By Darlene DeVita
I was born here in Boston, and I was raised here in Chelsea my whole life.
I feel like Chelsea is such a strong community. All those city leaders, the city managers, the police, the firefighters, they’re all like community-oriented. Everybody is doing things for the community, not for themselves or their own personal benefit or for the money. This is what I love about this city. Chelsea is full of immigrants and undocumented people, and it’s a safe place for them. The police, there’s not a thought that, oh, you’re undocumented, you gotta go. They might point you in the right direction and say, get papers. The housing story in Chelsea is super packed. People are packed into apartments, which is kind of unfortunate, but what can you do? Chelsea is small.
I was volunteering with the Collaborative in the beginning, around April-ish going into May, and then I started reporting for VICE for my aunt Gladys Vega. VICE picked us and other businesses from other places that are doing similar stuff during this pandemic. It was so amazing for us to get recognized in that way. Since their camera crew couldn’t come out, I was asked to do the recording. They told me how to set up my camera on my phone, ‘cause I did it on my iPhone. And they sent me a cool microphone that I got to keep.
I’m graduating high school this year. I’m the class of 2021. I’ve always had my heart set on biochemistry. I want to go into a STEM field because we don’t have enough women in that. But I have politics in my family. My dad was a city council member. He was the president of the city council. I have politics in my life, I have public figures like my aunt in my life, so I’m like, maybe I can do a side hustle in biochemistry and also be a politician. I love AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. She’s everybody’s role model. She’s amazing. I want to be a congresswoman someday.