by Jervey Tervalon

Jervey Tervalon's family moved from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Los Angeles, California, when he was four years old. They settled among other working and middle-class black families in a community-oriented, predominantly black neighborhood a mile west of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In high school, Jervey tried his hand at writing horror and kung fu stories as well as poetry. He finished his first novel, Understand This, when he was in his early thirties, basing it on his experiences as a student and an English teacher in the inner city.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

Inner-city poverty core. Researchers have identified an inner-city poverty core of about 105 square miles in the Los Angeles area (Scott and Brown, p. 7). Along with other areas in the poverty core are South Central, Watts, and parts of Compton, for example. Despite its specific...