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A place to call my home

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A place to call my home

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Content A PLACE TO CALL MY HOME
by
Melissa Ann Flores
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(Journalism)
May 2005
Copyright 2005 Melissa Ann Fiores
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UMI Number: 1427973
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract iii
A Place to Call My Home 1
Four Generation Home 4
Frontline Foster Care 8
Two-Parent Home 13
Single-Parent Challenge 16
Bibliography 20
ii
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ABSTRACT
Non-traditional parents help make homes for California children without one.
Statistics show the number of families headed by grandparents, gay or lesbian
parents or single adoptive parents are on the rise, as are the number of Hi spanic
children finding themselves in foster care within California. Four families share
their stories of raising children in unique households, including the pleasures and the
challenges that come with non-traditional families. The growing acceptance of
families like these is examined through the experiences of these four families and the
places they turn to for support.
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A Place to Call My Home
A rainy, fail day doesn’t keep the De La Rosa-Lima children from running
around. The trio - Jose, 5, Esmerelda, 4, and Jorge, 2 - just take up the hallway in their
West Covina house as a runway. The young siblings all have dark, wavy hair, big,
black eyes and tan complexions, reflecting their Mexican heritage.
Jose, dressed well for the chilly weather in a navy blue sweatshirt and
sweatpants, is the quietest and the most shy of the three, staying towards the back of
the hallway when unfamiliar visitors are around. Esmerelda, also shy, requires much
coaxing from her parents before she will join them with company in the family room.
She prefers to join her brothers on their jogging spree, her gold hoop earrings jiggling
as she runs in her pink sweats.
Little Jorge is not shy, but at two years old, he is more interested in trying to
scare his parents and their guests by roaring into the room with a leftover Halloween
mask on his head and demanding a snack, than carrying on a conversation. He is the
stereotypical, rough-and-tumble boy, according to his parents.
On a sunnier day, the kids would be roaming around in their spacious
backyard, complete with a swimming pool surrounded by a black iron-wrought fence,
commonsense for any household with small children, but a requirement in this one.
Putting up a fence around the suburban watering hole was the last requirement
Michael De La Rosa and Jorge Lima had to meet before the two men could bring
home their three adopted children.
The wave of households that do not conform to the traditional idea of a family
complete with a mom, a dad and a couple of kids is not new, but more children
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like Jose, Esmeralda and Jorge are finding a place for themselves in unique homes.
Children who would otherwise be lost in California’s overwhelmed foster care system
are learning to call families headed by grandparents, single adoptive parents or same-
sex adoptive couples their own.
The number of children in foster care is increasing nationally and state-wide
according to reports by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the
California Department of Social Services. Nationwide, the number children in foster
care has doubled since 1987, and included more than half a million children in 2000.
In California there has been a 48 percent increase of children in foster care between
1996 and 1999.
National foster care programs are overcrowded with children of color and it is
no different in this diverse West Coast state. Hispanic children make up a large
proportion of the children in foster care in California, a state where 44 percent of
children are of Latino heritage according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Hispanic children
make up 37 percent of children in foster care in California according to 2003 statistics
from the Children’s Bureau, a national organization that works with foster and
adoption placements. That is up from 31.3 percent in 1998 as reported by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.
While non-traditional families have been around for decades, the numbers have
been increasing recently and a growing number of support groups are
available to these families. Part of the new trend includes foster and adoption agencies
that are more open to single, unmarried and gay or lesbian couples. Cathy Allen, who
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has worked with the Children’s Bureau, as a foster care/adoption supervisor for 17
years, says her agency is very open to non-traditional families.
“Our organization does not turn anyone down based on culture, ethnicity or
sexual orientation,” Allen says of the non-profit organization that helps find
placements for the many children in social services within Los Angeles and Orange
Counties. While only one percent of couples who adopt children are unmarried like
De La Rosa and Lima, nationally, one third of adoptions are now completed by a
single woman or man, according to the U. S. Department of Health and Human
Services in 2001. Single women complete 32 percent of domestic adoptions in the
United States.
An acceptance of the new family forms can also be seen in the huge number of
support groups available to parents and guardians taking on the task of raising
someone else’s children as their own. In Santa Clara County, Families Adopting in
Response, a support group, gives adoptive parents and children a chance to discuss the
issues that come with adoption. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center sponsors a
family day in the park once a month for all the incarnations of lesbian and gay families
with children.
Even grandparents in Southern California can get advice at support group
meetings. Grandparents as Parents was started in 1990 to help those who have
already raised their own children but suddenly find themselves charged with raising
another batch of kids. It has grown to include ten groups in the Los Angeles area as
well as branches throughout the United States.
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“There is nothing new about a grandparent raising a child in a crisis,” writes
Sylvie de Toledo in her 1995 survival handbook, co-written with Deborah Edler
Brown, for G.A.P members. “What is new are the numbers.”
Four Generation Home
Lupe and Eduardo Barrio, of San Fernando, are no strangers to raising
children. They raised five daughters together in the Southern California city and have
15 grandchildren as well as two great grandchildren. The walls of their cozy home are
covered in portraits of the family. One prominent photograph is of a small, blondish
boy with a dimpled smile. Christopher, their six-year-old great grandson, holds a
special place in their hearts - and in their home.
Lupe, 55, and Eduardo, 50, look young to be grandparents to so many. Lupe
has long, medium brown hair absent of graying, pulled back in a ponytail and her skin
is just starting to show the first signs of wrinkles. Eduardo has a thick black mustache,
short black hair and smells slightly of the cigarettes he enjoys in the front of the house.
He wears a white undershirt and jeans, not entirely changed out of his work outfit as a
bottler at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in San Fernando Valley. Lupe recently retired
from the packaging department at the brewery and when Eduardo retires in a few
years, the pair wants to travel around Mexico, where Eduardo grew up, to visit fiestas
throughout the year. But for now, their travel plans lie in the future as they
concentrate on providing a home for Christopher.
The Barrios are part of an increasing group of grandparents in the United
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States who are serving as primary or secondary care givers to grandchildren.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 6.3 percent of children under 18 live in a
household with their grandparents as compared to 5.5 percent a decade before. The
latest census is the first one in which the government recorded the important role
grandparents can play in some households as caregivers.
The couple has helped their daughters with raising many of their grandchildren
through the years. The Barrios faced their toughest challenge in April 2004. Lupe
made the decision to call social services on her youngest daughter while she was
residing with the couple.
“I didn’t like the situation my grandchildren were living in,” Lupe says. “We
asked her to leave when we realized she had a drug problem.” The agony the couple
feels about the situation shows in the lowered gazes and bowed heads as they talk
about their lost grandchildren. “We haven’t seen them since April,” Lupe says.
The children, who spent more time with their paternal grandmother, were
placed with her by social workers.
Their daughter is going to parenting classes and taking the steps she needs to
get the kids back, but the Barrios do not regret their decision even though they miss
their grandchildren.
“She wanted mommy and daddy to hire an attorney to get the kids back,”
Eduardo says. “But they need the love and the nurturing they deserve. They need a
sound foundation in which to grow.”
Despite the recent struggle with their daughter, the couple was open to helping
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out their granddaughter, Elena Gonzalez, 21, when she asked for help raising her son,
Christopher, who was bom when she was 15. Elena and Christopher moved into the
Barrio’s modest one-story home in June 2004.
Unlike some grandparents, the Barrios’ relative youth and good health makes
their help raising Christopher less of a stress than it might be for other grandparents.
With Elena living in the home, the couple can take on the role of secondary caregivers
since his mother still plays a big part in providing care for the little boy. The Barrios
have laid done some ground rules for Elena that she must follow in exchange for her
free room and board, including enrollment in a dental hygienist program by spring
2005.
Before they moved into the Barrio’s home, Christopher and Elena lived with
Elena’s mother. Christopher’s teenage uncles had a habit of teaching the youngster
some naughty tricks, according to Lupe, including curse words. He is a precocious
child and Lupe is constantly reminding Elena to watch her language in front of him
because she says, “He soaks everything up like a sponge.” Christopher was bom
premature and has always been so adorable his great-grandmother says he often got
away with using bad words. Since he has been living with Lupe and Eduardo, his
language has improved.
Along with helping Elena with Christopher’s discipline, Lupe helps take care
of him on weekdays when Elena is working. His mother takes him to school each day
and takes care of him on the weekends.
“I pick him up from kindergarten,” Lupe says. “I feed him a snack and dinner
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during the week. Lately, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are his favorite food.”
She laughs at how hard it is to coax the stubborn boy to eat anything else. On the
afternoon he spends with his great-grandmother, Christopher enjoys riding his bicycle
around his great-grandparents neighborhood.
While helping Elena with Christopher takes up much of Lupe and Eduardo’s
free time, the couple says helping them has not been a financial burden, although
Elena doesn’t pay rent or help with the bills. The couple says they are not big
spenders and try to live simply.
“We don’t put a lot of store in the idea of money. When you die, you are not
going to take it with you. So we were always willing to help out our kids,” Lupe says.
Although the Barrios have avoided any financial strains in helping out with
Christopher, there are other issues that come with helping to raise grandchildren and
playing the role of the secondary caregiver, including different points of view on child
rearing.
“Usually, we agree on Christopher’s care,” Lupe says. “But at 21, [Elena’s] at
that age where she thinks she knows everything. We have talked to her about her
language in front of Christopher. He is an extremely intelligent child and she is laying
a foundation for him.”
“Once the grandkids move in, you can’t be a spoiling grandparent,” Lupe adds.
“You have to change your position.”
Lupe says she believes one of the benefits of living so closely with her
grandchildren while they are young is that they are willing to come to her with their
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problems when they get older. “They are more open to talking with us if they have a
problem with their parents,” Lupe says.
For Eduardo, one of the hardest parts of helping to raise his grandchildren is
letting them go once their parents are ready to move out with them and start their own
lives.
“On the weekends our house was always full,” Eduardo says, noting how quiet
and empty the house felt before Elena and Christopher moved in. He adds, “But they
are getting their own lives now. The older kids have a lot going on. We understand
that.”
The toll of having grandchildren move in and out, as well as dealing with their
youngest daughter’s drug problem has led Lupe and Eduardo to turn to some outside
help. The couple started attending Grandparents as Parents meetings in the summer of
2004, after Elena and Christopher moved in with them.
Lupe says, “The other grandparents in the group are older and sometimes have
other issues to deal with. It’s hard to fit in.” The support group still offers them a
chance to vent whatever frustrations they have.
“Nothing seems to be going right lately,” Eduardo says, adding with a wry
smile, “But it’s a bad situation for a year or two and then things start rising up little by
little.”
Frontline Foster Care
Janie and Victor Ramos have helped raise more than 30 children since they
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first signed up to take in kids in need of a temporary home five years ago. Janie works
part time as a cleaning lady and as a coordinator for foster parents at West Valley
College in Saratoga, Calif. Her husband works full time in construction, but they have
both found time to bring children with nowhere else to go into their lives.
The Ramos home is in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in San Jose,
Calif, and their home is small, though they have room for as many as four foster
children at a time. The walls in the living room are covered with photographs of
Victor’s daughter, Naomi, 13, and Janie’s nieces and nephews, among other relatives.
It is a house were family plays a prominent role, but no one would know of the many
children who have traipsed through the rooms on their way to a permanent home until
Janie starts to speak.
“We were naive going into it,” Janie admits, of the couple’s decision to
become foster parents. “We thought children were in foster care because they were
homeless. We didn’t think about drugs or abuse.”
The Ramos family has housed children from eight months up to 12 years old,
as many as six children at a time when emergency situations arose. All of the children
placed with them are in social service custody in Santa Clara County and have been of
Hispanic heritage. She and Victor have the advantage of being fluent in Spanish when
working with children who have learned English as a second language.
Through Janie’s work at West Valley College and with the foster parent
association, she has seen an imbalance between minority foster children and foster
parents from the same minority background.
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“One thing that is hard on the children is not only are they pulled out of their
family home, but they need to go where foster parents are available,” Janie says. “I
would like to keep kids in their local neighborhoods, keep the kids in the same
school.”
Janie admits there is a shortage of foster parents in general.
“When Victor and I signed up for foster parenting classes, there were 30 to 50
families who were interested,” Janie says. “Only six of the families stayed and
completed the class.”
The Ramos’ take in children who need short-term placements so a new crop of
children moves in every few months. One of the struggles of being a foster parent is
that the children who are taken in often come from homes with drug or alcohol abuse,
or have been abused verbally, physically or sexually. “When we first take in a child,
we only know their age, ethnicity and sex. We don’t know why the child is in
custody,” Janie says. “The kids are usually quiet and depending on their history, it can
be hard to get them to open up.”
Many children take on the role of caregiver to younger siblings when parents
aren’t up to the challenge. “I’ve had five or six year olds come into my home thinking
their job is to clean the entire house and take care of younger sisters,” Janie says.
“Most don’t realize they can be a kid.”
Janie makes the most of her limited time with the children by making them as
much a part of the family as she can before they move on to permanent placements,
either with adoptive parents or back with biological parents who have completed
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court-ordered requirements such as drug or alcohol rehabilitation or parenting classes.
To make the children feel like part of the family, she and Victor take a
photograph of the kids that hangs in the kitchen while they are staying in the home.
Janie also enjoys taking the children out for treats they might not get at home like ice
cream or lunch at McDonald’s.
“My mother in law always said, ‘If you’re going to live your life happy, food is
the way to go,”’ Janie says. “And with these kids, sometimes it seems like they are
constantly hungry.”
Weekend family breakfasts are another tradition. Some weekends the family
requires a table for seven when Victor’s daughter, Naomi, is visiting and they have a
M l house of foster children.
Though foster parenting is never easy, it is the success stories that remind
Victor and Janie of the importance of their job. Janie smile as she talks about it. A 12
year-old girl was placed with the Ramos’ for two years, one of their longer
placements. Janie keeps the girl’s name to herself to protect her confidentiality,
something foster parents take seriously. The girl returned to her mother at 14 and kept
in contact with them. They talk on the phone every couple months.
“Her mother actually called us when she was 16 and having trouble in school,”
Janie says.
The girl, now 17, is doing well in high school and volunteers as a candy striper
at a local hospital.
Not all placements are as easy to handle as the couple’s oldest foster child, but
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Janie and Victor know they can turn to Help One Child Foster Agency in Northern
California and a foster parent association for support. The group provides support to
foster parents in the Bay Area and sponsors get-togethers for foster parents and kids, a
great opportunity to show the children that they are not alone. Janie says one of her
older foster daughters enjoyed the social events because she didn’t feel comfortable
sharing her foster care experiences with school friends.
The support groups help Janie and Victor with the hardest part of being a foster
parent - getting attached to children and letting them go every few months. One thing
that helps Janie when children move back with biological parents or on to adoptive
homes is letting them know she is still there for them.
“I tell my kids if they ever have a problem we cannot go pick them up, but they
can call me and I will get in touch with the authorities,” Janie says. “I tell them if they
want to call just to chat and say hi, they need to ask their parents. But if it is an
emergency, they can call me anytime.”
Janie has one more thing that helps her cope with children who move on
wi thout looking back since most of the foster children do not keep in touch after they
leave the Ramos’ home.
“I keep a drawer with things from the children. Photographs or drawings
they’ve made,” Janie says. “I have a lock of hair from an 8-month-old baby we had,
from her first haircut.”
Though many children leave without a word once they are back with their
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biological parents, the keepsakes are Janie’s way to remember the many children who
once called her house their home.
Two-Parent Home
In West Covina, the rainy weather on a Saturday afternoon hasn’t slowed down
the De La Rosa-Lima children, though they are running up and down the hallway
rather than around their backyard. It’s clear these three kids are siblings, with their
wavy dark brown hair and their big brown eyes. They even have the same smiles as
they run down the hallway. But these three siblings, as playful and happy as they
seem now, got a rough start in life.
Jose, 5, Esmerelda, 4, and Jorge, 2, started off their lives in foster care and
have live older siblings still in the system. Their future was uncertain until Michael De
La Rosa and Jorge Lima took the youngest three into their home nearly three years
ago. Jorge and Sabrina’s adoption was final in October 2004 and Jose’s was
completed the year before.
Michael and Jorge have been together since 1987, but they didn’t really
consider adding children to their family until they had been together for a decade. “I
started to make plans for the future. We wanted to buy a car, then a house,” says
Michael, whose only relationship has been with Jorge who he met at 22. “The next
step was kids. We went to an orientation [on adoption], but we both weren’t
comfortable so we let it drop.”
The idea of adding children to their family didn’t resurface for two and a half
years, when Michael heard an ad for the Southern California Foster Family and
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Adoption Agency on the radio. The couple signed up for another orientation.
“When we first started out, we wanted one child,” Michael says, a far cry from
the rambunctious trio they ended up with. “Then we thought about getting a couple of
kids so they could play together.”
Jorge, who grew up in Mexico, and Michael, who grew up in Boyle Heights in
East Los Angeles, both know the benefits of life with lots of siblings. The couple
started looking for a larger home so they could adopt a girl and a boy. Still, they
hesitated when they were nearly completed with the requirements to be adoptive
parents. “We needed to put a fence around the pool at the new home,” Michael says.
“But we kept putting it off until the agency told us if we didn’t do it, we were going to
be dropped from the list and have to start over. That pushed us to make our final
decision.”
Both Jorge and Michael’s families were supportive of their decision to adopt.
With a large extended family, the children have plenty of cousins to play with and
aunts and uncles to spoil them. Although Michael and Jorge had been together for
many years, and often attended holiday and family gatherings together, it was not until
they were on the road to finalizing their adoption that Michael told his parents he was
gay. He was relieved to find his parents accepting and looking forward to having new
grandchildren.
Jorge’s sister moved in with the couple for the first year and a half to help with
the children. “Jose had been in several homes with one long-term placement. Sabrina
had one long-term placement,” Michael says. “And Jorge came to us straight from the
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hospital at 12 days old.” With three children under the age of three, the couple was
grateful for the live-in help.
For the most part, the children have been healthy with few signs of
psychological damage and developmental issues. “We had concerns like any other
parents,” Michael says. “Jose had difficult nightmares, he was speech delayed and
had trouble with articulation.” Jose worked with a therapist at Regional Center
Speech Therapy and soon concerns about his cognitive development were waylaid.
“His problems were because he was in a lot of different homes, some that spoke
English, and some that spoke Spanish,” Michael says. Although the foster agency
suspected that Esmerelda and Jorge may have been exposed to drugs in utero, the
couple has seen no signs of problems in the two capable youngsters.
The couple, who have always been low key about their sexuality, say they
enjoy being more visible in the community like a regular family. “We had a hard time
believing it [the adoption] was really going to happen,” Michael says. He adds that
everyone, including coworkers, have been very supportive. “I was pleasantly
surprised so I guess that means I wasn’t expecting them to be.”
Jorge, who speaks with an accent reminiscent of his childhood in Mexico, says,
“I don’t like to go to the movies, but now for them we go. We just saw the
Incredibles, and the kids loved it.”
The couple used to travel a lot, something they do much less now that they
have the children, Jorge says. And when they do travel, the destinations are different.
“We took our first big family vacation in August [of 2004],” Michael recalls.
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“I always used to say if you lived in Los Angeles, why would you stay at a Disneyland
Hotel. But we stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel, and it was great.”
The kids chime in about their favorite part of the trip.
“I got to sleep on the top bunk,” says Jose, of the bunk beds at the hotel.
Esmerelda’s quietly adds that her favorite part was the Aladdin show at Disney’s
California Adventure Park. Little Jorge, donning a mask of his favorite Disney
character, Stitch, on his head, mumbles through the fabric. The kids have adjusted to
life with their daddy Michael and their papa Jorge.
“Now they are so much a part of my life, I don’t think I could live without the
noises,” Jorge says. “When I wake up and they say in the middle of the night, ‘I love
you, Papa.’ That’s the greatest.”
Single Parent Challenge
As a single woman, Mary Sheehan knew adopting two developmentally
delayed children would be a challenge. When the San Francisco resident adopted two
children nine years ago, she had no idea how much of a challenge it would turn out to
be.
“When I got to a place financially in my early 40s it made sense to do it,” she
says of her decision to adopt. “I always wanted children.”
Mary contacted a local chapter of Catholic Charities, an organization that helps
with adoptions, and soon found herself going through the steps necessary to bring 5-
year-old Jesse and 6-year-old Olivia into her home. At the time, she had little family
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support since her sister was against the adoption and her brother, though optimistic
about adding a new duo to the family, lived in Seattle, Wash., too far away to provide
day-to-day help.
At the time when Sheehan adopted, nearly a decade ago, there were no classes
available for would-be parents to teach them how do deal with developmental issues
let alone handling children from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds, the types of
classes that are now offered by agencies like the Children’s Bureau in Southern
California. The Irish-German single mom hoped she could incorporate her children’s
heritage into their lives in San Francisco, but that was soon waylaid.
Olivia and Jesse, now teenagers at 15 and 14, have struggled with day-to-day
life due to incapacitating disorders since they joined the Sheehan family. Because so
little is known about the children’s biological parents, it has been a struggle for
doctors and therapists to treat their illnesses. Doctors believe Jesse, a handsome boy
with short, curly hair and a big, crooked smile, suffers from fetal-alcohol syndrome,
learning disabilities and ADHD. Jesse has taken a mixture of ADHD medication,
mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics since moving into the Sheehan home.
Olivia, who has the same curly hair as her brother and has just learned how to
tame it from a friend’s mother, has moderate learning disabilities as well as ADHD
and anxiety. Unlike most girls, Olivia hated going to the mall because of the crowds
and refused to eat out at restaurants until her doctor recently prescribed an anxiety
medication that seems to be working well. Mary smiles as she says her daughter now
wants to go to the mall with her friends all the time.
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“Initially, I had thought it would be nice to take Spanish classes, but there
were so many other issues that were more pressing with them that it got put on the
back burner,” Mary admits, as she thinks back to the time when she first brought her
children home. “I didn’t know their disabilities were so severe. They said the kids
were developmentally delayed. I thought that meant they were delayed and they
would eventually catch up.”
Mary enrolled the children at Star Academy in San Anselmo, Calif., a school
that works with children who have special needs. Olivia and Jesse made the 20-
minute bus ride together each day to the Marin County school until fall 2004 when
Mary transferred Jesse to a boarding school in Massachusetts.
“It wasn’t cutting it for Jesse anymore,” Mary says of Star Acadmey.
“I went to a consultant and I thought they would refer me to another school in
the Bay Area, but they said there were only two schools that would work for Jesse,”
Mary says. “There was one in New York and one in Massachusetts. We applied to
both and he was accepted to the one in Massachusetts.”
“When Jesse was here, it felt like it was all Jesse all the time,” Mary says of
her struggle to keep her son under control.
Since Jesse has gone away to school, Mary has had more time for Olivia, not
something a teenage girl necessarily wants. “Olivia worried when he first left that all
the extra attention would be redirected at her. I try to give her space. She wants to
call her boyfriend and listen to CDs in her room.”
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Despite the recent upheaval in the Sheehan household with Jesse’s move back
east, Mary is taking it in stride.
“You just have to do what you have to do from day to day,” Mary says.
She has found support through groups such as Families Adopting In Response.
Mary and her children have attended social events such as an ice skating party in Palo
Alto and an overnight camping trip sponsored by the bay area group, allowing adopted
children to interact. But Mary says the most helpful resource has been online support
groups.
“You can read through message boards and post messages,” Mary says.
“When you read all those answers you realize there are other people out there who are
worse off than you.”
It is memories like that and hopeful moments when she thinks of where Jesse
and Olivia might be now if she hadn’t come into their lives that keep her going. Mary
smiles when she recalls her first Christmas with the children. “We went up to Seattle
to see my brother,” Mary says. “I don’t think the kids ever really experienced the
holiday to that extent before, with family and gifts and a tree.”
She speculates about where Olivia would be without her.
“She might be pregnant or have joined a gang,” Mary says.
Mary has provided therapy, medical care and an education that Jesse and
Olivia wouldn’t have had in foster care, and despite the unexpected struggle she has
faced with her children, when she thinks about her decision to adopt she says, “I don’t
regret it.”
19
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bibliography
Allen, Cathy. Personal interview. November 13,2004.
Barrio, Eduardo. Personal interview. October 25,2004.
Barrio, Lupe. Personal interview. October 25,2004.
Children’s Bureau. (2002, August 20). Interim FY2000 estimates as o f August 2002
(7). Retrieved February 19,2005 from
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publicatioa5/afcars/report7.htm.
De La Rosa, Michael. Personal interview. November 7,2004.
De Toledo, S. and Brown, D. (1995). Grandparens as parents: A survival guide for
raising a second family. New York: The Guildford Press.
Lima, Jorge. Personal interview. November 7,2004
Ramos, Janie. Personal interview. February 3,2005.
Sheehan, Mary. Personal interview. February 3,2005.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). Marital Status by Sex. Unmarried-Partner Households,
and Grandparents as Caregivers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999). Child welfare outcomes
1999: Annual Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1997). Child welfare outcomes
1997: Annual Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
20
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Creator Flores, Melissa Ann (author)

Core Title A place to call my home

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,religion, clergy,sociology, individual and family studies

Language English

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Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-47473

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