{"product_id":"foster-care-odyssey-a-black-girls-story-hardcover","title":"Foster Care Odyssey: A Black Girl's Story - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eTheresa Cameron\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWithout signing the documents that would permit adoption, young Theresa Cameron's mother placed her little daughter under the aegis of Catholic Charities, and then the mother vanished forever.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring the 1960s and 1970s this abandoned, unadoptable child was shuttled through foster homes in the vicinity of Buffalo, N.Y. Insecure, desolate, and frightened, she was rotated through group homes and the houses of alien families, the victim of religious hypocrisy, racial prejudice, and insult.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheresa remained in this bleak, shame-imposing limbo until she was eighteen. \u003cem\u003eFoster Care Odyssey\u003c\/em\u003e is her candid story.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"What little I owned,\" she writes, \"could have fit inside my usual moving-day luggage--a couple of shopping bags. Besides my clothing, I only had a few school supplies. Like the other girls at the group home, I attached very little sentimental value to the items I owned. . . . The only thing of value that could not be taken away from me were my thoughts.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheresa places her narrative against the backdrop of the civil rights movement in blue-collar Buffalo, where mixed-race foster homes were almost unknown and where she witnessed a welfare system that accorded only marginal benevolence to children, particularly black children caught in the squeeze of bureaucratic machinery.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs she passed through her turbulent teenage years, she acquired both a strong will and a tough veneer to shield herself from the many hurts in a restrictive world infused with racism and institutional segregation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer coming-of-age narrative voices plainspoken criticism of the pernicious system which engulfed her and other helpless abandoned children.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheresa Cameron is an associate professor of planning in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Arizona State University. She has been published in the \u003cem\u003eJournal of Health and Social Policy\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePolicy Studies Journal\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eLandscape and Urban Planning\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCopublished with the Center for American Places\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn African American woman's unblinking look at her troubled years as an unwanted child in foster care\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 381\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.01 x 9.22 x 6.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 12, 2002\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42113853587591,"sku":"9781578064205","price":63.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/10bdea83a9964c7977c94d4943d881cd.webp?v=1732492955","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/foster-care-odyssey-a-black-girls-story-hardcover","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}