Hope for Future

I am working as a marketing engineer for a Los Angeles-based company while on break for summer vacation from college. During lunch I came across a letter to The Times written by Charina Canton of Los Angeles (June 17). She stated that “these kids also need caring people to love them.” What caught my attention was the age of the writer and her obvious concern for the gang situation around her. Instead of the usual 15-year-old’s desire for toy guns or shopping malls, it seems that there are actually kids in the world who are thinking of the problems of today, and the possible and quite logical solutions to amend them.

I congratulate Charina for her boldness, and hope that others like her are doing the same. They are the future of this country and this world. If the children grow up in a world of violence and war, what other type of environment will they know how to exist in? Maybe if we just took time out to listen to the innocent bystanders of this world of torment and anguish, we just might learn something. Maybe if we just took time out to look at what we are doing to our own future.

JAMES HAWKINS JR.

San Gabriel