, in fact, that you feel justified in complaining about driving a Toyota), will you ever actually begin to understand how the forces of power and privilege have impacted your life.
(sigh)
May 20, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I saw this posted on someone’s place on Facebook. I too grew up in Bellevue. I think that you would benefit from a good dose of humility. Be thankful that you are lucky to be born into a family that could afford to send you to a good University and don’t bite the hand that feeds you – that yuppy town and its yuppy schools are as you admitted what propelled you into Northwestern undergrad.
And write about something positive for christ’s sake. There is so much good in the world and there are so many interesting people if you seek them out. I met someone who speaks over 15 languages just by browsing in the music section of a bookstore.
Keep the angst for dinner with your friends.
Brian Miller
May 20, 2009 at 10:40 pm
This is just an unwarranted rant. I’m sorry you didn’t fit in in Bellevue and that the mid-west lifestyle is more fit for you. However, that does not give you the moral grounds to try and rip on the city itself. Stop crying about the city being rich…just look at the university you are attending. People like yourself are more spoiled than those ‘fake tanned’ girls you described. I can’t recall reading a more selfish piece.
Matt
May 21, 2009 at 4:27 am
If you had written this piece as your personal statement, I wonder if Northwestern would’ve still accepted you. From the sound of it, you are much more snobbier than those people you described, as you chose to “rise above” their culture. Be grateful that you grew up in a upper middle class city, many people dream of this opportunity.
Alyssa
May 21, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Overall, stop being such a pessimistic bitch and be grateful for what you have. So you grew up around some people who didn’t fit your ideals or standards. Focus on yourself, what you can do for your community that will improve it to the standards you hope it will achieve, focus on the positives the community has given to you (wonderful access to education, safe environment, family-centered). It seems you have forgotten that Bellevue encompasses a much larger area than just the downtown portion. As someone who didn’t have things handed to her her entire life, it sickens me to be placed into that category by someone who seems to be a little hypocritical herself. A toyota is a great car, a WORKING car. You got a top notch education and are now at a highly accredited school. Stop whining and please don’t come back to our materialistic suburb, Bellevue doesn’t want judgmental people like you anyway. Your worse than the burned blonde.
STFU
May 21, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Points to everyone saying this is over the top, especially to STFU.
Linnea
May 21, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Props to you Vanessa for saying all this. Everyone who disagrees clearly don’t know what its like to live there, therefore what they say means absolutely nothing.
Betsy
May 22, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Vanessa,
Well written, Mrs. Boxleitner has taught you well. Just a few points on your commentary of the Bellevue life:
I agree with you that it is extremely interesting to compare Bellevue to the rest of the world and see how it measures up; Bellevue, is, without a doubt, upscale and supremely aware of the fact. I know many girls and boys of our age, and many older people, who love to flaunt what they have; even those that don’t know the stares they get when they say they’re from Bellevue (”Oh, another rich white bitch.”). Granted, some of them have worked hard for it, but humility goes a long way. But that culture of Bellevue is smaller than most think when they think of Bellevue. Most of the people that live in the Bellevue area, whether it be Sammamish or Medina, live quiet lives and are thankful for what they have. They have worked their hearts out for what they have, and they are quietly proud of what they have done. I admit, I do get sickened by the little girls and older mothers flaunting their designer clothes, cars and plastic surgeries; however, I believe that Bellevue has a lot more to offer than just the plastic Barbies. The alternative scene that you seem to talk about as manifesting only in IS (and by that you probably mean the geeky scene) is all over, if one only looks for it. It doesn’t matter what school we’re talking about here, what zone, what suburb, there are those who act as awkward and ridiculous as some of those from IS are proud to be. All in all, a well-written argument, but only one side of the issue; there are many more viewpoints to this discussion.
To those that are reading the comments posted: come on people, this is an opinion piece. Vanessa is writing what she thinks. And to those who think she’s a proud, arrogant, vain author: absolutely ridiculous. She’s not; quite the opposite in fact. If you’re fed up with what she writes, write your own column and refute it. I’m proud to have grown up in Bellevue, but I don’t flame her just because she thinks something different. If you’re angry with what she has written, don’t insult her, just state your different opinion. Thanks for the column, Nessie; hope to see you over the summer.
Carly
May 23, 2009 at 3:57 am
Hey Vanessa,
Very well-written article =)
What you said in the article was interesting, but there might have been a little too much overgeneralization. It might have been too extreme to say that everyone outside the IS bubble is an arrogant brat; it’s unfortunate if that was your experience, but there are plenty of people in Bellevue that you haven’t met, and you might have been a little too quick to judge. Also, it’s important to distinguish between the city and the attitude you despise.
Anyways, thank you for sharing your thoughts, and good luck on the rest of your year! Let me know when you’re home =)
Millie
May 24, 2009 at 12:12 am
I went to a party in high school and a guy asked me where I was from, I told him Bellevue. His response, “Oh…” he paused “wait, what part?” When I said I grew up near Robinswood he said “Ok, that’s different.” I hated having to justify myself when I answered that question.
There is this stigma that goes with being from Bellevue and I hate it. Honestly, I’m glad I don’t live there anymore. Granted, I do end up in Bellevue two and three times a week (work-ish). I love that I don’t have to explain where I live anymore.
Vanessa you are an incredible writer and I really enjoyed reading this opinion piece!
Catherine
May 24, 2009 at 3:40 am
I found your article interesting, but it seems your experiences living in Bellevue are far different from mine. I was born and raised in Bellevue, currently attending school in state and visit home when I can. I love Bellevue, and watching it grow and change has been fascinating and I am proud to call it my home, as anybody should be proud of the place they are from.
I’m not going to deny that I’ve had a privileged childhood in Bellevue, and that a lot of people in Bellevue are privileged. I’m not worried or ashamed about the “stigma” associated with being from Bellevue. Most people I meet around the state have never been to Bellevue outside of an occasional trip to “the Mall”, and so I can’t blame them for having some real misperceptions about Bellevue and the people that live there. Yes, a lot of wealthy people live in Bellevue, but a lot of other kinds of people live in Bellevue too. Some of the wealthiest people in the world live in and around Bellevue, but there is also real poverty in the city too. There are dozens of unique neighborhoods. Some folks live in lavish waterfront mansions and other people live in apartments that were built in the 1960s. And you don’t have to look hard to find the occasional homeless person too.
I would never say Bellevue is as “cultured” as Seattle, and I don’t want Bellevue to be like Seattle. I love that Seattle’s a bridgespan away, but I’m happy to call Bellevue home. I do want people to know that there’s more to Bellevue than BMWs and brand-name clothing, and that those things don’t define the people who have them. In all my years living in Bellevue (attending the wealthiest schools), I have met many kinds of people. There are a lot of good people who are not materialistic and superficial, and I have learned that things like materialism and superficiality are completely independent of actual wealth.
I love that I’ve grow up in a city that is safe and clean. Bellevue really is a beautiful place, whether you’re looking at the rapidly growing downtown, or the numerous sloughs and parks, or the views of the lakes, the Cascades and beyond. I like how nearly all the neighborhoods are still “in the woods”. You look around some places in the midwest or California or wherever and they are completely barren of greenness. Bellevue may be unique but it’s also very pacific northwest and that’s something I appreciate a lot. I like how the people seem to value the things that make communities stronger – like our public education which is fantastic. I regret not taking advantage of it when I was a student, but like many kids I felt “stuck in the ‘burbs” and spent much of high school partying and doing drugs. I like that Bellevue is a place where people understand that if your kid smokes a little pot, they aren’t going to be a failure because of it. For being a center of wealth and business for the region, Bellevue is surprisingly liberal and I think that’s why it’s unfair to compare Bellevue to the “east coast” style, “old money” Stepford suburbs. I like how people in Bellevue are forward thinking regardless of their background or ideology, and I think that’s reflected by the enormous amount of diversity. Measuring diversity is more than just demographic numbers, but when I see people from literally every corner of the globe being incredibly successful in moving up toward and passed the American dream, and I see their kids doing amazing in school, it makes me real proud.
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy growing up in Bellevue. I know some people who would share much of your feelings. I agree that Bellevue isn’t perfect (nowhere is), but I think its important to think of all the real great things that Bellevue provides to its citizens, and all the great things its citizens provide for their families, for their city, for their region and country and beyond. I just think of the 350 or so kids in my graduating class and know a lot of them will be and are doing some amazing things with their lifes, opportunities they may not have had not growing up in Bellevue.
Rebellion wasn’t the norm at least at the school I attended, but it is nothing unique to Bellevue and places like it. I never rejected Bellevue or became bothered with my classmates, a lot of them were ripping bongs and guzzling parent-bought booze alongside me, and maybe that was our way of “rebelling”, although for many of us our older siblings and our parents had done similar things growing up. Regardless, most of us turned out just fine. There’s a handful of kids I can think of who are still going down the wrong path, their futures are questionable, but I figure it’s just them, not their environment – these kids are rich and poor, white and Asian and black, etc. Does Bellevue churn out less of these sorts of people in the long-run? Yes, and while it bothers me that this happens a lot more in other places, I’ve learned that its inevitable to some degree and am thankful I’ve grown up in a place and mindset that has allowed me to, so far, be pretty successful.
And just saying… International School is a very exclusive public school. I remember in 6th or 7th grade being asked if I wanted to put myself into the lottery to attend the school. Ultimately, I am glad I didn’t because I probably would’ve transferred back to “regular” high school like a lot of your classmates did. I wouldn’t say you were ashamed of the normalcy of going to school in Bellevue, just as I wouldn’t say I am proud of the normalcy of going to school in Bellevue. You are very lucky to go to such a great university, clearly it wasn’t Bellevue that go you there but your own drive and action. Bellevue isn’t for everyone and at least you figured that out at a good time. Hopefully you come to appreciate Bellevue as more than a cultureless suburb, because it really is more than that. I for one, look forward to raising my family in the region, be it Bellevue or the Eastside or anywhere nearby. Beyond Bellevue, I think growing up in the Pacific Northwest is an awesome experience. People from here are openminded, intelligent, appreciative and independent and those are values I want my kids to have.
Jason Abubaker
August 10, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I think at one point or another we all rebel against our histories and whence we came. However, the author does not appear to have made a genuine effort to engage with the community she dismisses as too bound to the material. She sees the surface because she has not engaged.
Latrell
August 17, 2009 at 10:52 am
Interesting that someone else has this view of Bellevue. Culturally, it has nothing. If you could fight your way through the sea of white faces, you could see Bellevue for what is worth.
Count on your fingers how many students you see of color-for example, Bellevue High. I believe the total is three (3). As a matter of fact, if the students want to find out what it is like to work with other cultures/colors, they spend money to go outside of the country. God forbid, if they ever spent time in Seattle through some civic programs helping the underprivileged locally. Do they even know parts of Seattle outside of the shopping district?
Bellevue is privileged town. Most of the kids that grow up have never had to do without the essentials-food, clothing. Maybe as part of the expensive graduation gifts, these young people could give a gift back to the ciy of Seattle-community service. That medans that you would have to walk through the streets on foot and not see it from the deck of your boat.
Deanne
August 24, 2009 at 12:05 pm