Friday, October 3, 2003
Memoir shines light on abused foster children
By Bobbi Booker
Tribune Staff Writer
In an era when stories of abandoned, neglected and abused children are daily front page news fodder, it is enlightening to read Regina Louise’s life story in “Somebody’s Someone: A Memoir” (Warner Books, $23.95).
Distinctive and arresting, Louise’s story offers a scalding look at the life of a child no one wanted – and the discovery of the love that for so long eluded her. From her initial flight to her eventual discovery of love, Louise answers some of society’s unspeakable questions as she recounts her childhood search for someone to feel connected to.
At birth, Regina Louise is deposited by her mother in a foster home, where she grows up under the constant specters of severe beatings and other harrowing abuses. At 10 years old, this extraordinary and resilient child strikes out on her own. Set adrift, she re-encounters her mother, who chooses the men in her life over her daughter’s safety, and is then foisted upon a father she has never known, who is at first indifferent and then emotionally abusive. In all, she wound up inhabiting over 30 foster and group homes in her painful quest to be loved.
This remarkable memoir shines the light on the plight of children with no parent to wake them up with a gentle kiss, to send them off to school with a packed lunch, to read them a bedtime story as they fall asleep. These are nobody's children who, due to their cruel circumstances, are rarely able to climb out of the shadows of society and are left to fend for themselves in an inhospitable world.
But while “Somebody's Someone” exposes the extreme trials these children endure, it is also a triumphant story of how one small girl makes it out alive. Today, Regina Louise has been the keynote speaker at numerous national foster care and social workers’ conventions. She is currently a hair stylist and owner of two hair salons in San Francisco.