From One Statistic to Another: Against All Odds

In From One Statistic to Another, Valentina Journey shares the powerful lessons she learns growing up the fifth of six children born to an interracial couple. In her home, there is frequent violence between her parents; her alcoholic father leaves when Valentina is only seven. Valentina's mother doesn't explain anything to her children, nor does she have any contact with her own family. Before she is even a teenager, her brothers accidentally burn the house down and coerce their sister into selling and using drugs. By the time she is sixteen the author has given birth to a son and is on the road to independence. A second son arrives when she is twenty-one, a daughter when she is twenty-three and finally her youngest son when she is thirty. Tragedy continues to strike her family as her daughter is diagnosed with a serious blood disorder and Valentina loses two of her brothers within two years. Meanwhile, she manages to care for her children, advance in her career, and graduate from college.