- Hey cousin!
- Hey cousin.
(group talking)
- There you go TT.
(laughing)
Y'all get away from the door,
let them come in.
Hey auntie!
Hey cousin.
(excited talking)
Wait a minute.
My family is one, big, crazy family.
Come on put your phone back on the radio.
This your party get it cracking'.
Let's go.
My family just been together, like, we stick on glue.
It could be a party, everybody's showing up.
It could be a dinner, everybody's showing up.
- Hey twin, how you doing girl.
- And I have a twin
(laughing)
my sister.
My twin, Dimitriana, is very caring.
She can feel how I feel.
They say if she gets heartbroken
I'm gonna feel it.
(rap music)
♪ I say, look, ♪
♪ I can't live with all these lies ♪
♪ And my city has war ♪
♪ And I get cold ♪
♪ (indistinct) ♪
♪ But we're up on them ♪
♪ Too much money ain't enough money ♪
♪ So I need some more ♪
♪ Too much money ain't enough ♪
- I live with my grandma
and my auntie and her kids.
And I love them
but it's like
I gotta go.
I mean,
it's too many people in one house.
(children yelling)
- Excuse me!
- It's four bedrooms
and 11 people living in one house.
So I want to take that stress off my grandma.
Cause it's extra people you're feeding.
So I need to get my own apartment
move out on my own.
- You started school already?
- I start school on Monday
(indistinct)
- I got straight A's right now
- I got an A plus, I got a B plus, I got a C minus...
- School is important because without a diploma or a degree
you will not get no job.
And I would like to start a career.
Something that I can make something out of my life.
And that's when my momma and my grandma want to see
It's important to my mom and my grandma
because they never got the chance to experience graduating
at a high school or going off to college.
So I think they don't want us to follow their footsteps.
They just wanted us to just go off
and do what's best for us.
(dramatic music)
Me and my sister was the first one to go off to college.
We went to Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina.
College was really fun,
but I had my times when I struggle, I had my breakdown.
You think you got all that support
but when in reality you see that life really hit you.
Like, you by yourself you're on your own.
And I wasn't ready to be on my own at the time.
I realized that I was coming back to Chicago
is when it was spring time.
Everybody left campus and I'm in my dorm alone
I was just thinking, like, I can't do it.
When I got back to Chicago my mom was like,
what you mean you ain't going back?
She was just like, why?
And I told her, it's not for me.
At first she was mad
but at the same time she was, like, understanding.
Like, why we really left.
- I just want y'all to remain focused.
I gotta do this.
I gotta do that.
I gotta do my work.
I can't lack. No lacking at all.
I just need for y'all to do what y'all gotta do
and get to it.
You know what I'm saying?
- My mom is a very strong woman.
She's been through a lot.
She had her kids at a young age
so it was a lot of responsibility.
She don't even think about herself
she just think about her kids.
It's all she thinks about, no matter if we older
she always going to have that same love.
Like she always
they get irritated sometimes.
'Cause she just be worried.
She's scared!
She's scared.
So she always stepping in.
- I want my own space, you know, I want privacy.
- But you got to find something within your budget
'cause, baby, market rent is high.
- Yeah
- She always made sure we had the education,
like, she's very hard on my education
because it's something she didn't get a chance to experience
I mean, she didn't graduate from high school.
She didn't go off to college
so that's just a gift to her.
Like, to show her that we going to finish for you.
- Like, I don't want my kids
to feel like they stuck in a trap.
I want them to go out there and do what they gotta do
and work and earn their way up and be successful.
Just live a life better than what I live.
- Exactly.
- It's hard.
You know what I'm saying?
'Cause sometimes they get discouraged
but I got to keep pushing
and keep pushing and keep pushing
until they get it.
They say go hard or go home.
- Exactly.
- And right now you gotta go hard.
- They have pushed me to go but I just can't be away
from my family for a long period of time.
I'm afraid of, just, being away from my family.
That's going to hold me back
from doing what I have to do to leave the hood.
- You want to be successful.
I want to be successful.
I'm going to make a change.
You're going to do what you got to do,
and I got to do what I got to do.
I gotta be better.
- Sometimes I do have doubts but then again
I can't let nothing stop what I need to overcome.
I gotta go get in and do it.
I gotta finish it.
(upbeat music)
- North Lawndale is a community.
It's like, a lot of history in it.
They love to do a lot of stuff
like have block hood parties for students
for kids back to school.
- You look like your daddy, boy.
- And that's what North Lawndale is about.
Like, helping out one another, being together,
doing things and just having fun.
- Oh, we stayed here for like six, seven, years.
- When I was walking down my old street
I ran into one of the ladies that just speak to everybody.
- Oh my Lord, my little songbirds!
- She called us the little songbirds
because me and my sister will sing our life away
every morning going to school.
- But you two wore, like, backpacks on your back.
Your earplugs in but you were singing.
You're all just so joyful, like now!
- We was happy going to school with each other
because it was just a lot of fun.
I love school.
- But you're studying now, look at you.
And this what, like, this is your third year?
- Yeah
- Girl, go ahead, this is wonderful.
Oh my Lord.
And you're from the hood?
- From the hood!
- Girl, go ahead.
Oh yeah, girl, you can do this.
- Yeah.
- So,
by her looking at us like
these young ladies love school
they going to be something and that's something she told us.
Y'all going to be something.
And it was really a motivation, like,
somebody out there looking
looking at us
thinking we going to be better.
So we might as well go strive for success
and still go to school.
- We're here, whenever you all come, we are here.
- Nice seeing you.
- You too!
Girl, come back.
(indistinct)
- Yup, I'm coming back.
We're coming back.
(laughing)
- Oh, I love you all so much.
- We love you too.
- I'm so encouraged to see that you are encouraged.
About school that you all are encouraged to stay there.
And to hang in there, okay?
I love you all so, so, much.
(laughing)
I do!
Oh, my little songbirds!
(laughing)
- See y'all!
- Yup!
(dramatic music)
- There are also negative things in North Lawndale.
The violence, the gang members.
There's a lot of gangs in North Lawndale.
And we don't know how to stop that
so it's just a lot of gangs, that's the bad part.
They killing each other.
They kill each other.
A lot of people don't have money.
Like, people be struggling a lot.
That's all they know is North Lawndale.
They know the hood so much they don't want to get out of it.
- Going to college
that helps you see the world so much better.
Like, it really helped me
because I don't like depending on nobody.
- Lady is a person
that I can always go to.
Whenever I need something.
Whenever I'm going through something.
Lady is always there by my side.
- And when I was in college
that built my backbone.
That is why I go hard the way I go hard now.
Because I don't want nobody to say,
oh, you wouldn't have that if it wasn't...
No, I got that because of me.
- She's somebody I look up to all the time.
'Cause she strived for success
and she's a hard worker.
- I let the wrong thing distract me, like,
I let other things, like, pull me down
which pulled my grades down.
Which pulled my confidence down.
Which pulled my motivation down.
But I didn't stop.
- Right
- I kept going.
Even when you have bumps in your road
or even when you feel like you just can't go
to the next step
you got to keep going
and I'm going to stop talking 'cause I'm going to cry.
- She was my support back in Chicago.
And I was like, I gotta go back.
I'm gong back.
This is where I need to be.
I feel good that I actually came back
because I have support.
I didn't have that when I was back in South Carolina.
I didn't know what I was doing down there.
So now I can have the support I need to get where I'm at.
I learned from my mistakes I did in South Carolina.
I had a whole year to reflect on that.
I grew a lot.
I'm giving college another try.
I gotta do better I gotta become better.
Because I know my family is counting on me.
They're really counting on me to, like, get that degree.
So I know I gotta, I gotta do.
I gotta come back hard.
(bouncy music)
My block, my hood, my city.
We call it M three.
It's basically your organization
like a nonprofit organization
that takes, like, students to travel the world
to learn new experiences
to try new things
to get outside of their neighborhood.
- Y'all want to (indistinct)?
- Okay. Hi guys, we're back!
We made it to the, um...
Well, we finna go sailing.
- Yup, we're going sailing!
- Today we're going sailing
downtown Lake Michigan.
(group talking)
- You're driving the boat?
- You're doing everything.
(indistinct)
It's so much fun!
I whipped that boat last time,
I didn't mean to. - I'm scared.
- We almost tipped.
It tipped over a little bit.
- Oh, good to know.
- We turn around and y'all flipped over.
- If you stay close, nearby, please.
- You gotta be tight.
- My girlfriend is India.
- I know how to swim if the boat tips over!
- If I fall out you're going to come get me?
- No!
- She's so sassy!
- I got my driver's license not a boat license.
- I really love her
and how fun she is
and how she's so caring.
She's like a mother.
And a girlfriend that acts like your mother,
she's the one,
so.
- You're going to let us drive?
- Oh yeah, the whole time!
- Like, she cares about your future
more than you care about your own self.
Like, she loves school too.
And having that connection with her like,
that's my baby for real.
(excited talking)
- These are the Colgate 26's.
You have two main sails.
- I've never done sailing before.
I don't even like getting in the pool
in five feet and I'm thinking I'm drowning.
(group talking)
- Thank you.
(whooping)
- Okay now,
okay now.
- And, uh, just throw in the low.
- Make sure I don't (indistinct)
I'm holding it too tight.
Don't kill us!
- I'm hands off right now!
India's got it!
(group chattering)
- You're doing good, you're doing good!
- Oh yeah, now you guys can start to raise the sail.
Heave, ho.
Heave, ho!
- I don't know if you guys can feel it,
but we're actually moving now.
- I feel it - I feel it
- I was scared,
like it was going to tilt over.
- This boat goes fast!
- We're going too fast.
We're going too deep.
If I fall in it...
I was just scared!
- Awe, you're so cute!
Turn around.
Say cheese.
- I just have to push my fear to the back
and just overcome it.
And I started putting my feet in the water.
And it was okay.
It was okay!
(group chatting)
(laughing)
- We're tipping too much!
I'm about to fall!
- Put your phone down!
- We're going up wind
- We're going up wind!
That is the correct terminology, good job!
- I like that,
let me go call your mama real quick.
- Everybody else had to take control of it one by one.
And when it came to my time,
I was like,
if I steer them the wrong way
and we flip over it's my fault.
- Pull it down to the left.
- I was a little scared,
but then when I got the hang of it,
it felt cool.
I was like...
Oh, I can sell a boat!
- You're the skipper,
so you got to figure out how to maintain a straight course.
- Are we going too fast?
That's the way I learned.
Is get out there.
No matter how scared you is, you gotta do it.
'Cause it's just a step forward in your life.
Chicago is so big
and looking back on it
it's just, like, amazing to me
that somebody just take us out of our community
and just show us different things
and a new experience.
I never had the chance to go outside my neighborhood.
My goal is to get out of North Lawndale
and have better opportunity in another city
or another country.
I want to get out of the neighborhood.
I want to get my family out of the neighborhood.