Writing as an East St. Louis Child

I wake up each morning to baby sister crying. I have to get out of bed to comfort her cause momma don’t ever get up, she says baby can cry herself back to sleep. I know baby is hungry and we ain’t got anything cause daddy hasn’t been home in weeks and momma is out of work. We live off the stamps.

I have to take care of baby and then lay her back down and get myself ready for school. They stopped having the bus pick me up so I have to leave early to walk to school. It is far. I like school cause I do not have to worry about momma or baby or daddy, I get to be with my friends. Teachers talk about the other schools and how they have supplies and books and everything that is important to help us get smart, but we don’t got none of that. We have broken desks, bugs, rusty lockers, books with half the book missing. Teacher’s say our school is bad and we can’t learn nothing here. I wanna learn but it is too hard. No supplies to help us learn. I hear about the world outside of East St. Louis and how it is magical almost like a fairytale. They got books, supplies, real teachers, real nice schools, buses and most of all everybody be getting along. But, I live in East St. Louis everybody say that this is just how we are meant to live.

After I spend four no maybe six, I dunno hours at school my tummy hurts. I get free food at school, but it is not enough to help me from feeling sick. I don’t get no breakfast at home and all I get at school is a little bit of food cause everybody be getting free food. I have to walk back home feeling sick knowing that momma will want me to take care of baby cause she will feel tired and sick like usual and blame all our problems on daddy not being around. I aint got homework like regular school kids. We aint got homework in East St. Louis cause teachers think we don’t do that stuff and plus we aint got supplies to do any of that stuff. I have nothing to do but walk around the streets and look for something to do, usually nothing. I go to bed at night and start my day over.

I don’t really look at reading or writing as important stuff. Nobody in my town be very smart and if you smart, people think you weird. I try to learn to write and read right but it is hard to learn. Especially since the teachers aint teach well and we don’t learn much. I feel as if it is hard to succeed and that I am meant to be like this forever. Mama says I should stop going to school and maybe get a job since I am 15 and help her take care of baby. Momma says being smart and knowing how to talk aint going to get you anywhere in East St. Louis. She say I aint meant to be smart, so I don’t try real hard at school. I mean I wanna learn, but school aint helping me and I dunno how I will be able to learn outside of school. I wanna be smart like them white kids, but everyone say we will never be educated like the white folk, we aint good enough, no one care about us poor kids of East St. Louis.