How I Made It: From Foster Kid to Judge

Latino USA

My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2020

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When she was nine years-old, Xiomara Torres fled the civil war in her home country of El Salvador and came to the U.S. As a child she adjusted to her new life in East Los Angeles before she was removed from her family and put into foster care—where she spent six years of her life moving from home to home. Now, she's the subject of a local play in Oregon titled, "Judge Torres." In this edition of “How I Made It,” Judge Torres shares how she overcame the hurdles of the foster system and made her way to the Oregon Circuit Court.

This story originally aired in March of 2019.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast comes from WISE, the account that lets you spend and receive money internationally.
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0:44.0	But I think in the back of my mind really I was more focused on where I was going to live and where I was going to do once I turned 18 and aged out.
0:52.0	So I actually saw college more as a way of secure housing for myself than anything else.
1:03.0	From Futuro Media, it's Latino USA, I'm Mariano Jose.
1:07.0	Today we hear about a journey from being a foster kid to becoming Judge Doris.
1:14.0	In the early 1980s, a Civil War in El Salvador was ravaging the country.
1:25.0	Fearing for their lives, Siumara Torres and her family fled.
1:29.0	In the United States, her family settled in East Los Angeles.
1:33.0	But at the age of 13, Siumara found herself in the foster care system.
1:38.0	She never lived with her parents again.
1:42.0	Siumara put herself through college and law school.
1:45.0	She specialized in family law and in 2017, she was officially appointed Circuit Court Judge of Portland, Oregon.
1:54.0	So for this episode of How I Made It, Siumara Torres reflects on growing up in foster care homes and her journey to becoming a Judge.
2:05.0	My name is Siumara Torres. I am a Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge in Portland, Oregon.
2:11.0	My calling really was representing children in court.
2:15.0	So it seemed to somehow made my way back to that original purpose.
2:24.0	In my childhood, I grew up in this town called Paraiso.
	...

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