- Attributes and characteristics
- Describing Identity
“Depressing, kind of lonely, meaning I have no friends or girlfriend, and not interesting at all.”
Participant:
- New Orleans, LA
- white
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
Youth Quote Search
Welcome to the Striving to Thriving Youth Quote Library. Here you’ll find a curated collection of more than 5,700 quotes from young people ages 15-22 living in communities across the United States. In the library you can see how young people describe their multifaceted identities, how they understand and apply meaning to language around job, work and career, how they think about and assign value to relationships, networking and connections, and their future goals and the education and career choices they believe will lead them there. You can also view additional notes on curation, categories and filters.
- Challenges and Barriers
- Family
“My family is trying to drag me away from this. It’s my group of my top five friends that are trying to push towards this. My dad is like I thinking you’re wasting your life on video games.”
Participant:
- New York, NY
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
- Aspirations and Goals
- Imagining their future selves
“I would say working on, I will probably still be on my same job because like you can work there until you die, so.”
Participant:
- Chicago, IL
- Black
- male
- 26-29
- higher income
- Reflections on Focus Group Experience
- Takeaways
“I agree. Like if you want help, help can’t just come to you. You have to go out and find it. You have to seek it. If you really want to do something, you can’t really do it on your own. You really need support to make you feel better and it gives you confidence, too.”
Participant:
- Los Angeles, CA
- white
- female
- 15-22
- lower income
- 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.”
Participant:
- Atlanta, GA
- Black
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
- Impact of peers
- Pathways
“My friends – well I already know my friends. Let me take that back because I already know that. The people that don’t know me they tell me, ‘oh I love your beats.’ They will say a certain thing and I will be like wow, it is getting heard and it is crazy. I made it up from the top of my head from scratch. ‘I like your beats. Can you teach me this? Can you show me that?’ I really know so much, and I learned myself, so if somebody asks me it is like oh okay, I give them the respect.”
Participant:
- Belle Glade, FL
- Hispanic
- female
- 15-22
- lower income
- Aspirations and Goals
- Imagining their future selves
“So at 25, I’m still going to be very deep in school.”
Participant:
- Los Angeles, CA
- Hispanic
- female
- 15-22
- lower income
- Aspirations and Goals
- Inspiration and motivations
“I don’t want to work a traditional 9-5 for the rest of my life. I’d like to be able to retire at 50 years old like my parents did.”
Participant:
- Online
- Black
- male
- 26-29
- mixed income
- Attributes and characteristics
- Describing Identity
“Smart, funny, easy going, motivated, likes to have fun.”
Participant:
- Online
- white
- male
- 15-22
- lower income
- Challenges and Barriers
- Family
“Relationship issues, emotional stuff. I feel like relationships can definitely throw people off their game for sure. If something happens in your life, automatically it makes you have all this emotional stuff and depression or anxiety. It could be any situation that makes you have that stuff.”
Participant:
- Atlanta, GA
- white
- female
- 15-22
- lower income