Santiago was the firstborn of eight children to an extremely toxic mother. She debased, beat, terrorized, and ridiculed her sons daily. Santiago grew up to be just as narcissistic as his mother. Like his mother, by the age of eighteen, Santiago had three children, born in the same year, by three different women. He has eleven children with seven different women, while solely financially providing for his youngest two children. Every other child never received any monetary or emotional support. His older children envied the youngest two, given they are the ones he had a vested interest in. Fiscally, Santiago did very well for himself however, he began to lose his fortune due to the drinking. Indiscretions were rampant in the marriage. Physical abuse of his wife was a staple and how he maintained total control. Santiago’s affaire with the bottle superseded all things. When he tired of running the streets and returned home, no one was spared of his vitriolic nature. The years of abuse manifested in excessive weight gain in his wife. She had gastric bypass surgery as a means of reinventing herself. While home recovering from the surgery, Santiago beats her, fearing she may finally leave. His youngest daughter is effortlessly striking, coquette. As she walks down the street, there is no shortage, in the awe of men. Habitually, Valentina was debased, ridiculed, and terrorized by the man responsible for loving and protecting her. No wonder, She lacks any motivation beyond being a kept woman even if it means grave degradation. Her lifestyle may seem foreign to many although this is how Valentina was groomed. Santiago projected the hollowness he felt within onto his daughter and she believed him.
Collateral damage of the immigrant
Fara’s parents informed her, she was solely going to Haiti for summer vacation. Fast forward two months and Fara is being fitted for school uniforms, that is how Fara realized she was not returning to Brooklyn. This event forever changed Fara’s outlook on life. While in Haiti, Fara resided with an auntie who treated her well. Fara never wanted for material things, rather she grappled with feelings of abandonment which were elusive to articulate, as a seven-year-old. Friendships in her life tended to be seasonal. She never allowed anyone to become too close for fear of things ending. The slightest infraction in a friendship or relationship is grounds for ending the alliance. Fara is hypervigilant about protecting herself. During winter and summer breaks Fara returned to Brooklyn and was reunited with her family. Fara’s older siblings lost themselves with the wrong crowd. As a consequence, Fara’s parents reasoned sending her to Haiti would allow her to be raised in a different environment, as well as foster a fresh mindset, and it worked. Between the ages of seven and thirteen Fara resided in Haiti. Once her parents decided to bring Fara back to Brooklyn permanently, irreparable damage had ensued. Fara was riddled with resentment toward her mother. It took years for her mother to grasp the gravity of Fara’s feelings of being disenfranchised.