LISA SALAZAR — BLOG

It’s been more than four years since I blogged. My last blog post was on September 22, 2018. I had just returned from my 50th High School Reunion in San Jose, CA, where my family emigrated to in 1960 from Colombia. After I graduated from Blackford High School, I attended San Jose State University and graduated with a BA in Graphic Design in 1972. A year later, I followed my two older siblings to Vancouver; and my parents and two younger siblings followed two years later. I only share this to give a context for what motivated that “last” blog post in 2018. While we lived in San Jose, I was sexually abused and also raped by two different men. The first was a paper route customer, and the second was an Argentinian in his early twenties attending San Jose State when he raped me. I was 12 and 15 years old, respectively. Should you care to read that blog post , I share how the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings triggered me.  On the Saturday of the reunion, I drove to the two apartmen...

Coincidental with my Class of 68’ 50th high school reunion, the reports of Republicans bullying Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who question her memory of the attempted rape by Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, has thrown me into a bit of depression. I’ve been triggered. I am here, in a motel room in San Jose, California, where my high school reunion is to take place in an hour. Earlier this afternoon, I drove to the two locations where I was sexually abused and raped. I  remember all the details. I may not know the name of my attackers, but my body and brain remember how it felt to be forced to masturbate a man who was one of my paper route customers. I was 12 years old. I resist the compulsion to wash my hands for, God only knows, the millionth time. Then there was the rape when I was 15 years old. Someone who purported to want to help me audition as a rhythm-guitar player in a garage band and had offered to drive me to a house in Willow Glen, a neighborhood in San J...