People's District

“I remember coming to D.C. from Detroit with my family when I was a kid. My parents told me after the fact that they only had $20 to their name and came to visit a cousin to see if my father could get some work. That didn’t end up happening, so we spent the day here and our $20 in gas. While we were here, it snowed an inch and the whole city shut down. I didn’t understand it at all being from Detroit. With weather like that, I was probably out in a t-shirt.

“As a kid, I never thought that I could end up in Washington, working in an office when I grew up. I was very fortunate to go to DePauw University and did my degree in biology. I was an EMT there for three years and worked my way up to Lieutenant. When loans started catching up with me, I had to take a job to pay the bills. I came out to D.C. for a job interview that I did not get, but really loved the city. I remember when I got here, I just started walking and didn’t stop. I called home and said that I loved this place and wanted to move here. I started sending my resume around. I was one of the lucky people who got a job in this economy. Now, I am a management consultant and sit at my desk and write emails and progress reports.

“The thing that I find about being here is that people constantly say they want to work a job for a few years and then go find something else. Coming from Detroit, I don’t have that faith that if I leave a job, I will find another one. Where I am from, there are no jobs. My mother is unemployed right now. Because of that, I am going to be here as long as they let me and work my way up the corporate ladder. Unless I find a position that could take me back to Detroit, I think that I will work here until I retire and then go back and teach in Detroit.

“I just want to say lastly that Detroit is not what people think it is about. It is not about cars. To the people there, I think that life is more about the different communities and populations that come and live together. Now, people don’t want to be there anymore because there is nothing there for them. Unless we put an economic backbone there, we are losing those great cultures that settled in Detroit.”