Personal Narrative: There Are No Children Here

Ten year old, Lafayette Rivers exclaims enthusiastically in Alex Kotlowitz’ 1992 biography There Are No Children Here, “If I grow up, I’d like to be a bus driver”. Sophomore year, in Honors English, we were reading out loud in class when this aspiration of a lower-income, innocent child, was lethargically muttered by a classmate, and to my dismay, I began to cry. I was saddened by the fact Naperville was less than 60 miles away from Chicago, yet my peers knew so little of what too many city children, like Lafayette who lived in Cabrini Green, had to endure. What broke my spirit, was that my peers were only sympathizing for that class period and would go on with their daily lives, giving no second thought to children who are less fortunate, who have to give so much just to help their families survive, and who are not even sure they will have the opportunity to grow up. I was furious at the fact I had …show more content…
I had depicted my high school as diverse and accepting, yet I hit a hard wall once I finally enrolled. I found it difficult to make friends, because everywhere I went, my race was the bud of too many jokes. I understand we all make mistakes and as we grow, we are enlightened and began to change. Yet, to blatantly disregard my demand for respect was what made me isolate myself from my peers. I walked the halls of my school, living in disbelief that I had made the wrong decision and I'd have to stick with it for the next 4 years. See, I could not fathom the fact that there was nothing wrong with me, but there was a problem with some students mindset. It wasn't until Sophomore year, I had to learn the ways out my own maze: spite. I had done to my classmates, what I felt my classmates did to me: I enclosed them in a bottle. The day I heard Lafayette's words being read aloud, I accomplished a goal I never intentionally sought to attain, embracing myself whole; this was the day I went from being a child to a young