Father Told Me Narrative

I was born in Northern, New York, about forty miles from the Canadian border in a wasteland of a town called Carthage, sixty miles from the nearest walmart. My mother, now Louise Percy, is ex-navy and worked for the federal government on Fort Drum until she retired ever since I was born. My father, Donald Bishop, was a beauty. He was in and out of prison all his life, including juvenile. He was imprisoned much through my baby-toddler stage and when he wasn’t imprisoned he jumped from construction job to construction job, drinking and smoking marijuana heavily until the day he died, last May 28th. I was born into a household with my mother, father, brother and half-sister for the first few years in my life. My half-sister skipped town after developing a heroin addiction and my father drove my mother psychologically insane until she ended up in a psych ward and we spent a few weeks with my grandmother (father’s mom) until she was released. My mother and father split up and my father never fought for custody nor paid child support. My mother had been a single mom for ten years

I am ten years old and my mother tells me that she needs to have a serious conversation with me. We go in my room, which has purple walls and black curtains. She tells me that my father is not my biological father but it honestly doesn’t bother me. Even though my stepdad doesn’t have the same blood type as me, he is still my father in my eyes.

Mylan over heard me crying and rushed in the room with a frying pan and beat my step-dad senseless. My mother learned of the ordeal and threw my stepfather out, she spoke to Mylan and I and whispered " You two put warmth in my heart to see that you protect one another". My mother always said she rather we go against the world before we go against each other. My brother knew I was gay, but when I try to say it vocally he would just say "I know big little brother". After Hurricane Katrina we evacuated to Fayetteville, NC. The following summer when Mylan was 15 and I was 16 there was an incident that involved Mylan almost drowning. When I answered the door to see our neighbor crying I knew something had happened. I ran as fast as I could to my neighbors house I ignored the police and other emergency responders. Mylan was laying on the grown unconscious and not breathing. I broke down crying and did my best to get right next to hime but the police wouldnt let me get near Mylan. He spent the next two weeks unconscience and I spent the better half of that week worried sick. Mylan woke up july 22,

September 9th started like any other day, but it didn’t take long before it was the strangest day I’d had in awhile. I came to school at 7 am since it was early in the year, and I still was adjusting to my new classes and new students. The new year was one I was especially looking forward to. I had just won the Teacher of the Year award after only my third year and my students and I all created a bond.

Annoyed at this, I turned once again and lay on my back. I took a deep

“No, mon cher,” the woman looks at a flat panel television screen that hangs outside a bar-restaurant near Dana Point, “That isn’t daddy.”

Before I was born my parents had broken up and decided things between them would not work. When I was born my mother had custody of me, and my father was unsure that I was his child until they had gotten the results of the paternity test. My father fought for custody of me from the day he found out that I was his child because he knew he could provide a safer and more stable life for me than my mother. While living with my birth mother I was exposed to drugs and I was frequently left at strangers houses because my mother was either working or

My background goes from the island of Puerto Rico, to the country of El Salvador. As I get more in detail of my family you will discover we are not your average “Brady Bunch”. Were quite the opposite, even though I am beyond blessed with the family I have been given, we are as screwed up as they come. It was my first day of kindergarten when I came home to find out my parents were separating and getting a divorce. My life went into a tailspin. Growing up my father was always part of the picture financially. He was always a pay check at the beginning of the month. He was never there for what I felt were important life moments. As the years were to come my mom took care of my brothers and I. My brothers who were angry with my father lashed out by getting involved with the wrong crowds, and drugs. The weight of the family of fell on Victor. There were several factors that majorly effected my life. One of them being I was molested at the age of eight. So I went to very dark place. My parents were divorced, my brothers were giving my mother more than she imagined, and then I was molested. My childhood was robbed from me, it

My interviewee is a second generation immigrant with one parent who was born in El Salvador and the other who has Mexican roots but was born in the United States. For the purposes of confidentiality my interviewee will be addressed as Ana from here on out. In this interview paper I will discuss the experiences that Ana faced growing up in a tri-racial household. I will also evaluate her experiences regarding assimilation to the lectures and reading assigned through out this course.

Most of my family have been stars at the school I attended, my cousins were always nominated as the best students, my mother was the best in her class, they all are winners of the county’s test awards. When I got there everybody expected me to continue the legacy, and at first I was exceling, I skipped my second grade and went to third grade. In my third grade I was by far the best student. My struggle came when the aunt the least like me, out of rage answered my questions. Thus I learned my father was not dead, he just did not wanted to recognize me as a son, and in addition he tried to kill me before I was born along with my older sister. I learned that my mother was not working at the adjacent community, but

When I was ten years old, my sister died. I still remember that day, walking into my house and having my father discover her unconscious body on her bedroom floor. I remember hearing my dad telling me to go outside, and my older sister and mother chorusing her name in the background; a frantic cry of, “Donnita, Donnita!” I remember refusing to walk past her room, my own childish version of denial. It wasn’t until weeks after that I finally dared to venture back into the room that had suffocated my sister, and when I did, I was greeted with a sight that I didn’t know what to make of. On her mirror were the words, written in her neat, blocky handwriting, “The purpose of life is to have a life of purpose.” Those words would go on to teach me the most valuable lesson I have ever learned in my entire life.

Divorce. A shaping tool that impacts the child’s future immensely. With no additional income source, my fresh off the boat mother had to work constantly to keep the bowls filled with rice. However as a direct result, I would have to take care of myself as my mother was rarely at home. My strict mother would never let me outside so I filled my time with video games. Alone with my video games, no one can question my actions or behavior. With only a mother as a role model, I develop a feminine personally. I thought I was just a normal boy, and growing up with this mentality became problematic. Combined with my mentality and higher pitch voice, people would make fun of me and never took me seriously. I never understood why causing me to stay in

Everything was so dandy and swell until the day that my sister came home with a C on her report card. I always looked up to Hailey and wanted to be as smart as her until that day. Back in the 3rd grade started the chain of events that would soon shape the guarded self conscious girl I am today.

I’m a mother of two children now, and when I was born I thought I was a free woman just like my mother. My dad was gone since I was young, but I saw him once at night. He secretly came to see my mom, but he got caught by whites and got beaten in front of me and my mother. They brought him back to where he belonged, and they sold him to keep away from my mother and me. I saw some creepy woman at that night. She dressed weird, but she became friends with my mother for a short period of time. I was still scared and afraid that the whites might came back to beat me and my mom again. After that, I never saw my dad ever again.

I’ve never told this story before. Not because I’m ashamed or embarrassed. I’ve put off telling it for so long because it terrifies me. It is a story of a time I lost complete control. It is a story of loneliness and isolation. By not recalling it, or writing it down, it became just a string of events that happened in the past, meaningless and disconnected from the future. Putting it into words makes these past events the future. They become immortalized in writing, they become forever. But maybe putting words to my thoughts and feelings will alleviate some of that terror. Maybe I’ll be setting myself free.