I was raised going to church three times a week and to stay with your own kind, which for me would be white. My dream was to save my virginity for my husband. I wanted to be a veterinary, have lots of children and to raise them in church and live in our home with a white picket fence. That all changed one day when I was 12 yrs. old and a “friend” of the family awoke me in the middle of the night with his hand over my mouth and his penis positioned at the entrance of my vagina!

I remember being terrified and the pain, he had no right to do what he did. My life was never the same. I finally worked up the courage to tell my Pastor and he never did anything about it. I told my mom and she said it would bring shame to the family if she went to the police. And my rapist went around bragging to anyone that would listen that I was having sex with him. So, living in a small town, everyone believed him and all of my boyfriends thought I was “easy” and that is the first thing they did was go after some nooky! I took to singing ‘Jesus loves me” everytime someone was having sex with me. I thought it was what was expected of me. I was as cold as ice inside. I hated sex. Then one night I was watching Chips and was actually aroused by Poncho, the Spanish Cop. I couldn’t quit fantasizing about him. But I didn’t dare date anyone outside of my race for fear of retribution by the community. Life goes on and I grew up and moved to another state.

My friends and I went to a bar to celebrate being called back to work and there was a man there by the name of Antonio, a man of Mexican descent.