Just a girl trying to give her community a better name

The relationship between my community and I is an okay relationship; I mean sometimes I’m happy and proud I live in East L.A. and there are times where I’m not so proud or happy to live in East L.A.

East L.A. has a lot of good behind it. A lot people don’t know about the people and how they’re hardworking, loving, caring, artistic, and mentors. East L.A. also has bad parts like every other city like gangs, and kids getting into the wrong path in life because of who they hang around with.

Living in East L.A. I’ve noticed the characteristics that stand out the most of my personality is how I like to think about the actions I do and how it would affect me in the long run. Coming into high school from a Catholic school was different for me, there is a lot that changed and things I didn’t have to deal with at my old school.

My freshmen advisory teacher, Jorge Munoz, told my class to “look around the room, some of these people you see will become friends and some won’t be here with you when senior year comes.” That was 100 percent true.

People I used to hang around with or just see in class aren’t in my classes anymore either because of decisions they made or just too lazy to continue with school. I want to finish high school and have a good life with big accomplishments.

In my neighborhood, I see a lot of older hardworking people. In my block I see elder people who don’t want to stop working. Having conversations with them, they’re always saying don’t mess up and don’t make dumb decisions because you should always want to do better than people in your community and make it better. My neighborhood has shaped me a lot because seeing all these hardworking people makes me want to do better and not duplicate their mistakes.

There’s a lot of hardworking family shops in East L.A. that’s been here forever. For people to come change or make changes gets me mad because they say they don’t want to mess with anything and just want to make it better for us, but this culture and history behind the buildings in which mean a lot to people. I don’t want to see change like big shopping centers or cafes.

Coming into East L.A. and seeing the old business or buildings, and knowing what they were before makes me feel like home.