My original neighborhood that I grew up in was the neighborhood that made me who I am today. This neighborhood was made up of middle to upper class elderly retired African Americans. We all looked after each other and were considered family. I could go to any adult in my neighborhood for advice, discipline, or even gifts and treats, like candy and clothes. They brought us up installing in us respect, knowledge, and responsibility. When people around us visited us they would ask questions like “what area is this?”, or “why are you guy’s houses so big? Honestly, I was privileged and blessed with the resources I wanted and needed to become the intelligent, respectful, talented, and gifted young man I am today. We had limited amounts of negativity in our neighborhood and I wasn’t exposed to the worse aspects of life in our neighborhood, such as drugs, fighting, guns, etc. until I was older. I wasn’t a part of it, but I was aware of it. There weren’t that many kids in my neighborhood for me to hang around and I was an adventurous person. The kids I chose to hang around were a part of the reason I have to still work on my speech and level of professionalism today. Over my years of living there, neighbors were moving out a lot and being replaced by Latino's. Now I have relocated out of that neighborhood but carry everything I learned from it everywhere I go. Thinking back on my neighborhood and comparing it to the way I know some of my friends and family were brought up in their neighborhoods; I feel that I was privileged and blessed. I received and seen in my twenty years of living more things than a lot of people over fifty dreamed of seeing. With that said I thank god and my parents for the wonderful young man here before you today.
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