Family / Living Situation : Born And Milwaukee

As a child, he never felt like he belonged anywhere. He was abandoned by his mother and father as a child. His father left when he was only a few months old. His mother left him when he was ten-years-old. She remarried and decided not to take him with her. He moved in with his grandparents. His grandmother's name was Benne Gutierrez. She

These strict rules made the narrator feel trapped, and she moved away from this parental imprisonment through travel and food. The narrator was an only child and was never married. This lead her to remain home with her parents until the passed

hard to leave without talking to his parents because they did not have a good

had to raise his two brothers because their father wasn’t able to care for them after he became an alcoholic because of the passing of his wife.

his fathers custody, and in the beginning of the story, he did not want to help his father

His father had been in jail then went AWOL from the Army. His father had beaten him severely. He was taken back to family court after an incident with a cousin and stealing from an old woman. “Both sets of grandparents work during the day, and, apart from not being able to physically look after the defendant, they also felt they could not control him.” (3) Eventually, he was sent back to his mother in New York City. She is the one who gave him a quarter and told him to “never darken this door again”. (4)

moved in and out of vacant homes that were for sale. He had a charm about him that always had

brothers had to move in with relatives, then he had no family left and had to become a man after

Lee cites the stories of three foster care children; Elisa, who has been in foster care over a decade, has been abused both mentally and physically and had two adoptions fall through; Three year old Thierry who the courts have yet to determine whether he should have been separated from his mother eighteen months ago; and Alexandria, wasn’t cleared for an adoption by her foster parents of four years and remains a foster child.

He was used to live in his brother’s shadow, but when the boat accident happened to them, he was the only one to survive. As he was always indentifying himself the less important one, he considered it was wrong that he was the one who would still have a life. As a result of nervous breakdown, he tried to kill himself with cutting his wrists in the bathroom, fortunately his father found out and save him. Then he went to the psychiatric for four months. When he comes back, there are still issues he needs to deal with.

be taken away from the home. He told her things such as, “We cannot leave, and you are

with family members until he was able to save enough money to rent his own apartment with his

hostile environment his father sought to escape. His mother betrayed him as she never embraced

Ultimately it is the death of his mother that is the real reason for his moving on. The

his pride prevented him from asking to stay with her and he banished her. They are aware that he would need to live