High schools organize race and ethnicity into spatial territories by floor and locker

Evidence

Murrow had its own political geography of race and ethnicity, divided by floor and by lockers. The second floor belonged to the Hispanics. The Asian kids hung out next to the library. The Goths squatted in the first-floor lobby and were eyed derisively down the long hall by the well-dressed Italian kids. The third floor was split in a détente between the Russians and the African Americans. When Akram was at Murrow, there weren’t that many Arabs in the school, so they didn’t have their own space. Anyway, being Arab, you could fit in with almost any nationality, he explained. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 484