'I was not thinking of school'

Some students make it through elementary school, only to drop out on their way to high school.


Yesenia Sotelo is one of them. Her bangs hung in her eyes as she lugged a heavy backpack from class to class one recent spring day at Latino Youth Alternative High School, 2200 S. Marshall Blvd. in the Little Village neighborhood. The 18-year-old freshman said she was back in school for the first time since 1996, when she graduated from Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy, 2850 W. 24th Blvd.


Sotelo found out the summer after graduation that she was pregnant. "I didn't have anyone," she said. "Nobody talked to me. I never told my mother."


Late one night, she climbed out of a window in her Little Village home and moved to her boyfriend’s apartment. Her mother was angry, Sotelo recalled. Her father, who had been away working in Mexico, refused to speak to Yesenia for a month after he returned.


When school officials called to find out why she didn't report to high school, her sister told them she had left the country.


"I was not thinking of school any more," she said. Her boyfriend, who was 20 and worked full time, wanted her to go back to school, but left the decision up to her. Sotelo said she feared meeting "bad people" on the way to school. "I was scared. … A lot of bad things happened to me."


She was once attacked at a bus stop, she said, when a man exposed himself and tried to grab her. She got away.
Growing up, Sotelo had a strained relationship with her father, who worked long hours and "was never there for me." And she recalls that her mother frequently compared her to her oldest sister, who got pregnant at 15. Her mother would say, "Look at your sister, she ruined her life," and ask if the same thing would happen to her.


Sotelo eventually split up with her boyfriend, she said, because he drank too much. "It made me realize I can’t count on my baby’s father."


She decided she needed more education—"for my baby, to get my life together." When she graduates from Latino Youth in 2003, she envisions becoming either a chef or licensed child caretaker. And she has recommendations for Chicago Public Schools officials: The system needs additional "schools and programs for young mothers," she said. "Some girls don't have the money to babysit their kids.