Imagine going to school with bumps on your head and bruises on your back and legs from being repeatedly punched and kicked – this was my reality as a kid. Youth with lived experiences in foster care face countless challenges, even when the abuse finally stops - one way or another. For me, it stopped because at age 12 I reported it. I then found myself in foster care and having to navigate the complicated child welfare system, speaking little English and knowing nothing about how the child protection system (CPS) works in this country. Although my experience in care was hard for numerous reasons, including substance use, incarceration, homelessness, and being undocumented I am only alive because this country has a system of protection in place for children and youth like me who have been victimized by their parents.
All the abolition movement has done is sparked useless controversy, oppression, and furthered division among all of us who are concerned with child safety, permanency, and wellbeing. One of the consequences of the abolition movement is that former foster youth, like me, pursuing post-secondary education (including graduate school) are silenced in our classrooms as are our allies, who are shamed for wanting to pursue a career in child welfare. Historically, academia has contributed to the racism that marginalized populations experience, and the abolitionists are adding fuel to this fire. Abolition originated from academics/scholars with no lived experience of being in foster care, further reinforcing the racism, sexism, and classism it already perpetuates. Who are these ivory tower elites to tell anyone that foster care is unnecessary and should be eliminated when they’ve not lived through it themselves?
Child Welfare abolitionists are controlling the narrative around child welfare reform. They are choosing to ignore those of us with lived experience. Are they too uncomfortable to talk about the cruel truth of being an abused or neglected child? Do they fear this conversation will thwart their efforts to abolish the system? It’s much easier to ignore the issues of child abuse and child deaths, to avoid engagement with survivors, and to only see the adult perpetrators as victims. It is also much easier to talk about tearing a system down than how to build one up that truly promotes child safety, permanency, and well-being. However, it’s much harder to acknowledge these harms and work together with us to find solutions that ensure our safety, stability, and well-being. Abolitionists are choosing the easy, less messy way out. They argue that foster care is not the answer. But for some of us, it is the only answer after experiencing abuse and neglect without extended family support.
I was born in El Salvador and am a descendant of the Pueblo Pipil. I migrated to the United States as an unaccompanied minor at the age of ten. My background is rooted in a history of civil war and a legacy of genuine revolution, where our indigenous pueblos and campesinos fought against oppression to overthrow those in power. In the United States, abolitionists often label themselves as “revolutionary” or claim to be engaging in “revolutionary” social work, but they are mistaken. True revolution occurs when the community rises up against oppression from those in power, not the other way around. These are the lessons I have learned from my revolutionary ancestors.
Abolitionists use the term “abolition” to perpetuate oppression and silence those with lived foster care experiences while pretending to advance social justice. They discuss child protection and foster care among themselves, excluding the very people most affected. What good does this serve when those most impacted are not given a seat at the table? This is an abuse of power that neglects the voices of those like us with lived experiences in foster care, while enhancing their positionality within the elite ivory tower. Media outlets such as CNN have reported on a new trend in which White academics portray themselves as people of color in order to benefit their own careers. Dettlaff, a White-passing cisgender male who claims to be Latino is selling his brand-new book on this matter. White professors have a tendency of claiming to be people of color to enhance their positionality and find a closer proximity to those marginalized groups like my communities (i.e. immigrants, Latinos/as, foster youth, incarceration, indigenous populations, etc.) to access research opportunities for their own advantage. These are the unethical practices of White researchers and new trends in the academy without realizing or caring about the harm that they cause to people of color like me and the ways in which we experience the world. This is an example of the harm that researchers without lived experiences cause.
Advocates for abolishing the child welfare system (or as they call it, family policing system) also argue that the solution can be found through collective efforts and community involvement in cases of child abuse and neglect. Yet nearly five years have passed, and Alan Dettlaff and his upEND movement have not provided solutions. Nor have I heard Dettlaff or the upEND movement discuss the experiences of young people like me who endured abuse and neglect. Are they afraid of the harsh realities we’ve experienced? How can they even talk about the child welfare system when they refuse to acknowledge our existence?
I keep asking myself, where was the community when I witnessed my mother being violently attacked, with a gun held to her head by my father? Where was the community when Gabriel Fernandez lost his life? Where was the community when Danieal Kelly was starved to death by her mother? Or much more recently, the death of 4-year-old Jahmeik Modlin, who was found in a Harlem apartment malnourished and suffering from hypothermia? Where are the child welfare abolitionists when children continue to lose their lives at the hands of their caregivers daily?
When I’ve spoken to community members about their role in intervening when child maltreatment or violence on the streets occurs (a “solution” prescribed by the abolitionists), they’ve expressed fears of retaliation or concerns about getting themselves into dangerous situations where they could be attacked by the perpetrators.
The child welfare abolitionists have managed to manipulate many young people, students, and activists into adopting oversimplified, Black and White narratives that erase other ethnic groups and the intersectionality children, like me, experience. To support their argument, they assert that the media is responsible for over emphasizing cases of abuse and deaths, which they contend are infrequent. But when you grow up witnessing so much violence, abuse, and neglect firsthand, you don’t have to watch the stories on the news. In fact, I did not grow up watching any TV. I learned about all this violence because I lived it.
In college and graduate school, professors who support abolition (and who have never worked in the system) consistently push the narrative that CPS only serves to break Black and brown families apart. To the best of my knowledge, they have never acknowledged the suffering endured by the over half a million children and youth who are abused and neglected annually and the need for a system of protection in this country. As a young person with lived experiences, I felt compelled to speak up in the classroom! And I did – with my thick accent and visible head tattoos – immediately standing out. People often perceive individuals like me as uneducated and we are frequently dismissed or not taken seriously by those in positions of authority. Fortunately, many of my classmates, including peers with experience in foster care, supported me and together we pushed back against professors’ biases and prejudice. Growing up, I felt powerless – and I still do – as I navigate a racist, sexist, and classist system, called the academy. Similarly to Alan Dettlaff’s book title, I am over here Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Higher Education System. Individuals like Dettlaff exacerbate this issue by advocating for the abolition of the child welfare.
When I was just 23 years old and wrote, Defying Labels: From Negative Credentials to Positive Credentials? for a newsletter at UC Riverside, I made it clear that society often shifts blame to the child for revealing family secrets in cases of abuse and neglect. The last thing I want as an adult is to keep being torn down and silenced by those in positions of power – professors, researchers, policy analysts, lawyers, and others. The abolition movement is tearing foster youth apart. Why not instead put their time and energy into talking with us and actually listening to what we have to say? This is the only way toward a safer world for all.
But with my thick accent, head tattoos, and so-called illegal alien and uneducated self, I will continue to speak up and spark a revolution against those in positions of power. Let’s see who can hang longer—and who drops!