My dad was already in the States. But a couple of years passed after we crossed the border, my mom and my dad didn't get along, and my dad was really controlling and abusive.

Within three to six months. It didn't take that long … immediately kind of. I think one of my uncles took it upon himself to take care of us, and since my mom … my mom at the time, we did not know she had a tumor in the back of her brain. Right where her brain stem is, she had a huge tumor there and we had no idea. Nobody knew. She doesn't remember a lot of this. I don't know if it's because of the emotional trauma or because of the tumor, but once we got to Chicago, it was evident that something was wrong with my mother and she started going to the doctor.

The apartment that we moved into in California was a one-bedroom apartment. It was a big complex and I remember it. There was a pool in the middle and there were a lot of families like us that shared a one-bedroom apartment. And there were eight to twelve people in this one space, and we were trying to find something bigger, but it was impossible.