Every Day Life in East St. Louis

Every day when I wake up, I wonder about what horrible things might take place in my neighborhood today. I wonder how many houses will get robbed, how many gun shots I will hear throughout the day, and how many of my friends will get sick from the pollution from the air around us. My mom does not have a job right now, but she looks for one every day. I have an older brother. He wakes me up in the morning to get ready and then he walks me to school. He picks me up from school too because he doesn’t go to school anymore. He stopped going two years ago when he was 14. He tells me everyday how he wants me to stay in school so I will have a better chance of getting out of East St. Louis than he does.

I go to school in the smallest building in East St. Louis. The classrooms are shared by two and sometimes even three different classes. This makes learning hard for me because I am too uncomfortable to pay attention. In my sixth grade class, only five people know how to read. The rest of us try every day but it is very hard for us because the other classes in our room are so distracting. Some of the boys and girls in my class have been talking about dropping out of school. They say they want to because they think it is too hard and don’t care about it. This thought has crossed my mind a few times but I don’t want to disappoint my older brother.
On our walk home from school, my older brother tells me about everything that has taken place during the day. He tells me about houses that have been robbed and people that have gotten into a fight. He also tells me when the alarms from the factory down the street go off to tell us when toxins are emptied into the air. As we walk by some of my friends’ houses, I see their younger siblings playing in the yard and I remember how my brother once explained to me that the grass they play on is full of toxins and that it is not safe for them to play on.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to visit somewhere else besides East St. Louis. My family has never been able to take vacations because we’ve never had enough money to do so. But my mom tells me that when she finds a good job and makes enough money, she will take my brother and me out of the city for at least one day. She wants us to be able to make it out of East St. Louis and make a better life for ourselves than the life she has been barely able to provide for us. But knowing that very few people every leave this city is a very unpleasant feeling. It does not give me much confidence to be motivated enough to graduate from high school and go to college but I will fight as hard as I can to make it out of this town and make a better life for myself.