Youth Quote Search

• Challenges and Barriers
• Personal traits and experiences

[Are there people in your life that talk to you about how to navigate racial barriers?] “Nobody. I ain’t never had to go seek…”

• Attributes and characteristics
• Describing Identity

“I put respectful, shy, active, helpful, humble, reliable, antisocial, and responsible.”

• Challenges and Barriers
• Discrimination and Bias

“My grand daddy he is a real, real person. I mean he knows sometimes I ain’t always in the right area, always doing the right thing, but he say the police ain’t the only thing we’ve got to worry about. We’ve got to worry about each other, other folks do anything. I mean it is a crazy world now. I mean it is 2019. Everybody wants to be a killer.”

• Aspirations and Goals
• Imagining their future selves

[By age 45] “When I am 45, I want to still be living in the same home, possibly create a business or baking or farming and gardening, supporting children, fostering children, possibly adopting.”

• Perceptions of the term 'career'
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“[A career has] way better benefits…more than what like Domino’s or McDonald’s, I guess.”

• Impact of personal attributes and characteristics
• Pathways

“I think all of the words I used lend themselves to my work ethic. I don’t thing I used any that are negative.”

• Characterizations of a good job
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“…and then, hopefully, I can start getting my name brand and everything start to go worldwide.”

• Perceptions of the term 'career'
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

[What “career” brings to mind] “I put happy, devotion, law, benefits…Law. That’s my field of interest.”

• Attributes and characteristics
• Describing Identity

“I think I’m just very like clear-minded with like what I know I want to do with my life. So I’m always focused on the end goal, which is getting my career. And I think now that it’s so close, that it’s so real, that I’m more focused on that goal and how I’m going to achieve it, what I plan on for the future, where I want to go going forward.”

• Aspirations and Goals
• Imagining their future selves

“I plan to get a house as soon as possible, but being with my girlfriend, you know, planning to get married. Starting to work as a counselor. And then while I can, you know, get a little traveling done to go see places that I haven’t been to before. And then I’ll also start to plan my, start having my own family and then have, you know, get a cat and a dog for sure. And then by 45, I’ll already be married. I start thinking of retirement when I’m about 60 at that time. And then, you know, be able to watch our kids as they’re growing older and help them, so they don’t make the same mistakes that I’ve made. And then serve, I want to be able to watch them make careers for themselves. And, you know, by that time be able to help my mom and grandma, so they can have a good life and live good. They don’t have to worry about working anymore.”