Mother of five children born from three different fathers, none of whom was her husband (her only marriage lasted only two years and she had no child from it), Cynthia Rogers feels to suffer her life. "When you're little girl, you don't think you will live thanks to allocations [a budget of 1343 dollars a month, because of the disability of her second son autistic]. But to raise my children, I had to use it. "



Born in Hawaii in 1965, Cynthia seems to have suffered from the attention her older sister had because she was suffering from a heart problem, from the death of her mother from an autoimmune disease (systemic lupus erythematosus) when she was nine years old and from the parental authority given to her stepmother. "She was abusing it. When she were punishing us, she wanted to be sure we were suffering."



PORT ARTHUR « GHETTO »



Daughter of a soldier and a teacher, she loved growing up in different regions from California to Rhode Island through Arizona and Pennsylvania. "Here in Port Arthur [near Louisiana], Whites live with Whites and Blacks with Blacks. I would like my children to live in a different environment. But as we live in Port Arthur [black 40% against 12% in the state], I can not send them to a school more diverse in Nederland ", the neighboring town, where live most of the employees of the refinery industrial city of 54 000 inhabitants.



After having abandoned studies commenced at the local university (Lamar), Cynthia has not been able to extract herself from this city regularly ravaged by hurricanes where the poverty rate is 24% (against less than 17% for the state).



"I met the father of Justin, 24, and Catherine, 23 years old, while I was still living with my father. He smoked crack and beat me, but the police did nothing against him, even after he broke all the windows in the apartment that I took to get away from him. I was finally at peace when the police arrested him for drug trafficking after I have indicated them the place and time where they could take him in the act," says the forties by recalling memories buried in her memory.



Since this time, this man tried to kill one of his new companions and set fire to the apartment of his stepmother according to Cynthia. But he has never laid a hand again on her. "When he was released from prison, it was a different person." As his eldest son, who "became very hard" after spending five years behind bars for having participated in a armed robbery when he was 17 years old.



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REDUCED EXPECTATIONS



As for Catherine, she is already the mother of two children she raises alone in a housing with family allowances. "In the neighborhood, I think there are only some fathers who live with their families," said Cynthia, who admits to be helpless to protect Josef, 12, and Kendra, 11 years of bad meetings. "There may be neighborhood associations with programs for young people, but I do not know them."



It is perhaps for this reason (and because Josef is autistic) that Cynthia prefers to let her youngest son, Dakoran, at the charge of his father. She has never lived with him, nor with the father of Joseph and Kendra. These children arrived by "lack of foresight".



"I wish they would have a better life than mine, that they go to university. 

But I do not think they will learn from my mistakes."



Cynthia believes to the ability of individuals to change their lives. After all, the United States did elect a black president in 2008 while she was thinking she would not see that in her lifetime! And then today, after the cleaning, laundry and cooking done, she has only left the TV for entertainment and despite her subscription to cable, she is "bored." So Cynthia hopes to have a work soon, why not in refinery if she gots a job, "despite the explosions we hear regularly, because these jobs pay well."

















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Interview in English