FORCE TO CARE FOSTER CARE
Sterling Wynn interviews, Alexis and her nephew, and tells their experiences in the foster care sytsem, as well as her own.
Illustration © Wiggan
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is simply to navigate what it is like to grow up in a foster care home that has a religious background. I interviewed Alexis a woman who when she was a child attended the same church as I and she was also a foster child who never got adopted but aged out of the system and traveled from home to home. Both of our biological parents struggle with drug abuse. The church had a big influence on the fostering of orphans and that is how we connect. I had interviewed her as well as my nephew who was only in foster care for roughly 6 months but it was great to get everyone take. For the creative part instead of using their interview itself, I found ways to tell their story and mine through different types of poetry.
PRE-INTERVIEW LETTER
Dear Ms. Smith,
You and I have known each other since young foster children who attended the Church in Bronx NY. I'm reaching out to interview you on your experience of growing up with the church as a foster child. I feel that you and I deserve our voices to be heard. I want to shed light on what it is like for children in the foster care system who are religious. I have been selected into the multi-generational storytelling program that's highly competitive to bring awareness to challenging borders that are highly overlooked. Will you do this project with me discussing some of your experiences and exchanging our differences and similarities? I want to honor your story, ensuring your voice is not lost while focusing on the positive aspects of things and some negative ones to a certain extent. Will you grant me permission to interview you and tell you what it was like growing up in foster care home with a religious background? Please do know that this will be archived in the CUNY library and can be accessible whenever, if you wish to use an alias or retract your name that’s totally fine.
ATMOSPHERIC MONTAGE ACCOMPANIMENT TO POEM
Illustration © Wiggan
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
Im 9 today Mom, & yesyou did offend me
I use to see your face every morning & now you are no longer with me
My foster parents so old and the kids in school keep teasing
You said you were gonna get clean but your being mean to me for no reason
Don’t you know ma that I miss you
when was last time I peck u on your cheek leaving snot when I kiss you
Just wanna let you know I pass my spelling test yeah and It's all thanks to me
Today Im 14, Mom do you even respect me
Im older now so I can see all your ways and how you neglected me
You promised it would get better by the way where’s dad?
I don’t know how I miss you I cant even remember how you look and that’s what get
me mad
I read up on how in the 90s the government was behind distributing drugs so I don’t
blame you for falling for a Fad
But yet still somehow that should deep down make you eternally sad.
Choosing that over me ok you be lucky if you hear from me by the time I'm 18.
As of today im 19 mom, and Im a parent to be
Shoulda coulda waited but ima prove ima be a better parent youll see
I love music that’s my addiction but my child would come first
They can be with me 247 in the studio when I rehearse
Nuff bout me hey how you been hope you found god like I Did
Either way we praying for you
Prayer is key and faith unlock the doors
Believing one day you can be a better grandparent then you were a aprent by the way are
you clean I mean you know what I mean.
Hey Mom its Me im 23, todays my special day
Im a better parent then you are and another’s on the way
And do me a favor stop posting on my Facebook wall
Your offending my family
Your blood maybe thicker
But they had my back quicker than any realative of mine
Oh by the way hope you stay clean and nuff bout me hope your fine
FREE STYLE POEM: MOVE AGAIN
FREE STYLE POEM: MOVE AGAIN (TRANSCRIPT)
I Have To Move Again
And Make New Friends
I have to Move again
Just to stay with my only Kin
Every family I meet wants my siblings and Not me
maybe because I am their age times 3
I have to move again will I ever settle down
I pray a family will adopt me already
But those prayers seem to go straight to the ground
I Have To Move Again
Uggh If only my mother Love me
She would come get me
Im force to go to church every Sunday
And sometimes they hit me
They treated me differently than my brothers
But hey they are doing more for me than my mother
The thing is every Foster Home is So quick to give you back
Like “Here is my receipt I didn’t mean to order that.”
I have to move again and hopefully, this would be my last
See I was now aging out of foster care relatively fast
I got emancipated by the way
My siblings got adopted we no longer share the same last name
And their new parents doesn't play a fair game
Their new mom keeps isolating me out
The same woman in the church who loves to pray sing and shout
I can't believe another family member up and left me
I pray when I had children, they spend every moment with me
I have to move again and this time for me
My one bedroom was no longer enough space for a family of 3
MORE ABOUT STERLING WYNN
Sterling Nicholas Wynn, Bronx Native a notary public and paralegal currently in his freshman year at Hostos Community College. He often captures audiences with laughter and his unique creativity skills. A jack of all trade’s artist, scholar, musician, and Christian. He will be the change this world needs and plans to be in Politics.