"We Live in the Shadow": Inner-City Kids Tell Their Stories through Photographs

9. Strain of a Heart

9 Strain of a Heart A dults often view middle schoolers as they do younger children, as passive recipients of care, as the focus of adult socialization efforts, and as having little that is constructive to say about family dynamics or social structural factors. However, the views offered by the kids in this study prove otherwise. We hear stories about particular family experiences, and, as in Chapters 4 and 5, the kids recount witnessing events that leave a lasting impression on them. The photos also allow them to talk about how they go about creating or adding to their circle of family care. While they may not tell us all there is to say about these families, the kids do shine a light on larger issues having to do with their need for protection and care. In the telling of these stories, these twelve-to-fifteen-year-olds seem to relish their role as a kind of moral authority figures judging the actions of their families and community. In describing family life, I recognize that the kids do not and cannot tell the entire story of their lives. For example, we do not learn a great deal about the parents’ occupational or educational histories. Nor do we learn much about other family members. But the photos they use seem to trigger a deeply felt need to talk about family experiences. Annette, Carlos, and Beanna Twelve-year-old Annette sits with thirteen-year-olds Carlos and Beanna to talk about the photos of their families, and in doing so, they tell stories of 130 | Chapter 9 parents who, as Annette puts it, “are good people. They are loving and supportive ”—although they all admit that their parents work hard and are seldom home before the kids go to bed. Annette’s parents divorced several years ago (she does not remember the exact year), but that does not matter to Annette, since she has a good relationship with both parents. Best of all, Annette has fun when she can “hang out” with her mother at Aunt Mare’s house, a few blocks away from her family’s apartment. But as with other kid stories (for example, Thomas’s bat story in Chapter 7 or Jorge’s knife story in Chapter 7), this one evolves into a larger one in which Annette and her family become caught in an incident that clearly affects her. Although Annette cannot establish the time frame—“It may have been last month; I don’t remember when”—she recalls an incident that still scares her: “I was at my aunt’s house, me and my mother, when out of nowhere, we heard a boom, and then my aunt goes out, and she saw two guys.” CArloS: Were they throwing things? BeANNA: let her tell the story. ANNeTTe: I got scared and heard someone say, “Don’t shoot,” and then someone said, “Get back into the house,” and then my mom called the police. And they were in the house and searching for things, and one of the guys yells, “You only got two minutes before the cops come.” They only got seven hundred dollars from my aunt and one hundred dollars from my mom and, like, a dollar from me [the other kids laugh], and then they left running, and then the cops came two days after. CArloS: Why did they come two days after? ANNeTTe: Because they said that they barely found out, and then we told them that we called them two days ago, and they believed us. Carlos laughs. He tells the story of his father, who works as a chef, and his mother, who works as a waitress in the same restaurant. Carlos feels like a celebrity: “Mostly every friend my dad has known he works there and knows me and my sisters and we feel kind of special.” Perhaps that special feeling has something to do with Carlos’s plans for his future: “I just want a job that has to do with business and marketing. I’m not sure what specialty.” Carlos, it turns out, is one of the few kids to have a sense of his potential. Strain of a Heart | 131 Carlos, Beanna, and Annette beam brightly when talking about their parents, reminding me of the smiles I see on the parents’ faces when they mention their kids’ NAI involvement. Beanna’s father is the only one of...