Angelica, Survivor
“I just wanted food, and a place to call home.”
Angelica grew up in Chicago with her siblings and a young single mother. Her father passed away when she was young, and eventually, her mother remarried. They had a comfortable life. When Angelica turned 18, however, her mother and stepfather demanded she pay rent… or leave. At first, she paid the rent—but she didn’t make much, and when it became clear that they wanted her out, she left.
Suddenly, Angelica was homeless.
Hunger and homelessness are powerful motivators, so she began working in a club and stripping to make ends meet. Angelica stripped in Chicago clubs for a few years.
Then, Angelica met a man at a concert. He promised her the world—marriage, a home, a family—but he lived in Seattle. After being assaulted in Chicago, Angelica reached out to him for help. He offered to bring her to Seattle to start their life together.
“But when I came here, I had to work at the clubs to make everything back.”
It was Angelica’s first day in Seattle when he asked her if she’d ever stripped before. He told Angelica that she would need to strip to pay off her plane ticket… then to help him buy a house… and then to help him buy more properties.
Initially, she went to the strip clubs willingly—she did it in Chicago and assumed it was the same here. She had not stripped in Seattle long when she realized the stark difference between the environments in the different cities.
““Stripping in Chicago is different than stripping here. Like, stripping in any other city, you can make like five bands, $5,000 an hour when you’re just stripping, or doing some pole dancing. Here you’ve got to like, [perform oral sex], do all that stuff just to make like maybe $500.””
An astonishingly talented artist, Angelica wanted to use her art as a means to make money, but her abuser actively squelched those dreams, telling her that her art was no good, and she’d never been able to make money off of it.
Angelica was realizing the bait and switch that had happened between the sweet guy she met in Chicago, and the manipulative and often threatening man she lived
within Seattle.
Once again, she felt trapped by survival needs. If she left him, she would be homeless again—but this time, in a city 2,000 miles from any friends or support.
Angelica was not the only woman that this man was exploiting—but he kept her closer than the others, telling her that he loved her, and treating her with more gentleness than he treated the other women. That is, unless she failed to bring in money, or when she advocated for herself in the relationship.
“I thought I was going to die… I didn’t think I was ever gonna leave that house.”
The relationship became more tumultuous, and Angelica realized her life was in danger. After one particularly dangerous situation, her boyfriend kicked her out.
Suddenly, Angelica was homeless… again... at the height of the pandemic, and in the thick of the Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle. Angelica is a Black woman, and participated in the protests against police brutality against Black people, raising her voice calling out for the dignity and respect that Black individuals deserve.
During that time, Angelica stayed in the CHOP/CHAZ protest camp in Cal Anderson Park, but she was tired and dealing with the trauma of her recent life. She thought the man she met in Chicago would help her, but he manipulated and abused her.
It was while she was staying in the encampment that she met a woman who offered to help her with her art. The woman quickly noticed Angelica’s suffering mental health and brought her to the hospital, where she was promptly put on suicide watch.
“I’m going to keep fighting… I just want to live.”
As she recovered, Angelica bounced around between different shelters—and eventually found her way to REST’s Emergency Receiving Center Shelter, after a friend recommended it. She called over and over again until a bed was available.
Angelica stayed at the shelter for a few months and then moved into her own place.
““Home is wherever you’re happy. Because no one was helping me, or listening to me, and you guys gave me a home and someplace safe to stay, and I felt lonely, and you know... I know I’m not alone here.””
She takes life one day at a time now. She has housing but is working on finding a better and safer place to live. Her mental health is improving, but the scars and trauma still remain. Through all of it, she moves forward.
She continues to work on her art—including the pieces you see here with her story—and she dreams of one day having a safe and stable home, a family, and someone loving and kind to share it all with.
Along her journey toward safety and healing, Angelica has met many people who have encouraged her, and see the best in her, and when she thinks about the future, she knows what she wants:
““I want to see myself how everyone else sees me. I just want a home and feel safe there. I want to have food when I want to eat and feel nurtured and loved. Everyone says they see something good in me… so I’m just trying to do my best.””
Angelica decided to provide a few samples of her art, in lieu of a photo, illustration, or self-portrait to represent herself alongside her story.