How Dare I Still Be Happy?
Tu-TU
Tu-Tu, who asked that we only use her
nickname, was born in Kingsville, Texas. At a very young age, she
and her older brother were taken to Chicago to be raised by
relatives. Her brother went to live with their paternal
grandparents, while Tu-Tu moved in with their maternal
grandparents, who lived in Englewood, a South Side neighborhood
characterized by violence and a rapidly declining population.
When Tu-Tu was 12, her mother came back into
her life to raise her and her brother. She and her mother did not
get along, however, so after two years, Tu-Tu returned to
Englewood. The Conservative Vice Lords, one of Chicago’s most
powerful gangs, became her de facto guardians, providing her with a
studio apartment and financial support, as well as with protection
in the area.
Tu-Tu has two daughters. She credits them
with motivating her to return to school as she encouraged them to
pursue their educations. She is currently working toward a
bachelor’s degree at DePaul University. Tu-Tu speaks in a soft tone
with a touch of a Southern twang that hints at her Texan roots. She
is witty and quick to let you know if she thinks you’re pretending
to be something you’re not. She keeps her hair in a short, natural
style, and often wears large hoop earrings. Although she has
endured many hardships, she looks much younger than her
40 years.
My mother went into labor early with me
because of a flying cockroach. I like to tell that story. A hissing
cockroach came in the house and scared her so bad they could not
stop it. I think it was almost like two months early. This was in
Kingsville, a military town, where my dad was in the Navy. I don’t
really remember how long I lived in Texas. As a child, we went back
and forth, so I’m not sure. I’m always in between.
I don’t even know the date my parents sent me
back here to live with my grandparents. My folks were married and
everything, so how could they not be ready to be parents? There’s a
lot of stories that I’m not told. So as far as my childhood, like,
“Why did we go here?” I still don’t know that. I don’t know why my
grandparents took us and separated my brother and me, either. It’s
the biggest secret in the family and, now that everybody’s pretty
much passed that could tell me, I don’t think I’ll ever know.
I called my grandparents “Mom” and “Dad.” I
helped my grandmother cook. We cooked everything. Everything you
can think of. Soul food. Everything under the sun. And we always
had to watch Lawrence Welk blow the bubbles on TV. Why? I don’t
know.
I didn’t see my father, but I used to call my
mother “that white lady.” She’s very pale and fair-skinned, but
she’s black! She’d drop off stuff for me every once in a while, but
nobody would ever tell me who she was. She’d just drop by. I kinda
think I was just like, “Who are you? Thanks,” and would move on.
She’s not very affectionate, so I wouldn’t have really talked to
her anyway. She’s not my mother, you know? My grandmother is my
mother. So I’m like “Who are you? Thanks for the Big Wheel.”
I stayed with my grandparents until around 12
years old. My grandfather passed, so my grandmother moved to senior
housing. After that, I went with my mother. By then, I knew she was
my mother, but I didn’t have a good relationship with her. We
stayed in Chicago, and my brother came, too.
My mom sucks. Yeah, we just didn’t get along.
Never really had a fight. I never argued or yelled at my mother. It
was constant nagging, browbeating, demeaning, little stuff like
that. Just stuff that, as a child, you have no stand. You just have
to take it. She would come home from work and maybe she would cook
or I would have to cook, and the dishes better have been clean and
rooms better have been clean. Don’t let her come into the house and
your work isn’t done kinda thing. Complete opposite of my
grandmother.
I dislike my dad even more than my mom,
because he probably could’ve been the other parent that was
responsible. Somebody should’ve been responsible. So for both of
you to not be responsible? Y’all have issues. I don’t wanna say my
mom didn’t try. At least, I think she tried, because she did come
get us. He did nothing. I know him, but he has another family
now—another little precious daughter and everything.
I wasn’t with my mom very long—about two
years. My reason for leaving depends who you ask. If you’re asking
me, she put me out. I just know we didn’t like each other. If you
asked her, she’d say that I was a unruly, spoiled brat that she
couldn’t control and blah, blah, blah…
I’m the only gang affiliation in my family.
My mother and my brother are saditty72 black people, so they would
never affiliate. I’m called “the ghetto child”; I’m the black sheep
of the family. I’ve actually been affiliated, like, 90 percent of
my life with the Vice Lords. Not even on purpose, either. I just
happened to be around those types of people.
So when I left my mother’s house, I took all
my stuff, as much as I could get, and I went to the streets. I
never went home. I went back to my grandparents’ neighborhood. A
few guys in the neighborhood—Vice Lords, pretty much—got me a
studio apartment in Hyde Park. So I was pretty much living on my
own at 15. But the guys took care of me. I was like a little
sister, I guess. They gave me financial stability and security. If
I got hurt, they took care of it. I think I’m super spoiled. For me
to have had such a rough life and the things I’ve been through,
I’ve always been financially stable. You have to have some sort of
association to survive.
The guys weren’t old. They was just older
than me. But to me, back then, they would’ve been old, because I
was so young. Somehow, I’ve always dated the big-time guys in the
neighborhood, and I didn’t look for them. I mean, like, the biggest
guys, like, newspaper-bound guys, but I never would’ve dated the
original guys who took care of me. That would’ve been perverted; I
do not like older men at all. Skin hanging and stuff. I have a
phobia. Nope, no older guys. That was strictly big brother, little
sister.
But I was still a little bad. I had my
moments. I had to show I was worthy of the support. You have to do
stuff. Nothing like initiation; just show that you are down. I’ve
never had to, like, shoot anybody or anything. I remember, there
was a new girl that moved into the neighborhood and they said that
she was coming over there and telling our business to her old
neighbors, something like that. So I had to go in her house, like,
I walked past her mom and everything, snatched her out of the
house, and, like, we all jumped her and beat her up. But I had to
be the one to go get her. I know, I even feel stupid saying it, but
that’s childhood.
The Vice Lords, they watched you growing.
They know their neighborhood, they know their kids, the families.
Back then, it was about protecting your area. It wasn’t about
fighting each other. So anybody that was in the area was protected,
pretty much. It was more structured in those days. You don’t bring
heat to your area because it brings police. So you keep it quiet. I
hate saying this out loud but there was
order
in their
gangbanging. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how mobsters made
it or still make it: structure. You can’t move without getting
approval. You can’t go just shoot up somebody without having a
reason behind it. I’m not saying there’s ever a reason to shoot
somebody—it’s hard to say what I’m saying without sounding like I’m
condoning it. It was more of a protection-and-retaliation kind of
thing.
Even though I was living on my own, I never
went to the guys’ places. I think they stayed on their own, but I
saw them a lot on the block. You know, you hang out, talk junk,
play basketball, hang out on the monkey bars, neighborhood stuff. I
was just lucky. My life could’ve been worse. Because I don’t do
drugs and I don’t drink. Never done it. No! Ain’t I lucky?
The guys was like, “That’s not ladylike. You
don’t do that.” There was the hos and there was the ladies. Don’t
go over there. Stay here. They knew what my background was, they
respected that. The “not ladies,” I’m gonna call them that, they,
you know, drank and smoked, and had sex, and partied, and didn’t
care. They thought they were being cool, but the guys don’t respect
that. It’s still like that today. I try to tell these little girls,
“Don’t think, because they drink and smoke with you, they like you.
That’s just the category that you in now.” The guys determine the
categories, but the girls put their selves in it.
I ended up leaving high school my senior
year. It was too much at the time. I didn’t even really care
anymore. I just wanted to go to work, make money. I got a work
permit at Andy Frain.73 I will never forget that job. It was
ushering. So I worked all the Bulls games, all the concerts, the
auto show. That’s the best teenage job you could ever have.
Once I made money, I started paying for the
apartment. I’m definitely independent; I’m definitely go-getting. I
have to because that’s the only way I made it. You can’t slow down;
you can’t get weak, because you don’t know what’ll happen. You
share something with someone and they throw it back at you, in your
face, in a very inappropriate time. Yeah, I can’t handle that so I
just stopped talking. I kinda lost contact with a lot of people.
They thought I was too good, a couple of my friends or whatever you
wanna call them. So-called friends wanna bring up my childhood and,
you know, who picks that? Nobody picks to be outside at that age. I
was just trying to eat.
When I was 19, I became a mother and an
adult. And then I moved in with the dad, and I was stuck with him
forever. No, I’m just joking. We didn’t get married, but we had two
kids, two girls. We had a family and I was stable for the first
time since my grandparents. We were all living together 10
years—maybe 15 if you count the back and forth. Yeah, we were
together for a long time. We moved twice: Englewood and Calumet
City.
My daughters were born in ’91 and ’95. Their
nicknames are Skinny Thick Girl and Thick Skinny Girl. One is
curvier than the other. Skinny Thick Girl is my oldest. She’s
skinny and just thinks she has a body out this world. And then my
youngest one, she’s thicker and thinks she’s a size zero.
It’s an extreme blessing to be a mother. You
gotta do everything that your mom didn’t do. Actually, it’s the
hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life to not mimic her ways. I’m
still working on it, but their dad was good, so I had a good
support system.
Their dad and I, we grew apart. We grew up
differently, but we’re still best friends. I moved back to Texas
once, and they didn’t wanna go so he kept them for three years. My
youngest lives with him now so I can finish school, finally. She’s
a straight-A high-school student, high honors. She gets all kinds
of awards and internships. She’s going to be a
neuro-neuro-something-something-something. She’s just everything.
And the oldest, she’s in Texas. She’s studying education. She is
living on her own; she pays her own rent. Every blue moon, she asks
me for, like, a piece of money or something, but they are doing
excellent. That’s why I’m able to finish school. They’re making me.
I had to beat them because I pushed them to go to school, so I have
to have my degree before they do.
I went back to high school maybe at 25 or 26.
I went through a program. It’s an actual diploma.74 It was hard,
too, because I was like, “I’m not going in there with these kids!”
I started at community college in 2008, Harold Washington. I needed
to be babied back into this. I was originally studying business.
Now, I’m double major: African and Black Diaspora Studies and
English, so I don’t know when I graduate. I’m finally doing
something I want.
Once you start growing and wanting different
stuff, people don’t see you anymore. It’s, “Oh, there goes Miss
Going to School, School Books, White Girl.” I’m like, “How am I a
white girl?” Even my daughters’ dad calls me a white girl; he
doesn’t understand a lot of stuff. Just because I don’t do what
they do, they think I think I’m better than them.
I quit my job so I could finish school
because it was too much. I was working for Nike. So I took a big
risk. But I’m doing good. Now I’m working at a beauty shop. I do
natural hair two days a week: Fridays and Saturdays. It’s on the
South Side. Stressful, but it’s taking care of everything.
I’m actually back where I started: in a
studio in Hyde Park. It’s almost on the same block, too. It’s about
me again. I actually don’t know what to do. It’s a lot more
peaceful. Not looking over my shoulder. It’s almost like I’m
getting a second chance to be peaceful, but I don’t even go to
certain areas anymore.
The original guys, there were three or four
of them, aren’t around anymore. They passed away or gone to jail. A
lot of the leaders are locked up, but I’ve never been to any jails.
Not county, nothing. To visit anyone. I refuse to see people like
that, but it’s still people I’m connected to. You branch out, you
know other people. I still need the security. I have rank, so if I
need something I can get it done. I don’t know everybody, but I
have close ties with a few people, ranging from maybe 14-year-olds
and up.
The younger kids are completely out of
control. But if you can corner them, you can have a conversation
with them. I think they trust me because I don’t talk at them. I
know what’s going on in their heads. I know what they’re going
through. It’s really big for me to not judge someone. These guys
out here, with their pants sagging, they look rough, they look
scary. But they might’ve had a mom like mine that put you out
early. You never know what the backdrop is. I’m not saying trust
them, because they are different now. They’re on pills and stuff.
Back then, if you did any kind of drugs, you was an outcast because
you was a crackhead or something like that. For some reason, it’s
more acceptable now. You see these kids doing stuff on the news and
are like, “What the hell is wrong with them?” But what’s happening
is they’re on Ecstasy and drink, so they have an upper and a downer
clashing with each other. They’re literally frying their brains
out. It’s stuff back in the day the guys would not let be in their
’hood. So I’m more alert when I go to the ’hood than I used to
be.