The Golden Child Tonatiu Moreno
The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people at-risk of, victims of, or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017 this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high quality opportunities that nourish the minds, expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie and positive self-projection to author new life narratives.
Since January 2017 ConTextos has partnered with Cook County Sheriff's Office to implement Authors Circle in Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narratives of violence and peace building, and help author a hopeful future for human beings behind walls, their families and our collective communities.
While each author’s text is solely the work of the Author, the images used to create this book’s illustrations have been sourced by various print publications. Authors curate these images and then, using only their hands, manipulate the images through tearing, folding, layering and careful positioning. By applying these collage techniques, Authors transform their written memoirs into illustrated books.
This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number ALN 21.027 awarded to Cook County by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The Golden Child
Tonatiu Moreno
Hi, my name is Tonatiu Moreno. In this book, I’m a tell you more about me. I come from a household where we ain’t really had shit.
When I was a Shorty, I would see my family and my mom struggling so I told myself we can’t be going through this. Something has to change. So at age 14 or 15 I started working at a painting company. I stopped going to school because I wanted to get money to help at home.
Mostly the problem was that I would see other kids at school with brand new shoes and clothes. I wanted every Jordan shoes and Nike Air Force One shoes and Tim’s and every shoe you could name.
Since I was working already, I bought myself everything I wanted. I would come home with a good check and help out at home with bills and food. Later on, I went back to school to graduate and get my diploma which I was so close to graduating.
I was getting good grades, but problems started coming my way. Mfs were hating on me and wanting to fight me so I gave them war. The school had enough of me so they expelled me from school and I never came back.
I went ghost on school and started working again in the painting company. I was getting a bigger check everyday, and I kept helping my family and mom out. Now I started to see a difference. We weren’t struggling like before.
I was money hungry. I fell in love with this money. Later on, I bumped into my homie from school and from the street. He asked me, “Dayumm brudda, long time no see WTF you ghosted everyone. ” I’m like, “yeah bro MFS was struggling and needed to make money to help out my family and mom. ”
But I saw something different and him that boy was always looking fresh and always had big Bank rolls of money and different cars. He told me come bro come on brudda let’s start making this money together.
So we started hustling, and I saw money coming in quickly and I was seeing hella money laying all over my bed. So now that’s when I told myself, my family and mom don’t gotta worry about shit. But one thing, my brudda told me, “Save your money and keep on flipping it.” Then I really started to save my money. Later on me and homie made a group name, the ATM boyz.
Since we was getting all this money together we started to recruit Mfs to the group. We all started to get money and we were running the city we lived in. Time passed and my homie, my brudda, my right hand man told me “Ima go to Chi-Raq to link up with my people, hold it down while I’m gone but Ima come back tomorrow morning. I’ll call your phone, be on it gang. ” These were the last words he told me.
The next morning, I woke up, went outside to smoke a blunt with my brother. I see one of the members calling my phone and telling me that Gmoney got into a high-speed chase and crashed and that he was in the hospital.
The doctors are gonna let us know if he’s going to make it out. I told everyone he was going to make it, he had a hard body and hung up the phone. Three hours passed, they called back telling me he passed away. That shit hurt my MF soul. I lost my brother, my right hand man who gave me my nickname, “T money. ”
That day I went crazy. I was drinking all day and smoking and popped couple pills. I lost my brother now I’m all by myself now I need to stand on business. Time passed and I kept seeing money till I took a big loss. But I got through it. I started to hang around grown MFs that were showing me a new world. How to make more money and quicker.
I started to hustle even harder. I was like fuck, it’s getting me money fast, and hella fucking money. My family kept asking how are you getting this money? Why do you keep surprising us with all these gifts? Every day was a party at my grandma‘s crib. We were living the life.
My family kept asking me how are you getting this money? Why you keep surprising us with all these gifts? My grandma's be there came up and I brought her a nice flower bouquet with a couple hundred dollar bills on the bouquet.
I went to a jewelry store and got her a necklace with a pair of earrings. She was in love with everything she got. I remember giving money to my mom. That's all she wanted. I couldn't buy her a gift cuz she was picky about it.
Same with my brother, he just wanted money so I would give it to him. Anything he wants, I'll make sure I get it for him.
The parties we had at my grandma's crib were something different, we had the family over, we have friends over. We had a taco man making food for us. We had the local bands playing music for us till 1:00 a.m. in the morning. That's a Mexican thing for us, that's how we enjoy our parties.
I started buying gold chains, flexing my money, going to the local clubs in my town, popping bottles, making sure everyone around me was straight, making sure everyone was eating good. There was no day my family was struggling or complaining about shit.
Since I was making all this money, I was looking out for my neighborhood. Every single person in my hood loved me cause I would help them out. Later on the police was always harassing me. I don’t know why, but I hated it because I couldn’t do shit about it. But there was something that would help. I moved out the hood and got my own place.
My place was nice AF, three big rooms and a one car garage. I was living far from the city. The people around me were only white folks, nobody knew where I lived. I decided to come back to the hood and visit my family and guess what, police got on my ass and were asking me too many questions like, “damn Tony, you went ghost.” I’m like, “yeah, I needed to.”
I want to change my life and I’m tired of y ’all harassing me. Don’t get me wrong I was a hard-working man. Every job I went to they liked how I worked. I was always getting shit done. I stopped doing what I was doing because I didn’t want to end up dead or in jail because that is not the place to be. So that’s why I focused on getting a real job that was going to pay me real good and I accomplished it. But one thing Ima tell ya’ll about me.
I got a good heart and I’m not that bad person they say I am. I really take care of people and make sure my people always straight and always eating good. If y ’all want to get to know me, come find out and y ’all going to be surprised.
Tonatiu Moreno
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb
