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Hostos Community College: Force To Care, Foster Care by Sterling Wynn

Hostos Community College
Force To Care, Foster Care by Sterling Wynn
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table of contents
  1. NYC-City of Dreams: Chasing Wild Imaginations with Shattered Dreams and Finding Hope Through CUNY by Anjanet Thomas
  2. Force To Care, Foster Care by Sterling Wynn
  3. How Do You Solve A Problem Like (Christian Maria)? and Other Songs of Mixed-Up Hearts by Kimberley Hill
  4. Teaching Through the Beauty of Colors by Susan Guerrero
  5. The Orthopedic Chronicles: Transforming Pain Into Mobility by Chelsea Rolon

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.

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