Alison's Journey

“These years will be the best years of your life,” said my study hall teacher on my first day of high school. But the “best years” of my life consisted of sleeping at airports or 24-hour restaurants, trying to get comfortable in five different stranger’s homes, attending five different high schools, and being forced to grow up at just 13. My first night in my college dorm was the first night in years that I was not in a homeless shelter or foster home. I remember laying in my bed that night, the light from the dorm hallway shining underneath my door, while tears of happiness made their marks on my pillow, as I visited the memory of a 13-year-old girl who did not think she had the strength to make it past that first night in her foster home. 

Yet thinking back now, college was never an option for me. When I was 13, I had responsibilities. I was an older sister and I could not imagine leaving my younger sister while I went off to college. I was a daughter and my parents needed my help navigating the struggles and trauma of homelessness. On top of all of that, I was a teenager in the foster care system and that meant every ignorant stereotype of unstable, untamed, and statistical prediction of my lack of a future was associated with my identity. Some of my foster parents expressed their beliefs that I was not smart or determined enough for college...and I believed them. So, I did not plan for what my future could be but rather I imagined how surviving foster care would look like. And dreamed that one day everything would be just fine.

I was so focused on just being fine because sometimes my current reality was too overwhelming and unbearable to face. I would constantly count down and organize the days I had left until my 18th birthday. During my first year in foster care, every single moment felt like survival. I started to realize that I was living within a system that emphasizes the mental and physical state of fine. A system that equates basic needs to a quality life, the idea that a roof over your head and food on the table is all it takes for happiness. But I was 13 when I entered the system and all I wanted were those teenage moments: the late nights at football games with the friends you’ve had since middle school, setting the table while your mom explains how she prepared tonight’s dinner or petty arguments with your sister when she steals clothes out of your closet without asking. When I was 13, all I wanted was Mom and Dad to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay. All I wanted was to be a kid. 

I started to find comfort in my studies. Researching, writing, and creating was a distraction from everything else that my mind wanted to sit on. I would look forward to the feedback from my teachers, an A+, and the words ‘Great Job, Alison!’ would sometimes be the only words of affirmation I would receive all day. By the time I was a Junior in high school I was enrolled in all honors and AP courses. With the encouragement to reach higher in my future studies from my teachers, therapist, mentor, and my GAL, plus the overwhelming support and push from my sister and my parents, the acceptance of fine started to vanish and I started to envision my future.

In 2015, I enrolled at Illinois State University, switched my major a few times but ultimately found Social Work. College helped me become the foster care advocate I am today by guiding me to see my true potential and leading me to opportunities to advocate in Washington, DC, organize supports for foster youth on my campus, and develop relationships with former foster youth all over the nation through scholarship. All of it eventually led me here...typing my ever-changing story in my two-bedroom apartment in Chicago, with my partner working across the room, a text from my Mom to see when I will visit so she can make me Filipino food, a missed call from my sister letting me know my dog’s prescription is ready for pickup at her place of work. All while I watch the clock for my project meeting at 10 am with the other University of Chicago, Master of Social Service Administration students.

As I reflect on all the years past, I think my study hall teacher was right that first day of high school. These have been the best years of my life because they all brought me right here. While I have acknowledged and allowed myself to mourn the childhood moments I lost, I have realized that I have also gained so much. I have found peace and lessons in my trauma, I have found ways to empower my inner child in everything I do, I have met some of the most inspiring former foster care advocates, I have grown even closer with my family through our healing process and have discovered my passion in improving the foster care system for all my brothers and sisters behind me. 

Success is whatever your definition of it is. Create, share, and live out your definition!

Other foster care organizations that I’m involved with:
http://www.ccainstitute.org/
https://fostercarealumni.org/illinois-chapter/
https://www.togetherwerise.org/

I also support:
https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com/