Text:

D: “[at school] We were the Dale boys.”

C: “Because you were bussed in?”

D: “We were bussed in so we didn’t have our own high school so we were bussed in so we were from Riverdale so they call us the Dale boys, the people from the other side of the tracks. People from the other side the tracks were considered poor. And so we were from the other side of track because we weren’t canola, smoke rise, the rich kids.”

Context:

My dad grew up in a poorer town in New Jersey called Riverdale. The town/district didn’t have their own high school, so the kids in Riverdale were bussed into the nearest town’s high school. That town was much wealthier than Riverdale, and classism and elitism were always present between the two groups. My dad and the other Italian kids from Riverdale were called the “Dale Boys” to mock and patronize them for being different and less wealthier.

Analysis:

The name “Dale Boys” is simultaneously both an esoteric and exoteric. It was esoteric in the way that it connected all the kids from the wealthier town and made them “better” than the kids from Riverdale. It communicated a sense of superiority within the group. “Dale Boys” is also exoteric in the sense that it was a way for the bullies to communicate their distaste to the “outsiders” – the kids bussed in.