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My mom always had this dream of moving to Europe and one day she met a man who could help her wish come true. He told my mom that he would help us move to The Netherlands. So on 19/04/2006, we arrived in The Netherlands and the very first day he started threatening us. The man who told us before in Cape Verde that It would be no problem moving to The Netherlands started threatening us and being aggressive towards us. This was the first time I experienced betrayal. In school, I had a lot of trouble focusing and I felt afraid something was going to happen to me and my mom. He started hitting my mom and told us that if we did not obey him, he would send us back to Cape Verde. . My mom used to have shifts till 3 am, so I had to stay up till 3 am to make sure my mom could enter the house. I would spend the nights reading Donald Duck comics. When my mom and I left the house at the same time, he would lock the door. Sometimes we had to sleep outside or wait till 7 pm till he left for work, so we could enter the house. From that moment on it was survival.
I learned dutch as quickly as possible, so I could help my mom get out of the situation and get the documents to stay. I had to see my mom cry every day, so I promised myself I would do everything to help her get out of that situation. Eventually, we met someone who wanted to help us and actually managed to help us get out of that place.
We moved to a homeless center, where I would stay for months. The events kept haunting me and I felt like I could trust no one.

"Policia" is a research that is part of my immigration art project that is called "Home: Leaving One For Another". In "Policia" I talk about how the transition from my home country to The Netherlands in the form of pictures and documents. And how caused a lot of trouble for me as a child and even now as an adult. From the inability to emotionally connect with people to a lot of aggression.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands 19/04/2006

Rotterdam, The Netherlands
First time at the fair

At the homeless center, we managed to find a little bit of stability in The Netherlands. I mean a lot was still being taken care of, but at least we felt safe for a little bit. We would sit with other people at 6 pm to have dinner. And my mom and I had our own room. It was a hard time at school for me. I never talked about my situation and kept a lot to myself. This caused me to fight a lot at school and I became very aggressive. Explaining my situation to my friends was very difficult because I didn't want them to know what I was going through. I was always acting tough and acting like there was nothing going on.

My mom and I had a time slot we were allowed to go outside at the homeless center.

Police research document

We would spend our time slot at the homeless center taking pictures.

A letter from my mom's sister she sent from Cape Verde. In the letter, she explains how the situation in Cape Verde is not good.

document from school about how my home situation affected me

I struggle a lot processing things that happened in the past. I feel like everything that happened shaped me to be the person I am today. And sometimes I do not know if it necessarily a good thing. I feel the past created a gap between me and the people I love. I have always struggled with expressing my feelings to my loved ones. I have destroyed a lot of relationships because of this and I have never been able to truly create a bond with someone. I never understood why, but the thing I told I always told myself whenever I was not able to keep a connection with someone is that I am too different. I felt like I did not function as a proper person and would tell myself a lot of bad things. Instead of trying to understand myself I simply ran from reality and created my own world in my head where I was safe. Nobody could touch me there because it was my world. In my world, I felt like a proper person. This caused me to disconnect even more with my loved ones. In this document "Policia" I hope to reconnect to my younger self by researching what happened.

After we managed to get out of the homeless center, we met someone else who told us that he would help us a lot. This man would eventually become my little brother’s dad. He kept telling my mom that we could trust him. So, we did trust him, and eventually, we moved to his house and stayed there for a little bit. The same thing happened again. He started threatening me as a child and told me that he would beat me up if did not listen or obey his rules. I felt great hatred towards him and became aggressive if he threatened me. I felt like I could trust nobody and that everyone would eventually turn against me or my mom. After a while, my mom managed to find a house and he told my mom that he would help pay the rent if she allowed him to move with us. He never paid anything and lied to my mom. He just wanted a free living. I told him I would not accept it and would beat him up. He told me that I was just a young boy (9 years old) and that I did not understand anything. After my mom got pregnant, he told us that he hated pregnant woman and left my mom. After that, he never took care of my little brother.

My mom worked a lot to take care of us, so I would take care of my little brother.

At 10 years old after my little brother was born, I felt like everyone was trying to drag us down. At school, I was always fighting to express my anger. The moment someone tried to bring me down, I would fight and get myself in trouble. I never told anyone about my situation at home, so it was something that weighed heavily on my conscience. My mom always told me to be strong and that everything would be alright because if I were sad, she would become sad too. So, I would always act strong in front of everyone and keep everything inside me. My mom did the same. Even if she were sad, she would act like everything was alright so we could keep moving forward. I would help my mom and protect her against everyone who tried to harm us. I told my mom to not trust anyone because I felt like everyone was the same. I took care of my little brother when my mom was not at home and I would take him to day-care every morning before school at 8 am (school started at 8:30 am). At that age, I felt responsible for my little brother to have a future where he wouldn't feel the absence of his father like I did.

my mom and I in Cape Verde

This card was the only way i could remember my dad as a child

As a kid, I felt the absence of my dad a lot. After all the events I went through, I never received any call from him to ask me how I was doing. I would wait for a call every year on my birthday, but he never called. I grew up asking my mom what kind of man he was and wonder if we were alike. All I knew is that we shared the same name "Gabriel Freitas". Growing up I had no father figure and there was no one showing me how to be a man. I had to figure it all by myself and make my own definition of a man. There was no one guiding me around telling me how to express my emotions and feelings properly as a man. And with the continuous domestic violence, it only caused me to express my emotions and feelings in anger.