How Long Will I Cry? (20 page)

My childhood was crazy. I went to six
different grammar schools and stayed in a lot of different places.
I don’t know why we moved so much. I guess my mother didn’t get
along with the landlord. I had a lot of time when I was young when
I was without adult supervision. My mama had to work. My grandma
was always kinda sick and kinda old. My sister was either working
her candy store job or gone with her friends. So I just had the
opportunity to do what I wanted to do. Who was there to tell me I
couldn’t do it? I just had too much freedom.

My father is a clown. I don’t even call him
Daddy. I call him by his name, Donnie. I got hate for the dude
because he wasn’t there. I have only seen him three times out of my
whole life. When I was 6, I saw him at a family party. I didn’t hop
on his lap, though. He was like, “Yeah, you know who I is?”

I’m like, “Naw, I don’t know you.”

He was like, “I’m your daddy.”

I looked at him and told him, “I don’t got no
daddy.”

He was like, “You don’t?”

I told him, “I don’t got no daddy. I only got
my mama and my grandma.”

I seen him again when I was 10. We were
staying with his cousin and he stopped by. He said to me, “What do
you want? I am going to buy you anything you want.”

My little brother was like, “Ask for a
game.”

I was like, “Naw, I gon’ ask for some
clothes.”

I needed some clothes because my mama was
trying to save to get us a crib. He never got me the clothes. The
last time I saw him, I was outside when my mama was bringing in
groceries. My mama asked him to help her carry in the groceries and
he said, “For what? That ain’t for me. I ain’t fitta eat.”

I was like, “But they are for your shorties
though—me and my little brother.” Ever since then, I ain’t never
seen the dude. I told him don’t even call me. When I see him, I
gon’ knock him out. If he was in the hospital, I would walk in,
spit on him and leave.

Dude don’t care. Dude don’t care. He probably
is a drunk now because, from what I hear, all he does is hang out
in front of liquor stores like Rothschild or Four Brothers. Or,
maybe he’s a crackhead. All drunks turn into something.

If I could, I would move out of the
neighborhood. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of worrying about
people coming after me. I’m tired of having to worry about my
loyalty to my friends. I tell people all the time, my loyalty is a
curse and a blessing at the same time. It’s like a job. It’s a 9-5.
You can’t tell your friend you’re not going to help him fight. But
sometimes I feel caught up, like a twig in a tornado.

I am still in a gang, but I don’t gangbang
anymore. If a fight broke out and my mans called me, I would help
him fight, but I don’t pick on people anymore. For now, I just keep
myself busy and stay away from my neighborhood. Instead, I hang out
at school, go to basketball practice, or I’m with my mentor. I
really try not to be in the neighborhood like that anymore. By the
time I go home, I’ve missed all the trouble. 

It’s been four months since I’ve had a fight.
I’m trying to learn from my previous mistakes of not going to
school and being in fights. So now I go to school, I don’t fight,
and I do something productive when I get out of school. Like,
recently, my mentor took me on a college tour. Before that
experience, I wasn’t thinking about going to college, but now I am.
During the college tour, one of the presenters compared the kids
who don’t go to college to kids who go to college. It made me
think.

I am determined to turn my life around. I am
now in it to win it. I can tell that I am changing. I was asked
recently, if someone walked up and stole my cell phone, what would
I do? In the past, I would have whupped that person. Now, I would
talk to the person. I would let him know that I knew he had my cell
phone and that I wanted it back. If he didn’t give it back, I would
try to talk and resolve the situation. If he still didn’t give it
back, I would be mad, really mad, but I would walk away to avoid
further confrontation. I’m proud of what I’m becoming.

In five years, I see myself going to college
and graduating. I also see myself getting my own crib, probably
married with two shorties and working or owning my own business. I
also see myself being a different father than my father; I am going
to be there for my kids. For now, I am going to keep going to
school and keep doing my work. I am going to keep myself busy so I
can continue on this path.

I told myself that I can’t be 25, out here
still trying to hustle, and still talking about how I need to go
back to school. I know somebody who is 40 and still on the block.
Nigga, you 40 years old! When you gon’ quit?

—
Interviewed by LaDawn Norwood

EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS
TAINTED

MARIA HERNANDEZ

Maria Hernandez, who asked that her real
name not be used, grew up in street-gang royalty. The man she
believed to be her father, “Beto,” was a leader of the Latin Kings
in Humboldt Park, a Puerto Rican neighborhood on the Near West Side
where the powerful gang was formed.

Two events transformed Maria’s life when she
was 11 years old. First came the revelation that Beto was not her
biological father. Then came Beto’s arrest and eventual
imprisonment on drug-trafficking charges.

Despite her childhood struggles, Maria
graduated from college and plans to pursue a master’s degree.
Although she still keeps in touch with Beto, she has not followed
his path into the criminal underworld. Instead, she works in his
old territory as a youth coordinator for an organization attempting
to keep young people away from gangs. She frequently uses the word
“crazy” to describe her life.

It’s an incredible story, but it’s a sad
story.

I grew up in Humboldt Park, born and
raised—story of a typical Puerto Rican, I guess. My mom was 17
years old when she was pregnant with me; she had my brother two
years later. So we were raised by my mom who was a welfare baby, so
they call it. It was a way of life. I grew up thinking, “Well,
everybody’s on food stamps. Everybody has cousins that are gang
members, fathers that are gang- and drug-affiliated.”

We grew up in a community where kids were
having kids, so there were a lot of kids. Summer days were long.
Back then, it was a popular thing to be outside. We spent all of
our time outside, just being outside roller-skating, riding bikes,
playing freeze tag, eating freeze pops. We would walk to the corner
store about four times a day, I’m convinced of it.

Our father was an original Latin King.49 It
made me feel safe, because people were scared of him and everybody
knew who he was. He was a great guy. His lifestyle was horrible,
but for the most part I respected him as a man.

I remember one time I cried, because I was in
grammar school and the kids were like, “You don’t have a father,
you don’t have a father.” So I went home crying and told my mom how
they said I didn’t have a father, and I guess she told him. My
kindergarten teacher put together a little play—and in walks my
dad. I’m like, “Yes!” He walks in so ghetto with all these gold
chains, a wifebeater T-shirt and saggy jeans. And it was just like,
“That’s my dad!”

Everybody was saying, “He’s so cool.”

And I’m like, “I know.”

There was an international drug bust and my
father was one of those incarcerated. They didn’t know that the FBI
was in on anything and when they take you, they take all of your
possessions, too. The cars, the house, the property—it’s going with
the FBI. Period. I was about 11, and I knew this is it. He’s gone
for good.

You got these fathers that are drug dealers
and gang-affiliated and you start feeling like you’re on top of the
world. Then it’s all wiped away, just like that. You never know
when it’s coming, but when it does, it hits you and you’re stuck.
Nowhere to go. It’s like starting from scratch. That’s why I kinda
wish we never had anything. It was hard. You go from having money
with this baller drug dealer to having nothing.

Right before he got incarcerated, my mom took
me to McDonald’s, sat me down, and told me that my brother’s father
wasn’t mine.

She was the typical Puerto Rican mom that
cooked every day, so if we went to a restaurant, we knew it was a
good occasion. So she sent my brother to play in the play place,
and she was like, “I have something to tell you. Beto’s not your
father.”

And I was like, “What?”

“Yeah, Beto’s not your father.” And deep down
inside, I felt it. I have older cousins and, when they would
describe me, they would say, “He’s his, but she’s not.”

I didn’t know how to feel. I was young and I
didn’t understand it, but the more I grew up, the easier it was for
me to just stick to myself. It’s like you paint an image and you
imagine your life as a kid and it never dawns on you that things
are never going to turn out that way.

Beto’s out of jail now. He was released a
year ago. It’s funny because he was released right before I
graduated college, so he was able to come to my graduation. You
would think you spend that much time in jail and you would
learn—but no. He wasn’t supposed to come back to Chicago; the
authorities told him not to come back. He came back. It is what it
is. Supposedly, he’s back to the drug thing. You know, I see him
when I see him, and we talk every now and then. But my brother and
I had more contact with him when he was incarcerated.

The end of my freshman year in high school, I
met my real father on accident. I was in the car with my mom. We
were driving down Belmont and we were in the turning lane going
left and there was a truck across from us going the opposite way in
the turning lane.

I don’t even know why I said something, and
to this day I regret saying anything. But I’m like, “I feel like I
know this man.”

And she’s like, “Who?”

I said, “The guy driving that truck.”

She looks, and she was like, “You definitely
know him. That’s your father.”

My stomach hit the ground. I didn’t even know
what to think. My mom, being the person she was, pulls through,
goes around, follows the truck and is beeping, beeping, beeping
till he pulls over. He pulls over. They get out of the car. She’s
having a conversation with him and she’s like, “You need to help
take care of her. I’ve been looking for you.”

I just felt bad for her because she’s seeking
sympathy from somebody that doesn’t care. I kinda wanted to be
like, “Screw him, and let’s go.” Nonetheless, she talked and every
month after that he sent me a check for $300. Didn’t really get to
know him much. I graduated from high school and invited him, but he
had a daughter the same age as me and she graduated as well, so he
said he couldn’t come.

I went away to college for two years at
Northern Illinois University (NIU) and I was having issues paying
my tuition. My real father was frustrated. He was like, “I just
can’t do this anymore.” So I could feel the tension building up and
then, that was it; my sophomore year in college we had a dispute
over money. He was like, “I don’t want to have to do anything for
you anymore.” I could understand that if he didn’t start doing
stuff for me when I was 14, but he was off to a late start. Here I
am trying to get my degree and he bails out.

It just got to the point where he was like,
“This isn’t my fault, anyway. You should’ve stayed here and went to
school somewhere in the city or somewhere cheaper where I wouldn’t
have to help you. I told your mother not to keep you anyway.”

And I told him, “My mom raised me. She did a
good job, and guess what? I’m gonna make it with or without you. I
don’t expect you to be there. I don’t even care that you don’t want
to be here. But when you’re old and gray and the rest of your
children abandon you, don’t come looking for me.” I haven’t heard
from him since. That was four years ago.

You come out of these situations and people
don’t realize the damage that is done to you psychologically. I
wear a smile, but people don’t see past that. I have a hard time
crying and I think I love differently. I love to a certain point,
but I can’t love past a certain point. I feel like it will make me
vulnerable and it will open me up to get hurt. I’ve been proposed
to twice, and they don’t know my story. I don’t like sharing it;
this is stuff that people don’t know.

I used to have a horrible temper; it was just
bad. Anything would just provoke a fight. And my mom was like, “I
don’t know what to do with you anymore.”

I was still fighting in college. I felt
unprepared for NIU. I wound up on probation and was about to get
kicked out of my dorm room for fighting. So I had to leave. I was
like, “You came here to do something, and you’re not doing it.”

I think when I got to UIC is when I realized
just how different I actually was. You can’t really hang with the
people you grew up with too much. I love them, and I still talk to
them. We have history together, and it’s like, “You’re always gonna
be a part of me and, when you need me, I’m here for you. But right
now, I got other stuff to take care of.”

It’s crazy, ‘cause I met people at UIC and we
would all walk to the Blue Line and they’re like, “Oh, you’re going
the ghetto way. Catching the Blue Line west, that’s to the
’hood
-’hood.” They used to joke about it, and I joked with
them too. But I took those thoughts home with me: “There’s no way
they’ll ever be able to understand me as a person.”

It’s so segregated in this city that it’s
almost like a vicious cycle. There’s no way we’re going to break
out of it. These kids see it and they know. And honestly, they know
what’s bad and what’s not. They just don’t feel like they can
promote change alone.

I work with high-school kids. These girls
aren’t prepared for what’s to come. Once they have these
kids—that’s it, they’re stuck. They end up having a hard time going
to school and working, so they drop out, and then here we go again
with the cycle. These kids want love. They get pregnant and they
think, “I finally have somebody that’s going to love me.” I see
this so many times.