Music gets her through the tough times
On a Wednesday afternoon, Amy Cardenas cradled the telephone on her shoulder, chatting with a friend while adjusting the volume on a boombox until the bass reverberated through her family’s tiny apartment. As a sixth-grader, Amy was voted Loudest and Friendliest in her class, and she has lived up to both titles.
Ever since she was a little girl, Amy has enjoyed being in the spotlight.
Her father played guitar in a band that played Spanish music at clubs and parties, and Amy was often called up to the stage by her father to sing. But Amy’s father left when she was 8, and he has been in and out of prison on drug-related charges.
“Ever since then, I lost my partner,” Amy said. “He’s my dad and all that, but I don’t trust him. It hurts to say it, but that’s how much he let me down. I looked up to him a lot.”
Since then, Amy’s mother, Alicia Lopez, has struggled to support Amy and her brother Daniel, 6, by cleaning houses and even renting out the only bedroom in their Pasadena apartment, which sits over a garage, to another couple. The family sleeps in the living room, with Amy and her mother on the fold-out couch and Daniel in his sleeping bag on the floor.
“It gets hard sometimes,” Amy said. “When I have problems at home, I go to school and think about them and it’s hard to concentrate.”
Amy hopes to make it as a hip-hop dancer, singer and actress and watches music videos on MTV by Ciara and Alicia Keys to imitate the choreography because she can’t afford dance lessons.
For the last two summers, Amy has escaped her tough home life by going to camp in Forest Falls through Pasadena’s Lake Avenue Community Foundation. There she saw snow for the first time, and her friends taught her how to swim. She recalls fondly the bacon at breakfast and, of course, the talent shows and karaoke. But she found more than entertainment.
“The first time I went, they gave us alone time, and I went to a big rock and sat there thinking,” Amy said. “At that moment, I felt something warm in my heart.”
Despite the reprieve from living in such close quarters with both of her children, Lopez said that it’s tough for her to let Amy go for the week of camp.
“I miss all the noise -- the music, the phone,” Lopez said in Spanish. “I miss her and her brother fighting. It’s too quiet when she’s gone at camp.”
About 12,000 children will go to camp this summer, thanks to $2.1 million raised last year.
The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1.2 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.
Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make donations by credit card, go to latimes.com/summercamp.
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