Felicia (1965)

play in there aren't too many parks and swimming pools around my neighborhood the kids are getting a good break at the schools too new buildings equipment books and so on the my school's pretty old I haven't been out of my own neighborhood too much but I guess what impresses me most in other neighborhoods face there's nothing jammed up against anything else and there's lots of room to breathe I guess this city is a pretty good place to live in for most [Music] people [Music] my name is Felicia I'm a junior in high school this is my bedroom where I was born and I lived here all my life with my mother and my sister and my brother Peter's the oldest and Peter that typed it if he can't have it all of it he doesn't want part of it so I guess that's why he quit school cuz he thought he could do better on his own he has very high IQ but he's just lazy but I think now he's coming to his senses and he knows it just can't do it without an education Peter and I are only a year apart and then Rosie and I are three years apart she's the quietest one she's the one my mother babies the most she's the one we all have to take care of I guess we get along pretty well because um we don't don't fool around with each other that much she goes her way and I go mine she's pretty smart too she got straight A's on her last report card she's not like me and Peter like homework and stuff I'll let it go to the last minute but she doesn't she comes home and she does it right away now that's something I definitely wouldn't do and Peter definitely wouldn't do my mother is the so suppor of the family she takes care of us good always worries about us sometimes it gets a little you know you get bugged when she's always telling you do this do that she's just like any other mother I guess only she's had it a little tougher cuz she's been the only one to take care of us and act like a father and a mother people bring her clothes and material and she makes her dresses she gets money for that and then my neighbor lets her babysit when she goes to work couple of days out of the week in the daytime when we're gone to school she does some sewing and then at night after we go to bed she stays up till about 2 or 3:00 she works all the time she wanted to go to college but her father died and he wanted her to go to college but her mother was that kind and thought the daughter's place was at home and all she needed to know was how to cook she just finished high school she didn't have enough education to get a high paying job she wants us all to go to college everything she missed she wants us to have I bet she give her right arm to let us go to college bye bye unit States of America and the stand One Nation God [Music] indiv all right now what we have been given a single problem in textbook all right so in number n all you want to do is make correction I'd like to go straight from high school right into college I know that with college I'll try to take those type of courses that um I can go into different fields dealing with people I want to go to college because I want to be something that is really helpful to the people something that isn't just what everyone can do it's something where I can help my own people you know half the girls more than half of them want to be secretary beauticians or cosmetologist or something like that I guess they've decided that it's no use that time there's no use in them aspiring to become anything else because they won't be allowed to do anything anything [Music] else all together in all the schools I've attended there's only been about a total of six like kids once I went to um summer school at another high school where I was mostly Caucasian kids they were pretty nice in the classroom but outside it was a different matter you know like we could we got along in the class all right we spoke to each other and borrowed pencils and paper and everything and um helped each other in our class work but outside when they got with their friends I guess the same on our side when we got with ours it was we sort of ignored each other but I think it was more on their part because I used to try to talk to the girl that sat next to me on the outside and she would you know sort of shy away I guess she was ashamed to you know be singing with me or something but I didn't pay too much attention to it all of them seemed a little bit more confident of what they were going to do you know they were going to go to college when girl was going to to become an actress and everything and on our side there was sort of an uh you know there were sort of apprehensive about what they were going to do I guess that's because even I was because I really don't know if I'm going to college but they all seemed pretty sure of it even the ones that I thought were real you know they all seemed pretty sure that um they were going to college and I just took it for granted that maybe their fathers and mothers had the money that they could make sure they went to some kind of college all these people that talk about wats they say how dirty it is how filthy it is how much they want to leave all my friends don't want to live here hate to say that they live in Watts I think that's silly they do live in Watts sure everybody wants to get out I don't I think I want to stay here but I don't want to live like I'm living right now but I think that if what is ever going to be anything more than it is it's going to take people who stay here and build it up after all if everybody just starts moving out those that can't move just stay here live like they their mothers and Father's lived it's not going to do any good I know they need someplace they have those things but they don't have to have them right behind houses how would you like to have a bunch of cars right in your backyard so what if some kids get out there playing and they pile one car to high and it comes crashing down and there's no place for it to crash but right into the yards and I think that's dangerous and I don't see why the city allows it to be like that those people even if they are living in a in a a rundown neighborhood that still isn't any reason for them have to live with stuff like that right at their back door you live with your mother and you see what your mother has and I guess you figure well if she didn't make it I know I can't so you just give up before you even start I think maybe that's what happened to a lot of the of uh adults you know you you see all these men hanging around on the corners all day long doing nothing playing checkers they just don't care anymore perhaps it's too late for the adults but it's not too late for the Young Generation like [Music] myself that