sundown poulsbo, part 1 - an introduction -- danielle s. Rueb - castillejo

sundown poulsbo

part one - an introduction

November 27 2023

Mountains peak from behind walls of evergreens.

Bluish seas calmly sit, pristine houses dotting rocky shores.

Poulsbo.

The sign says, population 5250. It is 1992. I am 14 years old.

Tucking my knees into my chest, I wonder, how can something so gorgeous – painting like – bring so many adverse feelings?

I don’t want to be here. It isn’t close to California or my grandparents. There aren’t any people here like us.

We hang back in the car. A man eagerly greets my father on the side of the road. He is charismatic, charming almost. He waves, hugs, exudes exuberant enthusiasm. His words drip an invitation to belong.

We settle briefly into a hotel. Next, we rent a condo on a large hill, overlooking a freeway. Its winter quickly sets into darkness, my world confused.

There’s nothing safe about Poulsbo — from the day my mom was told, “you’re one of the good Mexicans in 1993,”, our ongoing lack of friends, telling me my mom is “too emotional,” my husband being refused as a customer to buy paint, to numerous cross burnings in the last 20 years. Whatever it is, a darkness hovers over the so called ‘little norway’ of the peninsula.

“Sundown Towns are all-white communities, neighborhoods, or counties that exclude Blacks and other minorities through the use of discriminatory laws, harassment, and threats or use of violence. The name derives from the posted and verbal warnings issued to Blacks that although they might be allowed to work or travel in a community during the daytime, they must leave by sundown. Although the term most often refers to the forced exclusion of Blacks, the history of sundown towns also includes prohibitions against Jews, Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and other minority groups.”

Coen, R. (2020, August 23). Sundown Towns. BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sundown-towns

It’s 2023, mid-November. I pull out of Central Market, meandering to the gym at 5:45 a.m. Passing Starbucks and CVS, a police car whips out behind me, brightening his lights. I check my speed. Speedometer reads 43 miles per hour. The speed limit is 40 miles per hour. I tap the breaks.

It’s only the police car behind me. Cars whiz opposite me at top speeds, but he’s back there watching. With numerous road construction sites, there are so many varying speeds to manage exiting Poulsbo. There is one change to 50 MPH. Then, a warning for 35 MPH, 35 MPH. A warning for 20 MPH on the round-a-bout. Out of the round-a-bout, a jump to 50 MPH, and reduce back down to 40 at some point. I cannot remember. With each change the police car closes in. My prayers reach heaven and past the Agate pass bridge, on Bainbridge Island, on Day Road, we part ways. I veer right towards the gym.

The Poulsbo Police apparently look for another car to harass.

I’m not Catholic, but I make the sign of the cross multiple times.

It is dark.

Maybe I do know, I say.

…There wasn’t a moment where I didn’t know my place as a teenager. When the boy grabbed my ass repeatedly, and his friends called out to me continuing the sexual harassment, I impulsively spit in his direction.. Lord Jesus have mercy. I hit him. My dangerous temper exposed — what a fool..

As their car whipped behind mine, a horn blared. My eyes frozen in the rearview mirror. I still see their faces laughing, angry, disgusted.

“You are such a stupid idiot!” I yell at myself. My friends don’t disagree. My imagination became reality as I defended myself, but I want to kill off that part of me that ever dreamed of fighting back, now.

North Kitsap football games were always full.

Boys leered and jeered. I mostly avoided going, but chose to go this time. The hallways were never safe — my locker mate even hid his vodka in an orange juice container. He wandered the hallways drunk. It’s hard to judge who is grabbing your body in large crowds, but eventually a rage builds against the unwanted physical aggression. Hands on my body – unwanted hands. The smell of alcohol in the air.

I cannot share with my friends because the words to describe it only come decades later.

This car full of boys get out as traffic halted. Four boys slam their hands on my windows. Screams penetrated the windows. In the traffic jam, no one comes to my aid.

On the corner of Caldart I see a cop car with its lights flashing at the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I call out to the Poulsbo Police officer. The boys chasing followed me into the parking lot.

The Poulsbo police officer sauntered over, and briefly listened to me. Next, the officer goes to the boy’s car for their side of the story.

He came back and informed me I wouldn’t be charged with assault if I went over and apologized for spitting at them, and gave him a hug. That buzz sound flooded my ears.

“Arrested?”

“Apologize?”

“Hug?”

Calculating my options, which were zero, I walked over. The police officer gripped my elbow to guide me.

“I am sorry I spit at you. Will you forgive me?” I say from somewhere — don’t know where.

He replied, “Yes, come here.”

I took a step closer. He closed his arms around me, cologne encircling us. His heart raced or was that mine?

The hug was long. The officer, too, hugged me.

Grabbing at me, touching me — following me — those are not assaults.

My rearview mirror is still clear. That Poulsbo police officer long gone.

I remember my friends looked at me, shocked. My hands shook. I hid beneath silly laughter, and mocked myself.

The following day, the police chief tells me if I say anything, the officer has a family, “Would you want to affect his job?” He asked.

It’s November 2023. The gym bustles with friends arriving. My breath regulates. I go in, set down my keys, hug a friend.

It is still dark outside. And it isn’t safe in the dark, not in Poulsbo.

Historians have found that most sundown towns deliberately hid the means by which they became and remained all-white. Apart from oral histories, there are often few archival records that describe precisely how sundown towns excluded Blacks. Laws and policies that enforced racial exclusion have largely disappeared, but de facto sundown towns existed into the 1980s, and some may still be in evidence today.

Coen, R. (2020, August 23). Sundown Towns. BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sundown-towns/