"There Are No Children Here"

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at how Alex Kotlowitz, in "There Are No Children Here", explores the inner-city decay and want which dooms many American children. The paper describes the experiences of the two African-American boys in the story who are forced to grow up in Chicago's notorious Henry Horner housing projects. The paper looks at how Kotlowitz portrays the violence and the drug and gang culture of the area. The paper discusses the relevance of this book to community health nursing.

From the Paper:

"Having offered a broad overview of the text and a "run-down" of its main themes, the next thing which must be addressed is the issue of bias - often synonymous with "balance" - as it manifests itself in the work. Although it can be overdone, one is left with the distinct impression that Kotlowitz is a liberal at heart; perhaps never is this more apparent then when he discusses a 1955 visit by Soviet officials to the then-fledgling Henry Horner projects. One of the guests, I.V. Kozvilia, Minister of City and Urban Construction in the Soviet Union, denounced the decision of city officials to erect buildings which featured apartment walls of cinder block and not of plaster. The curt response of the Chicago Daily News to the Soviet critique of its low-cost housing was that there was "little use for luxury" in such matters in capitalist America (Kotlowitz, 1987, p.22). One page earlier, Kotlowitz is quite aggressive in chastising a number of 1950s-era aldermen who opposed public housing in Chicago and who orchestrated a number of ploys designed to frustrate the initiative."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Kotlowitz, Alex. (1991). There Are no Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing up in the Other America. New York: Doubleday.

More papers on "There Are No Children Here":

• Book Review # 131324 : " There Are No Children Here" - A Book Review"
• Book Review # 95724 : "'There Are No Children Here'"
• Analytical Essay # 59163 : "There Are No Children Here" by Alex Kotlowitz"

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