Currently there are about 600,000 people who live in the South Bronx and about

434,000 who live in Washington Heights and Harlem. This area makes up one of the most

racially segregated areas of poor people in the United States. In this book we focus

on Mott Haven, a place where 48,0000 of the poorest people in the South Bronx live.

Two thirds of the people are Hispanic, one-third are black and thirty-five percent are

children. There are nearly four thousand heroin users, and one-fourth of the women who

are tested are positive for HIV. All of this and more in one little area of the South Bronx.

In the middle of all this chaos and confusion are children. Children who have daily drills

on what to do if gunshots are heard, children who know someone who has died of AIDS,

children who have seen someone been shot right in front of their face wondering if its their

father, children who long to be sanitation workers, and children who die everyday. The

lives of these children almost seem lost with depression, drugs, and death all around them.

As we see, there are little sparks of light in most

people are being ignored. It truly is amazing how the South Bronx and Harlem make up

an x-ray technician one day. Even though the child said it with a shrug, the thought was

NY think of what they are exactly doing to this community and these children.

gnawing on a defenseless baby for the third time, soup kitchens are filled to capacity

the welfare of these people, these people can get cancer because they're already

principle said, "Everything these kids touch turns to gold." Of course this school is said to

The main form of segregation takes place in the school system. Kozol states that

society. A place that can be shunned and feared and easy to get away from simply by

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1342
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)