Breaking Free

by Abby Sher

  Flying from a gig in London to one in Washington, D.C., and stopping off in Malibu on the way home wasn’t half bad. Minh was amazed at how quickly her world opened up and how many people were interested in her story. At one conference, she overheard a woman say breathlessly, “What? You got to talk to the Minh Dang?”

  Minh was touched, but she also started freaking out a little bit. The responsibility of being a survivor spokeswoman was a lot to carry on her shoulders. After each presentation, she had people lining up to tell her their tragic stories, asking for advice, or calling her a superhero.

  The superhero part is what bothered Minh the most. She didn’t want people to separate her from the rest of humanity anymore. She felt so isolated and misunderstood when people told her they could never be as brave as she was. She felt like a caged animal at the zoo, or an alien, living and thinking on a different plane, separated from all humanity.

  So, when Minh wasn’t speaking, she was writing. She wrote about reconnecting with her humanity and the humanity of others. She didn’t want to feel like an alien anymore. She wrote: Survivors are NO DIFFERENT than you are. You are no different than I am. If you were born to my parents and put in the exact same situation, you would be writing this right now. Find a way to relate with survivors. You do not need to have gone through what they went through to imagine what they might experience.

  When Minh wasn’t writing in her journals, she was blogging for Don’t Sell Bodies, an anti-trafficking organization that offers information and gets celebrities and activists from all over the world to rally together. Jada Pinkett Smith (a very talented actress, activist, and star of the Madagascar movies) founded the organization. She asked Minh to come on board as executive director and write on the DSB website about what it felt like to break free and live a new life.

  Minh’s writing was raw and honest. Even when she wrote about what it felt like to be free, she refused to decorate her new world with rainbows or unicorns. She wrote the real stuff—what it felt like to mourn parents who were never there for her. How it stung to trust and fall in love for the first time, only to have her heart broken. She wrote about how she was not a superhero, about how she never drank a courage pill or wished upon some secret star.

  She was human, struggling to live her life humanely, gratefully every day.

  “I have had to learn (or re-learn) that I am human, I was always human, and that the people out there, you, as well as those who hurt me, are also human.”

  ~ Minh Dang

  The Heart That Feels Pain

  Minh woke up at 5:30 A.M. The moon was the only light making leaf shadows on her wall. She lay still and waited for some of the birds to wake up, too. She heard a branch creak on the big oak tree in her garden. Down the road, there was a car door opening and shutting.

  These early morning hours were the hardest for Minh. She still had trouble sleeping for more than a few hours at a time. Her body had been conditioned for so long to stay alert and on guard when night came. She counted anything past 5:00 A.M. as morning and made lists of things to do to help motivate herself for the day. Her morning could include meditating or journaling or calling a friend. She also had a gratitude jar that she was slowly filling with slips of paper, naming everything and everyone she loved.

  On this particular morning, Minh decided to first turn on her “Morning Love” playlist. This was something she added to every time she found a song that helped her feel loved or inspired. Minh pulled back the covers and climbed down the small ladder from her loft bed. The wooden floor felt cool as she padded over to her laptop on the desk and cued up her music.

  The first song—her favorite—was Ingrid Michaelson’s “Everybody.”

  Happy is the heart that still feels pain, sang Ingrid. Minh started her teakettle and did a few stretches on the small patch of linoleum near her stove. She looked around her, trying to take it all in.

  She still couldn’t believe this place was hers. Every inch of it. It was a small cottage in Berkeley, really one large room, painted the color of melting butter and sunshine. Her desk and books were built into one wall and the rest of the room was open windows. There was a wood-burning stove in the corner and the loft hovering just under the ceiling. Outside Minh’s door was a small, lush garden. It was a far cry from the white quartz rocks and rosebushes back in San Jose. Minh’s backyard was sprawling and wildflowers yawned open, up and down the path. She had a punching bag hung from a tree where she often sparred and cross-jabbed her way out of her darkest spells of anger.

  This was Minh’s first home of her own. She moved here in 2013. It was everything she wanted: light, open, close to hiking trails and great restaurants. Yet, she found it incredibly lonely sometimes. She was on the road a lot for her speaking engagements. She also was consulting for counselor trainings and finishing her dissertation for school.

  “How will you love yourself today?” read the sign Minh had posted to her bathroom mirror. That was a good question. Minh knew she had a lot of writing to do on her thesis. She was supposed to be giving a new talk in three days in New York. She could maybe stop at the farmer’s market for flowers or squeeze in a massage. But really, all she could think about was the PTA.

  This was the dream that had awoken her at 5:30. This was the dream she kept having, and she wanted so badly to make true. In it, Minh was a mom of two little children. Their faces were unclear but their eyes were big and dark, just like hers. She saw their crayon pictures hanging in the school hallway and said proudly, “Those are my kids’.” Then she walked into a classroom and spoke to the PTA about the upcoming book drive and invited everyone over to her house for a game night with popcorn. As she drove home from the meeting, she knew every tree and every lamppost. It was familiar and safe. Her front door was unlocked. When she walked in she could smell the frittata she had made that morning for her family.

  Minh had this PTA dream a lot. And whenever she awoke, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She knew she had to have a life where she could speak out about human justice and defending freedom. But what if her form of social activism was raising two happy children and making a home filled with her children’s drawings and the smell of freshly popped popcorn?

  There were still a lot of blanks to fill in. She was feeling giddy about a new boy she was seeing. Was he ready to have kids? she wondered. Was she? And what about her writing and speaking career? She loved all her work consulting and training, and she had even started running self-empowerment retreats. She loved hearing people share their hopes, dreams, and hungers. She felt purposeful and passionate talking to young adults about who she once was, and how she broke free.

  The teakettle whistled. Minh poured the hot water into her favorite mug and let the tea steep. She stood by her open door, a soft fog coloring the morning light purple.

  “Lots of work, but maybe meet at the farmer’s market later?” Minh texted the boy she’d been seeing. She didn’t want to be too eager, but she was a firm believer in making herself open to possibilities. She didn’t wait for his answer.

  Instead, she laced up her sneakers, pulled on a sweatshirt and shorts, and took a few sips of her tea before heading out for a run.

  Her feet were sure. Her stride was long and fast. She passed a clump of cafés, a yoga studio, a playground. She loved her new route, its bends and twists. She tried to memorize the names of the streets even though they looked blurry. She looped around the playground again. This time she stopped. It took her a moment to recognize what was making her blink.

  It was the rain. It was the sky opening up and letting go. It was everything she wanted to learn and become.

  This is what life is about: feeling in my body and being in the present moment. I thought to myself, “Well, I guess you’re running in the rain today.” And then, from somewhere else inside of myself, I said, “No. Run WITH the rain.”

  Maria Suarez

  “I saw my parents working hard, my dad, my mother, and my dream was to one day… treat them l
ike king and queen.”

  ~ Maria Suarez

  Everyone Is Family

  Maria grew up in a small village in Mexico called Timbuscatio, Michoacan. There were only about 500 or so people in Timbuscatio, and most of them were related to one another. Maria was eleventh out of fourteen children in her family. When her brothers and sisters were too busy to play with her, she could always knock on a door nearby and find a cousin ready to play hide and seek in the cornfields. Even the people she wasn’t related to knew and loved her as if they were family, too.

  Maria’s father was a farmer. He worked long days, up before dawn planting corn, calavasa, pumpkin, sugarcane, cucumber, tomatoes, corn, and guava. His hands were thick and stained from pulling through the earth. His rectangular face was always flushed from the sun. Maria’s mom was always working, too. She took care of the fourteen children and the house, not to mention feeding their chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, and goats. The only time Maria saw her sit still was in church on Sundays. Maria’s mom sang all the psalms and listened to the priest with her eyes half-shut, a smile taking up the rest of her face. Maria loved watching her mom so serene and happy. Maria sat next to her in the pews, a matching smile taking up her face, too.

  When Maria was fifteen years old, her father announced that he needed to go to Los Angeles to get an American residential card.

  Why can’t we live here forever? Maria wondered.

  Her parents would never tell her, but it was getting harder and harder to feed the family. Her father didn’t want to leave Timbuscatio either, but his fields were looking thin and dry. He promised he would be back in a few weeks; he just needed to see if it was possible to get some steady income in the States.

  Maria begged her dad to bring her on the trip. She promised to stay out of trouble and bring her schoolbooks so she didn’t miss any lessons while she was away. He agreed. When they got to California, Maria and her dad stayed with an older sister living and working in Sierra Madre. Maria decided that if she really wanted to help the family out, she should look for work, too. It was harder than she expected, though. She didn’t speak any English, and she didn’t know exactly what work she could offer.

  A kind-looking woman walked up to Maria on the street one day and asked her—in Spanish!—if she was looking for a job. Maria was so grateful to hear her native language and immediately said, “Si.” The woman was searching for a maid to help out in an old couple’s home. Maria was thrilled and tried not to laugh out loud while she said, again, “Si! Si!” She was so excited, she even forgot to ask how much the job paid.

  They set a time for the woman to pick up Maria and take her to the couple’s house. The woman said Maria should keep it a surprise and not tell her family.

  Maria didn’t know why it had to be a secret, but she was too excited to ask. She was already dreaming about coming back to the farm with a wallet full of hard-earned cash. Maybe she would buy her mom a new dress, or her dad a hat to protect his eyes from the sun …

  FICTION:

  Witches wear black hats, ride broomsticks, and have warts.

  FACT:

  Brujo is Spanish for male witch. A brujo can look like everyone else, but many cultures, especially Mexican, believe brujos can cast magical spells to either help or curse people.

  A Tomorrow That Never Comes

  Maria knew something was not right. The trip to the old couple’s house was taking much too long. She stared out the woman’s car window and felt like the roads were all twisting into oblivion. Maria didn’t know why she’d left without telling her sister where she was going. The surprise of a new job wasn’t feeling exciting anymore. The longer Maria sat in that car, the more she felt like she was riding away from everyone she knew, straight off the map into the unknown.

  Maria and the woman drove almost the whole way in silence. Whenever Maria asked where they were, the woman told her it was close and not to worry. They pulled into a driveway in front of a small house. The town they were in now was called Azusa, California. Long, elegant palm trees were overhead and a Masonic temple was next door. Maria felt a little better after she saw a sign for the neighborhood doctor’s office that was nearby. Maybe she had been worried about nothing all along. This place looked friendly enough, at least from the outside.

  The old man who answered the door gave her a warm hello. Maria guessed him to be about sixty-five or seventy. He closed the door quickly and led her into the living room, where he told her to sit on the couch. Then he and the woman disappeared into the kitchen and talked in low mumbles.

  Maria didn’t know what they were saying. She just knew she wanted to get out of there. It didn’t look like the place needed a maid. There was barely any furniture, and if there was dust it was too dark to tell. There was no sunlight—the shades were drawn and the air was so stuffy and thick. The only thing Maria could hear was herself panting.

  When the old man came back into the room, he told her she was hired.

  Maria thanked him and said she should probably get home and check with her family first.

  The old man shook his head no. He wanted Maria to start working today, and he promised he’d take her home tomorrow. He insisted that his wife was due home soon and would be so happy to meet Maria.

  Maria didn’t like his plan, but the woman who drove her said she couldn’t drive her back anyway.

  “You can even call your sister if you want,” the old man said with a smile. He walked her to the phone in the kitchen. Before Maria could dial, he had to unlock the receiver. Maria had never seen a lock on a phone.

  Maria’s sister was not happy with the situation. She said Maria needed to come home immediately. Maria tried to explain that the man was old and that they were waiting for his wife to return.

  “Where are you, exactly?” Maria’s sister demanded.

  Maria had no idea where she was. She just kept repeating that she’d be home tomorrow. She wished there were a way to tell her sister how she was really feeling, but with the old man standing inches away from her, she couldn’t find the words.

  After she hung up the phone, the woman who’d driven her left. Maria heard the front door slam shut. The old man locked it with a bolt. When he turned around to face Maria again, his smile got even bigger. And creepier.

  He offered to show Maria around the house. In the room where she would sleep, Maria saw an altar with a picture of Jesus Christ in the middle. There was also a line of little bottles filled with dirt and dolls with pins stuck all over their bodies. That first night, Maria pulled the blanket over her face so she couldn’t see the dolls. She prayed for tomorrow to come as fast as possible.

  The next day, the old man greeted Maria with a mop and a pile of rags. He said he’d take her home as soon as she was done making the place spotless. She scrubbed every shelf and sill in the house. She mopped and re-mopped the floors. But every time she told the old man she was done, he shook his head no.

  The phone was locked. The door was locked. Night came and Maria hid under the covers again.

  On the third day, the man told her she could stop cleaning, but he had other things for her to do. Lots of other things. And she wasn’t going home any time soon because he’d paid two hundred dollars for her to stay.

  “Do you know why?” he asked. He smiled again, as if they were playing some exciting guessing game. Maria shook her head no. She didn’t want to know.

  “You’re mine now,” he said. “To cook, to clean, to pleasure me in any way.”

  Maria shook and shook. She shook so hard, trying to wipe away this moment from her brain and erase it from being possible. The man was still talking, telling her that if she tried to contact her family, he would kill her or them.

  This is not happening. This cannot be real. Maria shook her head faster and faster.

  The man explained that he was a brujo and everyone in the town knew it. He promised he could read Maria’s mind and make her worst nightmares come true. Nobody would stop him, either. Even the priests in the
temple next door knew he was a witch who practiced black magic, and they were terrified of him.

  Then, just to prove his point, the old man tore off all Maria’s clothes. Maria shrieked and tried to grab them back. As she reached for them, he punched Maria in the face, and he kept punching until everything went dark.

  When she came to, she was lying on the ground with her clothes next to her. At this point she was painfully aware of two things: One, that she had been raped, and two, that no matter how much she screamed or cried, there was nobody there to help her.

  “Sometimes when I think about it and I wonder, it was because of my brown skin? It was because we’re not on the high class? It was because I didn’t speak any English? You know what I mean? How can they assume I was okay?”

  ~ Maria Suarez

  Doing What She’s Told

  Whether he was a witch or not, the old man definitely had a hold on Maria. He told her every day how he would kill her family if she tried to escape. He was very convincing, too. He barely moved his face when he spoke, except to give her that same creepy smile.

  It was as if the whole town was under his spell. Maria saw people through the curtains, walking in and out of the doctor’s office and the temple. But they all seemed to walk around the old man’s house, being careful not even to touch his lawn with the edge of a shoe. At one point, the old man forced Maria to work in a factory nearby to bring him more money. When Maria tried to hide in the bathroom until everyone left, her boss pulled her out and sent her back to the old man for an even more vicious beating.

  Lying on the ground, bruised and weak, Maria started thinking, Either he’s going to kill me or I’m going to die. And dying didn’t sound all that bad anymore.