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Many people here say they're rich in things that aren't included in any official measure of poverty. Things like family and faith. So they're understandably a bit bitter about how they're often seen from the outside.

that's part of the logic of agriculture isn't it i mean you have a lot of work to do yeah a lot of people you know but there again you're you're in a progress trap or or a treadmill that you need more children 00:48:57 so you can work more land and then that more land provides more food so you have yet more children

Georgia also instituted a policy of keeping the land “tail-male,”which meant that land descended to the eldest male child. This feudal rulebound men to their families. The tail-male provision protected heirs whosepoor fathers might otherwise feel pressure to sell their land.53

A healing resolution for the issue generally is supposedly achieved after repositioning the representatives and adding key members of the system who have been forgotten or written out of the family history. When every representative feels right in his or her place and the other representatives agree, the facilitator may suggest one or two sentences to be spoken aloud. If the representatives do not feel at peace with their new position or sentences, they can move again or try a different sentence. This is claimed, in an abstract way, to represent a possible resolution of the issues faced by the seeker. Sometimes the process concludes without a full resolution being achieved.

The connection with ancestors is a central feature of the Constellation process.

shall be eligible for emergency assistance

Section 26-5.3-104 - Emergency assistance for families with children at imminent risk of being placed out of the home

The general assembly finds and declares that: (a) Maintaining a family structure to the greatest degree possible is one of the fundamental goals that all state agencies must observe

Family preservation services

FAMILY TREE

“The purpose of our life should be to build up the Zion of our God, to gather the House of Israel, … store up treasures of knowledge and wisdom in our own understandings, purify our own hearts and prepare a people to meet the Lord when he comes. … “We have no business here other than to build up and establish the Zion of God. It must be done according to the will and law of God [see D&C 105:5], after that pattern and order by which Enoch built up and perfected the former-day Zion, which was taken away to heaven. … We, through our faithfulness, must prepare ourselves to meet Zion from above when it shall return to earth, and to abide the brightness and glory of its coming” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 111–12).

Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

Colombia’s Armero tragedy of 1985, a volcanic eruption followed by landslides, killed 23,000 people, among them Val’s daughter from her first relationship, Clare’s stepsister. Following that loss, Val and her partner canoed thousands of river miles to where she now lives, deep in the jungle, where Clare visits her.

And a theory of "multilayered social worlds", when fully developed, can be a helpful tool in understanding why, in modern Europe, certain phenomena became common enough to catch the attention of physicians, scientists, artists and philosophers. In a current unpublished work, STP suggests that, if the logic of affinity is properly conceptualized, both in terms of its essentially paraconsistent properties as a social logic and in terms of its historical presentation throughout very different societies, one arrives at the conclusion that modern families – in the sense of nuclear familiar units composed of heterossexual parents and their children – do not logically form a basic "atom of kinship" in Levi-Strauss' sense. That is, in modern capitalist societies, the logic of affinity is not composed in such a way as to form a world of its own, it has little synthetic power. In fact, the logic of affinity is most consistent within capitalist worlds at the points where it is tasked with "stitching together" dynamics dominated by property and value – at the point of contact between family and the production of independent adult workers, or at the intersection between affinity and the State, where the nation-form is born, etc. Because capitalist structures do not respect the internal logic of kinship – which would allow people to socially map not only those that are part of their families and those who are not, but also those that occupy strangely indeterminate positions in this social fabric – it is up to individuals themselves, as they grow up, to develop ways to supplement to this fractured logic. This is what Lacan called the "individual myth of the neurotic": how, in order to become persons  , we must supplement our social existence before other people with an invisible partnership with an "Other", a figure that helps us determine how to distinguish these indeterminate elements of affinity logic and that capitalist sociality does not help to propagate in a consistent and shared way.

ut for her acquaintance with the Martins of Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied her thoughts a good deal; she had spent two very happy months with them, and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe the many comforts and wonders of the place

she wanted at once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe

He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through.

seen by the original user, not by

In the United States, we have col-lectively decided that we are not going to protect all families to the same degree,and this is reflected in our social policies and resulting poverty rates for thesefamilies.

a little quiet cheerfulness at home

Charles

sisters

the heir of the house of Elliot

In the meanwhile, my was born so I am not going to get back to this issue before a while :)

Pathogenic germline variants in DICER1 underlie an autosomal dominant, pleiotropic tumor-predisposition disorder.

Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) of the uterus has recently been shown to frequently harbor DICER1 mutations.

DICER1 syndrome is an autosomal-dominant, pleiotropic tumor-predisposition disorder

The DICER1 syndrome is an autosomal dominant tumor‐predisposi-tion disorder associated with pleuropulmonary blastoma, a rare pediatric lung cancer

Guardianship of starknowledge is also a family affair in Lakota cultures of the northernMidwest of the United States. Arvol Looking Horse, a Lakota Elderand spiritual leader, teaches that sacred star medicine is maintainedby family lineages bearing the name Lúta.

family meeting. Following the lead of the Starrs and others, we ask three questions, all adapted from agile: 1) What went well in our family this week? 2) What didn't go well? 3) What will we agree to work on this week?

Namibian society is fairly conservative, particularly where issues of morality, customs and family values are concerned

Women’s rights and family matters

Customary marriages

most prominent within the sphere of the family household.

matters that pertain to the children.

the maintenance of such gender and role conceptions in Namibian society at large

the eldest son makes all the major decisions

family

It is crucial to ensure that your child develops, maintains, and enjoys other, non-screentime activities.

Rodolfo: Literally, I spoke to a person who said, “Man, if I do bad things here they're going to want to keep me here.” What type of mentality is that? That they rather commit crimes while in detention so they can stay in the United States but not even that, they are going to be locked up.Rodolfo: So, that reality, that part where their mind has set on, “Okay well, I'd rather be in jail here then go back to my home country. Because I'm going to be, at least, with my family here, so they can go visit me and stuff like that.” That's very.., that's horrible. So yeah, that. That would be awesome if somebody is in detention, if somebody is detained, they can get visits from their family. Just people who are detained, you know?Sergio: Just wanting to hug your mom—Rodolfo: Yeah. Because a visit does all the difference, man. You know what I mean? Seeing that little help, it's like a beacon of hope, you know? Okay, well, one day or hopefully or just keeping that alive.Sergio: I think that's all the questions I have right now, I might come up with more later to ask you again. But right now, do you have anything on your mind that you want to share or talk about?Rodolfo: Man, it's been awhile since I spoke about any of this, but I feel I've let everything... or for now because I have a lot, a lot more. But for now, I feel like it was good. It's like a little therapy session as well, man. Honestly, to be quite frank with you, that's what I was looking for, man. Because I don't really have any friends like that, and I don't know anybody out here like that and it's just great to finally speak and be heard.Rodolfo: I know it's your job and I know it's your school and everything but man, I feel like you really were listening to me and thank you. Thank you man, really.

Sergio: So, do you think a lot of deportees, when they return, turn to crime?Rodolfo: When they return to what, I'm sorry?Sergio: To Mexico.Rodolfo: I think a lot of the deportees, when they come back, yes. But I think more about their family—the inability to help your family member, the person who you love is one of the most horrible... it's a horrible feeling, not being able to help, let alone help one of your family members.

Anne: In the US, it didn't happen?Juan: My plan was, when I was 16 I had received DACA. I was one of the first ones who had received it—because that's when it had barely come out. I applied for it, I got it. I think I was a junior in high school. My first job was as a dishwasher, and then from there—Anne: You got a green card so you could go to work?Juan: I don't consider DACA as a green card. It's more like a permit to work.Anne: A permit to work.Juan: Yeah, I had DACA, so my plan was to graduate high school, work for one or two years, save up money, then go to college. That was my plan, but a situation happened—I think I was twenty. No, I was nineteen about to be twenty. I got accused of something, which was a really big deal, and it all went downhill from there. I got accused and then I was working one day and the cops came looking for me and they were like, "Are you Juan?"Juan: I'm like, "Yes," so they're like, "You're being accused of this and that," and then I got sent to jail. I was being accused of a first-degree felony, so they were like, "If you're found guilty of a first-degree felony, you can take up to six to twenty years in prison." Right there, my whole life was—I hit the bottom. I was nineteen with a first-degree charge and it all went along, my parents, they got me a lawyer.Juan: I was in jail for five months fighting my case and then they found out that I wasn't guilty, so this is something really strange because—Anne: They found out you weren't guilty.Juan: Yes, I wasn't guilty. I was proven innocent, but the thing is that since it was a first degree felony, they usually don't drop it down. This is what I found out when I was in jail—because you learn things when you're in jail—that when you have a first-degree felony, they drop it down to a second or third degree and then they give you a plea. How do you say it? Yes, a plea.Anne: A plea.Juan: That wasn't my case, because I couldn't live with the felony on my record. From a first-degree felony, they dropped it down to a Class A misdemeanor, so obviously I wasn't guilty at all. I was proven innocent after five months [Chuckles].Anne: Couldn't they just wipe it out altogether? Why did it have to be a misdemeanor?Juan: Because the state couldn't lose, that's the thing. When you're in jail, you learn a lot of things and my lawyer at the moment, he explained everything. If we were to take it to trial and the state loses, it's going to look bad on them. Obviously, they're not going to let me live clean. They're going to want me to take one charge at least. So, what they did was, from a first-degree felony, they dropped it down to a Class A misdemeanor.Juan: They couldn't take off all of the charges because that would mean taking it to trial—it's going to cost a lot of money—so they were like, "Accept the plea deal and then you're free to go, but you will have the Class A misdemeanor. With time and with the lawyer, you can remove it from your record, but not a felony. A felony will always be on your record.” So, I took the deal, and then as soon as I took the deal, I was free to go, but immigration got me right there.Juan: Immigration got me, they removed my DACA, and after that I started my process with immigration. I was in jail for, in total, eight months. Five with the state then three with immigration. I think I would have been able to stay if I was married to a US citizen or if I'd had a kid, or if I had something that tied me to the US. But since I was nineteen, I wasn't married, I didn't have any kids, I didn't have anything that tied me to the US.Anne: The Class A misdemeanor, that's one of the misdemeanors that is disqualifying for DACA?Juan: Yes.Anne: Did they know? I guess your lawyer knew that this was going to happen.Juan: Yes. He knew that they were going to remove DACA.Anne: Though he told you that it's the kind of misdemeanor that you could expunge from your record?Juan: Yes.Juan: He did say we can stay, take it to trial, and here's the big dilemma. You could either win with the jury or you can lose with the jury. If you lose, then you can look up to twenty years in prison. But if you win, you live clean you know? But do you really want to take the chance? Taking it to trial does take a long time. It can take up to a year or a year and a half in jail, and I was already five months in jail. I'm like, "I don't want to be here anymore."Anne: You said that you were accused of a felony. Was it a fabricated accusation?Juan: Yes, fabricated accusation—do you mean was it made up?Anne: Yes.Juan: Yes, it was made up. It was a made-up accusation.Juan: The funny part is that once I was out of jail because … When I was with immigration, the judge found me … I wasn't a danger to society or anything like that. He let me off with a…How do you call it?Anne: A bond?Juan: With a bond, yes. Actually, it was a $10,000 bond. Then my dad came up with the money fast so that he could get me out of jail.Juan: It was something that, like I said, I'm just glad it's over with but it's an experience that I went through that sometimes I do hate myself for putting myself in that situation because I could say, "Well, maybe that night I should've just stayed home. I shouldn't have gone out and I should've just…" Because at that time, I had a good job. My brother was doing good, my family was doing good, my parents, they would go camping every weekend or they would go fishing. They would go out.Juan: I would provide help financially to my parents, so we were all doing good. My brother and I graduated high school. We were looking to our future—everything was doing good. We were looking into getting a house. Sometimes I do feel guilty. I’m like, because of the situation that happened for me, my parents' plans, they all went downhill and I'm just glad that they … Because one thing that I remember is that when they first took me in jail, they're like, "You have one call."Juan: I called my dad and I was crying. I was like, "Dad, I'm in jail." He was like, "Why?" I'm like, "They're accusing me of this." And he just said, "Don't say anything. We're going to get a lawyer and just hang in there." My dad, he did everything in his power to help me out. He didn't know what happened [Emotional], but he believed in me because he knew that the kind of person that I was, and so then my mom ... All my friends, they didn't help me at all. It was my parents who went to the trials and stuff like that. [Chuckles]

Claudia: Why? Do you think it's because of all the tattoos?Yosell: Probably, that's probably why it is. The way you dress.Yosell: Since I do remember I was maybe 17 or 16 when I started getting tattooed drunk.Claudia: Here or in the States?Yosell: Out in the States.Claudia: What did you like about tattoos?Yosell: Basically, the story it tells. There's a lot of things into it.Claudia: Do you have a favorite one?Yosell: My favorite one would probably be like I have these two angels here. Those are my two brothers, so I decided to get them, and I got my mom tattooed on my head.Claudia: Oh wow, that's amazing.Yosell: That's probably one of my favorite ones. Let's see, I had a cousin that got shot out in the States out in Utah, so I ended up getting a Salt Lake tattoo right here.Claudia: Oh, I see.Yosell: I guess there's a couple. I got these two right here, it's probably my favorite tattoo, actually. It says—Claudia: Did that hurt a lot? I know that's a stupid question, but I'm just very curious.Yosell: [Laughs]. It didn't hurt quite as much as I thought it would, it was just more like, "Oh my eyes are really like, tiring," kind of stuff, so that didn't really hurt. I think the worst I've ever had hurt was probably right here on the collarbone area. Yeah, that's probably the worst.Claudia: We've heard from a lot of people here tattoos are kind of associated with gangs and criminal activity over in the States, and that's why a lot of migrants when they come back get profiled. Do you think that's true?Yosell: I have to tell you, I'm going to guess that's really true. Because it's just something really common up there. Either you join something and you're known as hardcore, you're known as somebody, or you don't join anything and you get bullied around. That's what I could say.

Ben: That's all I can do. But I'm still grateful I did very well and my family's not hurting. If I felt that they were hurting, I would risk it all and head back. But, they're comfortable, they're doing well. And I think, well I feel that I set a standard for them, to strive to be more, to strive because they all had, including my wife, when we married she was kind of shy and her self-esteem—not that she had low self-esteem—but she really didn't believe that much in herself. But right now, she's shining, she's doing really well, and she's holding it together for both kids at that age to still be living with her, other than my son right now in college, that he went, that's to say a lot for two parents. But for a single parent, you gotta hand it to her.

Ben: Yes. Real nice life. And my children, they didn't know that I was illegal until it happened. And we had…Well there was a reason why we didn't want them knowing because children can tell others. And then also they just wouldn't understand. When they were a little bit older, like my son in junior high and my daughter barely starting high school, do you remember when Lou Dobbs went off on his rant? On CNN, when he started all that. When Lou Dobbs started ranting, it was like every day on TV, the other school children were talking about illegal ladies and this and this. And one day I got home and my wife, the kids were already in bed, and she told me, "You know what? Vanessa came up and asked me if any of our relatives were illegal aliens.” And I told her, "Probably about time we started explaining some things to her.” She goes, "No, with our relatives yes, but as far as you, no. You can't"Ben: So, we didn't. And it was just, once they did find out, I really don't know, I'm really not sure how they really feel. But it had to be—Anne: They didn't find out until you actually—Ben: Yes.Anne: And they're adults now? Or young adults?Ben: Yes. And my daughter, I know it had to move her because after my daughter, this is her graduating from Indiana University with honors, very decorated.Anne: Beautiful.Ben: Her major is paralegal studies. She's still studying, she wants a law degree.Anne: That's great.Ben: And she did her internship at the Marian County prosecutor’s office. She graduated and upon graduation—well before she even graduated—she had secured a job. She's got a job, she's got her first job, right now she's a paralegal for immigration family law.Anne: Oh wow. Wow.Ben: So, I guess it has something—Anne: Sure.Ben: My son, just barely last week he went to get settled. He was going to IUP [Indiana University of Pennsylvania] in Indianapolis, but he just got the Disney scholarship and it's a full scholarship, so room, board everything. And he just got settled last week in Orlando. So, he's going to be there for a little while.Anne: And what school does that go for?Ben: I'm not exactly sure, some university there in Orlando. I haven't had a lot of contact since…They were busy over there, when they were over there, I was busy heading this way.

Anita: And what are your hopes now?Ivan: Well, my hopes are now to stay here. I want to stay in Teletech. I've been here for so long—well, not so long, but since I started. And so many people that are being there, they're already gone. So, we started together, but there's only like three of us, but I want to stay there. I want to stick around. Yeah.Anita: Well, I wish you all the best.Ivan: Thank you very much.Anita: And I hope your children come and visit you soon.Ivan: Yeah, hopefully very soon. Yeah.

Because he was separating families. I remember just telling my mom, "I don't want to go back to school if that means putting you at risk, or putting one of my brothers at risk, I just don't want to go back." And since my father's deportation process was still—we were still going through that as well. I just had to go with my mom to a couple of hearings with her and translate what they were saying and all of the information and all of that.

I used to give my mom crap about that, because I was like, "Why couldn't you just start your life right here? What's so wrong about this? That you put us through all this stuff that we have nothing over there?" And then I realized when I came over here—I actually cried, because I'm like, "Damn, she did all that for us to have a better life."

He was telling me it was 3,500, but the landlord was keeping 2,500 and giving him 1,000 of it. And I had found out, because the own landlord lady told me, and I had to move and I had to lose my job.

That was it. I still got the paper. I got all my voluntary departure, everything.

At that time, I just wanted to do good for my family and try and grow up, because I always took everything as a joke. I feel like I'm still 18 and I'm 26 already. I feel like I didn't have a chance to live my childhood.

So every time he would tell me to do something, I'd get so mad. I just want to punch him in the face. And it sucked, man, because he would always try to tell me stuff—he would do it for my own good.

Slowly I started saying because of one decision that she had made, all our lives got messed up, even if she wanted to or not, point blank period. But then I didn't think on both sides.

And I liked it, because my parents would have to suffer. That's the sucky thing about it. Looking back at it now, I put my mom through a lot of stuff, and it sucks.

When you have kids young, you think you want something, but you don't know. It's just like you think you like the person but you don't like them.

The cops looked at that and they're like, "Wow, you're so young, but yet still you're family orientated."

And then when I had my first kid, I was like, "Nope, I'm not going to give him the life that I have." And he was a big motivation. My first kid was a really big motivation to just get on it.

I feel like I kind of took the burden of kind of being the man of the house that, that kind of just wore me down. So my brothers and sisters seen that and I was kind of like the black sheep, but I was like an example. Like, "Oh, don't be like him." So I feel like I wasn't there to help them, or to actually guide them like a big brother should, but at least I was like, "Okay, don't be like him." You know what I mean?

I didn't really have a relationship with my family. When there was a family events or anything, I felt like an outcast. I would never go to them. Christmas, I was always in my room. Every little... It's just weird man. Everything messed me up. I feel like traumatic. Just the trauma of everything.

We didn't know what to do. There was no... Just got to go back to the old things that we were doing. But luckily, I was able to cut hair and do tattoos, and I was able to get by.

I wanted to do better for myself and for my family, and I felt like that was like a big motivation right there. That push you just need, because you see stuff and you're like, "Dude, I hope that when I have kids, they don't have to go through that." And yeah, that was the push that kind of—

So I look up to that man a lot, because he's done a lot of sacrifices. At the same time, we're like the push he needed. So we both helped each other out.

Yeah. My stepdad. She got with a guy before that and had a kid and then she got married to my stepdad.

Yes. A lot of them. A lot of things. If we didn't do, they probably would have had to do, because if it wasn't me, it would've been the next one. And they did have to go through that stuff too, in a way, because sometimes I couldn't do it, because I'd be in school doing something really, really important.

So sometimes I would have to miss school, sometimes I wouldn't go to school. So then it was chaos.

I was used to it at least, because growing up my mom didn't have a job so she couldn't provide for us even if she wanted to, because she's illegal. So what we would do is we would make fake CDs, and every morning I would just wake up, go to different little towns and stuff, sell CDs.

So, I was thinking like, "Why do you want us back? You say you didn't want us.” Little did I know all that. She told me all this stuff that happened and I just started busting down and crying. And I was always mean to my little stepsister too. But once I learned about how my dad, when she was a newborn, put her in the closet with my mom—got my mom butt naked and put her in the closet—and left her there and then took us to Texas… I used to be mean to my little sister, but after I heard that, I was just like—me and her just got close and stuff.

So yeah, those two years being away from her, my dad had lied to us and said that she didn't want us anymore because she had another kid on the way. And yeah, my dad didn't care. He just lied to us and said that my mom didn't want us.

He took us to Texas for two years. We were actually on the news as missing children. If you look me up, I have all our photos. We were gone for two years, and the reason that they found us was because my dad was actually trying to rob a wheel store—rim store.

My dad was already in the States. But a couple of years passed after we crossed the border, my mom and my dad didn't get along, and my dad was really controlling and abusive.

But I looked for a job. I was blessed to find a job actually with my stepdad. My stepdad did all the solar stuff—solar panels.

I could see them--that they were advancing in life, and I was still in the same spot. So I asked my mom if I could get a job, and that's when she broke it down to me that I wasn't even from here. And that was right there like a slap in the face.

Mike: Because this is the reason that I moved, my dad was telling me that rent was one thing, but he was just telling the landlord that he knew to charge me extra. He was telling me it was 3,500, but the landlord was keeping 2,500 and giving him 1,000 of it. And I had found out, because the own landlord lady told me, and I had to move and I had to lose my job.

Mike: Yeah. Teletech. I had to quit though because I was moving. I didn't have enough money, because I feel like over here when people know that you're not from here—or that you're from over there—they take advantage. And I feel like my dad kind of took advantage of me. He basically said that things were one price, but they were totally different.

Mike: So they were like, "Dude, you got to do something. You either going to jail or to fight it, the case. But you're going to jail. You've got to be in jail and you can't be out while you're fighting this case, or you do a voluntary departure and you go." At that time I felt like I wasn't any good to anybody. I didn’t want to be a burden on my family." So I just left. This is just something that I felt like I had to do. I knew if I ran away, I was never going to be able to provide for my kids, because I was always going to have to try to find a way to provide for myself. And I didn't want that for them. So I just did a voluntary departure. I just said, "Screw it."

Mike: It was gang members. I used to hang out with people that they didn't care for themselves. I remember walking into my friend's house and the house was just like, "Oh my God." It was like a tornado went in and I usually don't hang out with people like this. I was so scared just being in that house and I just started getting used to it, because those are the people that I could not relate to, but I had something in common like, "Okay if you're not ish, then I'm not an ish either."Mike: So we relate and I feel like kind of adopted. They kind of adopted me. The streets adopted me kind of in a way. I didn't really have a relationship with my family. When there was a family events or anything, I felt like an outcast. I would never go to them. Christmas, I was always in my room. Every little... It's just weird man. Everything messed me up. I feel like traumatic. Just the trauma of everything.

Mike: Yeah. But we were used to it though. I was used to it at least, because growing up my mom didn't have a job so she couldn't provide for us even if she wanted to, because she's illegal. So what we would do is we would make fake CDs, and every morning I would just wake up, go to different little towns and stuff, sell CDs.

So, but I did a voluntary departure, because I want to see my kids. I got two kids actually. So I want to see my kids and I want to do it legally.

And my mom was—I feel like a lot of Mexican women and men, they have something against black folks even if you want to or not. I feel like that's racist too, because my mom would always be like, "Why do you hang out with them? Why do you do this? Why do you do that?"

And it took a whole month for the cops to come to my house. So I was with my two little brothers and my little sister was born by that time. She was like three, four. We stayed a whole month with nobody just by ourselves in the house. And I remember this—

And I remember it was me, my mother, my two little brothers—my sisters weren't born at the time—and the two coyotes, the people that cross you.

When I was really young, I had gotten accident that required surgery and I needed to get that surgery done, so when I went to the hospital and get it done there was actually a couple of people from a criminal organization that were supposed to, I guess, kill somebody in there. I remember this like it was yesterday. I had a little breathing mask on and the doctor was telling me to breathe when he counted the eight, I could just hear the gunshots.

With my parents? My mother, yes. She doesn't like to talk about it. The older I get, the more she opens up, but it's not something that she likes to talk about. It was never in front of us, it was behind closed doors. I thank my father. He's a piece of shit, but I thank him for at least having the thought of not wanting to traumatize us. So yes, it was behind closed doors, but the more I get out of my mom, it was a lot of emotional abuse as well, a lot. I think there was some physical abuse. My mom's never touched upon it, but that's what happened. And then we got to Chicago.

Luisa: Yes. There came a point. We were in the [Pause] process of getting our permanent residency card in order to be able to go to school, and the lawyer let my mother know that me and my sister—my other sister—were not going to make it because once you hit eighteen, you're no longer under the case that you originally filed, so the best option for us would be adoption. We would be adopted by an American citizen in order to get our American status fixed, and that was something my mom and I contemplated for a long, long time, and she was going to go through with it, but my dad put a huge stop to that and was like, "That's not happening. You're stupid. That's not a thing. These are my kids. You're not letting that happen."Luisa: It was going to be a family member, not a close family member, but these were the lengths that you go through to try to get through this. I didn't have a normal childhood. I never got to learn to drive. I didn't go to drivers ed. I didn't get to travel with my best friend to DisneyLand because my mom was so scared of—

We arrived to ____ California. We arrived at an apartment that we were sharing with about eight other people—my grandparents, my sisters and I, my mother, my uncles, then eventually my uncle's wife. One of my uncles got the opportunity to move to Chicago—a job opportunity—so he moved. I think after my parents divorced, all of my uncles saw us as their kids, because two of the ones that really took care of us never really had kids, so they loved us and they brought us in.

Yes, my dad hired somebody to find us. My mom really did not leave any trace at all. She just pretty much left like a thief in the night, literally [Chuckles]. They eventually tracked us down and I got a phone call. We got a phone call. I think it was one of my grandparents who answered. Very reluctantly, they handed over the phone and it was my dad and I remember crying. I remember being hysterical. I remember being like, "Oh, my God. This is my dad. He's here. This is my dad. He's not gone.” It's weird, but I thought it was two different worlds and, in this world, I no longer can have my dad. That was the way I started to cope with it. The States were not my dad and this is where my dad was, so we were on different planets now. It was not something that was possible.

My mom, she started working for this store [unclear] and she was doing her design school, and they specialized in Muslim attire and my mom was like, "You know what? I'm going to be independent," so she moves aside. She starts her own thing, and she starts making a bunch of clothes.

Within three to six months. It didn't take that long … immediately kind of. I think one of my uncles took it upon himself to take care of us, and since my mom … my mom at the time, we did not know she had a tumor in the back of her brain. Right where her brain stem is, she had a huge tumor there and we had no idea. Nobody knew. She doesn't remember a lot of this. I don't know if it's because of the emotional trauma or because of the tumor, but once we got to Chicago, it was evident that something was wrong with my mother and she started going to the doctor.

The apartment that we moved into in California was a one-bedroom apartment. It was a big complex and I remember it. There was a pool in the middle and there were a lot of families like us that shared a one-bedroom apartment. And there were eight to twelve people in this one space, and we were trying to find something bigger, but it was impossible.

It occurs to me that the Clubhouse management actually cares very little about the long-term fates of these kids.

The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.