Robert: While the neighborhood has always been rough, in Our America it's now 1996 and the south side of Chicago has taken a turn for the worse. On page 167, Le Alan says that in the past 3 years things have gotten more exciting and difficult. The violence has increased since 93 to the point where the police have to take students out from school for selling drugs. Students are stabbing others in their own class. On page 169 when Le Alan and Lloyd revisits their elementary school they ask their teacher the same question, "What percent of the class is gonna make it?" Three years ago the answer was about 95 percent with only 5 or 6 percent of the students not making it. Now its 50 percent! That shows how things have gotten worse in their neighborhood.
Le Alan and Lloyd fear that the violence is getting out of control but that doesn't stop them from getting better. Pg. 159, Lloyd says, "I'm seventeen years old, a junior at Future Commons High School. Could be doing better, but I'm gonna get it together. Le Alan then says "And I'm a senior at Martin Luther King Jr. High School, on my way to college in a couple months." When they stuck to their goal about making something of themselves and not getting caught up with selling drugs they were able to live better despite the increasing violence. They're not happy with the direction the hood is going but they're happy with what they do with their lives.
Fortunately I was never in a situation where I feared people around me because as long as they didn't stand in my way from reaching my goals, having a good job as an animator, there's nothing to fear. The world only scares me because who knows if the world would throw something unexpected at me and I'm not able to reach my dream. I just gotta be confident that nobody can stop me.

Sara: Everyone is connected to each other because things that one person can effect everyone else. For example, when I wrote about genocide I called it a chain of hatred because when one group of people killed another group for whatever reason, they were killed by another group for that same reason. On page 163 LeAlan and Lloyd's neighborhood had it's first major gang warand on Pg. 160 Le ALan even says, "...with them cutting off welfare, a lot of these shorties are gong to be even more messed up." "Shorties are going to be out here starving, and they're going to want to ea. I'ts going to be hell out here!" While this would affect most of the hood, Le Alan and Lloyd didn't let it affect them. They're moving on up now and are almost finished with school even though other kids have been dropping out and dealing drugs. They want to make something of themselves.
Like them I don't let a bad situation affect me. When I applied for columbia I had a low g.p.a.
But now I'm giving my all in the bridge program and I'm gonna do what it takes to make it in columbia.