JJ85 Reveille said:

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Agoodlittleag04 said:

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You're not free to leave if you have no money, can't drive, don't speak the language, are in a country illegally, and apparently don't have a passport.

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Really? Would that stop you? It wouldn't stop me!

Don't get me wrong, I think slavers should be drug into the street, shot like a dog, and left for the buzzards. I just think you're missing what the real "chains" were.

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Well, I think that yes it would stop me. If my choice was between remaining in a familiar situation, with a roof over my head and food in my stomach, or living on the streets in a foreign country where I didn't speak the langauage and had no means to make my way home. It's ****ty either way, but at least by staying she knew that she would survive, which wasn't guaranteed if she ran off.

Being trapped in a bad situation due to poverty, ignorance and/or fear is awful, but calling it slavery is marginal and diminishes the word for real institutional slavery.

What a hard working immigrant!

/Ben Carson

Swarely said:

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Quote:

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Her name was Eudocia Tomas Pulido. We called her Lola. She was 4 foot 11, with mocha-brown skin and almond eyes that I can still see looking into minemy first memory. She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her to my mother as a gift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn't kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I'd spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/

I would really suggest reading the whole article. It's just so crazy that this happened.

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That's an awesome read. Thanks for posting.

Fascinating read. And very sobering as well.

Thanks for posting. Stuff like that really helps put things in perspective.

Wow...read before going to bed...

1. Grandad was crazy...
2. Mom was crazy...
3. He now is left to take care of her and does a kind job...

That was a fascinating and sad article.

He never said what became of his dad after he left the family. Did I miss that?

Very powerful article. I'm glad i read it.

Tragic situation.

Proof as to why we need to be very strict on illegal immigration, especially - visa overstayers.

Fascinating article. I thought maybe the mom who didn't want her initially, would have released her when they moved to the States. But, sounds like she had slid too far down the slope by then to change.

Glad the son tried to make her last 12 years a little more bearable.

HollywoodBQ said:

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Tragic situation.

Proof as to why we need to be very strict on illegal immigration, especially - visa overstayers.

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I guess that's one takeaway, but in the article it was Regan's amnesty program that let her 'come out of the shadows'.

She'd already been in the US illegally for at least 15-20 years by then. The longer we let them stay illegally, the more tragic the story becomes. Gotta round em up fast.

eeinhouston said:

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Being trapped in a bad situation due to poverty, ignorance and/or fear is awful, but calling it slavery is marginal and diminishes the word for real institutional slavery.

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Yes, because you know the circumstances of her position better than the author.

TxElsie said:

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eeinhouston said:

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Being trapped in a bad situation due to poverty, ignorance and/or fear is awful, but calling it slavery is marginal and diminishes the word for real institutional slavery.

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Yes, because you know the circumstances of her position better than the author.

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I know what the article says. If there was something more extreme going in that situation than what was written by the one who claims to have intimate knowledge of the situation, then that failure is on the author of the article.

beautiful story and may he RIP.

[Quoting inappropriate posts also results in a ban. -Staff]

I guess they called it that back in the day.

Pretty early in the day to be wasted, son.

early bird gets the worm!

Some interesting follow-up articles as a result of this piece.

First up is Lola's orginal Obituary from the Seattle Times by Susan Kelleher which was based on draft by Tizon (author of the current Atlantic piece) and a follow-on interview.

'Lola' Pulido lived life of devotion to family

And now Ms. Kelleher's follow-up after reading the true story Tizon has written years later:

Why the obituary for Eudocia Tomas Pulido didn't tell the story of her life in slavery

And finally, another piece from the Atlantic by Vann Newkirk that tries to reconcile the 'real' story and the obit based on Tizon's own writing and interview.

The Enslaved Woman They Called Lola

And then finally, reader's comments and stories:

Survivors Respond to 'My Family's Slave'

Quote:

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Over the past week, more than 8 million people have read The Atlantic's latest cover story, "My Family's Slave," by the writer Alex Tizon. As many of you know, Alex died as we were preparing this story for publication. He didn't know that we were putting his story on the cover. I hope Alex would have been pleased by this, and I hope he would have been pleased to know that "My Family's Slave" has become one of the most read stories in the history of our magazine.
-Jeffery Goldberg, Editor

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Fascinating/heartbreaking read.