Elexus Hunter and Edited by Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD 11/15/19 Elexus Hunter and Edited by Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD 11/15/19

Tragic is Magic: Reclaiming My Story

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care.

Editor’s Note: As I set off on this journey to create a series of blogs on foster care for content creators, I assumed I would approach it like I do most topics, by digging first and foremost into academic research. After conducting dozens of interviews, however, it became abundantly clear that the best way to encourage accurate depictions of foster care is to hear from those who have been directly impacted by the foster care system. It’s true, like many topics, that if you’ve met one person who has been in foster care, you’ve met one person who has been in foster care. You can’t generalize. And that is precisely why through this series of blogs I am striving to bring you multiple stories and perspectives, some of which may surprise you. Today, I am honored to bring you an experience directly from the person who experienced it, the incredible Elexus Hunter.

I often find myself thinking back to the day I entered foster care. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of how this all started to see how far I’ve come.

I was 16 years old, and my 7-year old sister was clinging to my right leg and my 12-year old brother standing to the left of me - all of us in a state of stupor - not moving a muscle. We stood in the common area of Child Protection Services in San Francisco, CA, just waiting for what felt like an eternity for someone to come get us.

Unlike the loaded images most people have of social workers coming into homes and whisking taking kids away, I was the one who brought us there. I was the one who insisted we leave.

But I’ll never forget the sense of freedom of no longer being under the rule of our abusers at home, juxtaposed with the panging guilt I felt for bringing us into the system. My siblings were understandably scared and angry at me. But I knew I had to proceed forward and couldn’t look back. There had to be a light at the end of all of this. I could feel it.

What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was how difficult the system would be. That there is always someone to answer to, especially when you are a ward of the state. There wasn’t a manual to how this “system” works, you just had to do whatever was asked of you. Countless court hearings, lawyers, and social workers every time I had to go to court. Moving from house to house in constant fear of whether my siblings and I could stay together, and never having the room to be comfortable. It felt like everyone turned against me-- like I was this resentful teenager with no self control, and that my truth was not real, merely an illusion.

Simply put, my fight for our freedom from abuse was exhausting.

This is what happens when you try and get help.

I’ll never forget my mother regaining custody of my younger siblings; I cried for the both of them because I had nothing left in me to fight for them and save them. It crushed my heart, but I had to let go. Ultimately, it let me enjoy more personal freedom and focus on myself for the first time. I suddenly had the power to be a kid for once in my life and enjoy the end of my highschool experience. I felt like I crammed an entire 16 years into a year and half time span.

As nice as it was, the absence of someone else loving me and supporting me was second to none. The system, in my experience, was not there to coddle you, embrace you, or provide significant financial freedom upon departure.

This mattered, because against the odds of youth in foster care, I was accepted to multiple colleges. Even though California had recently extended financial assistance for youth in foster care to age 21, this was not information provided to me, even when I inquired about financial help for college. But I was set on attending college so I sacrificed my social life to work more hours and avoided spending on any non-essentials just to get enough funding for me to pay for college. I also spent endless nights applying to scholarships-- Google became my best friend. I googled every scholarship that I could possibly find and applied. In the end, I was awarded enough money to pay off 4 years of college.

It was a love and hate relationship while being in the “system” because it’s set up for freedom from unsafe home lives, but the journey is anything from promising. It can make or break you.

To be labeled as a foster youth in this country frames us as inconsistent, non-dreamers, with no goals and false hope. So we survive by any means necessary to make it out - in hopes that someone sees us for our true self and not our circumstances. Because we do matter.

Since aging out of foster care, I’ve graduated from high school top of my class with a 3.80 GPA, and graduated from Clark Atlanta University with honors, and a job offer. But I felt a responsibility and desire to give back to those in similar situations. Therefore, I started my own nonprofit called Tragic is Magic-- a community organization geared to helping California youth in foster care as they age out of the system, as they navigate receiving financial help and mental health support.

We’re all in this together. I went against the odds of the system and want to empower others to do the same. I refused to be viewed as an entity of shame, and the only “statistic” I want to be is one of success.

I chose my ending-- a magical one.

Advice for content creators:

Flip the script - turn tragic into magic.
Show youth who enter foster care on their own accord, not just being swept away by social care workers in the middle of the night.
Portray the complexity of the system, the pros and the cons.
Reflect the success stories of foster care youth aging out of the system to encourage more and change the way we are seen by the public.