Essay 2 Workshop

          Being born six feet underground makes it extremely difficult to crawl out of the hole that you call home, but when you’re determined and led to the right path, the feel of green grass under your feet is only a short leap away.  That’s what I’ve learned from seeing what I’ve seen in my short time on this planet.  When you’re born into that life, already in a hole, most everything around you has a goal of blocking the right path.  That’s how it was for Sherman Alexie and me, but, with the examples of great men in our lives, we both found a way of overcoming all of that and clearing a path to success.

            The city I was born in, Tacoma, Washington, was at the time plagued by gang violence, corruption, and drugs.    It was the 1990s, the “gangster rapper” hype had reached it’s peak, all of the children in my neighborhood wanted to be a gangster just like Tupac, Biggie Smalls, or Brotha Lynch.  Being raised in that environment made it impossible to fit in with your peers when you are trying to stay in school and out of jail.  My brother was in and out of Juvenile Hall, my sister began her addiction to drugs, and I watched, helplessly from the sidelines, doing the only thing I knew would keep me away from that, I learned.

Like Sherman Alexie, I was raised poor by most American’s standards, but given the condition of my surroundings, my family was well into the middle class.  Unlike Alexie though, my parents always had jobs, I’m not saying they were good ones, my father worked at Jack in the Box for some time, and my mother at a bank, but they had jobs nonetheless.  My siblings and I were never given many gifts, but that was okay, because every day after school I got the best gift I could’ve been given, given the situation I was raised in, an education in the form of a newspaper.

Being raised below the poverty level in a God forsaken city, there were many kids my age that had nothing to do besides getting into trouble.  Luckily, I was given an alternative to this.  One of the memories I have from growing up is of my father keeping up with the world’s issues by reading the newspaper.  I was always so interested in what he was reading, even before I knew how to read.  Why would this interest him 365 days a year?  How could they possibly come up with something new and exciting enough to keep him entertained so often?  I began answering these questions before I could read; looking through the comic section laughing at the pictures even though I had no idea what was going on in them. 

            By the time I’d learned to read I already had skimming through the newspapers, looking at the Toys R’ Us ads as a daily routine in my life so it wasn’t hard for me to read into the articles and begin to learn about everything important enough to be in the newspaper.  This transformed me into an information gathering fiend.  I learned from reading the newspaper that there is something to be learned from everything, the political comic strips that lined the comic section, how the ads were displayed to target a certain audience, what was on the front page that the editor wanted to grab the city’s attention. 

            At this point in my life I was after every bit of information I could find, but I started looking for the knowledge in different areas.  Whenever I stepped out of my house, or even when I was inside of it, I would learn as much as I could.  Whether the knowledge that I gained was from watching: The Discovery Channel, people as they worked, as they drove, how they interacted with different people.  I was on a mission to learn whatever there was to be learned, and this was the only way I knew of doing it.

            I gained a great deal of knowledge from watching my peers interact with each other.  Being the quiet kid in class, I had a lot of time to do this and I made the most of that time.  It’s amazing how much some people can change their character given the group that their around.  I think the knowledge that I’ve gained from that is the most valuable that I’ve received to date.  Watching my classmates and others that I’ve been around change their character, and in turn, seem like a fool to the people who really know them taught me to always be myself.  It taught me to not try to be a gangster, thug, or anything else that you’re not.  Especially if what you’re trying to be will never amount to anything. 

            Since I never tried to be anything I wasn’t, and I was shown what path to take to make a successful life; I used my desire to gain knowledge as a shield to keep all of the bad from my neighborhood from getting to me.  Now that I’m older and understand even more, I look back on my life, the people I knew in my neighborhood, they’re now drug addicts, gang members, or dead.  I can’t help but be thankful for the direction that I was given, like Sherman Alexie, my life was saved at such a young age by the example from my father. 

            Now that I can feel the green grass under my feet, and have the golden road full of opportunity in front of me, I can’t help but to look back.  All of the young children growing up in circumstances like mine, in bad neighborhoods, with bad influences surrounding them.  I feel horrible for all of the children that are forced to grow up the way I did and the feeling will only get worse as they grow older and I watch the kids I knew when they were 10 years old being put in caskets.  I haven’t done it yet because I’m still developing a life for myself, but my mind is set on giving to the community that has given me nothing but bad examples to learn from.