Thanks @diabolika. I know from the pictures of the PJ's it doesn't look as bad as the slums of many other places but it's bad trust me. If you hang around long enough something will definitely go down. Plus the buildings are a lot newer since many where built in the 60's. The government also maintains the exterior of the property but inside it's like a dying corpse. You wouldn't want to live their. I mean yes for sure not as dangerous as say the villa I got robbed in Buenos Aires but still. I visited several projects growing up. One was near a high school that I went to summer school. Let me tell you, my friends were telling me of incidents that black kids were throwing white kids out the bus while the bus was moving, imagine that. Crazy, right. They were throwing white kids off the B40 bus which ran on Nostrand Ave, therefore I walked home. But I agree there are worse places in the world and even the US. As for as ESL goes, I think my experience was unique in this regard. it's not normal. Its possible the school thought that maybe because Spanish was spoken in my house that I was not able to learn. But I think it was mainly cause I was mischievous. In most cases if a kid behaved poorly you would normally get placed in Special Ed which normally the real troubled kids or mentally handicap. Since I guess they knew I was a retard they just thru me in ESL. They put me back in a regular class in 3rd grade but didn't like the teacher, so I made trouble in class because I didn't want to be there so I was sent back to ESL, fine for me. But yeah its not normal, normal isn't normal.