My Name is Yvonne Lopez, i am 22 years old and i am going to be a senior at UCSD as a communications major. I am creating this blog for my communications course:

COMT 175 Digital Story Telling/Oral History
UCSD
summer session II
2007


For this class we have a project in which we are responsible for telling a story. I havn't really decided what my project is going to be, but i am leaving towards my history in the foster care system and how i watched as my two families clash against one another, leaving me in "the pit of despair" in reference to who i am as a person, where i am in life, and the person i have become opposed to the person i could have been.

This is a very personal thing because, since my placement in the LA County Foster care system i have had daily stuggles when trying to fit into my two worlds at the same time.

One world being my "real" family in which i have my mother who due to her trouble with drugs and prostitution, was forced to give up her children to the foster care system, and till this day, nearly 20 years later for me, has yet been able to regain full custody of her children because of her bad habits. I have my father who passed away 5 years ago, i never met him, but he tried to visit me a month befor he died of lung cancer, but things never worked out. I also have my grandmother who, when she was asked to take care of me, rejected me and allowed me to go into the system. In addition i have a number of brothers and sisters, i still don't know how many i really have because of our lack of communications, and the fact that only about 2 of us have the same dad. All of them have had problem with the law, drugs, prositustion, possesssion, and everyother thing you can possibly think of.

I can't think of no good thing about this family excpet for the fact that i am not part of it, thus leaving me both in a love nad hate relationship.

In the other world i have what i call now a days "my family." I was placed into thier home when i was 2 1/2 years old, along with one of my half sisters, Christina, with who i mangaged to stay placed with until i was 11 and she was 13 ( we are 2 years apart). The head of the family is the my foster mother, but who i was raised to call "Grandma" and to me she is the one and only grandmother that i have, her name is Eva Alonzo. She has 4 daughters, 2 sons, and a number of former foster children who look up to her dearly. Aida the oldest lives at home with us, Alice devorced abotu 5 years ago has her own home but is always at our house creating problems by instigating the simplest situation, Sally who is a Professor at APU in Azusa is the one who along with her husband Jay who was born of a wealthy family, are paying for my college eduation, then we have Rudy who after he ran down our other home that was given to him as a work space, moved back into the house where is doens't work or help with the bills and we suspect him to be a drug dealer, the we have Gilbert who died about 10 years ago due to cancer, and lastly we have Yolie who moved back into the house after she found out she was pregnant and the guy left her, her daughter Megan, is the one one i was raised with as a sister and we are 6 years apart.

Looking at "my family" now, i couldn't be happier... but there were darker times. Growing up i wasn't treated as nicely as possible, along with some of the other foster children in the home. I remember when i was 7, we weren't allowed to get out of our bed after sayign our prayers, that included goign to the bath room. When my grandma and Aida heard the tolet flush they would drag us out of bed and make us stand in the kitchen on our knees for hours at a time untill they decided to go to sleep. A few times i was slapped so hard, that my nose would bleed, other times if i didn't complete my chores to satisfy approval Alice would come and grab us by the ears and dragg us and make us do it agian. I cant imagine how many times i was made to sweep the back yeard because it wasn't clean enough, and i can't forget the time that i decided to wear my gym clothes home becase i had torn the jumper/unoform i was wearing, when my grandma saw me like that and any other time she wasn't pleased with how i looked she would bring out the wooden stick that they kept in the kitchen and hit me and my sister Christina with it. One time in third grade, i managed to roll off the top bunk bed, and hit my mouth on the corner of the table that was below. I was more scared of being caught out of bed then the fact that i had fallen and in pain, and then scrambled to get back into my bed. When my aunt Aida (for i called all of my grandma's children aunts and uncles) walked in and put on the light, she found me covered in blood, but yet they refused to take me to the the emergency room saying that it wa smy fault because i was trying to sneak out of bed and go steal stuff from teh kitchen. Uptill this day i still remember that night, mainly because as a result i have a huge bump on my lower lip from where i hit the desk, i am not really sure why it is there, but it reminds me each and every day that while i am happy now, there were darker days.

My foster family might have been controlling but they believed they did it with my best interest in mind, i mean at least i was not exposed to the drugs and prostitution and lack of food as i was when iw as with my mom. But hey were controlling in the aspect that they made me wear my hair in a boy hair cut untill i was in the 6th grade, deciding when i could and could not wear (i was not allowed to wear shorts to school after the 6th grade unless it was in gym), but in addtion i was not alowed to to, under no circumstances go to another person house, let anyone come to my house, or give out my number to my friends because i was not allowed to call people or let them call me. I remember the first time my friend actually called my house, it was in 9th grade and my first year of high school, but by then things has already begun to change.

After my "sister" megan was born, the family was a lot nicer, i was allowed to participate in school activities, but only to a certain extent. I used to be in bad, but i was kicked out because i had missed too many practices and parades. I remember the last event was a parade i was suppost to go to, but the gym clothes situation had happend the day befor and thus as a punishment i was not allowed to go and perform. At least i did manage to march in the Rose Parade, but besides seeing me on TV, my family never went to see me perform, not even at a concert. They have always kinda refused that, i remember in 2md grade when i was the main feature, as i was every year, in the cinco de mayo festival, i performed a ritual aztec dance and sacrafice sceen, and in 3rd grade i sang in spanish, or in 4th grade when i performed dancing slasa and other dances on stage, and non of my family was there ever.

i had the family i needed, with out feeling like i beloged.

This folowed way into my middle and high school years, as i performed in Band, ran for cross country and track, and participated in other school events. The only thing that pleased them were my good grades, nearly all A's in elementry school excpect for one B, A's and B's in both middle and High School. It was because of my good grades, that i was able to loosen thier grip over me, allowing me to grow out my hair whichj to this day i grow as long as possible in a way of blocking out the all the bad memories in both school and home in relation to my hair style.