My name is Alexandria Sanchez. I am 14 years old going on 15. I am Mexican-American and I live in a little town in California called Watsonville. They call me Alexa....... and I am going to tell you my life. Have you ever had that quiet girl that gets picked last on a team in P.E. That girl that is shy and quiet who you don’t even remember her name because she always looks down when she talks. Well.... that's me! Boring old Alexa. The girl that never says what she thinks and doesn’t know the difference between a joke and reality. My family life and school life are the same. A total nightmare. My dad cheated on my mom and now has 2 kids with her. One is 4 years old the other is 8 months old. That…... woman, if you can even call her that, has ruined my life. My dad has to pay Child Support for both kids and has to take them to our house on Saturdays and Sundays. I still remember the nights when I saw my mom cry for that “man” who destroyed her life. It all started a long time ago, so long ago I can’t even remember. I could hear my mom and dad argue at night and I had to distract my sister so she wouldn’t know what was happening......I remember one day trying to distract my sister and I heard doors opening and my mom running out of the room to another room and locking herself in it with my dad’s phone. My dad came out furious, and I tried to stop him but he pushed me so hard I fell to the ground and I think I screamed because my mom came out of the room and picked me up. That night I woke up to my mom and dad arguing. I went and saw that my sister was asleep so I went out of the room and saw that my dad had some garbage bags and clothes were peeking out of one. My mom screamed to my dad to tell me what he had done and why he would be leaving.That night I learned my dad had another family.


I fainted. I woke up in my mom’s bed and was disoriented, for a while, and then everything came crashing down from what had happened that night. That woman has made our life miserable since that day, she harrasses my mom by sending her texts and letters. But she is careful, she doesn’t do it very often, once a year maybe two, and always uses a different phone number so that we can’t put a restraining order against her. Her physical appearance is worse than her personality. She has ugly bleached hair that according to her makes her look “gavacha”. She has a nose that is a mile long and tattooed eyebrows that are thinner than paper. Her sinister eyes are the color of human waste. Everytime we pick up the kids she wears dark sunglasses that make her nose stand out even more. She hides her face and I feel great because we are my dad’s family, she is an extra. I go to school everyday wondering what will come next a letter, a call, another kid? I put a smile on my face for my mom but inside I feel myself tearing apart. I cry myself to sleep, quietly so my mom won’t hear. I know that God says that you need to love your parents and all of that but did he have a family like this?
Sometimes I HATE my father other times I feel so compassionate for him that I run and hug him. In school I have very few friends that I can’t trust because they only hang out with me when their friends don’t go to school. I need help. I need to run away...but where? What about my mom and sister? My mom says we should leave to Mexico but I have some mixed feelings about that. I want to stay here and go to college. I want to be an attorney that will fight and help women like my mom. On the other hand, we could finally escape from all this.

This is my life.