Crystal Sanchez Professor Cunningham English 100 29 April 2014
No matter what: Family forever Family is an important factor of everyone’s life; it’s who you are and who you have become today. Family has a different meaning to everyone, for some family is just your parents sisters and brothers. For others family is a bigger picture and its parents brothers/sisters cousin’s uncles/aunts nieces and nephews. Which all are important and have a special part in our lives. But in the book How Long Will I Cry edited by Miles Harvey and foreword by Alex Kolowitz we see many stories by individuals about family. In the story “Death is Contagious” by Max Cerda they take the meaning of family outside. In this story Family is all about being in a gang and about brotherhood and having each other’s back. Family is not always blood its people who care about you and stick by your side no matter what, and will love you and be there by your side. Family has the meaning you give it, but coming from an unloving or broken home can have a negative influence on how one views family.
Many kids feel lost and unloved and are out in the streets just roaming around looking for attention. And start hang out with the wrong crowd and they get influenced to do drugs, alcohol, and steel. Many kids might not see this wrong and do this to get the attention they want, even though it might be negative. And even though they will have consequences for their bad actions they just wand and are desperate for attention and feel loved. And a lot of kids out there might not see this as a bad thing since they didn’t have a good example, and they never got attention telling them it is not ok. So since no one ever gave them advice and told them not to they went out and got into addictions since they thought it was ok. And now they feel cool since they have friends, and attention. But they do not realize they have fake friends and negative attention focusing on them. A lot of kids that join gangs come from “broken homes”, which can be true in a lot of cases because they feel empty or have an empty home and don’t have a good example. A “broken home” can be that the child’s parents are divorced and only live with mom or dad. Also a step parent might come into the picture and the children might feel invaded or that someone is taking their parents place. And they start to act out to get attention but the wrong way. Most kids with a “broken home” feel lost and out of place, so they might want to make a family of their own which might lead to the gang life. They might feel accepted their and that someone is looking out for them, and feel loved. A lot of kids might feel that they are not important if they are in a foster home, they might take it that no one cared enough to care for them. Even though it might be that their parents died and had to be put into a home, or also that their parent got deported and they have no one here to take them in. Children might not fully understand these things and roam the streets. And if you are young and out in the streets there are a lot of temptations. And they might be offered drugs and if they like them and don’t have the money for it, they might join a gang to jump the dealer or they might get a better price. Also they might team up and go into a house and get money, or assault someone for money just to buy drugs since they are hooked. And drugs might lead them to do stuff they wouldn’t do