The Courts Took Her from Her Mother, But One Social Worker Made a Difference

From the live stage in Detroit to earbuds everywhere, WDET presents Season 3 of the Twisted Storytellers Podcast. The podcast features a diverse cast of Detroit area storytellers who perform live to sold-out audiences. This season explores the real-life challenges face by immigrants and reminds us all what it means to live in a modern day melting pot.

Jane Garcia was born of a Mexican immigrant mother who had to work two jobs to support the family, running a boarding house during the day and working at a bar at night. Her mother was also illiterate — which the court system used as a pretext to remove Garcia and her brother from their home. 

“It was ‘not fit’ to be in a house like that,” Garcia says. “When you’re young and you don’t know any better you think, ‘Hey that’s okay.’ My poor mother had that stigma of an unfit mother. She lived with that for many, many years.”

When Garcia and her brother were in the foster care system, they were assigned a social worker that eventually made all the difference.

“She was my savior,” Garcia says. She was somebody that would say, ‘You can do it Ms. Jane, you just have to concentrate. You just have to remember to listen.’”

Not only did the social worker care for the kids, she advised Garcia’s mother through the process and facilitated a relationship despite the court-ordered separation.

In Ep. 4 of the third season of WDET’s “Twisted Storytellers,” Garcia, the daughter of an illiterate Tejana, tells her story about navigating life through the foster care system with the help of a social worker.

Click on the player above to hear Jane Garcia tell her story about growing up in the foster care system.

Season 3 of “Twisted Storytellers” is now available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify and wherever podcasts are available.