just a dumb white bitch from felony way
Federal Way: Also known as Felony Way, a bedroom community between Seattle and Tacoma characterized by violent crime, poor schools, and lots of newly constructed low income housing. In 1987, University of Washington scientist Bernard Luchenbach theorized that Federal Way could be the location of the door to the underworld.
“Dude...Did you see that another drive by shooting occurred last night in Felony Way?”
"You are so mean. Federal Way ain't nothin' but a cheap ghetto where I can use my Section 8 vouchers.” (Urban Dictionary)
I would say probably a majority of people I meet in the world don’t understand me at all because they don’t understand that I grew up in Federal Way. I don’t know how many times I’ve been drawn back here to “the underworld” to face my past, to face my demons, to face myself. In times of significant transformation I am thrown here to see how the energy has changed and how I’ve evolved. It holds me in my grief and my hope each time.
There was a time I came back here for my cross country coach’s memorial service when I lived out of state. I drove to my high school, and got out of my car to see that my high school wasn’t here anymore. It was a brand new high school. The old outdoor layout of buildings I used to take classes in had been replaced by a multi-floor indoor school. The entire track and field was a construction zone. Seeing it brought me some joy actually, relieved that hundreds of high schoolers wouldn’t have to slosh through rain puddles to get to their next class like I used to. And some of it brought me sadness. There were no material things left to relate my memories to, and I wasn’t given any warning.
Oh Federal Way. My home. Perhaps this is my love letter to it. It is not where one dreams of growing up, yet my love for it only grows as I get older, each time feeling a sense of security as I truly ground myself back into the place I am from.
A pic of where I got groceries my entire childhood - Safeway on Military
Such fond memories, like shopping casually at the local Safeway on Military where you watch people just walk to the back of the store and take milk and walk right out the door without paying for it. We absolutely all notice it standing in line waiting for a register and just look at each other and shrug. What are we gonna do about it?
Or, peering out my window and curiously watching the drug deals happening in my cul-de-sac. Riding my scooter and witnessing a teenager steal CD’s out of my neighbor’s car in broad daylight. Switching on the news to find out that another victim of the Green River Serial Killer has been found in a ravine right down the street. Quietly sitting in pottery class while you listen to a junior girl talk about how she was shot at a party her freshman year while confidently showing off her scars —and then your attention turns to another guy talking about how he attends his devil-worshipping group on Wednesdays —and then your attention turns to another lock down drill— and then your attention turns to the pottery teacher who has turned the lights off and is waving around lights in the air and our current assignment is to… draw it? Yep… Home Sweet Home. All of this is normal here.
I don’t remember it being a “crime-ridden place,” even though it was compared to many other places I’ve lived. I understand that feeling some people have when others look at you appalled, like your life is some dangerous horror story, all the while you just thought it was normal. And this is what brings me a greater understanding of other people and how they grow. You develop in relation to all of the things you’re around. You learn from your community what is and isn’t safe and then you don’t know any different until you travel somewhere else. You learn from your family, too, but remember, you’re at school and enmeshed in society a majority of the time.
I became a teacher in the schools here after high school, and it painted a whole new picture of Federal Way to me. Becoming a teacher in a community is how you see what’s actually going on in a place. You notice how many immigrants are actually there, as the sweet little kids come talk openly to you about their traditions from Ukraine, Iran and Bangladesh as you giggle with them on the playground. You console the second grader in the hallway who can’t focus on anything that day because his cousin got shot the day before. You stay clear of the 8 year old in the hallway throwing a chair at his classroom door as hard as he can because he’s having trouble at home. Then 15 minutes later you witness a teacher leave her room to cry in the hallway because a first grader just threw a book at her and screamed, “You’re not my social worker! You can’t do anything for me!” Right before a special ed paraeducator passes you and explains how one of her 5th graders showed up that morning and bragged that he smoked weed with his parents the night before.
Some things change you forever. I’m not sure my heart has ever swelled so big for other humans than in the hallways of my childhood elementary school. I saw them because I used to be them. I was never scared of them. I loved them deeply and unconditionally.
Bad things happen in every community, so I’m not here to talk about the Fed as if it’s the winner of some kind of darkness contest. I’m here to talk about my experience of it. How it shaped and humbled me —the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Redondo Boardwalk, Federal Way
Alright, come with me, let’s go walk the old beautiful boardwalk together at sunset (it’s since been wrecked by a storm and a new one has replaced it, so let’s enjoy memories and have some more intense conversations about what’s happening in town.) I heard many haven’t really left the fed, just working as bartenders, baristas, or teachers or whatnot. People come back here quite a bit, though. It feels like some sort of vortex…even if you get away from it, something pulls you back. But it’s familiar and comfortable, so you let it. We’ll walk the beautiful trails, talk to our best friends about all of the amazing and terrible things that we heard have happened to the people we know who used to or still live here. That’s sorta how it goes. We care, from a distance. We hope you’re doing well. Especially if you grew up here. Here’s to hoping we climb out of this hell hole again soon?
One part of town is fancy expensive houses, and the other part is trailer parks, and strung throughout is a very decent amount of low income housing, as stated in our Urban Dictionary Definition. We’re just a conglomeration of all sorts of things, here. Yes, you go out to eat here because you can’t not. Nearly every ethnicity lives here. You’re blocks away from homemade pupusas, authentic mexican, pho, sushi, thai, lumpia, curry, whatever you want from another country it IS here, it’s 10 minutes away, a local family owns it, and it is DELICIOUS. Why bother going to Safeway on military and standing in long lines to buy frozen chicken when you could have pupusas? I mean, let’s be real. No wonder my high school wouldn’t let us leave campus for lunch. Not coming back. Eating pupusas.
“Just make sure you’re home or at your friend’s house by 9 pm. Don’t go to any gas station parking lots after 9 pm. Don’t go onto school campuses at night. Don’t go to parties. Don’t get into any vehicles of people you don’t know. Don’t drive on the freeway or pac highway after midnight, remember that one time your friend’s friend got shot in the face through her window by a gang member while she was driving home with her boyfriend?”
“Shit, you’re right. Gotta stay home and watch Charmed and magically manifest my way outta this shit.” a 17 year old me says, mumbling, as I lay facedown on an old-carpeted floor, alone in a completely empty house because my parents got divorced again and moved out but it’s my senior year so I’ve gotta stay and be an adult. I moan. What am I gonna do now?
I walk outside into my backyard and sit on the back deck. I look up and a blue heron flies overhead —over all of the tall evergreen trees that tower over me on all sides. Looking down, I see a black salamander with a yellow stripe and pick it up. It pulls me out of my current devastation. It’s so cute. It must live in the marsh. I walk on the lush green grass back to the fence behind my house and place the creature in the little hole at the bottom of the fence so it can slither back to the water.
The salamander reminds me to call my best friend again and leave my sad, empty house. We drive to Target, then to Wendy’s and get our usual, then sit in her bed nextdoor in her VERY small room and watch Charmed together, chatting casually about what’s gonna happen now that her mom’s in rehab for meth again.
Mmhmm. Federal Way will always be home. I lovingly think to myself — I am now driving on I-5, rapping all the words to “Look at Me Now” by Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, & Busta Rhymes playing on my car stereo, careful to bleep out all the ‘N’ words as I rap, since I know where they all are.
I then shift through more songs on my playlist, all of which are neo-soul, hip hop, and R&B, and nothing else.
Anybody from Dreadful Way who reads this blog will absolutely judge me and tell me to sit down and shut the fuck up because I don’t know a fucking thing about anything, MORMON WHITE GIRL.
And I mean, yeah, duh, that’s exactly how I like it.
I’ll never stop loving you, Fed Way. Ever. Any success I get and any spiritual evolution I move through is all thanks to you growing me into a resilient human who cares about other people who are different from me. It wasn’t luck. It’s like you’ve been guiding me to be true to myself the entire way. I mean, because let’s be honest, here.
Whether you’re twerkin’ to Cardi B, tearfully giving me a hug at 2 in the morning telling people at the party that I used to run laps ‘round alllll the hoes in high school’, or even just tweakin’ out across the street—
At least you’ve always kept it real with me.
