My foster care experience has been a journey and the paths that it led me down were not always well paved. I faced many difficulties but I refused to allow my circumstances to stop me from succeding. I'm 19 years old. I am a high school graduate. I'm Hispanic and I am a survivor of the foster care system. This is my story:
    My foster care experience has been a journey with some good and bad. While in care I have experienced and witnessed so many things. You meet many different families, different homes, around different cultures, and different placements. When you leave a placement to go to another place it's like a new journey's about to begin, good or bad. I've gone back home and have came back to care to stay. You still go through the same steps over and over again. I guess you start turning negative things into positive things, that's what happened to me. 
    I have been to several different placements because of making poor choices with my life then I was placed in a group home where different staff helped me deal with my struggles and cope with reality, never lost hope in me or given up on me. I was the 2nd girl in my family to graduate high school, and I even choose to stay in care instead of going home. I'm taking chances and dealing with different decisions to succeed in life. 
    I have come to treasure the importance of stability. I learned to be careful in whom to confide in, whom to trust, what are my best options, what you desire, even following your dreams and make them happen. My definition of family is even though we are not related or share the same blood we're connected by love and trust. I just don't consider everyone to be my family that I know isn't my family. I consider family to be my closest friends anf mother figures.
    The bond that I have with my mom is interesting. She is an immigrant from El Salvador and a strong Salvadorean woman and mother. We have a hard time communicating with one another because she only speaks Spanish and my Spanish is not that good. There is a lack of communication between us because there is a lack of translators and it's hard because we wouldn't be on the same page. What I wanted and what I had to do for myself was not what she wanted. I have to think about what is best for me though. We have finally overcome that struggle in some form. We have a better mother/daughter relationship. Raise Me Up is so important because I never thought there were opportunities for children in foster care, we can make a difference. We have a voice that needs to be heard and getting involved can make a difference, and make it better for the next child in the system. Raise Me Up saying is very true, "You don't have to raise foster children to raise them up, you just have to raise your hand and say you'll help.