By Arabella Guevara
I was born and raised in San Jose and have always loved where I come from. I grew up with both parents and my little sister until just about 8 years old. A month before my 8th birthday, my mom, who struggled with her mental health, ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Throughout my childhood, we witnessed my father struggle with alcohol and substance use. During the time of my mother’s absence, my dad passed away and my little sister and I had found him. He had a heart attack in his sleep and never woke up. After my mom was released, we moved to Salinas. Though we had many months of therapy, we then experienced a school shooting and as a child, my struggle to balance the trauma began. A year after my father’s passing, my uncle took his life and again, my sister and I found him. With all I experienced, I was angry and began to defy authority, both at home and in school.
A year later, we moved back to San Jose. Between my mother’s unaddressed mental health issues and all I carried as a young child, her struggles became my burden. I developed severe depression and anxiety, which had yet to be diagnosed and therefore, led to me questioning the value of my life. In 6th grade I was pushed out of school and forced into another district. Being removed from everything I knew led me to feel detached and isolated in my new school. This, of course, continued the decline of my mental health and my relationship with my mom, but also exposed me to the court system through truancy. At this point, I finally received a diagnosis and was given medication and therapy for my PTSD, depression, and anxiety. This allowed me to get on track through homeschooling and I was promoted to 9th grade.
Come high school, I stopped taking my meds and began searching for belonging with people who also grew up in similar circumstances and needed support and resources we didn’t have. As children, you don’t know how to deal with the anger most adults can’t even balance, let alone understand why this happens. The way I learned to deal with it was to escape and go against every situation I felt I had no control in. The constant fighting with my mom led me to leaving home, leaving school, and making choices that would then begin the cycle of incarceration at 13 years old.
Each encounter with juvenile hall, the charges became more serious, the time kept getting longer and my relationship with my mom worse. I experienced my first big case, where I received 3 youth strikes, 60 thousand dollars in restitution fees and a 6-9 month program at the James Ranch, after 4 months in the hall. As a child, completely disconnected from my community and family for 13 months, my mental health was the worst it had been. But I finally completed my program and was released. Upon my release, I re-entered my community but again, with only so much support the system was willing or able to offer. Shortly after, I was brought back into custody and wrongfully charged for an incident I had no involvement in. I was sentenced to another 6-9 month program after another 3 months at the hall.
This time that I was incarcerated, the Young Women’s Freedom Center came in for their very first Freedom Circle in our counties Juvenile Hall. When you’re incarcerated there’s multiple programs that come in, most are boring and you feel judged by the group leaders because they have nothing in common with you, but there was something about YWFC that felt so different. Their groups felt comforting and I felt a sense of ease being with other system impacted people. I got super close to my advocate Analisa. She would come and do groups at the ranch and do one on ones with me. I looked forward to it every week because I knew I could open up to her and share how I was really feeling especially because I didn’t have the easiest time locked up.
Maybe I was tired of losing my childhood to the system or maybe it was the hurt in my mom’s eyes at every court hearing, but something in me switched this time. My mom and I were doing family therapy once a week, I was participating in all of my programs and was meeting with Analisa and working on my goals weekly. I was doing so good that I graduated high school a year early and was released from the ranch a month early. Upon my release, I was still working on my relationship with my mom and Analisa was my biggest support system during that time. She provided me with reentry funds to help me get clothing and other personal belongings, I was attending freedom circle every Thursday where I got to be around other youth who were experiencing similar struggle and game eachother up on the system, and I received financial support from them which helped me stop hustling and avoid incarceration.
After a couple months, I was still doing amazing but between my mom’s unmet mental health needs and now the trauma of my incarceration, I became homeless. I was still engaging with my programs and even started an internship at the YWFC, but I was living on the streets and in order to cope, I became addicted to drugs. After getting COVID, and being exposed to violence and exploitation by older men, the judge issued a warrant for my arrest for “safety concerns”- not because I broke the law but because of the lack of resources or alternatives that would prove a cell is far from a safe place for a child. I was never arrested, and after nearly 4 months, I returned home and my probation was dismissed in January of 2021.
I never got to finish my first internship due to my living situation, but I was given another chance to re-apply and I was hired. I was sober, working on myself, and was accomplishing goals I never thought I would. During this time, I met a really great guy, and became pregnant with my son.
I finished my internship and was offered an amazing fellowship at the same organization for a young moms project that I co-led. In April of 2022 I had my beautiful baby boy and was in a much better place in life than I was a year before that, however I was still struggling with housing. My relationship with my mom was still unstable, rent was so high in the Bay Area and I was only working part time so I eventually found myself living in hotels, cars and Air b&b’s with my partner and son. The center was still very supportive, letting me work from home, supporting with food and providing as many resources as they could.
Eventually I received housing and my family and I were thriving. I moved onto another fellowship for the PRIDE project at the center and was thriving in my work as well. My story was being published in newspapers and I felt like I had accomplished it all. However, due to inflation and only working part time, I parted ways with the YWFC and started working at another nonprofit that worked to house homeless youth. Although I thrived in this position and brought with me a ton of knowledge that I gained from the center and personal experience, my heart was still with YWFC and I still waited for my dream job as an SDA to open up. After all the help I received from Analisa, all the support and love she provided me, I knew that was what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to support young people that were going through the same struggles I experienced, I wanted to be that person to show them that it does get better and their life can turn around.
After years of waiting, I recently started my new position as a Self Determination Advocate and I’m working to make an impact on young people’s lives like the Center did on mine.
Since getting off probation nearly 4 years ago, I continue to amaze myself everyday with how wonderful I’m doing. I’ve led legislative change to ensure incarcerated youth have knowledge of and access to their rights. I led a group of young moms from our county in a youth participatory action research project, to form local and statewide policies around resources for young moms. I led and facilitated healing groups so that youth have access to reconnecting to their sacredness and know their purpose. And I’ve mobilized system impacted young people in the country to step into their leadership and find their voice in order to lead this change with me.
In my life I’ve had a few bumps in the road, or maybe even a few potholes; however my past does not define me, but what I’ve done to better myself since, and what I continue to do everyday, does.
With Radical Love,
Arabella Guevara, Self-Determination Coordinator
YWFC Santa Clara County
