Amazing Grace Kozol

Connections 

While I was reading I noticed that Kozol got to really see how it was like to be in some of the worst neighborhoods in New York. Kozol was able to experience this first hand being able to talk to the people who live in these areas and get their input on how the neighborhoods are affecting them. I wanted to connect Kozol's Amazing Grace and Kristof's USA Land of Limitations because these both have some of the same idea that states a person's future is determined by their surroundings. Surroundings will determine limitation in where they will go in life. 

1. While Kozol was in New York he talks about how the children there go through the most because of how young they are being exposed to things like homelessness, drugs, and violence. Getting introduced to these things so early in life can really mess up a child's development and their sense of innocence. What makes this so sad is that there is no way for them to get away from it because it is something that occurs commonly. Kozol goes to this community church were a lot of children go to get away from the terrors of the streets. He says this about the children in this community "There are children in the poorest, most abandoned places who, despite the miseries and the poisons that the world has pumped into their lives, seem, when you first meet them, to be cheerful anyway. These children are making individual choices to be happy no matter how hard life got them down and this can relate to Rick in Kristof's article. This is because Rick gave 600 dollars to his ex wife and that money could've saved his life. Rick had a terminal illness but it was his choice to help out his wife.

2. Another thing that relates both articles is that because of where both of these people come from this can determine where they will go in the future. A lot of the children who are in these poor parts of New York do not have a same opportunities and resources. These people and children live in cramped apartments that do not have proper heating and air conditioning. Roaches and rats invade these apartments but they have to bare with these horrible conditions. Not only are living conditions are rough but the school system horrible. One of the children that Kozol was walking with knew all of these iconic idols but did not know who George Washington was.  The same with Rick because since he did not have the opportunities to be able to be able to do well in school because he did not have the accommodations to help him. So he had to drop out of school and work.