Domingo shows off his Sisters tattoo

Twenty-two years ago Domingo’s wife divorced him after watching him go in and out of prison, recovery programs, and drunken driving accidents.  He tattooed over her name with the rough image of a grasshopper smoking a marijuana leaf, a symbol of his addiction.  “I traded her name for the drug. I traded everything.” The tattoo sits below a prison tattoo declaiming “Nasi para sufririr,” “Born to suffer,” an emblem of the child abuse he suffered as a boy, the loneliness of 20 years of homelessness, ten years of prison, and a poor education in the migrant communities of his native Laredo, Texas.

Seven months ago, Domingo got another tattoo: the Sisters Of The Road logo.  “I loved it so much when I found out about the Sisters symbol.  Mine is red, white and blue.  I love Sisters so much, I want to tell all my sisters that they’re not alone, they have a brother too.”

Domingo, a reliable barter worker at Sisters for over a year, was hired as a Dishwasher through our Work Force Development program in August 2006. His loyalty to Sisters is strong: upon being arrested for drugs last January, he says, he lobbied the judge to allow him to keep volunteering at Sisters: “The judge didn’t want me to cross Burnside Street [and get into trouble in Old Town Chinatown].  I said, ‘then I will break the law to come to Sisters.  Give me a chance, an opportunity to change, break through the cycle. I’m proving I can cost the State less money, and help someone else, and change.’ The judge said ok.”

The part-time wages he gets at Sisters supplements his social security without wearing him out (he has scars from two broken legs) and the free staff meals and extra food he takes home at the end of the day stretch his food stamps.  He’s eating better, can pay his rent and buy things he needs, and is happy his full health benefits at Sisters can help pay for his recovery programs and other medical care.  Best of all, he can be “near the street but not on the street.  I like to be with the community, to see the people where I came from, and help some of them.”

He’s learning about nonviolence, too, which he says helps him manage his “short flame,” a temper that helped him in prison and the streets but no longer serves him.  “The staff trainings we do teach us how to tell people [in the café] to respect the community and stop violence and cussing.  I haven’t had a chance to put the training into practice yet.  I’m looking forward to it, to see how my ‘short flame’ can take it!

“We can be violence-people, but if you use force, people will come back at you.  You can have machismo, but you will leave other things behind: your wife, community, respect.”

Last Halloween, at 58 years old, Domingo was excited to carve his first pumpkin for Sisters’ Hoedown event. He’s working hard to keep sober and maintain his new life.  “It’s like a dirty window – God cannot see you if you’re not clean.  Before, I quit to please the judge or my family.  Now I quit for myself.”