KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When Noel Anaya was just a year old, he and his siblings were placed in the California foster care system. He has spent his life in foster care. He just turned 21, and in California, that's the age when young people exit the system and lose its support. It's made official at a court hearing. Anaya, along with Youth Radio, got rare permission to record the proceedings.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN EBERT: Are you guys ready? Or do you need more time?
NOEL ANAYA: We're ready.
EBERT: You're ready? OK.
ANAYA: We're ready. It's...
EBERT: Come on in.
ANAYA: Let's rock and roll.
MCEVERS: In court, Anaya read a letter he wrote about his experience in the foster care system. Here's his story.
ANAYA: Walking into court for my very last time as a foster youth, I feel like I'm getting a divorce from a system that I've been in a relationship with almost my entire life. It's bittersweet because I'm losing guaranteed money for food and housing as well as access to my social workers and lawyer.
But on the other hand, I'm relieved to finally get away from a system that ultimately failed me on its biggest promise - that one day it would find me a family who would love me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHAWNA SCHWARZ: Good afternoon. Let's go on the record. This is line six, the matter of Noel Anaya.
ANAYA: Noel.
SCHWARZ: Noel Anaya. Thank you.
ANAYA: You guys have been saying it wrong for 21 years.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHWARZ: You know what, everybody pronounces it differently.
ANAYA: Forgiven.
SCHWARZ: So thank you, though. I'm glad to know it's Noel.
ANAYA: Little things, like when my judge, Shawna Schwarz, mispronounces my name, serve as a constant reminder that, hey, I'm just a number. I often come away feeling powerless and anonymous in the foster care system.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHWARZ: Well, I'm reviewing my notes, and it looks like the first time I got involved in your case was back in 2003. You've been in the system a long time.
ANAYA: I don't have any pictures of my five siblings and me together as babies - not a single one, which makes Throwback Thursdays a little challenging. My biological parents weren't ready to be parents. My father was abusive. Eventually, Child Protective Services got involved, and my siblings and I went into the foster care system.
We were separated and shuffled between foster homes, group homes and shelters and, for at least one of my siblings, incarceration. That's why it was really important to me to make a statement in court, going on the record about how the foster care system failed my siblings and me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHWARZ: I have to say. You have been pretty much one of our more successful young adults. Is there any advice you'd give us?
ANAYA: To whom it may concern, this is the year that I divorce you. Your gray hands can no longer hurt me. Your gray hands can no longer overpower me. Your gray hands can never tell me that you love me because it's too late.
I use gray hands to describe the foster care system because it never felt warm or human. It's institutional, opposite the sort of unconditional love I imagine that parents try to show their kids.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: Your gray hands just taught me how to survive in a world. We never learned how to love ourselves unconditionally. I've been with multiple foster families. I've been with multiple shelters. How does a person like me not end up with a family?
In an ideal world, being a foster kid is supposed to be temporary. When it's stable and appropriate, the preference is to reunite kids with their parents or family members. Adoption is the next best option. I used to dream of it - having a mom, a dad, siblings to play with, a dog. But when I hit 12, I realized that I was getting old, that adoption would probably never happen for me.
In the system, I constantly had new social workers, lawyers and case managers, which left me vulnerable. It wasn't until I got older that I realized one of the main causes for the turnover was because of low wages and overflowing caseloads. My own lawyer says he's currently juggling 130 other clients.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: At 21, you happily kick us off to the curb and say, good luck. I wish you well. I wish you the best, but you can't come back because we can't take you in. I've seen too many of my people give up on the educational system.
I had hoped to finish college by the time I aged out of foster care, but I'm still in my junior year. I'm committed to getting my bachelor's, despite the odds being terrible.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: I hope that you hear my words, and I hope that you listen to my signal of distress. I thank you for giving me closure. Thank you.
SCHWARZ: All right, well, thank you very much for being willing to share your feelings and your beliefs with us. So you know, I know you have some - sounds like some mixed feelings about the foster care system, but, Noel, I have no doubt that you are going to be successful in whatever you choose to do. Well, let me say the magic words. I will adopt the findings and the orders on the...
ANAYA: As the judge reads her final orders closing out my case, I promise myself that I'll leave all the rage I feel about the foster care system inside the courtroom, that I won't carry that hate and frustration with me for the rest of my life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHWARZ: ...That the dependency case will be dismissed. There will be no further reviews. All right, thanks. Let's go off the record.
ANAYA: There's one more thing I need before I leave the courtroom - for the judge to bring the gavel down on this chapter of my life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANAYA: Is that it? No hammer? Or no...
SCHWARZ: Yeah. You want me to do the gavel?
ANAYA: One time, please.
SCHWARZ: All right, I'll do the gavel. Hold on.
ANAYA: All right.
SCHWARZ: You know, we never do that in real life.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's not real life, no.
(SOUNDBITE OF GAVEL STRIKE)
ANAYA: I felt goosebumps when the gavel slapped down on my judge's desk, happy because I'm no longer cared for by a system that was never that good at actually caring for me. And I'm anxious, too, about what my life might be like next.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHWARZ: Take care.
ANAYA: You, too. I'm glad I was able to come.
SCHWARZ: All right, you, too.
ANAYA: For NPR News, I'm Noel Anaya.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY SONG, "OUR LAST DAYS AS CHILDREN")
MCEVERS: That story was produced by Youth Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY SONG, "OUR LAST DAYS AS CHILDREN")