1 Anthony Martinez Professor Rajaram English 1 March 28, 2023 “Title” Does the area you grew up in affect the rest of your life? Where you grew up has a lot to do with who you are. The people you meet, the experiences you go through, and the things you learn all come together to shape you. In, Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward, the author writes about both the negative and positive effects Gulfport and DeLisle Mississippi had on her life. Such as being bullied in school at Gulfport and racism she dealt with in DeLisle and when she was able to attend a private school in Gulf port as well as growing up with all her family in DeLisle. These instances highlight the influence that Gulfport and DeLisle Mississippi had on Ward. For the most part, Ward did not have a positive time growing up, living in Gulfport, Mississippi. She was picked on and sexually assaulted in her new school by a large boy. In the chapter, “We are Watching”, Ward says, “For the first two weeks of the term before my aptitude scores were processed, I was in a class with a large boy who singled me out for taunting and abuse. Anytime he found me alone in a corner of the library or near the back of our classroom, he grabbed me by the joints, pinned me to the floor or my desk or to a wall, and tried to grab my butt” (pg ). This was Ward’s first school she went to in her new town she just moved too and she was already being harassed. Being the age she was, dealing with the amount of problems that she had to go through, and then also to be messed with in school would have been really difficult just 2 to go through her daily life. Ward having to deal with those issues on a daily basis led her to wanting to move back to DeLisle. In the chapter, “We are Learning”, Ward says at the beginning, “I prayed. At night, as the house clicked and ticked around us, I prayed that we would move back to DeLisle. I didn’t want to be afraid to go outside, to be afraid of Thomas, who lurked, to fear what he would see in me and call me, to dread the hole in the woods” (pg ). It was so bad for Ward that she prayed out of fear that her family would move from Gulfport back to DeLisle. DeLisle wasn’t some nice safe town either and she felt more safe living there and going outside than she did at Gulfport. Overall Ward’s experience at Gulfport was very negative and had to deal with quite a few issues while she lived there. While most of Ward’s childhood was spent in DeLisle, I wouldn’t say it was positive either. There are numerous problems about DeLisle that Ward had to endure throughout her time there. In the Chapter, “Roger Eric Daniels III”, Ward brought up that, “I knew there was much to hate about home, the racism and inequality, and poverty, which is why I’d left, yet I loved it” (pg ). She recognized some serious issues that occurred where she grew up and that she lived through which negatively affected her. She had to deal with racism as the generations before her had in DeLisle as well as the poverty that stretched throughout the community, adversely altering the lives of the many people who lived there. DeLisle lacked a lot of basic needs to be a good and flourishing town. In the chapter, “ Ronald Wayne Lizana”, Ward talks about, “My entire community suffered from a lack of trust: we didn’t trust society to provide the basics of a good education, safety, access to good jobs, fairness in the justice system” (Pg ). The schools in DeLisle were not trying to help students pass, the faculty did not care if the students were failing and dropping out. DeLisle was not a very safe place to be, it had a lot of crime and not enough justice. Also the jobs that were available in DeLisle were low paying and just overall was not a 3 place you would want to be at working. Lastly, people there were treated unlawfully based on the color of their skin, the police would send kids to juvenile detention for innocent pranks that they pulled. While DeLisle had some positive effects on Ward throughout her time there it also negatively impacted Ward and changed her life.
