Defying Labels: From Negative Credentials to Positive Credentials?

“Get on your knees!” yelled my father as he pressed a gun to my mother’s head. Though I was only six years old, I had already witnessed years of abuse. However, rather than letting my past disempower me, my past ignited a passion within me to move towards a powerful future to help others who have had a past similar to mine.

I am a Salvadoran immigrant who came to the United States at the age of 10. In El Salvador, I was attached more to my paternal grandmother than my biological parents who had a tumultuous relationship characterized by severe domestic violence. My parents migrated to the U.S. when I was 7 years old, but I remained with my grandmother in El Salvador. Three years later, my parents gathered the necessary money to pay for me to join them in El Norte. My grandmother was very ill with cancer. She had been hospitalized for days. One day, late in the afternoon, her husband told my younger sister and me to get ready – that we were heading north. At the ages of 10 and 8, we left without the opportunity to say goodbye to my grandmother. Sadly, she passed away during my journey to the U.S.

The journey to the country I now call home was filled with danger. The long and exhausting journey involved crossing three borders from El Salvador to Guatemala, from Guatemala to Mexico, and from Mexico to the United States. My sister and I had to trust complete strangers in transporting us across these three borders. We had been walking for some time when my sister told a guy who was taking us that she had a headache. The guy told her that he would give her a pill as soon as we got to our destination, but I told her not to accept anything from anyone – that we couldn’t trust them. As the older sister, I knew I had to protect my younger sister. Although I do not recall all the details of this journey, one vivid memory stands out. I recall we stopped at a stranger’s house to sleep when I noticed an avocado tree in their house. I picked an avocado to share with my sister to ease our hunger. When my sister and I finally set foot in Mexicali, Mexico, we got separated. My sister was taken through a different route and entered the U.S. in a vehicle, but I had to climb a ladder and run across the Mexico-U.S. border. My sister and I were not reunited in the U.S. until three days later. I could not wait to call my grandmother to let her know we finally made it to the U.S. Sadly, she died during our journey to the U.S.

Although reunited with my parents in the U.S., I was overcome with grief over the loss of my grandmother – the only positive influence in my life. I struggled to learn English and adjust to school, particularly amidst my parents’ constant physical, psychological, and emotional abuse. Eventually, the school became aware of my situation and contacted the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) when I was 12. By the age of 14, I entered foster care and never returned home again.

Although I was a victim of abuse, the system blamed me for my parents’ behavior in an effort to justify their actions. This form of scapegoating, or the “hostile social - psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group” was commonplace in my life (Namka n.d., p. 1). The blame continued when my parents were being monitored by the Los Angeles Children’s Court as they blamed me for betraying the family’s secrets. This is how children internalize blame; it is how I internalized responsibility for things far beyond my control. As a child, I was taught to be loyal to my family, especially because they brought me to the U.S.; I knew I was supposed to be silent and grateful.

Unfortunately, once in the child welfare system, things did not get any easier. I started to hang out with girls who lived in the group home much longer than me. We would go AWOL, leaving for days at a time without permission, and bringing alcohol into the house. I was exposed to gang activity and drugs on a daily basis. Over the years, I was kicked out of numerous foster and group homes until I eventually ended up in a juvenile detention facility. At one point or another, I spent time in every single juvenile hall in Los Angeles County. After several birthdays incarcerated, I was released from a probation camp at the age of 18. I spent most of my teenage years being pushed to the margins of society, being told that is where I belonged. Because of my juvenile record and my grades in school, I could not be accepted in regular public schools. Instead, I attended continuation schools with other ‘at-risk’ youth. In The Mark of a Criminal Record, Devah Pager (2003) states, “The negative credential” associated with a criminal record represents a unique mechanism of stratification, in that it is the state that certifies particular individuals in ways that qualify them for discrimination or social exclusion” (p. 942). Society labeled me as a “delinquent.”

The continuation school that I was attending was patrolled by an anti-gang unit also known as C.R.A.S.H., Community Resources against Street Hoodlums. CRASH patrolled on a daily basis making us a target for arrest. Sometimes I would get stopped and searched. I would ask them why they stopped me and they would say that they were looking for weapons – it was all a sham, an excuse to criminalize us for anything that they could find. Victor M. Rios (2011) calls this “overpolicing – underpolicing paradox.” Police show very little sympathy for marginalized youth who are also victimized (p. 54). From a young age, I observed how children of color and child victims of abuse are criminalized and demonized by the Criminal Justice System.

Even though many trials and tribulations have been present, education has become a form of empowerment and a tool of transformation. With no one to lead by example in education, I had to fight to create my own path. While still incarcerated, I enrolled in college and was taking a culinary art class. My release date was approaching, so I told the chef that I was being released soon. He told me that once I was released, I needed to complete his culinary art class at the community college where he taught or he was going to fail me. Days later, I made a comment that I was being released soon, a probation officer told me that I was going to be back soon. When I clarified that I was already 18 and I was not coming back, he noted, “there’s always county jail and prison.”

I was determined to defy the probation officer’s label and the negative credentials that marked me as delinquent. When I was finally released, I showed up at the community college where the chef taught. I went to his office right before class started, he looked at me and told me that he didn’t think I was going to make it to his class because I was a “jail bird.” There’s no doubt that the people who worked for these criminal institutions have very low expectations of people who were incarcerated. Despite the continuous stigma that followed me, I was excited to learn that the chair of the English Department was awarding me a scholarship my very first semester in community college. At first, I was nervous. I had just arrived to class when she asked to speak with me outside of class. She told me that she was giving me an award for excelling in class. She also sent me a letter that read, “…The student should show originality of thought, a creative turn of mind, tremendous academic promise, and be that unusual student whom the faculty member believes, could go far if encouraged by realizing the professor(s) had faith in him or her.” I learned that I had people who could see the good in me.

Shortly after my release, I found a place to live at a transitional living house through the Independent Living Program for former foster and homeless youth. I also found work at Homeboy Industries, a non-profit organization designed to help gang members and formerly incarcerated people get jobs, academic, and life skills. I used to commute hours on the bus back and forth. I knew that I had to work harder than the average 18-year-old. I worked as a janitor. Due to my school schedule and my commute, I could only work a few hours to help me get through the week. Here, I met my lawyer, Emily Robinson, co-Director at the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic. She helped me obtain Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and file for a U-Visa because I was in foster care, work towards my residency, and, ultimately, towards citizenship. I learned to find resources on my own. I had no option but to learn how to become disciplined and independent at a young age. I left the system without knowing how to apply or interview for a job, neither did I know how to go about my first day of classes at a community college. I felt like an outsider. These were challenges I had faced alone as a result of a system that left me without proper guidance, social skills, education, and knowledge of resources that could have helped me.

The experiences that I have lived through have inspired me to pursue a higher education. Okpych and Courtney state that only “about 8% of foster youth complete a college degree by their mid20s, a rate that is nearly six times lower than the general population of young adults” (p. 107). However, my resilience allowed me to overcome these obstacles, and I will not let the statistics on foster youth define me. Hunter, Monroe, and Garand mention that even when former foster youth do attend college, they are far less likely than their peers to earn a degree (10). I graduated from UC Riverside with a Bachelor’s in Sociology and was accepted at University of Southern California for my Master’s in Social Work. I believe that society shapes us in the way we think and behave. I am pursuing a degree in social work so that I can empower and assist those like myself. It is difficult for me to put into words the importance of education in my life. My affiliation with marginalized identities such as being an immigrant, foster youth, LGBTQ+, and being in juvenile halls made me afraid about my future. As a social worker, I hope to advance the Grand Challenges of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. In particular I will utilize my Master’s in Social Work to ensure healthy development for all youth, stop family violence, end homelessness, promote smart decarceration, and achieve equal opportunity and justice.

Many foster youth experience violence in their household or in the streets. They also experience substance abuse, incarceration, and homelessness. My goal is to ensure a healthy environment for these youth and prevent them from experiencing abuse and other forms of trauma. Bruce Link and Jo Phelan (2018) shed light on how people stigmatize by dominating and exploiting others thus allowing those in already advantaged positions to acquire even more wealth, power, and high social status while othering even further the stigmatized groups. The reality is that our criminal justice system and many other social institutions (i.e. education, health, and immigration, to name a few) place blame on marginalized groups. Indeed, the trauma that we experience is often minimized by society and researchers who focus primarily on the negative aspects of our lives. By doing so, this type of research diverts attention away from systems of power that reproduce a narrative that marks and stigmatizes us as deviant and criminal.

I don’t look at my past as something to regret. Instead, I look to it for guidance, so that I can lead myself and other youth toward a successful pathway. I didn’t give up and was able to pursue many goals that are not easily attainable especially for people with negative credentials. I am proud of my desire to help others who are like me, improve social systems, and persevere in the service of the greater good. I am not trying to say that I am proud of all the choices I made, but I am proud that I learned and have grown from them.

I have been given the honor to speak on behalf of youth who have come from similar backgrounds as myself. I have been a voice to many who have had their voices silenced. I have spoken to judges, board members of the Los Angeles Unified School District, professors, and many others to advocate for education reform, reduced recidivism, and foster youth success. Education has saved my life. It has empowered me to believe in myself and fight for those around me and those who will come after me. I continue to be a panelist for events/programs such as Success is Our Future, organized by the Independent Living Program (ILP) which is funded by probation and DCFS. I will continue to publicly speak on behalf of foster youth and incarcerated youth to provide better solutions for education, incarceration, and the foster care system. I want students never to second guess their academic potential. Anyone, no matter age, gender, sexual orientation, race, class, or origin, can succeed but they cannot do it alone. People must move away from placing blame on marginalized groups and from discourses that pit groups against each other, which brings me to my title, “Defying Labels: From Negative Credentials to Positive Credentials?” I chose this title to complicate my story, and that of others that share my lived experiences, because although education has saved me and now I have earned “positive credentials,” the stigma that labeled me contributing toward my attainment of negative credentials is not easily wiped away given deeply entrenched systems of oppression. But to end on a positive note, having lived these two worlds, I am committed now more than ever, to continue my path toward a Master of Social Work degree at the University of Southern California, and will continue to defy labels.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. San Juanita García and Dr. Tuppett Yates from UC Riverside for their advice, mentorship, guidance, and support on this article. I also want to thank all the people who helped me throughout my life.

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