Originally Published on January 13, 2023
THE FIRST 26 YEARS | CHAPTER ONE
“What's in the best interest of a child is their being afforded every means of access to nurturing and discipline, Children need relationships that intimately encourage the natural development of social, emotional, and logical skills that will reinforce self-confidence and sustainable habits that perpetuate self-acceptance and acceptance of other people and their environment, without personal bias... and enable understanding of how to adjust and overcome adversities that will inevitably occur throughout their lifetime” –
Elder
Jose Soto
The Summer of "1963" was a memorable summer with many breaking news headlines that kept the world on edge as to what tomorrow would bring. Most people who lived through the 60s would certainly agree that life was no easier then than it is at the time of the publishing of this writing. What I know about the 60s I learned through the research I did online, and from what I can remember from growing up. I was born in the early morning hours of August 2, 1963 and roughly three months later I was permanently separated from my biological parents.
I am a first-generation American-born Puerto Rican named, Jose Soto. I have three brothers and six sisters all of whom share the same biological parents with me. I was born at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, United States.
According to the Records of the CT. Department of Children & Youth Services (DCYS) I was placed in temporary care with a family in Newington, CT. at the age of 13 Weeks old until I could be placed in what was planned to be my permanent placement with a foster family, two weeks later at 15 weeks old.
For the first nine years of my life, I lived with African Americans that I thought were my real biological family, and I didn't know they weren't until I was old enough to go to school and entered Kindergarten at age five. What was going through the mind of that five-year-old boy when he learned that he was different from the people he thought were his family? And what happened when he discovered he had been separated from his biological parents?
I was five years old, and the elderly black woman who cared for me and whom I called Grandma for as long as I could remember was always loving, kind, and protective of me. She no doubt changed my diapers, fed, bathed, and rocked me to sleep in her arms and yet I could not wrap my little confused mind around the fact that I was not her child. I cried and yelled at those little boys on the playground who told me, "That girl is not your sister because she is black and you are puerto rican." I believed she was my sister and I loved her as much as any five-year-old could love a family member. My foster sister "Brenda" also loved me and took good care of me when Grandma wasn't present. I trusted Brenda and today I revere her as a sister and disciplinarian who had my best interest at heart.
I went home and thought about what those boys on the playground told me, and as much as I didn't want to admit what they were telling me was in fact the truth, I couldn't deny the feelings I had already been experiencing concerning the difference of my skin color when compared to my foster family. I knew I was different, but I didn't understand why and it didn't matter until that life-changing moment on the playground. In the weeks after, I became the center of the teasing and taunting of those little hellions on the playground. I was laughed at and as time passed I felt ashamed of my foster family and I began to act out.
Needless to say at this age I didn't know how to process the thoughts and feelings that were weighing heavy on me. I became increasingly unruly at school and disrespectful at home. Slowly I started acting like the kids on the playground and I stopped listening to my teachers, and I also began to disobey my guardians (Grandma and Brenda).
I didn't know it at the time, nor could I understand the lifelong damage that was being established through the patterns of bad decisions I was making like... playing hooky, stealing, lying to others, and lying to myself. I even remember, once, starting a fire in the closet of an abandoned building when I was about the age of eight or nine years old. By all definitions, I had become a serious "problem child". and before my tenth birthday, the elderly woman who raised me from infancy could no longer care for me. I was too disruptive, unruly, and disrespectful. My destructive behavior left my foster mother with no alternative but to ask the assigned State childcare worker to remove me from their home. I was taken from the only people I knew as family and experienced my second broken bond.
I still remember that pivotal day. That was the same day I had been hauled into the waiting area of the principal's office by a truant officer. I was told to sit down and wait my turn to see the principal for disciplinary action and when no one was looking I ran out of the office, and down the hall to the nearest exit, and made my way home on foot. When I entered the house, all of my belongings were packed up and in the front room near my social worker who was sitting on the couch. I was given the horrible news, that I could no longer stay with Grandma and I would be leaving to go and live in a new place where I would be cared for because Grandma was no longer able to care for me. So now the pattern of my life was established... I was separated from my biological Mother, and separated from my first foster mother of nine years.
Where did I go next? What did the State of Connecticut Dept. of Children and Youth Services think would be the best place for me to be cared for in 1972? It wasn't another foster home... it was a prison for children they deemed to be not fit for a family environment. They placed me in a warehouse, an orphanage for unwanted children who had records of behaviors much worse than what I was known for doing. I remained in this institution called, "Warehouse Point State Receiving Home" for a little more than a year where I suffered many waves of abuse, including and not limited to... verbal abuse, emotional abuse, psychological and sexual abuse, with the added punishments of physical abuse by adult supervision and fellow residents of that hellhole. It pains me to this day to admit that this place did not help make me become a better person, but it damaged me in ways I still am unable to understand and especially verbalize. I was tormented and I'm still haunted by the suffering of my childhood.
I would love to tell my story as a story about a man who as a child was reared in love and kindness and had a wonderful childhood filled with beautiful memories of enriched relationships where the goodness of people abounded, but most unfortunately, that simply wouldn't be the truth. My childhood was violated, stolen, and destroyed. It's a wrong that can never be righted because it's all in the past. The memories of my dark history are not a reflection of the man I am today but they're a significant part of my mental health and underdeveloped personality that is in dire need of attention. How does a person escape an unwanted reality without slipping into an unrealistic state of mind?
Who am I? This is a question I've grappled with my entire natural life and even much of my later adult spiritual life. I don't believe I've figured this one out because I'm unable to pinpoint my foundational or core beliefs. there's so much confusion and I have fantasized so often about my acceptance basing it on a mountain of half-truths which can be true facts that have been turned into lies because of so much separation in my lifetime. A good example of what I mean is, it's a fact that I'm a Puerto Rican by birth because both of my biological parents were born in Puerto Rico and they're Puerto Ricans however because I never knew them and I was never raised around Spanish-speaking people and I grew up in Black foster homes and a lot of Caucasian foster homes I don't feel any association to the culture or connection to the puerto rican way of life. I don't think, read, write, or speak Spanish. I don't identify with Spanish people and I feel uncomfortable around authentic Puerto Ricans. As a matter of fact, I feel no connection to black people because I was raised with White people and I feel no connection to White people because I was raised with Black people. So I don't identify with any people.
It's important to me that I establish this understanding that I have about myself because it's one of the deepest unchangeable roots I've had to deal with over the years.
TO BE CONTINUED
