Personal Narrative: My Pursuit Of Privacy

Another day has gone by. Or, what seemed like a day; the clock tower is over a mile away. The faintest trace of sun in the smoke-filled sky is my only indicator of the hour, if I could even see outside through the sad excuse for a window. A new tenant now lives in my room, as if our tenement didn’t already have enough people. He was yelling at us to make space for him. He is the only tenant that I know that still cares about space. I’ve given up on the prospect of privacy.
Today was the anniversary of our second year in New York City. My grandfather had left Ireland over twenty years ago, and my mother and father decided to finally come join him. Sadly, my grandmother and my other relatives died on the trip, stuck below in the steerage of a dilapidated ship. My remaining family still mourns our loss.

My father forces me to roll the cigars up. Because of this, my rooms reeks of tobacco. The air all around us always smells horrible. On a normal day, I would cough and sneeze, but today was especially worse: my fellow tenants got a job at the same company. I tried to open the window up to vomit, yet the window was unable to open due to the sheer amounts of laundry lines (“Riis & Flash Photography,” Tenement 1). Even though we work for over twelve hours a day, my father’s boss only pays our family 5 cents. For the whole day.
I absolutely hate living like this. I feel like I’m in a