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By: Luz Garcia
“Cuando yo tenia tu edad….” That’s how my mom begins her lectures in the morning when I decide to skip morning chores and sleep in. She quickly reminds me of all the things she did when she was my age and how sleeping-in was, if anything, a luxury. Among many other luxuries she did not have, education was one of them. Just like my mother, there are many Latinas who do not get an education because of the poverty that exists in their countries. However, my mom defied the odds and eventually gave herself that luxury for she is the example that it is never too late to get an education.
My mom was born and raised in Durango, Mexico. Her family, like most families in Mexico was poor but very happy. I always enjoy the stories my mom tells me about her childhood. I am always amazed by how simple life was and how her three sisters and she took pleasure in the littlest things, like when mi abuelita would buy an orange, cut it in four equal pieces and give a piece to each girl “Nos encantaban!” my mother remembers with a smile in her face. My mother, Rosa, or as everyone calls her, Rosita, is the eldest of four daughters. Because she was the eldest she was responsible for helping my grandparents both in the home and out in the farm. Mi abuelita taught my mom how to cook and clean at a very young age so that food would be ready when she and mi abuelito came back from the fields. However, as soon as mom was old enough, it was her who had to go with mi abuelito to the fields while mi abuelita would take care of the house and her sisters.
Mom sometimes sits in my bed and observes me while I am getting ready to go out to a party and it makes me feel like she sees a part of herself in me. She begins reminiscing about her teenage days and recalls that back in her day, while all of the girls were getting ready to go to el baile, she was barely getting home from the farm with mi abuelito, dirty and tired. And if by a strike of luck mi abuelito would let her go to el baile too, he would make sure to wake her up earlier than usual the next morning. To mi abuelito, mom was like the son he didn’t have and much more. The day she got married, mi abuelito said with tears in his eyes “Hoy, se me casa una hija y un hijo…”
Because my mother grew up poor, mis abuelitos could not afford to enroll her to la Secundaria, the equivalent of high school, which means that my mother only had a 6th grade education when she got married to my father at 17. Soon after, they moved to Chicago. When my siblings and I were old enough, my mother, determined to learn English began going to a church where they offered English classes and there she met Enriquetta, a teacher who told her about the GED courses that the church was also offering and of course soon, con las ganas de superarse y aprender, my mom enrolled herself to take them. Eventually, she got her GED and even earned a scholarship. For the following three years, while I was in High School, my mother attended St. Augustine College, and often showed me up because never did she once come home with a grade lower than a B.
I have always been very impressed. Here was a woman, who only had a sixth grade education, who didn’t quite understand spoken English, going to College, taking classes in English and doing Calculus. And then, here I am, born and raised in America with the ability to speak both languages and all the resources I may need available to me, coming home with grades as low as a C. I remember my mother getting home from school late at night, sitting in the dining room with what seemed to be a million books and notebooks scattered all over the table, periodically checking up on my brothers and I, making sure we had dinner and getting us to bed. Nowadays, you still see what seems to be a million books on the dining room table, but the person you would find sitting there is not my mother, it is me. Today my mother has a degree in Liberal Arts and I am currently in college. The struggles I saw her go through, being a mother, wife, and a model student, motivate me daily.
Strength, intelligence, optimism, beauty and grace are all characteristics that the most important woman in my life possesses, and the list could go on and on. Rosa Garcia, my mother, the person I look up to, is the epitome of what I aspire to be like one day. She has taught me everything I know, but most importantly she has taught me that with determination anything is achievable, and when she sees me in low spirits she lifts them up with a single question, “Quien dice que no se puede?”
By: Luz Garcia
Like all neighborhoods and communities, the Chicago Lawn neighborhood has evolved. During the 60’s it was a neighborhood mainly composed of Irish, German, Italian and other upper class European families. Today it is a predominantly Latino and African American, middle class community. Chicago Lawn is a neighborhood that is confronted with many serious issues. Along with gentrification came a rise in crime. Gang violence, poverty, and unemployment have caused a major impact to the community and the youth that grow in it. Due to these problems many activists and other people in the community felt that they had to create a safe, educational and resourceful environment for the community’s youth to grow up in. They all came together and this is how The Southwest Youth Collaborative also known as SWYC was founded.
The Southwest Youth Collaborative, a non-profit organization located on 6400 S. Kedzie, was founded in 1992. The purpose of SWYC is to build leadership in the community’s youth as well as to spread cultural understanding. It also promotes leadership, self-esteem, social growth, and community awareness. The collaborative hopes to nourish the potential that the youth has from every kind of racial, ethnic or economic background. The SWYC organization teaches youth skills that they can use to become contributing members of society and help make this a better world. The center achieves this through various programs because it also believes that when young people experience things directly then things are given meaning and reality, and that will help them establish those realities in their communities. Because Chicago Lawn is one of the most diverse communities in the southwest side it is a great resource and opportunity to teach tolerance.
The Southwest Youth Collaborative is where the Administrative offices and programming are found. “We roughly have about 15 projects. We offer mostly primary services, everything from after school programming, tutoring, career college prep, mentoring, work force development, job readiness, we also do organizing and advocacy work, we train young people to be leaders and organizers and advocates on the issues that impact them, on the problems and challenges they’re facing in their neighborhood and in their personal life…We’re connecting with a network of agencies in the Southwest side that offer a variety of things from health and wellness to education to immigration services.” Explains the associate director of the organization, Jonathan Peck.
Examples of their most popular programs would be the media program and their urban arts program. Media Masala is what the multi-media workshop is called. The workshop teaches basic media skills like web design, music and photography editing, as well as video and audio editing. Terrell Young, a current student at DeVry University, is one of the instructors of the media program. Young is a certified producer from CAN TV, "I’m teaching the kids to record, edit and build web pages." The students here learn how to use software that is being used to teach college students, putting them a step ahead. Most of the students think like Michelle Moore "I’m here, to gain experience in web media and hopefully carry that onto my future because I really want to major in information technology. I’m trying to make something out of my life." Programs like this one are like a stepping-stone for many youth, a lot of them want to go into media careers and most of them are still in high school. However, by learning the skills that they are taught at the center, they will be prepared for college.
Another popular program is The University of Hip-Hop, a program that teaches a variety of art forms. Trinidad Castillo is the instructor of the program and he also gained something from it when he was young, “I grew up here. Pretty much running the streets like most of the youth that attend the collaborative, and it was during the transition phase where most people are growing up and they don’t realize what they want in life. So who knows where I would have been, but then The University of Hip-Hop came about." The collaborative changed his life in a positive way. Castillo explains why he decided to teach here, “I grew up and I realized this is what I am. This is what I want to become. It more or less kept me out of trouble, so that’s the reason why I do it, to help maintain the youth and help by giving them an out. Something for them to release that everyday stress that comes with every day life and just living in this kind of neighborhood, it’s not the prettiest we all know. I just want to help the youth." Castillo wants to give back to the community what was given to him and his students appreciate his efforts like Christophe Bernard, a student who has been coming to the center for three years, “I love this place, a place where they pass down breaking to kids. True breaking not the commercialized one you see on TV.” Other programs include, Yoga classes, GED classes, martial arts, open-mic freestyle, and praise dancing.
The programs that are offered at the collaborative are free, Jonathan Peck explains where the center gets their funding, "We have a variety of funding we get funding from local, county, state, and federal government. We also get private foundations, family foundations and larger foundations and we also have a small percentage coming out of our individual donors and sponsors" SWYC also hosts many fundraising campaigns throughout the year, "We do fundraising events with local youth, staff, volunteers and other programs. And then we write grants." Says Peck.
Because of its success the collaborative has spread out and extended their branches. Some of the branches include, Hubbard High School on 6200 S Hamlin, where they perform Educational talent search; Gage Park High school on 57th and Rockwell; Tarkington Park on 3344 W. 71st, and Peck Elementary school on 3826 w 58th. The programs offered at these sites are based on the same idea, to help the youth. The Center’s efforts have also gone beyond the community itself. In 1997 SWYC developed a partnership with community activists in South Africa, since then, there have been other partnerships with organizations around the world like Belgium; Guatemala; Honduras; Mexico; Zimbabwe; Australia, and The Middle East. All creating the International Youth Leadership Institute in which young people meet and share their experiences and learn from one another.
To this day, the Collaborative continues to touch and change the lives of many youth as it has been doing throughout the years. With the efforts of the instructors and staff, students are provided knowledge and a place where they can get out of the violent streets. Organizations like The Southwest Youth Collaborative teach youth many useful skills and inspire them to make a difference, Calvin Ison is an example, “I want to help the youth and get the message out there that there is hope and you can do what you want to do and you can be what you want to be.”
Story on one of the many programs The Southwest Youth Collaborative Center has to offer.
