Poverty Defines Me

  Poverty. Poverty makes me who I am. Growing up in the harsh, but reality city of Orange, New Jersey made me who I am.

Living in Orange exposed me to a life I've never knew existed. All I was accustomed to was wearing raggedy clothes I wore and the better life that was on my wish list.

Every other night, waking up to gunshots or fights... Every other night, praying to God everything is going to be alright... Every other night, praying the next day my family and I see the light.

As a young girl, I realized that wasn't the life I wanted to live. I wanted to move my family out of the "hood" and dream big.

I didn't have any insight as to what it meant to live well and be successful. I was always accustomed to what I seen and I didn't care about making it to the next level.

As I got older, I started to realize Orange wasn't for me. None of the people I surrounded myself around is who I wanted to be.

At a young age, I realized the education I was getting was poor as well. How could I have wanted to be so successful but still fail?

I wasn't dumb, no, far from it. But growing up in poverty set the star as a  limit.

Just then, my reading, writing, and even speaking skills improved. I realized that following the bad influences around me wasn't cool.

I then started to care about my education and where I wanted to go in life. All the things I had to do, how much I had to study, going out with my friends I had to sacrifice.

And now, here I am, 17 years later looking back on when I was just a little girl. I'm happy I made it this far with goals and dreams in this harsh world.

Mark my words, I promise I'm going to college and getting my family out of poverty. I have 2 little brothers and 2 little sisters that look up to me.

Once I finish high school, which is in 8 months, my dreams will begin to unfold. Until then, here's my story that's still untold.