Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb 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 selfprojection 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 image 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.
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Time Heals All Pain...Not Really Don Cheeto
Growing up I was always around family. I grew up living with my mom and dad. My mom's Puerto Rican and my dad is black. Family was a big thing on both sides. My mom's side, when it came to parties, was the most bussing. If you're Hispanic then you already know no matter who the party was for, it always started at 6pm and didn't end until all the beer was gone. That was never. No matter if it was a kid party or for an adult. A party was a party.
Now my dad's side was way different. Party started early and ended early. It wasn't boring, it was just a lot tamer. My mom's side was ghetto and my dad's side was the church side. My grandma on my mom's side was married to our step grandfather who many of us consider our real grandfather. On November, 13, 2006 tragedy struck and he passed away. We knew it was coming because he was in hospice. It was a major blow to our family because it was the first loss for us and it was the man who was the head of the family. Strong like an ox and the man who would drink Hennessy with cold milk.
He was a family man first. He loved my grandma and all of her 7 kids as his own so much that he flew back to Puerto Rico, where my grandma is from, and made our real grandfather buy a plane ticket to Chicago. Made him buy a house right across the street, I mean literally in front of grandma’s house to make sure he was in his kids’ lives. So the loss of him was felt by everyone in the family. Little did I know that the loss of him was the start of my life changing.
Before his death I was an A/B student in high school but afterward I did the minimum to pass. My mom and dad broke up and I had to choose who to live with. You already know who I chose, my OG. I still graduated in 2010 and the very next year tragedy struck again on June 13, 2011. My lil cousin Jovany Diaz was killed on his birthday. That day I realized that life wasn’t fair. I had seen my cousin before I went in my mom’s house, but when I came back out he was gone before I got to tell him happy birthday.
My cousin Jovany was the smallest cousin out of us all growing up, but then he hit his growth spurt and was like 6ft going into high school. He was playing basketball and baseball very well. One time during the summer we went into the park to play football and my cousin was on my team. I think we were playing 7 on 7 and Jovany was the wide receiver. We was playing at night under the lights. I promise you it felt like something we would have seen my cousin doing professionally if he was still here. That night I threw six touchdowns to him alone. I felt like he was on a cheat code because he was out running everybody and catching every throw.
They tried to stick him and he was still catching everything I threw. I swear he had me thinking I was good. That's something I still think about to this day. He was always cracking jokes and he knew how to insert himself in any crowd and become liked by them almost instantly. He was a good basketball player and I felt like he could have at least gone to college to play if he wanted to. His story, sad to say, is a story you hear all too often living in Chicago. A young man who loved to play basketball gunned down in the street due to senseless violence. Having my cousin be the first one in our family to be shot was hard to deal with because he didn't deserve that. All he wanted was to go to college, play sports and chase girls, something we all wanted to do
That night his brother Chewy and our cousin Kikito plus our big homie June were smoking a blunt when Chewy grandma called him and told him Jovany was shot. We rushed over there to where it happened and my cousin was gone just like that on his birthday. I’m still pissed at myself for not telling him happy birthday when I saw him. One thing that gets said in the streets is that everything comes in threes, good or bad. So the fuck it does because the very next year on March, 10, 2012 our big homie June get shot and dies in the hospital.
June was our big homie and you know how the big homie coming. No talking, just straight action, no question asked. He was a down ass brother for real for real. June crib was the hang out spot. It was where we would go to drink and smoke whenever we didn't want to be outside, because the police were hot or something went down and we needed to get away. His mother in law was always welcoming of us because she knew we always respected her house and would clean up afterward. Even though she wouldn't like for us to smoke in the house, because everytime we did the house would be filled up with smoke like it was a Snoop Dogg concert. She would get a contact high, but she still loved us.
I remember when I turned 21 and June took me to get my first legal bottle of Remy. I soon found out everybody had a cup and they didn’t pitch in. The bottle was gone before I got to enjoy it. So I learned to always buy two, one for the guys and my personal one. June had a son. He was a great father and he made sure his son needed for nothing. He was always working and he was always making sure that his family was straight. We worked not too far from each other. So I would always call him to let him know when I was going on break so we could hit the weed spot and get a bag to smoke on. This became an everyday thing with us. We would play Call of Duty Black Ops Zombies when we got the chance and just chill.
His funeral was packed and we had people sitting outside. When it came to taking him to his burial site we had all the four lanes on North Ave jam packed all the way there. It was the first time I saw a funeral line like that. Afterwards we had a repast at his house. I was drunk and and every room I walk into I was yelling shot, shot, getting more fucked up. Eventually I was the only one taking them while other people were faking it. I found this out later anyway. I made the biggest mistake of sitting down next to this girl I liked. Her name is Marie. We started talking and I put my head down because the room was spinning. I threw up everywhere and went to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out. I looked at the shower and said to myself I need a shower and went in there with my boxers on. I was in there for 4 hours straight. That day I knew we celebrated our big homie life the way he wanted us to.
I know everybody goes through losses on the streets, but these losses that we went through were a lot for us. Our homie June was the glue to our group and it was the start of all us changing. After my homie was gone I was lost and felt like my life was heading the same way if something didn't change. I ended up meeting a girl named Christine who was a friend of my big homie June babymomma.
What is crazy is how life works, cuz I had seen her before when she came over to my homie June crib with her boyfriend. I caught her checking me out. I guess I left her with a lasting impression. We ended up going out with each other after my homie's burial and my life was changing for the better. A few months into our relationship she ended up getting pregnant. I know I work fast right? I knew my life was getting better, because I found out I was having a son.
My life was starting to become less stressful because of the joy I had with my son. But just when I felt life was getting great, the worst news came. My favorite aunt on my mom's side was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. Seeing my aunt getting smaller and my family becoming less close and less fun was something I couldn't deal with. So I stayed away and went to work and then home so I wouldn't have to deal with the reality that one day my aunt was not going to be around anymore.
My aunt was the aunt who would let you have a beer and would always be the one dancing to all the new songs. She would take us on trips and made sure we were straight when we stayed out late. Telling us to be careful. Everybody loved her. Her favorite holiday was the fourth of July. She would spend $1,000 on fireworks for everyone to light up and at midnight she would have 2 hundred yard black cat belts that would pop off for 10 minutes.
Well on June, 29, 2015 my aunt passed away and I felt like shit because a month before I saw her we talked and she was telling me she would like to see me more. I lied and told her she would. That shit still hurts because I loved her and I stayed away because I didn’t want to see her like that. Well shit got worse because three days later my cousin Kikito, my aunt's son, got killed on her birthday.
Now my cousin Kikito, who is my brother more than a cousin, was a real stand up dude. He was well respected by everyone. He knew how to treat people with respect and he knew how to handle situations when they arise. My brother was down for whatever if it called for it, but he was always the one to settle shit down before anything got serious. He was loved by a lot of people because of this. My brother was a big reason why I found a job right after I finished high school and didn't hang out all day. The man had a stripper for a girlfriend at the age of 16 and was living with her. I felt like I needed money so I could be like him and get one too. No matter what my cousin said I always looked up to him because of how he carried himself and how much respect he got from people. He would always tell me not to because he wasn't anybody, and he never graduated from high school and I had.
My cousin had all the girls and was always finding more. I'm surprised he doesn't have more kids that we know about. He was big on family and he always protected those he called his friends. He took shit from nobody and as you know when people see that, you gonna have some haters and snakes around. One thing I could never forget is how we used to take my grandma car to ride around and smoke at night.
We would have to bribe him with smoking for him to do it but we know he would do it just to shut us up. When I was away being a family man he was one of the few that would check up on me to make sure I was good. When we lost our big homie June he took it the hardest because they were close. He always felt he would have kept our homie June alive that night.
Yeah life is fucked-up. I know, and like my cousin Jovany's death, my cousin Kikito's death was heavy on me as well. I felt like I could’ve stopped my cousin from getting in that car that night. I never got to see my cousin after my aunt passed because of selfish reasons.
I feel bad because I can never tell him I'm sorry for his loss, never smoked a blunt with him and think about all the good times we had with his mom. So not only did we have to bury my aunt, we also had to bury her son.
So after the burial of my aunt and cousin, life really slowed down for me and all I could do was smoke weed, go to work and go back home to my son. I got to really enjoy being a dad seeing my son everyday. Being there to see him walk and say his first word which was da-da was something that kept life fun for me. I remember when he took his first steps. I was playing the game and I’m sitting on the bed. He’s sitting on the floor in front of the room. He had this chair that he used to sit in to watch cartoons. So he grabs the arm of the chair and stands up. He would do this all the time, but this time he let go and was standing by himself. He looked at me then fell down and started laughing. I was excited to see him stand up by himself. I got up to give him a cookie for doing it. I sat the box on the table and went back to playing the game and he sat back on the floor in front of the bedroom. So now I’m into the game because my cousin Hondoe joined and we was fucking shit up on the call of duty. Out of the corner of my eye I see my son stand back up and take off. I did a double take and said “WTF. Where’d he go?” I ran out the room and saw him reaching up to the table trying to get the box of cookies. I started laughing and he turned around and started looking at me like WTF is funny. I’m struggling to get these cookies, help me. To know that cookies are the reason why my son took his first steps makes me smile every time I think about it.
Life was getting better for me. I found happiness but sure enough life got sad because me and his mom didn't work out. So I was once again lost.
I ended up meeting a girl named Jaylene and we started dating. We ended up having a baby girl a few years later and life once again gave me another child to love. I found my happiness and we had another baby girl 2 years later. So I was doing fine mentally, but life once again came and life said nope. Me and Jaylene broke up. Remember the girl Marie that I threw up in front of, well somehow life brought her back into my life. I was excited because she was my childhood crush so best believe I hopped down on the chance to be with her.
She everything I want in a girl: smart, beautiful, and she has the most gorgeous eyes I ever saw. She it for me. My life had its ups and downs and I'm the father of three beautiful kids and they have great moms and yeah my life is down right now and I'm in a fucked up situation but I know Allah and the angels that I have up there are watching over me. I know I'm going to be home soon and I’ll be back with my future wife Marie and my kids. I'm going to be more appreciative of the time and blessing Allah has given me.
Love, since you asked, I’ll tell you why I’m so hurt-MAD.
B/c you didn’t stop me from leaving my first job B/c you won’t let me forgive my dad B/c you didn’t stop me from leaving the mother of my son B/c you also didn’t stop me from leaving the mother of my two daughters B/c everytime I say your name I feel more hurt than joy B/c so many people use your name in vain B/c of you I sometimes hide my truth of situations from myself B/c I didn’t think of you before I took action B/c It all I have to tell my kids when I talked to them on the phone B/c I fail to realize how much I would miss you
Don Cheeto I Am From I am from Humboldt Park. From Beach and Spaulding and Chicago Ave. (The Ave) I am from fried chicken and Puerto Rican rice. I am from grass stains and dirty shoes. From running bases and breaking windows. I’m from Rosa and Len. From trips to Santa’s Village, And from mom love, dad strength. I’m from what you do in the dark always comes to light, And from I’m telling your dad watch. I’m from Allah the most gracious. I’m from Chicago - Land Of T’s. From lechon and maltas From Kikito and Titi Tita I am from Puerto Rican Pride and Black Love.
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb Copyright
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