East L.A., What A Place Not To Be!

As I was reading Chapter 5 of Lives on the Boundary they started of talking about East Los Angeles. It got me thinking about what I see L.A. as now compared to how it was summarized in the book. The Chapter 5 it makes East L.A. look like nothing more than an oversized version of the projects. Talking about how the windows are cracked and the people sitting on their front steps and the old man in overall, it all just crazy.Then they mention the house that the Police don't even want to go into unless they have the backup that they need.They talk about the stores either outside or inside apartments and everything. Explains how the kids would be playing on the dirty grass and wouldn't even care as long as they are having fun. To think that they called this project Maravilla, which the book says "means the marvelous place". The fact that it would be called that must have symbolized how this area used to be held as a place of beautiful buildings and stores, but over time they seemed to get more and more wasteful. Also, it talks about how people wanted to move to the beautiful parts of East L.A. and start their lives all over.

This remind me of the world today. A lot of people may live in the projects and all they care about is saving  their money to move to a better neighborhood. I would always here my friends and their parent say, "Man, I can't wait till I could get out of this ghetto. If I only had enough money". What I just struck me as i was reading was why dont they fix up their neighborhood themselves. Instead of saving money to move and then have to save money just to stay in that area, just fix up your own area. Have everyone in your neighborhood start saving money and eventually you would have enough money to fix up your area and still keep the house or apartment that you may have grew up in. Yes that is asking alot but it can be done. Fix up the outside of your house yourself and make your hoouse stand out. Things like this can be done it just a matter of someone actually "taking the bull by the horns" and going with it.