Originally published by L.A. Youth, the newspaper by and about teens.

Editors’ note: L.A. Youth published this story from their archives to mark the seventh anniversary of their Foster Youth Writing Project and to highlight the importance of support in foster youths’ lives. Click here to read other stories by foster youth.

By Teresa Hidalgo, 18, Sierra Vist HS (Baldwin Park, 2005 graduate)

Before I entered the foster care system, I thought that I would walk in the same footsteps as my cousins. I would live in poverty and probably get pregnant at the age of 15 or be addicted to drugs. But everything changed when I met my foster parents. I experienced the support of a caring family and learned about college.

At the age of 11, I moved into my foster parents’ home with two of my five siblings. It was my third foster home in one year. I thought, “Oh man, here we go again. I need to start all over again, new school, new friends and a new family.” I was nervous, but as soon as we moved in, my foster dad made jokes. I saw that my brothers David and Ray were laughing and I relaxed.

Their house was beautiful and I had my own room. My foster dad helped my brothers unpack and my foster mother helped me unpack,which is something my previous foster mothers did not do. This made me feel welcome. While my foster mother and I unpacked my clothes, she talked about her family and asked me questions about my family and what things I liked to do. It was important for me to live with a married couple because my parents never married, and it was something I wished they had done. I guess I thought that if they were married, there could have been more stability and maybe we could have been a closer family.

Before we went into foster care, my siblings and I had been living with my grandmother. How come we didn’t live with my parents? Well, let me inform you. My mother was a druggie and my father was an alcoholic. What more do I have to say? My grandmother was our legal guardian, but she was EVIL! I grew up fearing her presence, even her name! She would beat us horribly, with spoons, cords, basically whatever object she spotted first. We had bruises every day.


When I was 10, I told my attorney and immediately my siblings and I were taken away from my grandmother and placed in separate foster homes. My first two foster homes were nice, but they didn’t feel like home and I didn’t like being away from my siblings. When I moved in with my new foster parents, I was happy because I was going to live with my brothers again, and my three younger siblings were living a block away.

My life began changing in a positive way as soon as I moved in. My foster dad told me that my only responsibility was my education. I had been getting Ds in almost every subject. I liked school, but when I didn’t understand something, I would easily give up. No one in my other foster homes helped me with my homework. My foster dad would sit with me every night to help me. After a few months, I became interested in school and became one of the top students in my class.

In Los Angeles on August 5, LAPD Chief, William J. Bratton, announced his resignation from duty. Since shortly before the beginning of Chief Bratton's tenure in 2002, the LAPD has been overseen by the federal government under the authority of a consent decree, which was put in place to stop police practices such as racial profiling. Read more...