Keeping Our Youthfulness in No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz

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There are No Children Here; by Alex Kotlowitz is a story about two brothers and their mother, Pharaoh, Lafayette and LaJoe Rivers and them growing up in the late 1980's in the (HHH) Henry Horner Homes, a housing project in Chicago. In the story the boys try to retain their youthfulness while they see constant gang violence, death of people close to them and their brother is in jail and their dad is struggling with drug addiction. In Horner, there are two gangs that claim it as their area, and the Rivers family is always hiding from all the shooting. The apartment they live in is so unkempt, and mostly too old. Their mother, LaJoe, does all she can to keep her children out of danger in the community. The children also have to watch out for themselves from danger and quickly losing their childhood. The boys find it difficult to have friends because most of the other children are involved in the gangs or are dealing with drugs. Pharaoh Desperately tries to hold on to his innocence and is very dedicated in his education. sadly, Lafayette has made friends with a mischievous boy named Rickey and was lured into a gang. There are many problems in the neighborhood and even with LaJoe's positive attitude, she cant take her family out of the (HHH) projects. In an environment like the one shown in the book, by Alex Kotlowitz " There Are No Children here," ,how a youth develops is much affected by the physical environment and the actions that go on around them. By the time most of the children of the city have gone through adolescence, they have witnessed and experienced many tragedies heartache that even an adult would find disturbing. They have sold drugs, joined gangs, have probably seen their best friends being shot, or even murdered by th... ... middle of paper ... ...e rules have been violated, some norms constantly change. Some norms in the story is that poverty is common and people learn to adapt to it. “If i grow up, I’d like to be a bus driver”(10) this statement was made by Lafayette to show that growing up in the ghettos is very exhausting and tiring. Socialization is the term used to refer to the process of inheriting and circulating norms, customs and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society. Socialization is in short the means by which social and cultural continuity is gotten. Ricky and Lafayette and four other boys make up their own gang called the four corner hustlers. (218) the environment in which the boys live in is starting to influence their lives because they feel they have to survive, and joining gangs would help them blend in.

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