College Bound Jovanni Decasco
July 21, 2011
Many Hispanic teens today get involved in serious problems. Some sell drugs for easy money, some join street gangs; these kids end up becoming another inner city statistic. I refuse to be a statistic. Luckily, for me, my mother gave me the strength to avoid situations like these. My mom has taught me an important lesson. That important lesson is that she taught me is to avoid and stay out of problems. This has influenced me because this changes the way I choose my friends.
I remember when I was in my sophomore year in high school; I had friends that tried to convince me into joining gangs and causing problems. I’m not going to lie, at first it sounded like fun and I was thinking about joining. I thought that was an entertaining way to spend time with my friends. It sounded like cool because we were going to do crazy things. For example, we were going to steal, fight people and other extreme things. Stealing that sounded like fun because when you steal you have a chance of being caught by the police and if that happens then you have to run as fast as you can and hide from them. The part about fighting people sounded like fun as well because we were to provoke people to fight us by stealing an item they have and calling them names. I wanted to fight a lot because I wanted to gain respect. The reason I wanted to join a gang is because I wanted to fit in with my friends and I wanted to be more like them. I also wanted to have power and joining a gang was the only way I thought I could get it.
As the days passed, I still had not decided what I wanted to do. I was very close to joining a gang but I heard my mom’s voices echoing in my head saying, “avoid and stay out of problems.” After I heard those echoes, I started thinking about my future. I was asking myself some questions. I asked myself, do I want to ruin my life? Do I want to disappoint my mom? Do I want to end up in jail? These questions helped me make my decision. I decided to avoid and stay out of problems. I didn’t want to join any type of gang and cause problems. I made this decision because I didn’t want to disappoint my mom. I didn’t want her to see me end up in jail. She raised me well and taught me better than to be involved in problems. I didn’t want to see her suffer because of me.
In, conclusion, my mom has had a big influence in my life. She has taught me an important lesson. That lesson is to avoid and stay out of problems. My mom is the reason why I am not involve in street gangs. If it wasn’t for my mom words echoing in my head, I probably would be in a gang right now. I would have been living up to the stereo-types that exist about the young, Latino youth of New York City. However, because of my mother I was able to break free from those stereo-types. As of right now, I’m working my way in to going to college and being a computer engineer. I turn my whole life around because of my mothers voices.
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