Tavon Duarte’s

Poem

To the Editor:

In 1989 Agnes Reilly, a teacher at Bassick High School in Bridgeport, and I started a two-day exchange program that evolved into a semester elective course called Conversations on Race that is taught at Bassick and Newtown High School. Through four field trips and weekly discussions over a television monitor in each classroom, students in both schools begin to view each other as human beings rather than racial stereotypes. The course is now taught at Newtown High School by Amy Repay, a gifted and committed teacher. Although retired, I continue to support teaches in both schools where I can.

When I visited Bassick on June 19, I found a school in mourning. The previous Friday evening, Tavon Duarte, an honor student and star basketball player, had been killed. Tavon was universally admired, respected, and liked by his peers and teachers. Last October, as a student in Conversations on Race, Tavon was required to write a poem that defined himself and his community. This is his poem.

My Hood

I am proud to have made it this far in life, living in my hood.

I wonder if I am going to make it out of my hood, where shooting someone is a problem-solver.

I hear many distractions trying to steer me off the road of success.

I see everyone hypnotized by marijuana, like zombies in my hood.

I want to graduate from high school and enter college far from my hood.

I am proud to have made it this far, living in my hood.

I pretend I have already accomplished my dream, so that I have something else to think about besides the problems that occur in my hood.

I feel wherever I go, my hood follows me.

I grasp school and my talent to play basketball, because that is what is going to release me from my hood.

I worry that if I make it, I can’t take my brother along with me out of my hood.

I mourn when I see young boys fall into the traps of my hood.

I am proud to have made it this far, living in my hood.

I understand not everyone makes it, but I am determined to grasp other opportunities besides the choices my hood offers.

I witnessed many people make it out of my hood, so what’s stopping me?

I dream of the day when I finally leave my hood.

I try to stay on the road of success, but my hood is trying to keep me home.

U hope I make it out of my hood, so that I can show everyone else the way.

I am proud to have made it this far in life, living in my hood.

Jeffrey Giovacchino, one of Tavon’s teachers at Bassick High School, believes that “no child should have to worry about whether he will survive to adulthood… However, Tavon’s hopes are already realized because the way he lived did… ‘show everyone the way.’”

Because of Newtown High School’s long partnership with Bassick High School, in a small way these teenagers in Bridgeport are also part of our community. Even though most of us were unaware of Tavon’s death and the enormous impact it had at Bassick, in losing him, a part of ourselves is also gone.

Sincerely,

Jan Lee Brookes

38 Hundred Acres Road, Newtown                                June 28, 2006