Charlene maiga

Right now, I live in Stanley Rowe Towers. I've been there five years. I got five people in my house all crammed in because my grandbabies, my daughter, you know, I got my grandbabies, and I come over here in the Neighborhood House all the time. And I grew up in the West End. I raised my kids in Lincoln Courts, and we used to go over to the Regal Theater all the time. I used to take them over there as little kids. Funny story is, one day we was watching a movie. I forget what movie it was. And, a big old rat come out from under the seat. Scared my kids to death. My kids was like, 'Mom, Mom!' I was like, 'Don't panic. Just be quiet. Don't bother it. It won't bother you.' So we just watched the movie and let the rat go on about its business.

Taft school was the best high school, like all my kids, graduated from Taft High School. All three of them. I raised them pretty good. They turned out pretty good. One’s a nurse, and my son's a mechanic. And my youngest daughter, she's a homemaker. She has Crohn's disease, so she raised her kids and she's a homemaker.

There's good, wholesome peaceful of people in the West End. A lot of people take it for granted. A lot of people may say it's the ghetto, but a lot of it's not, you know? And maybe because it's people like us, you and me, we worked hard, worked all of our lives.

Listen to Charlene’s West End story: