O.C. Social Group Trades Glitz for Shining Examples : Adolescence: Black debs’ ball is no more. Now, both boys and girls are recognized in a sociable atmosphere.
For seven impatient years, “lady-in-waiting” Joelle Johnson yearned for a seed-pearl satin gown to make her curtsies with other African American debutantes in frothy white.
She dreamed of cotillions and teas, smiling ingenues and enduring friendships. Then reality intruded.
The venerable Orange County chapter of the Links Inc. abruptly canceled its 12th annual debutante charity ball this year along with the traditional tea parties, which lately seemed as stale as old finger sandwiches.
The polite ritual died for a practical reason: Isolated black teens in Orange County need more support than a curtsy will get them, believed the Links leadership. They saw that young black men--who say they struggle constantly with overt prejudice and negative stereotypes--hungered for recognition as much as the debs.
“We decided we had a greater role. There was something bigger we had to do,” said Audrey Smith, a Links member who prompted the soul-searching about the contemporary relevance of debutante balls. That quiet debate resulted in a new rite of passage: “Journey into Possibilities.”
Out went the selective customs that required each 16-year-old girl to be sponsored by an adult member of the Links, a nationwide black women’s organization founded in 1946 in Philadelphia. “La Balle Mascarade,” and its waltzing of yesteryear became Le Luncheon with awards for accomplishments and community service. Big, white dresses would stay in closets.
And most dramatic of all, the male escorts who had a bit part in the past became full players in a seven-month program of cultural workshops and social activities with such instant appeal that boys outnumbered girls in attendance at a meeting to launch a new tradition.
“There’s a need for this because this helps recognize black students and their accomplishments,” said Anton Hector, a former escort and 16-year-old Esperanza High School junior, who added it’s not easy growing up in a predominantly white suburb.
“It’s tough at times because of all the jokes. Sometimes you feel like you’re not as good as someone else,” he said, hastening to add, “but I don’t waste my time thinking that way.”
For young African American teens living in Orange County, much has changed in the 75 years since black families first started settling in segregated neighborhoods of southwest Santa Ana. Aided by fair housing organizations and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, middle-class black families gradually left Santa Ana, scattering to other Orange County towns where their numbers were so small they often became isolated from each other.
That steady exodus demonstrated that predominantly white Orange County neighborhoods were open to all racial groups. But the new houses and mortgages didn’t come with a guarantee of that delicate, indefinable sense of belonging.
Anton said he has been stopped so many times by police in his home neighborhood of Yorba Linda that he just accepts it like a traffic light. The stock questions rarely vary: “Where are you going? Where do you live?”
“It sends to me the basic message that they think I don’t belong here,” Anton said. “A lot of my white friends get pulled over too, but they never ask them those questions.”
Other black teen-age youths living in Orange County say they’ve grown accustomed to the wary eyes of security guards who trail them in suburban shopping malls, the blunt questions of small-town police officers, and--in some cases--false accusations that come with no apologies.
Thomas A. Parham, a psychologist and director of the counseling center at UC Irvine, calls these types of daily struggles part of the psychological storms African Americans face as they try to balance their world views with the vision of a wider community.
In predominantly white neighborhoods they may feel discomfort, anxiety, as they try to create their own “comfort zone,” according to Parham.
“Whites have cast African people in very negative ways,” Parham wrote in his newly published book, “Psychological Storms: The African American Struggle for Identity.” “In light of these characterizations, any behavior displayed by African American people is likely to be colored by these perceptions. . . . As a result, an African American motorist who is stopped by police is viewed as potentially violent; the student who interacts with teachers professors, or administrators is viewed as probably less intelligent.”
Last summer, 16-year-old Tustin High School junior Lubey Benton said he and his friends were strolling toward the sand of Newport Beach when a police officer stopped them, asking, “Where are you going? What are you going to do at the beach? You don’t look like you’re from around here.”
It is incidents such as these that prompt parents to teach basic survival strategies while searching for alternatives to boost the confidence of their sons and daughters. Olivia Freeman of Tustin insists that her 17-year-old son, Jelani, store his driver’s license and identification in an automobile glove compartment so that no police officer can ever argue that it appeared he was reaching to his pockets for a gun.
Just recently, Carolyn Vallas of Brea started allowing her 17-year-old son, Kristian, to visit Newport Beach, but only if he walks there with companions.
“We are learning that some things have not changed, even though we can afford the same kind of cars, the same kind of clothes, the same kind of house,” said Vallas, who heads a minority engineering program at UCI.
Vallas is a Links member who is helping to revamp the traditional debutante’s ball into a seven-month program that offers workshops in career development and African American history and culture along with social activities and field trips that culminate in the awards luncheon to recognize special talents.
Last Sunday, so many parents and teens came to the Brea Civic Center for an opening meeting about the program that several rows of metal chairs had to be added to fit more than 140 people. The year before, only seven girls participated in the opening tea to prepare for the Links’ 11th annual Debutante Charity Ball.
“With the changes in society, young men have a need,” said Julie Johnson, a Links member who is also helping to organize the shift to a new custom. “I think they, too, want to be recognized. I see so many negative things presented in the newspaper about our young men. And I think there’s a need for a positive impression. A couple of mothers who called me about the program were just overjoyed about it.”
Johnson’s daughter, Joelle, has faithfully attended the last seven debutante balls, including her older sister’s 1987 debut when she wore a seed-pearl, satin wedding gown with the train removed. Last year, while seven young women were taking their curtsies in cultured pearls and 16-inch gloves, Joelle Johnson was fantasizing about her own debut.
“I basically wanted to be presented like my sister was, to be in front of a lot of people, wearing a fluffy white dress and walking along with little curtsies,” she said.
But now that the debutante’s ball is just a memory, Joelle Johnson said change is for the better. Besides the big dress, she had also yearned for the solid friendships that her sister made with other African American girls drawn together by the debutante’s ball. It was an informal social network that she couldn’t find at Los Alamitos High School.
“We’re just anxious to meet new people,” she said. “Where I live and go to school there are not a lot of African Americans. African Americans relate more. We feel more comfortable. I can’t explain it, but it’s different.”
For young black women, the quest to find a sense of belonging in Orange County is not the same as for men. The quiet struggle often comes when they reach dating age and they listen to their white friends chatter about boyfriends and crushes while they wait to be asked to a dance.
“There almost came a point when my daughter’s self-esteem was gone,” said one mother. “I think she had a hard time adjusting to where she was, where she fits. I think her circle of friends were all constantly going out with boyfriends and talking about it. She wanted to be able to join in with them too.”
To cope, many young teens have sought refuge in the informal “comfort zones” that psychologist Parham described. Tustin High School juniors Erinn Sampson and Leah Dozier have both been active in the African American Students Union, learning more about black history, which they say is glossed over in regular classes.
Erinn eventually wants to leave Orange County for a university with a predominantly black enrollment so “I can be around my own people. I’d like to have a support system, and I’d like to be in a class where people look like me.”
At the orientation last week for the new Links program, all of the students stood up before their parents and, one by one, they described their talents, hobbies and ambitions. Many of them were naming college destinations at historically black institutions in Atlanta. It is a trend that Links member Carolyn Vallas said she is hearing about increasingly during her UCI recruitment efforts at local high schools.
Joelle Johnson experienced that comfort when she walked into a room at the Brea Civic Center for the Links meeting. She had never seen so many African American teens in one room in Orange County.
“I was actually amazed,” she said. “And more amazed that boys showed up more than girls.
“That was neat.”