Friday May 13, 2005: it was a beautiful day in J Town with light blue skies and mild winds. Everyone was excited in J Town because it was election day to choose the city mayor. My dad and I went to the biggest park in J Town “Pleasant Park” for my dad to vote. The park was gorgeous that day every water fountain was on, red, blue and white stripes everywhere, people handing out hot dogs and sodas to people who would vote. The park was packed with people; around 2,000 people were there with their families trying to vote. My dad and I went there because my mom was volunteered to administer the votes in Pleasant Park, so we went there to visit her. Since there was a lot of people we couldn’t really talk to her since she was busy. We only saw her once at the park in a very crowded place we tried getting her attention by screaming “Mamaaa” but it didn’t work.
There were as two candidates, and they were Rodolfo Armendanoz from the Republican Party and Susan Rose from the Democratic Party. They were two big candidates, and both had a great chance of winning. Everyone knew both candidates had innovative ideas, but people were predicting that Rodolfo was going to lose because people were liberal and choosing Susan was the liberal way. My family wasn’t really into politics, but they voted for Rodolfo Armendanoz since Dad’s company would benefit from it because Armendanoz plan was to benefit business. My dad would always say this, “mijo always choose the candidate that benefits your BUSINESS don’t worry about the rest,” we would always bring that up during election times. I was six years old during that election, so it really didn’t matter. Well The day ended, my mom was still at the polls counting the vote, so my dad and I went home during the ride I asked my dad, “Who do you think is going to win?” My dad answered confidently, “Rodolfo.” Then he winked at me. I thought he was just messing with me but the next day Mr. Armendanoz won the election by a fair amount. He got 50,000 votes over Ms. Rose, and every liberal in my neighborhood was shocked that day. About thirty neighbors burned their American Flags in their front yard as a form of protest because they couldn’t believe that Armendanoz crushed Ms. Rose. All the people who voted for Armendanoz didn’t even celebrate because they knew what was going to happen in the future.
October 20015 was the last month of protest and riots ever in J Town’s history that day all the liberals went out to protest to a point where the police had to get involved. Most liberal teachers so they would go out to protest every day, so kids didn’t have school and most nurses were also liberal, so hospitals were basically not able to operate. That whole month was chaos, and everyone thought it was going to get worse. I was worried because I wanted to go to school and I couldn’t leave my house because most streets were blocked by annoying protesters. Well as soon as Armendanoz got into office things change. The first thing that happened was a massive massacre on the protesters around 15 teachers died that died. It was reported that gangster killed those 15 teachers because they were interrupting their business. After that event happened there was not more protest people were scared to go out and speak out because they thought they were going to get killed.
The November 31, 2005: I was in the living room watching TV suddenly the power goes off and the TV starts making an Amber Alert sound with a message that said, “Anyone who decides to protest again you will suffer—from your beloved Cartel De Jurgen” ten seconds they show the message the power goes back up. I was really scared I couldn’t stop shaking my mom was also worried, but my dad told us to calm down that we should turn on the TV to see the news. So, I run over to the TV and turn to Channel 44 and they were reporting that 10 teachers had their head decapitated and hanging off a bridge with the Cartel De Jurgen logo painted in blood. I almost passed out at that moment since my teacher’s head was hanging. My mom started puking and my dad went into his room to call people. While I was shocked I heard my dad calling people in the phone yelling “That was my son’s teacher you idiot, next time warn me about who you are going to, you know.” As soon as my mom stopped puking she turned off the TV because I couldn’t stop looking at the image. The next day all the neighbors were talking about it and how we should do something about it my parents suggested to stay out of it, but the neighbors were stubborn and didn’t listen. They went ahead and bought guns to “protect themselves.” My parents thought it was a bad idea to own a gun since they thought having guns in a house would be more dangerous because they heard about a kid that shoot at another kid because they were playing guns and he stole his dad’s real gun and shoot at someone who had an imaginary gun. My parents knew I wasn’t that dumb, but they still didn’t believe in guns.
As time kept going on, time got worse and worst. Violence rates were increasing, cartel activity was increasing, and every day we would see more cops. The problem was that cops weren’t helpful at all. They were dirty little corrupted rats that would steal money from people they would “search.” One time they raided my neighborhood in search of a bad guy. They went into every house in the neighborhood and trashed all of them. They stole almost all my videogames and they stole some of my mom’s cheap jewelry but what pissed me off the most was that they completely trashed my bedroom throwing all my clothes and toys all over my bedroom, and they smashed my TV. My favorite thing in the world and they broke and stole my stuff. I cried the whole night because I couldn’t believe that the people that were supposed to protect us would, but they hurt us. My dad was mad because they weren’t supposed to come to our neighborhood since we were supposed to be protected against police raids, but they still didn’t care. The next day to make myself happy I went to the pleasant park with all my friends to play soccer. We were all having fun. I almost forgot about what happened the other night until a black van comes out of nowhere and kidnaps one of my friends. They tried grabbing another kid, but we all started running toward our parents. One of the dumb neighbors pulled their gun out and started shooting at the vans but they also had guns, so they shot at him back. I saw him fall with a bullet down his head. My mom quickly picked me up and ran home. The van left and the police and ambulance came in this time they pretended to be worried about the kid and left. I never saw him again neither his family. At this point I wasn’t even traumatized.