Lives of inner-city residents in the South Bronx. Kozal focuses on the troubles of everyday life for children who live in the poorest congressional district of the United States, Mott Haven, in New York City's South Bronx. These young black and Hispanic children strive for survival while living in a community of violence and disease. Thousands of people were killed from fires, accidents shootings or diseases such as AIDS. There lives seem astonishing to think about but there so used to them that to them there as normal as everyone else’s.

Living in the impoverished urban neighborhood of Mott Haven, you do not what will happen next. No one is there to protect you not even the police. If you step on somebody’s foot or even look at someone the wrong way he might pull out a gun and kill you. These are not only adults but kids as young as 14 or even 12. Women are victims of sexual abuse and rape. For example, a little girl who was only eleven was found burned and murdered under the Bruckner Boulevard. ( Kozol p.48). People get killed for no reason. You can get shot simply just walking in the lobby of your own building and then later someone

will find out it was a mistake. Sound of gunshots is nothing new to the people of this urbanized community. When they hear a gunshot everyone knows to fall on there knees and crawl over into the hallway were there are no windows. “I taught them to do it like the men do it in the army, crawling on there stomachs”. States Charlayne a nanny of children (Kozol-p.66”)

People in Urban America lived in worst manageable conditions. This is clearly seen in Jonathan Kozol’s book Amazing Grace. Innocent children suffered in the Urban Community of Mott haven in South Bronx. They were forced to live in a civilization of violence and poverty yet, learn to strive for survival.

As for the woman in these impoverished urban neighborhoods they had one root open to them which was prostitution. If you would see a smart, innocent young girl you would not know what to think of her ten years down the line, will she be on her way to Harvard University or will she be scrubbing floors or climbing into some truck? As stated on page 67 “Many of the customers for the prostitutes are truckers. But you also see some men in cars, men of all races, every kind. The woman climbs right in, does what she has to do, then goes and gets a hit, then back out on the street to find another one, sometimes they make him buy the drugs first”.

Hospitals in Mott Haven were dreadful. They are so crowded that a person can be waiting up to three days in a waiting room and then end up going home because the doctor still would not take him in. Patients would have to change the sheets themselves because the ones from the old patient were still left on. Many brought there own blankets because the hospital would run out. If a woman was pregnant and she lived in a poor neighborhood, she may get better care in prison then in the hospital. A woman from the South Bronx says “a nun who works with female inmates, begged not to take her out of prison until her baby was delivered, because there was a four-month waiting list for prenatal care at Lincoln hospital.”

No one would ever believe that the world would come to such violence and brutality. Segregation should not be part of a civilized society yet, it was taking over. The

Some topics in this essay:
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