“We Are Here” Stories (List View)

Palm Beach County residents were asked:

Please tell us about an important moment in your life that would help someone understand what it’s like living in your neighborhood.

The stories and micro-narratives they submitted (as part of the We Are Here SenseMaker project) are listed below. Click ZOOM IN to learn more about the community member and how they interpreted their submission. NOTE: Some stories were partially transcribed by volunteers who shortened the narratives and referred to the storytellers in the third person (e.g., “her experience was” instead of “my experience was”).


Sep 18, 2018

Growing up in my community

Divisions between the group and society can become exaggerated. Insular beliefs can grow. Prejudice is supported and expands. Gangs are communities, racist organizations are communities, political and religious extremists are communities. And that is how something that can be so healthy, beneficial, and supportive can be bad for you.
Aug 29, 2018

City of Delray

Well growing up in Delray isn’t the same how it is today less violence how it was back in my day 1960 street gangs , killings , drug debate
Nov 17, 2018

My neighborhood-Rickia

I loved my neighborhood minus the violence it has the today the kids are different but there’s always a handful that comes and sit and talk to me. They are sweethearts. Then the others won’t even help themselves.
Sep 12, 2018

Don’t take that other path

Many People in the past wouldn’t understand the life I was going through my mother didn’t care for me , my farther didn’t care for me I was a problem child in and out of the detention center . I dropped out of school at the age 16 and became something these Young’s kids shouldn’t become in this world you only get one mother and one farther even if they Are not here with you. Just learn to love those who are .
Sep 19, 2018

In my community

We came closest to integration in 1988, when nearly half of all African-American children attended majority white schools. Since then, districts have been casting off federal court orders like rusted shackles. The result, a Government Accountability Office report found in the spring of 2016, the number of African American and Hispanic students attending segregated schools is rapidly growing.
Nov 5, 2018

Big world

Important moment in my life is when I got accepted into college. My main goal was to get away from boynton. My grandparents always told me to go out and see the world.