Arturo Leon Jr.
Colleen Green
Humanities
1 June, 2017
College or Not
When race is a big factor in someone's life, it affects what they do in the future. In Hold Love Strong, the main character Abraham lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with six other people. Abraham's experiences that connect where he lives and the people he interacts along with the impact of poverty, law, power, and love. Abraham faces major events during the book that affect his social standpoint. One major event that Abraham goes through is when his grandma loses her job. His family relies on his grandma for basic needs. Losing her job makes everything more difficult for his family as she is the caregiver. Later in the book Abraham has to decide whether he should go to college or help his family get money to get out of poverty. Most people in this situation do get a chance like this and have to make a choice over their family or himself.
Let’s elaborate more on Abraham grandma and losing her job. Most people in his situation and in his income class always have one to two providers in the family. It is hard enough as it is to feed so many mouths but losing her job makes it worse. An example of this in America is,”In 2010, 11 percent of U.S. children had at least one unemployed parent. A shocking 42 percent (31 million children) were living in families below the poverty line.” (Parents Lose Jobs, and Children Suffer). In America we make it hard for low income families to raise up in their classes but in even worse is when we take their parents jobs away. How can they provide for their families. We don’t take into account about the lowest income need their jobs to survive. In Hold Love Strong we see how Abraham and his family live through the same problem.
Going back to him choosing whether or not he was going to college is a huge decision. Most people say yes, but in his case it has changed. He either goes to college and leaves the poverty life. That means he will not be able help support his family getting out of poverty. If Abraham stays to help his family but he misses the opportunity to go to college and leave poverty. As Isaac Newton once said, “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.” We as a society have made African Americans lives so hard and we have done so. Abraham needs to make a decision soon or later about going to college or staying with his family.
This part of my book really shows how much race can impacted your life. In our fantasy we want equity, but in reality we choose money over people. To the rich money is everything, they don’t care about the consequences of their actions. They just know that they are going to get a big fat pay check. You can take the human out of man, but you can’t take the greed out of man. What really makes this issue come true is capitalism. This idea of making money really brings out the money in people. We haven’t really change our attitude toward each others races and we will continue down this path unless we change. What we need to change is how the American mind thinks about money and race. We need to switch how feel about each one. We more people to care about how we treat each other and make money have less meaning of happiness and pride. We give money more power of the mind than we do making each feel equally.
I understand why the rich rule the economy but draws someone to ruining lives. Taking money over people and letting greed beat the humanity out of human beings. How do have the ability to choose money and suffer of others as happiness but making others happy is terrible. To the rich it’s like a sin to god. I think the rich are like king and queens of the capitalist society of America. When I say king and queens , what I am trying to say is that they make everyone suffer for their own benefit. We might have change the type of government but we didn’t take monarchs out of society. How do we expect to change how we treat others if we don’t take the very reason this happens. We have to change the way Capitalism works. This idea has been around since the sixteenth century and has created this great country of opportunity to a country of disappointment.
So in general this Abraham life really sends this a message of the African American life. How there's very little opportunity to leave poverty. When given the opportunity most are held back because of the economy collapsing on their families. So Abraham race really connects to his surrounds whether he notices it or not. He can’t escape this void that society has made for his races and other minorities. His story is one of many people the go through society’s flaw.
Colleen Green
Humanities
1 June, 2017
College or Not
When race is a big factor in someone's life, it affects what they do in the future. In Hold Love Strong, the main character Abraham lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with six other people. Abraham's experiences that connect where he lives and the people he interacts along with the impact of poverty, law, power, and love. Abraham faces major events during the book that affect his social standpoint. One major event that Abraham goes through is when his grandma loses her job. His family relies on his grandma for basic needs. Losing her job makes everything more difficult for his family as she is the caregiver. Later in the book Abraham has to decide whether he should go to college or help his family get money to get out of poverty. Most people in this situation do get a chance like this and have to make a choice over their family or himself.
Let’s elaborate more on Abraham grandma and losing her job. Most people in his situation and in his income class always have one to two providers in the family. It is hard enough as it is to feed so many mouths but losing her job makes it worse. An example of this in America is,”In 2010, 11 percent of U.S. children had at least one unemployed parent. A shocking 42 percent (31 million children) were living in families below the poverty line.” (Parents Lose Jobs, and Children Suffer). In America we make it hard for low income families to raise up in their classes but in even worse is when we take their parents jobs away. How can they provide for their families. We don’t take into account about the lowest income need their jobs to survive. In Hold Love Strong we see how Abraham and his family live through the same problem.
Going back to him choosing whether or not he was going to college is a huge decision. Most people say yes, but in his case it has changed. He either goes to college and leaves the poverty life. That means he will not be able help support his family getting out of poverty. If Abraham stays to help his family but he misses the opportunity to go to college and leave poverty. As Isaac Newton once said, “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.” We as a society have made African Americans lives so hard and we have done so. Abraham needs to make a decision soon or later about going to college or staying with his family.
This part of my book really shows how much race can impacted your life. In our fantasy we want equity, but in reality we choose money over people. To the rich money is everything, they don’t care about the consequences of their actions. They just know that they are going to get a big fat pay check. You can take the human out of man, but you can’t take the greed out of man. What really makes this issue come true is capitalism. This idea of making money really brings out the money in people. We haven’t really change our attitude toward each others races and we will continue down this path unless we change. What we need to change is how the American mind thinks about money and race. We need to switch how feel about each one. We more people to care about how we treat each other and make money have less meaning of happiness and pride. We give money more power of the mind than we do making each feel equally.
I understand why the rich rule the economy but draws someone to ruining lives. Taking money over people and letting greed beat the humanity out of human beings. How do have the ability to choose money and suffer of others as happiness but making others happy is terrible. To the rich it’s like a sin to god. I think the rich are like king and queens of the capitalist society of America. When I say king and queens , what I am trying to say is that they make everyone suffer for their own benefit. We might have change the type of government but we didn’t take monarchs out of society. How do we expect to change how we treat others if we don’t take the very reason this happens. We have to change the way Capitalism works. This idea has been around since the sixteenth century and has created this great country of opportunity to a country of disappointment.
So in general this Abraham life really sends this a message of the African American life. How there's very little opportunity to leave poverty. When given the opportunity most are held back because of the economy collapsing on their families. So Abraham race really connects to his surrounds whether he notices it or not. He can’t escape this void that society has made for his races and other minorities. His story is one of many people the go through society’s flaw.