First Stop…

Would you ever think that someone from the streets or the so called “Hood” would ever come back to a place that seems so bad to so many?

A place that to outsiders seems like a jungle, a place not even worth saving.

Why would anyone want to come back into a community like this to try to save it from itself?

For a lot of people the “hood” is an out of control place with no peace of mind. But they don’t see what’s behind all the words in the media of death. And actions caused for many different reasons, never just because.

I can’t sit here and tell you that the hood or the streets is all colorful and full of joy, because I would be a hypocrite. But it’s not always as bad as it seems to the outside world. It’s also a place full of people who respect one another and also consider each other family because they’re almost always together and have each others back… no matter what.

To some teens “the street’s is a marriage that you just can’t divorce.”

Yet who made that commitment?

There are some teens that choose to do what they want to, just because they think it makes them popular. But most teens do what they have to do just to survive.

To people it’s easier said than done, and also actions speak louder than words. Words are like the wind easy come and easy go. Words can mean so much and do so little and yet people are easily fooled into believing the hype.

In my case, the hype meant keeping my word and never backing down.

As a young girl I felt that when they dared me to do something I had to do it no matter what it was. And no matter what it was, I did it.

And one day it came to the point when they dared me to do something that led to me getting in a lot of trouble. Luckily for me, my sister was by my side and didn’t leave me to take the blame.

It’s not easy always having to live up to someone’s image of you, therefore you shouldn’t make one that’s going to lead you down the wrong path.

It’s always good to stay yourself and don’t let anyone make you a different person.

When I first met Ivan Sanchez it was in a workshop in the Next Generation Center and he was talking about his book and how he was doing a job track for us to get paid for writing and having our voices heard in society.

After I was done with my 4 week training program I was anxious to start working with Ivan. As days passed by I became more interested and more serious about the track. Not only because I was getting paid for it, but because I enjoy to write. I also felt it was a good opportunity to expand my writing and to learn at least a bit about the limelight of being an author.

I wanted to learn more about him so I sat down for an interview with him and here is what I learned.

Why did you come back to the South Bronx to try and help the youth knowing how difficult it’s going to be?

I always felt like the Bronx was my home. After finding my own level of success I realized that a lot of times we never look back at the people, places, and things that made us who we are. I realized that the violence in the South Bronx was picking up again and it reminded me of the close to 20 friends I lost on the streets when I was growing up. So I felt the overwhelming need to come back and try to make a difference.

How did you hear of the next generation center and why did you choose to start this program?

I heard of the next generation center through a friend, specifically the 2 teens Justin and William that passed away earlier this year with no media attention whatsoever. I felt that this would be the perfect place to start educating the teens about the power of their voice and the power of their words.

What would you consider a success in this program?

I consider a success when most of the teens begin to share their pain and struggles with the rest of the world through their writings. I consider a success when they find their voice and understand their own self worth. I also hope that their words will educate the educators, the law makers and the politicians so that we can search for better solutions to the problems our teens face on a daily basis.

How do you feel working, spending, and sharing your experience with the young youth of today’s community?

Basically this is food for my soul. This isn’t something I woke up one day and decided this was something I wanted to do. This was something I was chosen to do and I take that calling very seriously. Every time a teenager tells me “I helped them, chang the way they look at themselves or their environment.” I feel like I’m succeeding at my goal which is to undo the years of brain washing we've all been subject to.

I think that this program/ job track will make a positive impact to others. And also to my life because this tells a lot about a person because of the way they express themselves.

This helps people take out the way they feel on a computer, tape recorder or even on a piece of paper.

We as a group are called “The Unwritten Life” because people from the media don’t seem to care about what does and what does not happen to us.

This program gives us the chance to speak out for what we believe and feel is right. It gives us the opportunity to share our life time secrets and stories.

This is my Next Stop…

- Written by Cathey

Learning the Rules of the Streets

Today I have been blessed to voice my opinion and tell the world exactly how it is.

People think that it’s cool to walk the streets fighting for literally no reason, and in some cases going to the extreme of even killing one another.

Yea I’m guilty of fighting, but you know what, I’ve learned my lesson the hard way.

Now as a young adult, I can admit that I was a hypocrite. I never had a problem with fighting until I was the one hurting.

People today walk around with black eyes and cuts going across their face from ear to ear, just because they looked at you wrong, or just because they felt like it.

Killers, trouble makers listen up…you think its cool but I’m here to tell you that it’s not and it’s nothing to be proud of. It won’t be funny when it’s you walking around with the black eye, with the buck fifty going across your face, or even worse you’re six feet under the ground… dead.

I live in a community where people have to put a front on just to make it through the day. If not they become the victims.

I remember the day like it was yesterday, May 6, 2008. It was the day that I became the victim. I thought that I could handle myself but it turns out I couldn’t.

I had a fight with a student from my school. For me going into the fight, I thought it would be like any other fight and we would just shoot a fair one…

Where I come from the term “shoot a fair one,” means we’re gonna fight one on one; no one jumps in, no weapons.

But like with any rules, they get broken. And on the day this rule was broken I learned a valuable lessons about how unfair these streets really are.

There I was just standing in the train station with my older sister and my cousin. My enemy was standing across from me with about 15 to 20 girls.

I watched her as she jumped over the turnstile and one after the other her friends followed her over.

She was trying every way possible to hit me but my sister wouldn’t let her. No matter how hard my sister tried to keep her away from me, there were too many girls and she finally got close enough to take a swing at me.

But before she could hit me I hit her first. I knew from that moment on, this was going to be a never ending war.

We began to fight and it was crazy. It was punch after punch going straight for each others faces and before I knew it, I was tripped. When I looked up I was being cut in my eye with a box cutter.

At that moment I felt upset, betrayed, and most of all disappointed.

I was upset because I didn’t deserve to get cut. Betrayed because the person who tripped me was my own friend. Disappointed because I should’ve been the bigger person and just walked away before things got out of hand.

I wish I could’ve been smarter about the situation.

Now, all I could do was cry.

This was the first time I couldn’t face reality and didn’t know what else to do.... where or who to run to.

I just wanted to shut down but I couldn’t allow myself to because nowadays we’re living by a set of rules we didn’t create, a set of rules we don’t want…but a set of rules we all have to follow.

So now I ask you, how do we begin to change the rules?

- Written by Veronica

Trying To Find My Way… One Basket at a Time

Growing up in the Bronx, you have to have a passion for something, just to get you by. My passion is sports. Although I don’t discriminate, I’m not picky. But my all time favorite is basketball.

Starting at the young tender age of 5, my big brother introduced me to one of the greatest players in the game, Michael Jordan. From there my unique love for basketball was off to a start.

Mikey to me, Mike to my family, and Murda to his friends, my brother showed me the ropes of the game.

I remember lying down on my bed patently waiting for him to set up the new basketball court my aunt had just bought us.

My brother placed the hoop at the rim of the door. I was too small to shoot, so he placed it at just the right angle for me to get on our bed and try to dunk. I wanted to imitate what I saw Michael “Air” Jordan doing to Larry “Legend” Bird in the 1989 championship game.

As the years went by I involved myself in other sports but I always came back to my true love… BASKETBALL.

I remember watching Michael Jordan and learning from his skills as I mastered my own on the basketball court. It made me a better basketball player over the years.

Now in high school, the same way Jordan used to break ankles on the court, I can now do the same thing… I just can’t dunk though.

I still remember the classic finish during the Chicago Bulls championship game against the Utah Jazz. It was the 1998 finals and Jordan finished the game in his classic fashion, finishing it of with his signature buzzer beater. It was moments like that which made me want to play the game and escape the streets in the moment.

Honestly, I really can’t get on the band wagon and preach and talk about what if I didn’t play ball or get into other sports… or even stay in school.

Because at times I’m living a double life.

Yes, I’m in a gang. I rep my set to the fullest all day, the Piru gang.

I own weapons and I will beat someone’s ass in a split second.

But when it comes down to being in school, playing sports or doing something I love period, I put being a G, a thug or whatever you decide to classify it as to the side. And I’m just straight me, Mel 23.

I walk a thin ass line of being me and as a teenager now, I’m not ready to change. I will change when I’m ready.

And when I do “NO,” it won’t be too late; it will be just the right time.

Making it out of the hood won’t make me leave it all behind. I’m going to always rep my set, even when I’m in the nursing home... you know what I’m saying.

And one day, I’m going to live my life through my kid’s eyes and just push them in the right direction.

But for now, I’m just gonna continue to be me… Mel 23

- Written by Mel

Parents Just Don’t Understand

Do you really want to know why kids are so disrespectful to their parents?

Well from one teenager to another I’ll tell you. And for all you adults reading this, I don’t want you to think I’m choosing sides, just because I’m a teen. It’s not like that.

I’m just using my words to educate you adults about why we behave the way we do.

All kids really want to do is have a good time and ignore the rules. Sorry I don’t even like the use of the word kids, it’s such a weak word. We’re teenagers, if anything you should refer to us as young adults, but definitely stop calling us kids.

As young adults all we really want to do is have fun and ignore all of your rules. You have far too many of them, and most of the time they all tend to do one thing. Shield us from the world that we’ll eventually have to learn how to survive in.

Rule number one: You either get a curfew or you can’t go out at all…

Rule number two: You can’t go to a party unless an adult is there… or you can’t go…

Rule number three: If you want to go out you have to ask me a week ahead of time or you can’t go…

Rule number four: If they don’t like a friend of yours they’ll tell you to stop hanging out with them. In other words, you can’t go…

Do you see a recurring theme here?

I do… and it’s the word, “Can’t!”

Rule number five: You have to earn what you want. And if you still can’t get it, go out and get a job.

Rule number six: If you mess up in school, your phone or anything you deeply love will be taken away.

Our parents always want to know what’s going on in our lives.

Parents at times can be way too strict and we young adults don’t really appreciate that. The stricter our parents are, the more we’ll rebel. It’s our reaction to your action. And our reaction leaves us with the need to do something with all of the energy we have in our bodies. Energy we can’t even let out because our parents don’t think anything we do is safe.

Take me as an example. I like to have fun, and all my mother ever does is keep me locked up in the house. So all I feel like doing is escaping. And the first time I had my chance to escape I did…

So one night I got my shot at freedom. I got to go to my first party and even though this was my first party it didn’t mean I couldn’t dance. Cause I got my skills from playing hooky.

I went to this party and there was a lot of liquor and I was thinking in my head, “How does it taste,” since I didn’t drink at that time. So I drank my first beer which was a Corona it tasted type good so I kept going. Then I drank Hypnotic and oh man that was good. I thought it was going to be the last time I was ever going to go to a party, and as a result I just kept drinking.

The only reason I didn’t get caught was because I stayed overnight at my friends house. Her mother was really cool. My friend didn’t even drink or anything, she had chances to do it but she wasn’t raised that way, so she just never did it. In a way I respected her. She got almost everything she wanted and needed and the cool thing was that she had both of her parents in her life. And they were both cool.

If my mother wasn’t so strict with me I think I would’ve turned out to be a good girl going to school all the time. I might’ve even been in some after school activities.

But whenever I had time to hang out I would’ve been hanging out with my friends. But my mother always thinks it’s too dangerous for me to hangout outside.

In real life parents spend a lot of time trying to find out the truth, thinking we’re always hiding something. But they can’t, because deep down inside they’re always hiding something themselves. Maybe if they spent all that time communicating with us, we wouldn’t always feel like we have to hide things from them.

I’m not saying all parents are like this, but there’s a chance most are. If you put your children on lock it’s just going to make matters worse for you and you’re teen.

All I’m trying to say is that you should listen to you children more. The more you listen, the more you just might learn something from them.

Remember, “WE are the future!”

- Written by Darlene

My Space Gangsters Learn Real Life Lessons

During this day and age conversations don’t only take place over the phone.

The way we communicate with one another has been altered with time and technology.

In my generation, we do a lot of talking with texting and computer programs such as AIM and MySpace.

But with all this positive comes negative.

As the crime rate increases with our youth, kids are starting to use these texting programs as a form of sending threatening messages or harassing people. This harassment of people causes problems to be sparked often ending in altercations. Sometimes these altercations even end in someone’s tragic death.

It’s Funny just the other day I was in my friend’s house and I happened to see that he was on AIM. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was talking shit to some kid from another block. He was saying things like, “when I see you I’m gonna your ass” and disrespecting the kids block by saying that ours was tougher.

A couple of days later I seen some of my friends running down the block. I asked what happened and they told me some kids from another block had been chasing them with sticks and had caught up with one of their friends.

The friend they caught up with was now a victim of My Space gangster’s talking trash back and forth. The lesson he had to learn the hard way was a beat down at the hands of the block they called soft.

I guess they weren’t as soft as my friends thought they were.

I couldn’t help but to ask my friend one simple question, “What happened to all that tough talk you was doing the other day on AIM?”

He shot me a look of confusion as if he had no idea his threats on AIM would cause him to have real beef in the streets.

That night I thought to myself… its funny how people feel more tuff over the Internet than when the person is face to face. When they’re face to face in my experience someone always seems to stiffen up.

To think only if people just used the texting for what it was intended for, we could prevent a lot of unnecessary altercations.

Maybe we could even prevent somebody from loosing their life.

- Written by Jesus

Going Back Home…

When I first decided to move back to the Bronx after a fifteen year absence, I wasn’t sure if I’d finally gone certifiably insane, or if my destiny had finally come knocking in a way that made it impossible for me not to answer…

After such an extended hiatus from the Bronx, living a relatively peaceful existence on the tree lined streets of Virginia Beach, something bigger began to invade my every thought. And eventually seeped its way into my heart forcing me to answer my own call of duty.

I always laugh when I hear people say, “It’s not my responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”

I laugh because I wonder what ever happened to those days of, “It takes a village to raise a child?”

For me, it was as simple as seeing the light of day and realizing that because of my own past and because of what I had survived in the streets, I somehow had a unique ability to reach teens now living the same lie I once lived.

If I didn’t try to alter the mind states of as many of them as I could reach. I felt like I was nothing more than part of the problem, as opposed to being a part of the solution.

It seems to me like many of you have simply thrown in the towel and drowned yourselves in your own egos and misguided senses of self worth.

But I’m here to tell you, if you’re not trying to help someone, somewhere, in my eyes… you’re just plain worthless!

I’ll admit that my first three or four months back in New York were rough. I missed my children more than any words could ever express, I missed my family and friends… I missed things about my past life that I knew I’d never be able to revisit…

And as soon as the weather got warm, I missed the smell of fresh cut grass on the golf course. A scent that has been replaced with freshly rolled grass being smoked by the bodegas on certain corners of the South Bronx.

Yes, the backdrop to my life has once again been altered drastically. This time in reverse!

When I first heard from a close friend that two teenagers, who attended the Children Aid’s Society’s Next Generation Center, had been murdered. I did what I always do… I researched their deaths.

I was angry when I realized that nothing was mentioned about Justin and William’s deaths. No Internet articles, no news coverage, no nothing… Not a word!

And it only proved to me ever further that, one; nobody seems to care about the inner-city youth in every hood U.S.A being senselessly murdered. And two; the media definitely isn’t reporting on the deaths of our teens here in New York City.

Just a few weeks ago I received a phone call from the old neighborhood that a teen was shot on the corner of Bailey Avenue and Kingsbridge Road. A place I spent many of my own teenage years running around. The teen made it to the Chinese restaurant after being shot, stumbled inside… collapsed and died.

No need to report on it… just another animal shot dead in the streets!

This knowledge brought me to the realization that I needed to bring my Next Stop Campaign to the center and try to provide these teens with a voice of their own.

Over the last four weeks, I’ve tried my best to gain their trust, to share my life experiences with them, using my own words pulled from my memoir. And I’ve continually tried to instill in them a passion for telling their own stories of struggle and pain.

Although the group is small with only five teens participating to date, I’ve already learned a great deal about them, I’ve laughed a lot with all of them, I’ve gotten upset and frustrated with some of them and I’ve even shed some tears with a few of them.

Yeah, all that in four weeks…

Through this blog spot you will learn about these five teens and what it’s like for them to call the streets of the South Bronx home. Eventually more teens will join the crew and share their stories as well…

But for now, I now introduce to you the Next Stop Crew…

Chuchi is me twenty years ago… He makes a lot of jokes but I know he’s laughing to mask the pain he’s already been exposed to at such a young age. He wants to be a lawyer and go on in his career to be a District Attorney. I think it would be a great career for him as he always has a point he wants to argue. He has a lot of stories to tell, but I think it’s going to be a little while before he truly opens up to the world.

Darlene is someone I can never tell if she’s joking or being serious with me. She’d make a great poker player because it’s difficult to read her. She surprised me the most when she told me she wanted to learn how to open up more. She also wants to be a future President’s wife so she can use the position of power to help others. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t accomplish when she decides to start taking life more seriously and leave the partying for after college.

Cathey is Darlene’s best friend; she’s the drill sergeant of the group and wants us to be about our business when we get together. She wants to be a Veterinarian when she becomes a professional. It’s a fitting career for someone I see walking around with a tough exterior to protect her big heart. She has a lot of stories to tell and I look forward to watching her grow in this program. First I have to help her get rid of her writers block.

Veronica is someone who heard me speak prior to coming to the center. She’s already read my first book, so she knows the most about my past. That might be the reason she takes me the most seriously. I can see a lot of pain on her face and I know she needs this outlet to share her stories with the world. She’d like to be a singer so she can write songs that express the pain she feels inside. I’ve never heard her sing, but I look forward to her sharing her stories with all of you.

Mel is the straight up, “I don’t give a damn what you think of me,” personality of the group. Mel has no problem representing a life of gangs and drugs. But beneath that brick wall is a super intelligent athlete just waiting to survive this place called the South Bronx and move on to something better. But first she has to survive the pitfalls that suck many of us in before we’re able to see our full potential. I see a wealth of potential in Mel, but I have to find a way to make her see the future as more important than the street life of the present.

These are only my perceptions of the teens. But this is only a small part of who I see them being. They are all multi-talented, multifaceted, multi-dimensional personalities who are sure to introduce different sides to all of us in their future writings.

Do yourself a favor and become a “follower” of this blog spot. You’re sure to be entertained, enlightened and educated about just how difficult it is for our teens to transition to adulthood in the midst of this urban jungle we call home!

Honorable mentions to Lynne, Leslie, Mr. Porter, Unique, JB, Mr. Fisher and the rest of the staff at the Next Generation Center who have made it their mission in life to help these teens on a daily basis.

The verdict is still out on whether I did actually go certifiably insane… but there’s no question I’ll make a difference while I’m here.

Do me a favor… ask yourself… are you doing enough to make a difference in someone else’s life?

One Love,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Author, Ivan Sanchez