2026 Update: Christina

When Christina was twelve years old, she became a live-in nanny. Her mother had schizophrenia and would hit her with phone handles and high-heeled shoes. There was no food in the house. The dirty clothes piled up in a massive mound in the living room. So Christina quit school to care for two younger boys. When social services found out, they removed her from that house and placed her in foster care with an older couple named Isabel and her husband, and their grandson David.

Isabel ran a strict household. Christina was always grounded, always walking on eggshells, always scared. The one place she felt powerful was on a basketball court. She practiced at six in the morning, watched NBA games, and became a high scorer and team captain. Basketball was her plan for escape—a scholarship would get her out of "that circle of welfare and illness."

Then in tenth grade, Isabel sat Christina down at the kitchen table and told her she needed a B average in every class to keep playing. Christina was bad at math and chemistry. She didn't make it. Isabel forced her to quit the team. Instead of basketball, Christina got chores: bake cookies for the family but don't eat any, dust the house and pick up David's basketball trophies. "It took something from me that I've not been able to get back," Christina says. "That passion for something."