Sorry

To understand this story properly we need to know some backstory so everything makes sense.

I’m the second son of 2 Colombian immigrant parents that came to the United states for a better future for their family. My dad was an activist in east Boston and inspired a lot of people and had 4 jobs to sustain our family here in America and the family that was left behind in Colombia.

I was 5 years old when my dad was deported, even though I was very young I recall a lot of things. To ensure we didn’t lose anything money wise my mom sold everything we had, our home and car gone and all was sent to Colombia, in the end we ended up being homeless.

 Thanks to my dads conexions we were able to find ourselves a room in the Crossroads Family center, my mom started to work for a lawyer to see if we could bring back my dad somehow and to win money so we could be more comfortable, my brother was still in high school so he needed to concentrate on his studies, he also tried to win some money by doing performances with his band, meanwhile I was about to turn 6 trying to ignore or perhaps make them think I didn’t understand our situation.

My brother was the one taking care of me pretty much. My mom had to work until night time, it was already beginning to be summer time and with that my older brother had extra time to work but they didn’t want to let me alone the whole day so they enlisted me for summer programs and activities to make me busy.

my daily life was very fun I woke up had summer camp, going to places new sites, going for swims, doing art I remember we went to a giant arcade once and made Ice Cream, when I came to the shelter my brother had me change clothes and let me go to play with the other kids that were living on the shelter at the moment, there was a giant attic filled with toys and costumes that we could use as we pleased, and when it was time I would go to my room, take a shower and go to sleep and do the same thing the next day. My brother had access to a hidden room where he had a tv and his consoles connected so he could have a space for himself.

I mean it must have been really stressful for my mom not knowing if she was doing the best for us trying to provided us commodities in so harsh circumstances, she blames herself for not doing better during that time but me and my older brother think that she did a great job,being able to provide and make us be entertained on other things so we could ignore what many people would think was a dire condition.Esperanza thats my moms name, I’ve always have thought that her name resonates very well with the feeling that she spreads to others which is hope