ANGELICA ABREU
I was born November 13, 1992 at Saint Luke Roosevelt hospital. I was raised by Maria and Bienvenido Abreu. Both of my parents were born in Puerto Rico, but both came to the United States when they were little kids. My parents never finish school which made it hard for my two older brothers, my sister, and myself. My brothers names are Davis and Anthony. My sister name is Delilah. My dad named me Angelica after a famous actress named Anjelica Huston. I originally thought I was named after Angelica from the Rugrats and for that reason they call me rugrat. When I turned six my mother left the picture and my dad became a single parent. Three years later I thought life at home would get better when he finally found a new lady, but it didn’t. Instead of having two parents I now had none. I quickly learned to fend for myself.
I use to go to Murry Bergtraum High School. I didn’t start well my freshman year, but sophomore year I started to perform better in school. I joined a program called Explore, a police program for teens. I stayed in the program until senior year and became Platoon Lieutenant. Unfortunately things started to change my last year of high school. Kids in school started to draw Nazi signs and there was a bomb threat and a huge riot. My school had been on the news so many times that they started to station police around the campus. I thought I was going to graduate on time, but I missed a few days, and because of the frequent shut downs at school I couldn’t make them up.
I was transferred to Washington Irving High School’s night program YABC. The teachers at YABC were a lot different from the teachers in regular high schools, they actually wanted to help struggling kids. They even helped kids get jobs. At the time I was working during the day and attending the program at night. It was hard, but I managed without anyone’s help.
Later I found out I was pregnant. At first I continued to work and go to school, but then I was sent to the hospital due to complications with my pregnancy. I started contracting early which then lead to the premature birth of my daughter Izabela. At the time of my daughter’s birth I had tried to continue going to school, but with Izabela’s health problems I decided to become a full time mother and dropped out of YABC.
There came a time when I had to rush Izabela back to the hospital. They found a fracture on her right shoulder and promptly called ACS. I didn’t know how my daughter injured herself, but it didn’t matter. They decided to take Izabela away from me. Going in and out of court fighting to get my daughter back put me in a deep depression. I didn’t want to do anything. I would sit in my room all day and listen to music. But then I finally woke up and decided to do something to change my life. I joined a church. My church family has been helping me to realize that being out in the street and doing nothing is not going to get me anywhere. If I want to get help I must talk to God and ask for his help.
After changing my life I found a program called Youth Action Youthbuild. I didn’t know much about YouthBuild, but after doing research my attention was drawn to the program. I’m excited about the construction component, and I love helping my community. I only have one more shot to do something with my life and change things for the sake of my daughter and myself. I want my daughter to see that I can accomplish something in life.
I believe you have to go through obstacles and struggle to get to where you want to go. The world we live in today is not getting better. Our generation needs to step up and make a big change. I want to be the one to make that change. I want to show people that you can have a second chance. All you have to do is find the right people to put you on the right path. There will always be things that come up and try to stop you from doing good, but you have to make your own choices if you want to walk the right path.