Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty
Michelle Rodriguezis recalling a “very scary experience” from her childhood.
“I was about 6 years old, San Antonio, and I remember being ripped away from my mother and being put in the system. And that s— is scary, excuse my language,” theFast&Furiousactress said.
“It’s a very scary experience to lose your sense of home. I was lucky enough to be reunited with my family three years later, but I’ll never forget what it’s like to not feel like you belong,” Rodriguez continued.
“It’s a very powerful and dark place that you can fall into,” she added. “And love is something that’s so important for every human to experience in their life, and I’m just happy to be here to support such a cause because I think what you’re doing is great.”
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During Rodriguez’s speech, the actressshowed a trailer forthe 2019 Lifetime movieI Am Somebody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story, about the author’s real-life childhood in the foster care system and social worker Jeanne Kerr’s unsuccessful attempt to adopt Louise.
“They kept everything from her, even letters that [the would-be] adoptive mother wrote to her. I just don’t understand how people could be so mean,” Rodriguez said, before telling Louise, “Dude, you are a force.”
“We’re so proud to honor Regina tonight and for her long, brave struggle against all odds and finding her way to this, to a sense of home,” the actress said of the author. “We honor Regina for being an inspiring woman to defy the system that sought to break her.”
“I spent the beginning of my life in Texas, and then my parents got divorced and I went to the Dominican Republic, learned Spanish, forgot every word of English I knew, and then, when I was about 11, 12, we moved to Jersey City,” she said at the time. “Everywhere I go I’m an outsider.”
source: people.com
