In addition to poverty, the author and her siblings were forced to contend with a continual police presence in their neighborhood. In other words, with so little money and so few choices, the author’s mother struggled to keep her children supplied with enough healthy, nurturing meals. Other than that, the only outlets to buy food or drink were a liquor store and fast-food joints.
In fact, the only place that sold groceries was a 7-Eleven convenience store. They made do with water.Įven when they could afford more nutritious food, there were few places in the neighborhood to get it.
Indeed, for over a year, they didn’t even have milk for their cereal, because their slum landlord refused to replace their broken refrigerator. The author recalls that there was often only cereal to be had. Despite all her hard work, she sometimes still couldn’t afford food for her children. Her mother was a single parent and spent sixteen hours a day working multiple jobs. The author’s impoverished upbringing in 1990s Los Angeles was typical of many Black American childhoods at the time. In fact, it was defined by two very different things: poverty and the police. Unfortunately for the author, her childhood wasn’t filled with particularly much of either. For many American children, childhood is a time of innocence and security.
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