My
name is Valencia Peete I'm a 20-year-old respectable young women. My unique
upbringing has formed me into the young women I am today. Growing up in-between
West and North Oakland Ca I’ve seen a lot, heard a lot, and felt a lot of
emotions that I believe has helped shape me into the young women I am today. My
Neighborhood has always been colorful. I've never been secluded to just one race
of people. People on the blocks I've lived on taught me a lot; because of the
diversity in my neighborhoods I’ve always welcomed new faces. Although my
neighborhood was multiracial, it seemed like everybody had always struggled with
the same problems. Whether it was drug abused alcoholic parents, older siblings
in and out of jail, and or lack of funds to pay livable wages. It seemed like
people in my area always resulted to petty crimes to keep the bills paid.
Growing up I can vividly remember drugs getting sold, and or local ‘Crack Heads’
trying sale my mom there stolen goods or offering my mom there cleaning
services to feed there habit. Being a child, older people try to
shelter you from the severity of the world, but somehow it creeps in anyway.
Although I’ve seen a lot of gruesome things in my neighborhoods I have seen
some positive as well.
My mother has always worked one to two sometimes, three jobs
at a time, to keep my sister and I happy. We may have not had an actual
Christmas tree but my mother, always figured out how to make one. I remember my
10th Christmas we used our coat rack as a substation for a tree “It worked’.
My great uncle owned a pool haul on 14th and Peralta in West Oakland
in the daytime my cousins and I would go play games there, it was lots of fun. I
attended Washington Elementary, as child after school was over my mother would
still be work so; I went to the local recreational center/park all the time. “Bushrod
Park” was lots of fun classmates and myself went on field trips with the park in
the summer it was a great time.
.
Believing in the possibility of tomorrow being
better than today has always kept me going. I thank God my mother never let her
circumstances define her. Having someone positive to look up to no matter what
the case may have been was great for my upbringing. Even if my mother did have
a rough time getting things done, she would always land on her feet some kind
of way with a smile on her face. Despite my quarter of the world and its downfalls
I’ve never let it define me. I’m more aware of things now being a young adult,
because of my neighborhoods as a child. I appreciate things because I know how
it feels to go with out. And I also remember to be grateful no matter what
because I could be way worse off. Actually I know there are people way worse
off then I ever was all around the world. So I try to never complain. Now I
live in an area labeled as a suburb in Antioch Ca. It is an upgrade from
Oakland Ca but it has its struggles too. My next-door neighbor house was robbed
just last week. Its alarming to know that, but crime is everywhere not just in
the hood. No matter what I love being from Oakland Ca, even if people relate a
lot of violence to my birth city. Oakland better know, as the town will forever
be in my heart.
