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”).
More and more Americans who struggle to get by are living in these marginalized, disinvested communities where jobs and educational opportunities are scarce, and an increasingly militarized police force is the primary contact residents have with government. But for two years, Americans have been expressing confusion as one neighborhood after another from one city to another
They were arguing about a girl. He left and I was standing there talking to one of the guys. Someone came from behind and hit my with a baseball bat. I had seizures and was foaming from the mouth. I was in a coma for 9months and 2 weeks. Then I woke up and stayed in the hospital for another month in Jackson Memorial. I couldn’t play high school football after that.
I come from west of Delray where we worked the fields. I remember when I was young our neighborhood would have large dinners after church but you can’t do that anymore because parents these days don’t go to church and we wonder why it’s so much disrespect and killings. We forgot that the community is family and with out it everything is going to crumble.
Growing up out west of boynton made me looked at definitely than i would look if i was to live east i know this because i had family who lived further east and i notice when i went over. There was fights and everything on the east side also more African Americans when i came to my side there were more white people.
One day my House was robbed. I realized my necklace was missing then later realized things in my closet were gone and disarranged. I looked at my camera footage and realized teens broke into my house while gone.