Rosa Lee

          In part seven of Rosa Lee, we learn about some serious prostitution scandals that occurred within the family, mainly revolving around Patty and Rosa. I was shocked to read about how young Patty was when Rosa first started prostituting her to men in the neighborhood and other drug dealers. I thought the details of the encounters between Patty and the men Rosa brought home were too graphic and sickening to read about. Patty shows that she has a true care for her mother and really looked up to her. She claimed in the interviews with Mr. Dash that everything she was doing prostitution wise was for her mother. She also didn't want to let her down or fail her in making more money for the family, even if it did come to having sex with a man that was fifty years old and continued to get hurt by all the encounters. I blame Rosa entirely for getting Patty involved with this situation because of her irresponsibility and lack of consideration for her daughter when she would bring men home. It's just so wrong to commit any sexual act in the same bed as your eight year old child; let alone prostitute her for sex at the age of eleven to forty year old men. I became even more frustrated and disturbed with the family when they began to set up abortion scams with their "customers." I think that this is totally immoral whether they're trying to put food on the table or not. This continuing cycle of drugs and prostitution is still indefinitely occurring within the family but yet nothing is being done to prevent this from happening again in the next generation (being Patty). Rosa seems to make points at times that she will change and leave this lifestyle or drugs and prostitution but she does nothing to help her own children. She carelessly allows Patty to continue her prostitution of unprotected sex and encourages the drug lifestyle by a means of a way to make money.

          So far, I haven't been able to make any connections with this book to service with my learner, R. I think she seems to live an honorable life and has a lot of dignity, unlike Rosa and her family. She puts fourth the effort to come to service everyday and took the initiative to come to back to the CFL to work on her reading and writing skills to try and get into a local community college. She manages to balance her time between the three hour tutoring sessions every Wednesday night and a Thursday night computer course she takes at another CFL type program. She also is able to find time to raise her four boys as a single parent which I give her the utmost respect for her being able to do.