By Anielys Garcia Before I begin, I should tell you everything that has led up to this very moment. I am a lower-middle class 17 year old Latina who lives in an unsafe neighborhood with my single mother and a younger sister. I attend a public high school in the Rochester City School District, one of the poorest districts in NYS with extremely low graduation rates. I believe that your home, the people you associate yourself with and school play some of the biggest roles in how your character is built. I was lucky enough to have been raised in a household where education is the #1 priority. My mom didn’t attend college which would make me a first generation college student. My education was just as important for her as it was for me. I’d always come home with good grades and all types of awards. As a kid it was amusing being rewarded for doing well in school but as I moved into high school it became more of a burden. Learning was a chore rather than something I enjoyed. My mom worked too much to notice all the accomplishments I made and I began to lose interest in the things I learned. I eventually surrounded myself with people who had no intentions of even passing their grade. I stopped paying attention, started skipping class and finished all of my work last minute because all I cared about was exceeding my mother’s expectations by bringing home the good grades. Fast forward a few years. It’s 2020 and I still feel the same way about school except with even less motivation to succeed. It’s hard to enjoy and comprehend school through a computer screen, especially with no human interaction. I had no interest in school, and all I knew was that I needed to do well in order to get into a good college. Now remember in the beginning of this writing piece when I said that the people that you associate with play a big role in how your character’s built? I only realized this when I lost someone very close to me. Her name is Jaquayla Young and she was murdered on September 19th, 2020. It’s sad to say that something this tragic was the one thing that changed my whole perspective on life but let me explain. She was one of the few friends I had who helped me get through high school. She was always on top of me about my work and getting to class. Being that I was a sophomore and she a senior, I looked up to her. See, although I did the work I was never really dedicated to it, never wanted it enough. I only did it to satisfy my mom but never really sat down to understand why this was so important. I think about Jaquayla every day and with that comes this sense of relief to know that she did everything in her power to be successful and be great. That’s something I aspire to be. Everything I’ve done, everyone I’ve been around, everything I’ve seen. It all has led up to this very moment, sitting at my computer excited to be writing this because within the next few months I’ll be an aspiring college student, ready to take on one obstacle at a time while helping others do so as well. Everyone needs someone like Jaquayla in their life; I’d like to be that person for someone.
3 Comments
Laura Delehanty
4/29/2021 06:26:03 am
Keep working hard and do it for yourself! Jaquayla would love reading this article and would be proud of the young woman you have become!
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Susan Meier
5/3/2021 10:34:06 am
You are honest about yourself here, and that makes this so refreshing to read. While Jaquayla's death is heartbreaking, the fact that you have found in that the inspiration to turn yourself around is a beuatiful thing, makes her death less stupid and horrifying, at least a little. Thank you for sharing this. Maybe it will influence some younger students currently going down the wrong road.
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Lynn Girven
5/3/2021 12:17:11 pm
Your life and motivation are a true honor to her memory
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