1. Where did you live?
In Brooklyn NY – Neighborhood was Cypress Hills
2. What was hard about living there ?
It was a very high crime rate area. Lots of crime, violence and drugs. It was a poverty stricken neighborhood. I was always hungry while growing up, definitely never enough food. My mother got that check on the first of the month and it never lasted, the food never lasted. People were on public assistance and when my mother got groceries that food was gone within the second week.
3. How did your family and friends set an example for you?
Always being positive, never to complain, just making due with what you have and always loving and supporting each other.
4. Did your family and friends have goals at the time?
Sure, my friends and I wanted to grow up, go to school and get good jobs so we could get out of where we were leaving to have a better life.
5. How did poverty affect your education?
I feel like when I was growing up we were actually growing up in an era where they were desegregating schools so we went to a very integrated school which was a better school. I had friends of all different races and we all just got along. Everyone was either poor or working class so we was all on the same level.
6. Can you paint us a picture of what a typical day of school looked like?
I was in the accelerated classes which were the people who scored high on exams. The top ranking classrooms and got an advanced curriculum. Even as poor as we were we always competitive about our academics. I did see a lot of gangs, bullying and a lot of fights on the school bus. The real fighting happened in middle school and in high school. Everyday there were multiple fights after school where it was people getting jumped just constantly. It was every single day and nobody ever broke anything up. There were never any adults the cops were never called, it was just a regular ordinary thing. So that was horrible to see everyday. It was both males and females. Growing up seeing that it was horrible and I just felt horrible. I never had that situation by the Grace of God.
7. What made you want to be better and get out of your living environment?
It was terrible where I was living. I wanted a better life. We were surrounded by shooting and murder everyday. To me, how can you not want to get out of there. All of my friends and I wanted to get out of there and I think living there made us stronger. None of us ended up living in the projects. Most of my friends got good paying jobs. I feel like that gave us the drive to break out that cycle and I’m talking about the women. The men though they ended up dying, getting murdered, going to jail, being drug dealers, still there. It was a different story for the guys their survivors too they just had it different from the rest of us.
8. Did anybody help you on your journey? If so, who?
My friends, my ride or dies. They were there every step of the way. My family played a part including my aunts and uncles. My mother gave me lots of love.
9. How are you different from your family?
I think we’re all different and each of us have our own strengths and weaknesses. My decisions have made me different because we all had taken different paths to get where we are today.
10. What are you doing now with your life?
I think I am enjoying my life as much as I can. I enjoy my family and friends. I try to pursue all of my interest and try and do the right thing. I am as of right now a Senior Civil Rights Investigator and I investigate complaints of (race, sex, harassment, disability, age) discrimination in schools. We fight for people who don’t have a voice in an educational setting. I was always interested in law enforcement for some reason but I wanted to help people and this was a combination of both those desires.
The things I want people to take out of this is that even though you live in a poverty stricken neighborhood you don’t have to be another statistic. If you really want to, you can get out and achieve your dreams/goals. My mother knew from young that she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life there and made sure she did everything possible to get out. I think its important for children or teenagers to see there’s more out there than just becoming another stereotype you can be anything you want to be.
Poverty Can Make or Break A Child 