Essay about Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace
Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace
While reading Amazing Grace, one is unable to escape the seemingly endless tales of hardship and pain. The setting behind this gripping story is the South Bronx of New York City, with the main focus on the Mott Haven housing project and its surrounding neighborhood. Here black and Hispanic families try to cope with the disparity that surrounds them. Mott Haven is a place where children must place in the hallways of the building, because playing outside is to much of a risk. The building is filled with rats and cockroaches in the summer, and lacks heat and decent water in the winter. This picture of the "ghetto" is not one of hope, but one of fear. Even the hospitals servicing the neighborhoods ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...But, it is only logical for a city to place such a incinerator only a block away from the grade school. Like most of the children in this society, Cliffie is forced to understand and deal with things that most adults can not cope with. Through the eyes of the children these problems are described with such innocence, but with such understanding and clarity it is alarming. It is as if by hanging on to their youthful imagination's, they have the ammunition they need to face reality.
Mrs. Washington and her son life in the Mott Haven housing project. She is dying of AIDS and her teenage son must tend to her health care plus his schooling. The social services which processes and sends out her welfare money, is constantly under reconstruction. Her payments are often late and numerous times she has been evicted from her apartment. Not only is eviction a problem, but so is her health care. ther have been times she has had to wait two days on a cot in the hallway until a doctor could see her. These problems start to wear down her son. As a result his school work is declining and he hardly ever smiles anymore. He is afraid to sleep in case his mother might need him or she just dies in her sleep. The Washington family is just one case from a pile of hundreds just like it. Program cutbacks effects thousands of people just like the Washington's. Without the proper
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