Damayra Perez
New York, 1997
My name is Damayra Perez and I have been in this program since November of 1989.
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What did you derive from the program?
I took advantage of the open doors, the connections, the people, who were there to help me. I took advantage of my learning tools. I took advantage of my experience as a young adult growing up and the responsibility of the position I took when I came here, that came to me, that was expected from me.
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If there hadn't been a Liberty, I probably would not have gone to college.
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What stands out in your experience with Liberty?
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Basically the support I received, particularly from people like Maureen, Afia. The friendships I made. They were there for me as a counselor, a tutor, as a friend. Someone I could speak to, someone who could mentor me. That helped so much.
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How would you describe the program?
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As the best way to keep someone off the streets, a young, adolescent inner city kid....off the streets. Nowadays you have all the violence, all the drugs. High Schools are horrible. kids are going off in different directions and this is a program where you give a young person a chance to shine. A chance to be himself. Because in school there are so many people that you really don't have a one to one kind of relationship with the professor. Your just a number, a part of the attendance, the roll call. But here you have that opportunity to let someone know who you are. No stereotypes...No expectations. You do what you gotta do and you make a lot out of yourself.
I'd tell them that Liberty is a place where they have to come with a serious mind. This is not a place to come and hang out. Even though there is a time for that, if you need some place to go, someone to talk to you, you can always come to Liberty.
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This is also a place where you come to learn. To get some basic skills down, like Bard: you have to assume responsibility as a young adult. You have to do your class, you have to get to sleep at a certain time, you have to do this do that. You know...It's like your end of the stick, a two part contract here. You have a counselor who is ready to do something for you but you have to meet her half way .
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Giving up a Saturday. Wow.....ya know in the long run its gonna help. In the long run. You look back at it and your like Wow, it did help me. Cause I didn't come a lot of those Saturdays.....That's a sacrifice you gotta make. Like for example a friend of mine who started to come with me and then she stopped. It's a big difference between us now. I mean....I'm not going to say that Liberty was the cause of it, but it sure made a difference. I can positively say that. It made a difference.
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I remember the changes I went through. I remember who I started out as and what I am and what I will be. I was very shy, insecure. I didn't like talking about myself, I didn't like expressing my feelings. I never made it clear as to what bothered me. What didn't.
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School /Liberty Experience
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It was very different. Like in high school , my high school I didn't have that sort of relationship with anyone. You have a guidance counselor, but you never see her. She doesn't know a thing about you. But yet she's your guidance counselor. Your professors don't really care if you come or not, as long as you do your homework or pass the SAT's, pass the regents. Things like that. I wasn't encouraged to go to school. You don't have anything to attract you. Most of the professors... had the kind of feeling that they've done enough, that they'd given up. that they've given up. That's how I felt when I was a senior in high school. That my teachers didn't care at all about me. It wouldn't make a difference to them if I went to college. It was as if they had lost hope. And that was the feeling I got in my high school. That the professors had lost hope in any kind of positive thing that a student could do.
That was a big difference between my high school and liberty. Here you came without any labels. Without any labels. That's the best way I could put it. It doesn't matter where you come or where you're at right now; it just matters where you're going and the direction you're going. That's the important thing here.
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Just because we might live in low income housing or just because there is only one parent in the house, it doesn't necessarily put you at risk.
Putting yourself at risk is not seeing your way out of a difficult situation. Not being careful about yourself. Your actions. That's putting yourself at risk. It's all up to the individual. It shouldn't be a label just because of where you come from, what you look like, or where you live.
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Underprivileged
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Minority Minority. That just needs to be wiped out. There is no such thing as a minority. I think that that's a big problem in our society. That we have all these labels on people. That we have to classify them....Put them in a certain category to know who they are.... You just can't classify people as minorities....
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Hope
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I think hope is something that you have within yourself. Hope is something that should be in your self esteem, that you should never give up. Hope is a ...what keeps you going. What keeps you going.
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Sometimes it's very hard to put aside these labels because all your life you're growing up with these labels: at risk, minority, gangster...Sometimes you start to believe that. You're hearing it all your life and you hear this is all you can do. There is a certain expectation ....You just got to put that aside.
Trust
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Trust in yourself. You know. Trust that you can do anything possible. Anything that comes up to your mind. You can do it. That nothing is impossible. Make people trust you. Go out of your way so people can trust you. And expect the same from others.
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Community
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That's another important every day life thing. You have to have some kind of family, some kind of little circle that's always going to support your every move, be there for you, to work together, to grow with, to learn from....
Critical Thinking
It's sad to say that the community that's shown on the news is not a very positive one. You believe those things. You believe those things. Unless you really see what's out there.
Like this program for me opened so many doors. And it opened my eyes to the reality of things. I started asking myself questions why are they stereotyping me, how come I only see this negative stuff about minorities, quote unquote on the news.
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Future
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Your future will always be there. You just have to make whatever you want out of it. No matter where you come from. No matter where your at in the present you always have a future. You can never look back and say what if....You could be in the worst situation and make something out of that. Make something very positive out of that.