Nothing but the Hollywood version of America filled Levia Hartman’s mind as a child of “9-ish,” when she arrived in Colorado Springs from the West African nation of Liberia.
Visions of opportunities galore, glitziness everywhere and days like Disneyland danced in her head.
But the American dream can be rife with the bad along with the good, Hartman was to discover and reveal in her journal, which she’s published as a book, “Crown Up: From Immigrant to American Dream.”
“I’m telling my story to bring light to former and current foster kids, to bring support to parents and kids who are struggling,” Hartman said.
Originally debuting in 2020, the book has been revised this year for a second edition and is available on Amazon.
The title is based on the childhood desire to be queen or princess and stand tall and proud — thus having one’s crown always point upward and be prepared for anything.
“It’s your identity,” she said. “I just love that idea.”
Hartman and her mother journeyed here in 2005, following a destructive, bitter civil war that ended in 2003 in her homeland.
“We were trying to escape poverty and oppression and build a better life,” she said.
The mother and daughter did not know anyone in the Pikes Peak region, nor were they able to choose where they would make their new home; a nonprofit agency that rescues and transports refugees selected Colorado Springs.
Living in the United States was exciting at first, as things were working out, and Hartman often sought refuge in her room to journal about her new experiences.
Raw, honest and emotional details emerge as her life did not unfold like a glamorous movie. A few years after immigrating, Hartman’s mother developed a mental illness and could no longer care for her young child.
She eventually moved back to Africa, leaving her daughter behind in a foreign country with limited English communication skills and a level of homesickness she didn’t think was possible.
“Missing my family back home was the hardest thing,” Hartman said.
Levia Hartman poses for a portrait last week near the water in Fountain Creek Regional Park. Hartman and her mother moved here in 2005 when she was “9-ish,” after a destructive, bitter civil war in Liberia, West Africa. She published a book in 2020 about her experiences, “Crown Up: From Immigrant to American Dream.” She said the local park reminds her of Africa.
Parker Seibold, The Gazette
In the tender preteen years, Hartman entered the child welfare system and was paraded from foster home to foster home.
“Being an immigrant, that’s a negative. Being a foster kid, that’s another negative,” she said. “People are like, ‘You must have been a bad kid.’ I went into foster homes because of certain situations” — not behavior.
The stigma overshadowed her positive, joyful nature, and she found it difficult to connect and build a relationship with the various foster families.
The culture was different. The food was different; no more of her favorite fufu vegetable dish or fish-and-peanut-butter soup. American clothing was not as bright and flowing. Hartman’s accent seemed unusual, with her first language being Krahn.
“People look at me like ‘Whoa — why do you dress like that?’”
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Depression set in, she became the target of a sexual predator, and she had thoughts of suicide — all of which sadly are not uncommon for foster children, said Brian Newsome, executive director of Fostering Hope. The Colorado Springs nonprofit provides guidance, companionship and assistance to foster families and foster children, including Hartman.
“It was like being thrown into a jungle,” Hartman said. “I’m always in survival mode. I don’t trust relationships with people.”
That remains the case for many foster children today, as she discusses in her memoir.
“Some of the kids need a mentor, they’re struggling; some can trust and learn to thrive,” Hartman said.
From her years spent in foster care and now as a volunteer with Fostering Hope, Hartman is an anomaly. Nationally, studies show that children in foster care who age out of the system at 18 to 21 years old are more likely to end up in prison than earn a high school diploma. Three of 4 young women who have been in foster care become pregnant by age 21.
And just 3% to 4% earn a college degree by age 24, according to the National Foster Youth Institute.
That’s a class Hartman is proud to be in.
With financing assistance from Fostering Hope, she earned a degree from Pikes Peak State College and now, in her early 30s, she works remotely as a customer service representative for an insurance company. And she’s married to the love of her life, Kyle, an information technology specialist.
The hardships and barriers Hartman endured were significant, Newsome said.
“She’s overcome a lot and done so really successfully,” he said. “You go through the kind of adversity that many of these young adults go through, and you could hang onto that in a negative, bitter way, but Levia has used it for good and is very determined to use these experiences to build up others.”
In fact, Hartman is the first Fostering Hope client since its founding in 2006 to have bought her own home, Newsome said.
“It was a milestone we were all excited about and celebrated,” he said, adding that the agency continues to help her navigate issues related to home ownership.
Hartman hopes the words and wisdom in her book — the writing of which helped her inner wounds heal — also help others to better traverse life’s struggles with perseverance and hope.
Hartman became a naturalized citizen in 2020, in what she describes as a nerve-wracking yet exciting process. Today, she’s assimilated and proud to an all-American woman who has her sights set on accomplishing much more.
“This is my home,” she said. “I’m changing lives one story at a time, is my motto.”
She encourages other immigrants to seek legalization as soon they can because she said it leads to true freedom and more opportunities to realize the American dream.
She also hopes that people treat immigrants with respect and kindness, as “We are all people. We all want love.”
Hartman frequently thinks about visiting Africa, but said she has to save up money to travel there.
“She’s a real success story,” Newsome said. “When you look at the national statistics for kids who age out of foster care, the fact that she’s married, written a book, bought her own home and is doing so well — that’s a rare experience.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-16 10:15:00
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