Describe the Prevalence of Hiv and Aids in the Mott Haven Population?

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become one of their 10,000 employees.

8) Compare and contract Stuyvesant High School with the high schools in the Bronx.

Stuyvesant High School is one of the top two public secondary schools in the state of New York. In a state with over 75% Latino or Black students Stuyvesant manages to have 9% of students in those ethnic groups. This number occurs because in order to enroll into Stuyvesant students must take an entrance examination. This in itself shows the condition of the schools in the Bronx and other ghetto areas. The writer describes their newly built 150 million dollar facility as clean and pristine. The students bright and intelligent. This contrasts greatly with the public schools in which the author makes comparisons to while visiting prisons. The other public schools are built to be easily defended and contain checkpoints and armed guards in front of the school to ensure their student’s safety. The teachers are underpaid with impossibly large classes to manage. David Washington provides testimony as to the poor state of his high school.

9) Give possible explanations as to why children do so poorly in the Bronx school

system.

Besides the points mentioned in my response above including underpaid teachers and oversized class sizes there are many other reasons why children do poorly in the Bronx school system. Many students such as David Washington come from struggling home situations with single parents or ill parents. Most of the households are struggling financially with parents working multiple jobs and this forces children to also work to provide for their homes. In conjunction with the lack of jobs and lack of ability to pay for college it is easy to see students drop out of high school to pick up more hours for small time jobs. That isn’t even to mention the amount of people who will go into dealing drugs or other illegal sources of income due to desperation. This bleak future after graduation makes it difficult to focus to graduate when it is likely there aren’t many benefits for having a diploma.

10) Give an overview of what the book describes as possible causes of the unusually high incidence of asthma in the Bronx (both environmental and psychological).

Asthma affects 1 in every 5 children and is extremely common in the area of the Bronx the writer observed. In an interview a resident states that there are four to five thousand people with asthma in the complex. A major cause of the prevalence of this chronic disease in children can attributed to physical environmental causes such as poorly maintained housing and a waste incinerator located near the neighborhood. Lead paint use in old and ill maintained properties that make up most of the Bronx is linked to this rise in asthma especially among children. Psychological causes include the stress and hardships women go through in this area which can lead to drug use especially due to the abundance of dealers. Drug use while pregnant directly affects the baby and causes chronic illnesses such as asthma.

11) Why do the people of Mott Haven distrust the police? Give one example of “street justice” described in the book.

People in this area have a huge distrust for the police due to the environment that mentally conditions them to do so. Because of the lack of legal opportunities to make money many people are forced to do so through illegal means. This combined with the disproportionate time a minority faces when caught doing the same crime as a white person breeds distrust between the people and the police.

12) What were the many factors that contributed to Alice Washington’s dependence on state aide?

Alice Washington grew up going to segregated high school and did well enough to go on and graduated from secretarial college. When she chose a husband she was restricted to the segregated pool of husbands which essentially meant unemployed black men. It was through this husband who went on to beat her that she contracted the AIDS virus. She was forced to leave him due to domestic abuse and while working two jobs to support her children she was struck with severe cancer which required multiple operation. I don’t even need to go further to explain how Alice Washington was forced to be dependent on the state of New York. Even without her terrible illnesses, the environment she grew up in and the state of minority women in the workforce all worked against her.