By: ANGELICA GONZALES
Staff Writer
People always say that everyone makes choices in their lives, and the choices they make determine how their life will turn out. People can be born middle-class and either stay that way forever, become successful, or end up with nothing. Everyone can either be rich, middle-class, or poor depending on the choices they make. Is that really true though? Does everyone have the same chance of being successful? I believe that every lower-class person struggles a lot more to be successful because of the “trap” that the government has put them in.
The “trap” that I am referring to is the way that the “ghetto” is set up. Let us use Goshen as an example of the “ghetto”. When you go to Goshen what do you see? Do you see big beautiful houses with nice lawns? Do you see any private schools? Do you see any expensive restaurants like Red Lobster or Olive Garden? Honestly, do you see any big stores? Sadly the answer to those questions is no. In Goshen, there are liquor stores, one elementary school, roads that need fixing, gas stations, and Buzz’s drive-in. There aren’t many places to work in Goshen and that’s exactly how people fall into the trap. There aren’t places to work so they do the only work that is available and a sure thing, selling drugs. For people in communities like that there aren’t many options. Privileged people think that everyone has more options but if they grew up struggling as others do then they would see that it isn’t that easy.
When people aren’t given the same opportunities in life it is much harder because they have to make their own opportunities. Not many people are dedicated enough to go out into the world and make their own opportunities. A lot of people depend on section 8 and welfare to help them survive. Those things are much needed, however, when people depend on things like that it doesn’t help them in the long run. They get used to having help from the government so they don’t strive to do better. They stay at the same level because they know that the government will keep helping them.
The trap is a very serious and real thing. If people in high places took the time to see this then maybe they could help fix it. If they were to build a grocery store in Goshen there would be so many more job opportunities, and they wouldn’t have to waste so much gas on having to drive all the way to Visalia. Just doing this could probably help create opportunities for the people living in Goshen. This could help some people from falling into the trap.