He was not allowed much of a childhood, lacking the freedom to move freely and play with other children. In fact, he was separated from his mother when he was just an infant. Douglass declared that he hardly knew her, remembering only four or five encounters with her in his life. Likewise, growing up on the plantation farms accorded Douglass very little positive guidance, recalling very few memories of family when he was growing up. Despite these harsh conditions and lack of structure, Douglass established his identity through his firm opposition to slavery and was genuinely outraged regarding why human beings treated others in such an unpleasant manner.
Jimmy Baca was also separated from his family, but for different reasons. His alcoholic father was arrested and in jail for drunk driving. His mother entered into a relationship with a wealthy white man that demeaned her hispanic culture and background. Baca's parents abandoned him when he was young and he lived in Estancia for some period of time before being separated from his siblings. Baca later lived in and out of orphanages and detention centers. Baca remembered "the screams of my father and my drunken uncles, the tight-lipped scolding of my mother, the shrill reprimands of the nuns at St. Anthony's orphanage, the finger-pointing adults who told me I didn't belong, I didn't fit in, I was a deviant" (Baca 4). Seeking a better path, he ran away and bounced around southwest United States. Years later, he was charged with possession and intent to distribute drugs and sentenced to six years in a maximum-security prison in Florence, Arizona. The prison guards hit and mistreated him and his fellow inmates tried to kill and rape him. Later, he reflected on his conditions and stated, "In the end, as always a cell is the only place they have for kids without families" (Baca 174). This powerful statement speaks to Baca's bleak outlook on the world while in jail.
