Julia's Neighborhood, Chicago

Julia lives in a poor, predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago. Street violence is so common that as a child she finds it less safe to play in the streets in her neighborhood than in her family’s drug-lord-dominated hometown of Los Ojos, Mexico. The grit and danger of the neighborhood provides the constant backdrop to Julia’s everyday life as a high school student: “I like the late-night sounds of traffic, even if they’re disrupted by the pops of gunshots” (77). The night a carful of men follows Julia home is an ideal illustration of the neighborhood: though the young men in the car are crude and aggressive, a kind old man protects Julia and walks her home. Julia finds pride of and beauty in her home neighborhood, but she is also aware of its endemic violence and poverty; she avoids letting Connor see it, knowing...