This past summer I went to camp for the first time in my life. It was a YoungLife camp at Timberwolfe Lake. There was a meeting in our cabin where we had to give our testimonies. My friend Latriceana and I were the only minorities in the group. We are poor kids who get charity services to go on camps like YoungLife. We grew up with racial slurs spit on us. Their biggest problems were “My parents got divorced because they didn’t love each other,” or “My parents forced me into sports, that’s why we are known for them.” Our biggest problems were “I was almost killed by a gang trying to burn my house down when I was 1” or “I wish my parents divorced sooner so that I didn’t have to watch my mom get the bruises she had.” We didn’t cry about it. They …show more content…
I wondered why we didn’t cry. People like Latriceana and I always ended up in the dumps and we didn’t cry. I was so angry that they could feel sorry for themselves when we had worse. How could they hear our testimonies and still cry about their own? Maybe it was because they don’t know pain. They are used to happiness. I let those thoughts go and ate the pizza given to us. Latrice and I made jokes about how dirty we got during the obstacle course and laughing about how mud got in our ears; we were just happy about the first day at camp. The next day I did something I normally don’t do. I woke up at 5 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went outside and looked at the sunrise. It was beautiful. I had forgotten all about the pain and smiled at the beauty. I watched the lake wash in and out of the shore. I started to wonder why I don’t watch the sunrise like this every day. The night sky fading into purple, pink, and then orange. The day went on and I went for a walk with a good friend of mine. I told him about the beautiful morning that I woke up to and he told me about his. We laughed about his cabin having a boxing tournament the night before. As we talked, we realized that we were likely to never get homesick. Waking up to a beautiful morning every day and going to sleep after laughing made our real lives seem like a myth we were told as …show more content…
I just love how it races in and out of the lake. Just like life racing in and out of bad times.”
I started to think about bad times and wanted to think of something else.
“What else do you love?”
“I love kids.”
“Why do you love kids?”
“Because of their smiles, it’s so pure. The pain they’ve had hasn’t corrupted them yet. At least not like ours have. Sure I can smile, but I can still see the brokenness of my past. Unlike some people, I am not gonna hide my pain. One can’t hide a wound and expect it to heal. We have to stitch it up; sure it may leave a scar, but one day I’ll look at that scar and feel nothing about it. I’ll smile knowing it doesn’t pain me anymore. Isn’t that what we live for?”
This is the point when I realized the reason Latrice and I didn’t cry. As much as we race in and out of hard times like the water in the lake, it’s worth happiness. Happiness is the reason we keep going through this endless cycle. That whole week made me so happy that I felt nothing about the myth I grew up in. That the paradise I was in is worth all the pain I’ve been through. Sadly, in order to understand that, one must acknowledge that happiness is worth the
Minorities, African American and Latinos, in America are faced with challenges daily in white society. There are many obstacles minorities experience such as: being judged based on race, stereotyped, or worst being discriminated against by peers. Sadly, minorities can’t seem to escape to harsh realities society created. Citizens in the white society categorize humans by their race to socially construct the achievements and legitimate political goals. Minorities struggles with these goals due to the challenges they experience. The location of these challenges can occur in various places including on the job and/or at school. You may be under the impression that such challenges occurs within the adult minority groups. However, this applies to minority children as well. When the children are face with
After making the difficult decision of moving out from a school I called home and attended since Kindergarten, my freshman year in a new environment made for a rocky start. I fell into the wrong crowd, tried getting out, but kept making bad decisions, which eventually led to a deep depression. My dreams I had as a child were fading before my eyes, and negative thoughts consumed my mind. I started to believe that I had no purpose and could never amount to anything, but the four days at Camp Barnabas in Missouri changed the course of my entire life. This experience was important to me and helped sculpt me into the person I am today.
Racism has been a huge problem throughout the United States and every individual struggles with the unproductive messages of racism that is being passed on through from larger societies. Many people suffered from this in silence and it is what hits the hardest on children and youth who lack the life experience to understa...
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Driving to a new place, I embraced the surrounding that I was witnessing for the first one. When I got out of the car the gravel crunched under my feet. My family and I walk up a long, skinny board walk approaching the front entrance. As I looked out the front windows all I could see was the beautiful view of Lake Travis. Walking out I saw rows of tables that had umbrellas on top. There was multiple different levels that you could sit at all looking out at the same mesmerizing view. Looking out over the lake I felt a sense of home.
Even when he tried to stay optimistic, fear and anxiety set in often in Schwartz’s mind. He experienced fear and anxiety related to impending death. Worries of missing out on his son growing up and not experiencing romantic moments with his wife ever again filled him with both terror and grief. He expressed this fear to his psychiatrist and his concern that he might be depressed. Dr Cassem assured him that crying was a sign of acknowledgment of his love for his family. He also worried if there was anything he could do t...
It is no secret that for many, many years, the African-American community was seen as nothing more than simply dispensable hand help. These people were placed in fields and regarded as something less than what they were: human beings. It is no secret that there are still forms of discrimination in the twenty-first century. Simply turn on the news one night and I guarantee you will be bombarded with the consequences of this racial discrimination. While there are people that are stuck in the old ways, a majority of people are now on the move to make steps of progression past the era of inequality. But in this fight, there is a long list of questions. Heading off the list, is that of what to do with this background? Do we use this history to be a constant reminder of what we have done and encourage the youth to realize what wrong has been done by our kind? Or do we move past this and try to look forward and know that it happened, but not dabble with it in our lives? Is this history that happened, or do we allow it to be a prevalent part of our everyday
I had the most epic summer ever. When school ended, my mom shipped me off to Crane Lake Camp for my fifth year. I appreciated the Berkshire scenery for a month and made the friends of a lifetime. My favorite part of camp was simply hanging out under the huge oak trees with my friends while watching the sunset. On the 4th of July, we celebrated with carnival games and a bouncy house. We played all day and watched the fireworks on the beach at night. After that, we stayed up all night watching movies. We won Fight Song, our annual lyrical competition, and that night we were on top of the world/invincible. A few days later, our group traveled to Montreal where we fought in laser tag, raced in ice skates, screamed at 6 flags, and slept in dingy dorm rooms.
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It’s true, dads been fired. Into my second week in school, my mom picks me up from school. We pull into the driveway of our unfinished built house right across from the street from the school. Currently at this time we were living in a rental house on Cobbett’s Pond, which is to small for the five of us. This was at the moment, but now we have our new house which is built across the street from the high school. We already have enough stress on us. I do not want to go look at the house, and then my mom stops at the beginning of the drive way. She says “Zoë I have to tell you something”. I said “What?” She said dad got fired today. Everything starts rushing towards my mind, the feeling of rage, anger, sadness, and why?. Tears start welting out
My last day seemed to arrive in the blink of an eye. My “Last Day in Palm Springs”. I couldn’t really spend the day doing what I wanted. There was no time for nostalgia or goodbyes. I spent all my time moving the boxes to the moving truck. One at a time, I stripped my childhood home of everything that made it my childhood home. You never realize how few your belongings are until you pack it all up. Finally, we were off. Driving on the highway all day long and through the dat is such a romanticized concept, but the actual reality of it is very different. There I was, stuck with my whole family in a car that was far too small for a family of four. The trip was supposed to take only 8 hours but we ended up driving for around 11 unbearable hours. I was asleep for the last leg of the trip but I was awoken from my uncomfortable slumber by my family’s voices. There was a crick in my neck, my arms had red marks from the seatbelt, and I felt like I was going to collapse if anything even touched me. I forgot all about that, though, when I looked out the window. The sun was just starting to emerge from the horizon, bathing the whole place in a golden glow. The air wafting through my window was a far contrast from the dry heat in Palm Springs. It was a serene environment that made me forget about everything. The next thing I knew, we had arrived at my aunt’s home. There was actual one good thing
However, I have come to the understanding that being part of a subordinate culture specifically an African one, I have had to deal with a great deal of prejudice and discrimination based on my skin color. Most of my knowledge of my race has come through the focus of black history during the month of February. I remember watching a movie called To Kill a Mockingbird in high school, the movie sheds some light on the position and struggle blacks have and still face in society, with respects to discrimination. Growing up, my parents were not very vocal about the topic of race in general, noting that, I was always told by my parents and in church, not to use hateful speech, and to treat everyone equally as we all belong to one human
Being of a different race, different culture has always created challenges while living in America. I remember hearing about the incidents of racism my parents and grandparents experienced in this country throughout the majority of my childhood as well as witnessing and undergoing such events firsthand. An incident that has deeply scarred me dates back to when I was only ten years old. I remember walking along the sandy shore of Silver Beach with my dad, when a drunk white man approached us out of the blue screaming racial slurs and other discriminatory insults. I stood still as phrases like “You don’t belong here”, “This is America”, “F*** you, Bin Laden”, “Go back to your country, motherf*****!” stabbed me in the chest. My heart sank
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When I open my eyes and see the bottom of the top bunk I think to myself, "day one of week five." At 7:00, the alarm goes off and I heard the grumbling of eight junior high girls as they start to slowly climb out of their beds half awake. "Rise and shine and give God the glory glory." As my typical morning song continues, I get eight sets of glares from my campers. For some reason it just makes me smile. "I wish I had my blow dryer." "I really want my make up." The usual teenage comment I hear the first day. "Five minutes to finish getting ready before Alpha!" I yell, "I'll meet everyone out side of the cabin!" I found my way outside Mt. Horeb cabin sitting on the picnic table just smiling to myself for no particular reason.