Delinquent Juvenile Introduction of Person

¶ … Delinquent Juvenile

Introduction of Person

The person profiled in this paper is now a young woman of 22, whose name is Nita. Nita grew up in Los Angeles, the daughter of a Cajun woman, Delaire, whose relatives are almost all African-American, but who has French blood as well, from centuries back. This is important to know because Nita's looks cannot be differentiated from a white woman's looks. As a matter of fact, her father was Italian, so she has a longish, thin nose, pure white skin and black hair which is not curly. She is of normal height, though she is thin and gangly looking. Her mother, Delaire, a single parent, is a small, light-skinned black woman with fine features and it is difficult to tell from which race she is derived. However, Delaire's sisters and aunts are considered African-Americans and have married African-Americans and fathered dark-skinned children. It is the cultural aspect of their lives which is important in Nita's life, because it is both Southern/New Orleans and Los Angeles African-American mixed. Nita, though she appears to be white, considers herself an African-American.

Nita's mother did not marry Nita's father, though she gave Nita his Italian last name. He has never been in her life. He may not even know he has a daughter, as a matter of fact, as he returned to Italy before Nita was born, according to Delaire's account. Delaire raised Nita as a single parent, working 8-5 daily all her life, to provide a good life for them both. Delaire drinks and watches television every night in order to fall asleep, and usually sleeps on the couch in the living room, as she says she has a problem sleeping. She is always tired in the evening and does not have much time to talk to Nita and Nita prefers this, as Delaire is a very strict parent, punitive and judgmental of her activities. Delaire is not religious, but she does have morals and has tried to instill them in her daughter, usually after the fact. As a result, Nita has often made her own decisions, as she grew up, most of which were not approved of by her mother. Nita's mother attempted to stop what she considered Nita's bad behavior while she was in high school by "grounding" her (making her stay in the apartment in the evenings) and lecturing her on "lying" and acting like a "loose woman"(flirting and dressing provocatively).

In actuality, Nita was a rather shy girl, who was extremely self-conscious during her high school years, as she could not afford nice clothes and wore the same outfit many days at a time. She felt like she was ugly (she had acne for awhile) and awkward. She wanted to be beautiful, popular and vivacious, but her attempts at this were ridiculed by other girls and unsuccessful in her own mind. She was so self-conscious that she wore a sweatshirt tied around her waist for two years, so that no one could see her figure from behind, and wore loose sweatshirts which covered her commpletely. Nita was invited to parties because she was best friends with a popular girl and the two of them went everywhere together. At the parties, she tried to drink, did not enjoy it, but continued to drink until she could tolerate quite a bit, in order to be admired by her peers.

When she was 14, she started hanging out with a group of African-American boys and girls in her high school. Her best friend went with her to "hang out," cutting classes and staying out late at night, going to parties where there was alcohol and older kids. A serious incident involved the two girls getting picked up in the mall for shoplifting. They were "booked" and warned that if they were ever caught again they would be prosecuted. When their grades started to plummet, Nita's best friend's mother made her withdraw from the group and Nita found herself alone at the parties and activities. At each incident, Delaire ranted and punished Nita severely, though her punishments were ineffective, as she did not carry through on monitoring.

Nita soon found another ally, a "boyfriend." An older boy had found that Nita would do almost anything for him in order to be accepted by the group and had her perform sexual acts with him, though she would not consent to intercourse in the beginning. However, as time went on, she did have sexual intercourse and became pregnant. Without her mother's knowledge, she and her girlfriend, who helped her, went to a clinic and Nita had an abortion. She told her mother what had happened in a moment of weakness and her mother was horrified, taking Nita's actions to mean that she was ruined. Delaire had been a Catholic, but was not then a practicing one. Her attitudes and ethics were derived from the Catholic religion, but she did not go to church, though she did consult a priest in times of distress. On the priest's advice, she continued to care for Nita, but her requirements were stricter and even more punitive. Nita found it difficult to live within her mother's strict limits and sneaked out of the apartment each night after her mother fell into her drunken sleep. This was only a continuation of her previous behavior, as she had found it easier to lie and sneak around to go to her chosen activities than to tell her mother the truth and put up with a long, judgmental harangue and ensuing punishment for almost anything she did, whether it was positive or not.

During the day, while her mother was at work and she was supposed to be attending high school classes, she "hung out" with her friends in Hollywood. They began to sample drugs and it was not long before Nita was failing her classes and making money to pay for drugs by having sex with friends. Now she was smarter, however, and was taking birth control pills (which her mother had the doctor prescribe), so she could not become pregnant. Finally, during her Junior year in high school, she dropped out and got a job at a bar where she was a "dancer." She told her mother that she had a job and that the men paid her a dollar a dance to dance with her in the bar.