{"id":282497,"date":"2017-02-04T13:24:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-04T20:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=282497"},"modified":"2017-02-06T20:18:34","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T03:18:34","slug":"single-mom-in-las-cruces-turns-tragedy-into-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/single-mom-in-las-cruces-turns-tragedy-into-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Single mom in Las Cruces turns tragedy into comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_282743\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-282743\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-1-771x686.jpg\" alt=\"Sarah Stevens\" width=\"771\" height=\"686\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-1-771x686.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-1-336x299.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-1-768x684.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-1-1170x1042.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comedian Sarah Stevens is shown here posing for a photo on Jan. 28. Her stage name is Sarah Q. and her comedy centers on her life experiences. She says most\u00a0of her skits are based on actual events. She insists she does not need to exaggerate to make them funny.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Sarah Stevens prowls the stage. The angled lights from the ceiling illuminate the words on her pinkish-white shirt: My body is a gangster\u2019s paradise.<\/p>\n<p>Both the father of her two daughters and her ex-husband ended up in prison. Now they also end up in Sarah\u2019s comedy routines.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy kids\u2019 dad is doing 25-to-life in a Texas state prison,\u201d she said at a 2016 gig at the Fountain Theatre in Old Mesilla. \u201cIt gets better: He\u2019s doing this time because he shot his neighbor eight times \u2026 the guy lived.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah\u2019s been through a lot in her 40 years. She works three jobs and lives paycheck-to-paycheck. She owes $48,000 for a 2015 appendix surgery because she lost her health insurance a week before the procedure. She smokes. She\u2019s an emotional eater.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah talks about that onstage, saying she gets off-handed compliments, \u201c\u2019Like, \u2018You\u2019re really pretty for a fat chick.\u2019\u201d She jokes that her backup plan is becoming a phone-sex operator. She jokes about politics, though she\u2019s actually quite concerned about the nation\u2019s political climate.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah\u2019s daughters are half black. She\u2019s worried about the United States replacing its first half-black president with one she believes is normalizing racism. Sarah has intentionally moved away from her Republican upbringing and is frustrated that one of her daughters identifies as conservative today.<\/p>\n<p>But Sarah can roll with all of that. Now that Donald Trump is president, she says she won\u2019t run short of material for the next four years.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XasjDev3iHc\" width=\"771\" height=\"434\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Taking control<\/h3>\n<p>Sarah used to be angry and bitter. She thought of herself as a victim. She struggled through the death of her father when she was 15, rocky relationships with men, and losing her scholarship to New Mexico State University in her early 20s, which forced her to take time off from college.<\/p>\n<p>When Sarah went back to school, she had two babies and needed welfare to survive. She wanted to become a lawyer but it didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI used to think, \u2018I did what I was supposed to do. It\u2019s other people who didn\u2019t come through,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Single mothers face complex challenges. More than 80 percent of the nation\u2019s 12 million single parents are mothers, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.census.gov\/hhes\/families\/data\/cps2011.html\" target=\"_blank\">2012 report<\/a> from the U.S. Census Bureau. Single mothers and their children are more likely to live in poverty \u2013 women in the United States make about 20 percent less than men for the same work \u2013 and the fathers of these children are more likely to be in prison, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/wonk\/wp\/2014\/12\/18\/the-unbelievable-rise-of-single-motherhood-in-america-over-the-last-50-years\/?utm_term=.09fa9f10722f\" target=\"_blank\">2014 study<\/a> by Princeton&#8217;s Sara McLanahan and Harvard&#8217;s Christopher Jencks.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And 72 percent of black children are born to unmarried mothers, higher than any other ethnicity, McLanahan and Jencks found. Prisons in the United States are disproportionately filled with black men &#8212; like the father of 19-year-old Raven and 16-year-old Quinlan \u201cQuinnie,\u201d Sarah\u2019s daughters.<\/p>\n<p>Raven and Quinnie identify as half black. Sarah cried while watching Barack Obama take the oath to become president in 2008. His election, she said, let her say to her daughters, \u201cLook, he came from a very similar background to you and he grew up to be president of the United States. And so it\u2019s not out of your reach, it\u2019s not unattainable for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s election, she believes, sent an opposite message: it\u2019s OK to be racist.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah had Republican parents. She attributes her Democrat leanings to the eye-opening experience of being cared for as a child, while her mom was at work, by a black woman and her family, whom she called her \u201csurrogate family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps Sarah\u2019s experiences at a young age \u2013 a troubled relationship with her father, being raised in multiple households where people held different ideologies and had different skin colors \u2013 helped set Sarah on a path of frustration, anger, rebellion, and feeling like a victim.<\/p>\n<p>Five years ago, at age 35, Sarah decided she wasn\u2019t going to live that way anymore. She was already in therapy but began more boldly exploring her anger toward her father and God, her relationships with men. And two years ago she started turning a lifetime of joke-telling into an outlet by releasing her emotions as a standup comedian.<\/p>\n<p>Her transformation is a work in progress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always tried to turn chicken shit into chicken salad,\u201d Sarah said about past relationships. She says she\u2019s been trying her entire life \u201cto take something broken and make it whole \u2013 not myself, somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe could talk like this for hours,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cBut you wanna hit the point that caused all this shit? No, we can\u2019t talk about that. That\u2019s the deep hidden thing that I don\u2019t want to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_282745\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-282745\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-771x753.jpg\" alt=\"Sarah Stevens\" width=\"771\" height=\"753\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-771x753.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-336x328.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-768x750.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-60x60.jpg 60w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-1170x1143.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-32x32.jpg 32w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-3-64x64.jpg 64w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah walks the steps of the Pan American Center on Jan. 16. &#8220;I get up and I go walking. I have small goals that I set for myself,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I want to be able to jog a mile by Valentines Day.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Not like her father<\/h3>\n<p>Sarah\u2019s father, Dennis Stevens, is part of the story. He \u201cwasn\u2019t a very nice person,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cI don\u2019t think my dad ever knew how to love anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her parents divorced when Sarah was a baby. She described their relationship as dysfunctional and her father as \u201cwishy-washy.\u201d She lived with him during weekends, Christmas breaks and summers.<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t realize her father battled his own demons until after he died. So she never asked about them. It wasn\u2019t important when she had the chance. Now she wishes she had.<\/p>\n<p>Dennis had many professions \u2013 administrative assistant at the Bernalillo County Assessor\u2019s Office, political consultant for Republican candidates, advertising and marketing professional, executive at banks in Albuquerque and Las Cruces. He even taught calculus at the University of New Mexico, Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe constantly had to be challenged,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cOnce he felt like he had mastered something, he\u2019d think he had to go master something different. And every time he did it, I think he was looking for some sort of fulfillment that he never found.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked in politics. Sarah\u2019s father was executive director and chairman of the state Republican Party in the early 1970s. And in 1982, Dennis ran unsuccessfully for the state House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah remembers her dad being \u201ctwo-faced\u201d in the political realm: talking to people in a kind way but speaking disparagingly about them in private.<\/p>\n<p>Dennis had a son from a previous relationship. Sarah\u2019s half-brother is five years older than her. They didn\u2019t grow up together and met for the first time during Dennis\u2019 1982 campaign, when they posed for pictures together. Today they talk regularly.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah has intentionally not followed her father\u2019s example.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy dad\u2019s character makes me want to be the exact opposite of him,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t want anything to make my life look perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Born in Las Cruces, she moved to Albuquerque to live with her maternal grandparents and finish high school after getting \u201cinto a little bit of trouble\u201d here. She moved back to Las Cruces with a full ride to NMSU, which she lost her second semester because she stopped going to class. Sarah said she didn\u2019t care about life, didn\u2019t value herself, and flippantly made decisions that were bad, regardless of their consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah\u2019s a stayer. She never left Las Cruces again. \u201cI\u2019ve stayed in jobs longer than I should have just because I wanted to be more stable than my dad was,\u201d Sarah said. She worked at My Brother\u2019s Place for 20 years until it was demolished last year.<\/p>\n<p>Her father had periods of great economic status and periods of poverty, while her mother consistently stayed in the middle class.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re under the poverty level now,\u201d Sarah said, \u201cwhich my brother says is part of the rebellion (against my father).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So is her rejection of her father\u2019s political ideology. Sarah\u2019s time with her \u201csurrogate family\u201d opened her eyes to inequality, including \u201cthe vicious cycle\u201d of welfare, which Sarah believes humiliates and breaks the spirit of those on it, so the poor stay poor. She says she learned sympathy for people who are oppressed.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah jokes about her father, just like she does her former partners. Onstage at the Fountain Theatre in 2016, she said her dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1991. Doctors removed it, but the cancer had spread.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo my dad\u2019s in the hospital bed and everybody knows that he\u2019s dying,\u201d Sarah goes on. \u201cAnd for some reason, my dad had changed his party to be a Democrat. I don\u2019t know why, maybe the drugs. So I, being the asshole that I am, said, \u2018Hey Dad, just want to let you know: You\u2019re gonna die a Democrat.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018Do you see this scar on my head? I\u2019ve already had a lobotomy. So it\u2019s OK.\u2019\u201d Sarah laughed but today doesn\u2019t think her dad was joking. She says he wasn\u2019t a funny person.<\/p>\n<p>Today, she thinks her father would probably be a Libertarian and opposed to Trump. But back then he was so devoted to the GOP that he decorated the house with elephants and had a blanket with elephants knitted for Sarah.<\/p>\n<p>So why change his party? Perhaps it was the result of his unstable personality, never staying at something for long. Even life. He was 44 when he died. Sarah didn\u2019t cry about his death until his funeral. The two never had a conversation where her father said anything like, \u201cIt\u2019s OK, I understand, I\u2019m gonna love you forever.\u201d<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_282747\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-282747\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-5-771x566.jpg\" alt=\"Sarah Stevens\" width=\"771\" height=\"566\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-5-771x566.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-5-336x247.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-5-768x564.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-5-1170x860.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah speaks about her political beliefs on Jan. 13. She&#8217;s\u00a0a registered Democrat. She attributes her liberal leanings to being cared for as a child, while her mom was at work, by a black woman and her family, who she called her \u201csurrogate family.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>A gangster\u2019s paradise<\/h3>\n<p>The men Sarah\u2019s been with are also part of the story. \u201cHe shot the guy eight times and didn\u2019t kill him,\u201d Sarah emphasizes at the 2016 show at the Fountain, wearing the \u201cMy body is a gangster\u2019s paradise\u201d T-shirt and speaking about the father of her children.<\/p>\n<p>The stonewall responses from some in the audience are like her daughter Raven\u2019s when she tells jokes about their family. Sarah\u2019s unperturbed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe also doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s funny when I talk about my now ex-husband, who shortly after we were married went to federal prison for 10 years,\u201d Sarah says. He\u2019s in prison for possession of 23 grams of cocaine.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah married that man after her daughters\u2019 father went to prison. They\u2019re divorced today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not funny, Mom,\u201d Sarah emulates her daughter onstage. \u201cWe lived it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill pretty funny though,\u201d Sarah replies in the imaginary conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah would prefer her children had a father figure, but the absence of their actual father is \u201cprobably the best thing that\u2019s ever happened,\u201d she said. Sarah thinks it\u2019s hard on Raven when she jokes about her father.<\/p>\n<p>Raven and Quinnie both say they don\u2019t care about those jokes. \u201cI\u2019m pretty open with my friends about my past, my dad,\u201d Raven said.<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t ask her to watch her mom onstage. Neither Raven nor Quinnie have ever seen one of Sarah\u2019s shows \u2013 nor, they say, do they want to.<\/p>\n<p>Raven acknowledges other people think her mother is funny, even if she doesn\u2019t. And she says her mother \u201cseems more confident and happy\u201d after a show.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<div id=\"slides-282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803\" class=\"navis-slideshow\"><div id=\"282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803-slide1\"><img data-lazy=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-4.jpg\" \/><h6 class=\"credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/h6><h6 class=\"permalink\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/single-mom-in-las-cruces-turns-tragedy-into-comedy\/#282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803\/1\" class=\"slide-permalink\"><i class=\"icon-link\"><\/i> permalink<\/a><\/h6><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah and her daughters Raven, left, and Quinnie talk in their home on Jan. 15. Raven and Quinnie identify as half black. Sarah cried tears of joy while watching a half-black man, Barack Obama, take the oath to become president in 2008. Quinnie cried for different reasons when Donald Trump won last year\u2019s presidential race.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803-slide2\"><img data-lazy=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-8.jpg\" \/><h6 class=\"credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/h6><h6 class=\"permalink\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/single-mom-in-las-cruces-turns-tragedy-into-comedy\/#282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803\/2\" class=\"slide-permalink\"><i class=\"icon-link\"><\/i> permalink<\/a><\/h6><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quinnie talks about her mother's comedy on Jan. 13. \"My mom can be funny but, I don't know, she's my mom, so I don't really think of her as a comedian -- I think of her as my mom,\" she said.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803-slide3\"><img data-lazy=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-7.jpg\" \/><h6 class=\"credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/h6><h6 class=\"permalink\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/single-mom-in-las-cruces-turns-tragedy-into-comedy\/#282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803\/3\" class=\"slide-permalink\"><i class=\"icon-link\"><\/i> permalink<\/a><\/h6><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Raven discusses her mother's comedy at Young Park on Jan. 18.  Raven says she doesn\u2019t mind her mother\u2019s jokes about her father and her family, but she doesn\u2019t think her mother is funny. \u201cAll these stories, I was in them or I lived them,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803-slide4\"><img data-lazy=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-6.jpg\" \/><h6 class=\"credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/h6><h6 class=\"permalink\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/single-mom-in-las-cruces-turns-tragedy-into-comedy\/#282497-e895453f9b2cbde78f7ef39883773803\/4\" class=\"slide-permalink\"><i class=\"icon-link\"><\/i> permalink<\/a><\/h6><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah and Quinnie talk in their family home on Jan. 13. Both identify as Democrats and their political beliefs align closely.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<h3>Raven and Quinnie<\/h3>\n<p>Raven, like her mother, rejects the political views of her childhood household. She described herself as conservative during an interview with the family at their home.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Raven registered as a Democrat and voted for Hillary Clinton last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you are so not a Democrat,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>Raven didn\u2019t disagree, but she\u2019s a reluctant participant in such conversations. She tries to avoid discussing politics. She\u2019s busy working jobs at Taco Bell and Whataburger and taking management-training courses at Taco Bell. She attended NMSU to study athletic training last semester, but took this semester off to work and pay down student loans.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s not sure what she wants to do with her life, other than marry a rich guy so she doesn\u2019t have to work.<\/p>\n<p>Quinnie, a junior at Las Cruces High School, more willingly engages Sarah in political discussions. \u201cBut Raven just avoids the argument because I get so frustrated,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>Raven, Sarah believes, views the world as overly black-and-white. In a one-on-one interview, Sarah said Raven only got so far before quitting therapy, just like her mother did for many years. \u201cShe\u2019s not ready to deal with that \u2018thing\u2019 yet,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>Raven, on the other hand, said her mother forced her into therapy she didn\u2019t need.<\/p>\n<p>Quinnie, like her mother, identifies as a Democrat. She says she would vote straight party if she were old enough.<\/p>\n<p>Which sometimes puts the sisters at odds. When a clinic providing abortion services opened in 2014 in Las Cruces, Raven asked Sarah for permission to protest with other people who oppose abortion being legal.<\/p>\n<p>Then Quinnie asked if she could demonstrate across the street with people who support keeping abortion legal.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their disagreement, both said they wouldn\u2019t have an abortion.<\/p>\n<p>Quinnie agrees with her mother on many issues \u2014 the significance of the Black Lives Matter movement, feminism and aiding immigrants, for example. Raven has no opinion on Black Lives Matter but calls herself anti-feminist and opposes aiding immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>The three women are united, however, in their dislike for Trump and what they perceive as his racist and anti-woman rhetoric.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_282744\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-282744\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-2-771x470.jpg\" alt=\"Sarah Stevens and Quinlan \u201cQuinnie\u201d Pope\" width=\"771\" height=\"470\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-2-771x470.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-2-336x205.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-2-768x468.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/small-SarahQ-2-1170x713.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Robin Zielinski \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah and Quinnie watch a recording of President Donald Trump&#8217;s inauguration on Jan. 23. Sarah\u00a0says she disagrees with Trump on almost every issue. &#8220;It sickens me to even watch this,&#8221; she said.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Presidents and race<\/h3>\n<p>In 2008, on the night of Obama\u2019s inauguration,\u00a0Raven, then 11, and Quinnie, then 8, sat with Sarah in their living room watching CNN. Sarah and Quinnie cried at what Sarah called \u201ca momentous occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Raven squirmed on the couch. \u201cWhen\u2019s he gonna be done?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to Jan. 23, 2017. The family sat in their living room watching Trump\u2019s inauguration, which they recorded three days earlier when it happened. Sarah said she wasn\u2019t able to watch it live on Jan. 20 and also was \u201cnot going to give him the attention he so desperately wants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah\u2019s scared about access to abortion and other reproductive rights, as well as the rights of LGBT people, during Trump\u2019s presidency. \u201cI don\u2019t think (Trump\u2019s) concerned with any kind of social issues,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s flaws, Quinnie said, include homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny and racism. Sarah takes a dark view, believing Trump won because most Americans share those views.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just wish, as a country, we could admit, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re racist,\u2019\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n<p>New Mexico, though, is different, Raven and Quinnie say. Both girls say they\u2019ve heard \u201cthe N-word\u201d spoken in New Mexico, but believe most people use it as slang rather than in a derogatory way. Still, Quinnie wants to attend college out of state after high school.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah said she has not experienced racism related to her half-black children. But she has experienced issues related to dating black men.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was in high school, friends of mine that I had gone to school with forever \u2014 predominantly Hispanic \u2014 hated the fact that I dated black guys,\u201d Sarah said. \u201c\u2026 They wouldn\u2019t talk to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Onstage with the lights hitting her<\/h3>\n<p>Sarah described herself as naturally sensitive, having cried for the Wicked Witch of the East when she died in \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d and again when Jimmy Carter lost his presidential re-election bid. She was four at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah said she doesn\u2019t deal well with emotions. \u201cSupersensitive\u201d people either become angry and mean or funny, she said. She\u2019s done both to put up walls and hide from \u201cthe deep hidden thing that I don\u2019t want to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarah\u2019s ex-husband proposed sometime between 2003 and 2005 (she couldn\u2019t quite remember the year) by asking, \u201cWanna do this?\u201d She replied, \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d already been arrested at the time and was out on bond. They married at Las Cruces City Hall wearing jeans and hoodies. Then he went to prison and Sarah went home to her daughters.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, Sarah decided she didn\u2019t want to be married anymore \u2014 didn\u2019t want to be in a prison of her own \u2014 and divorced him. It was one of many decisions that have helped turn her life around.<\/p>\n<p>The first time Sarah performed standup comedy was at a competitive open-mic night in 2015 at Emilia\u2019s on the plaza in Mesilla<strong>. <\/strong>Friends convinced her to do it. She came in second in that competition. She won the next.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah doesn\u2019t think her life is that funny; it\u2019s her perspective that sets her apart. She\u2019s diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has previously taken antidepressants and mood stabilizers.<\/p>\n<p>Medications interfered with Sarah\u2019s creativity and enjoyment of life, so she stopped taking them. She tries to embrace the difficult periods of depression and looks forward to the manic episodes.<\/p>\n<p>Once her children are living on their own, Sarah wants to devote more time to comedy. She doesn\u2019t do it for money, she said, but for a release \u2013 to vent her frustrations with herself, her regular jobs, other people, society.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah expects to feel lots of frustration these next four years. And as she keeps working to change herself from that angry, self-pitying person of the past, Sarah knows where to channel that frustration: onstage with the lights hitting her.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reporter Billy Huntsman can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"mailto:whuntsman93@gmail.com\"><em>whuntsman93@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><em> and on Twitter at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@billy_huntsman\" target=\"_blank\"><em>@billy_huntsman<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This story was co-published with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\" target=\"_blank\">Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a><\/em><em>\u00a0and is the second in <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/10\/millennials-like-this-mixed-ethnicity-couple-are-reshaping-america\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>a series<\/em><\/a><em>. Primary funding for this project came from the\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kfla.org\/en\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance<\/em><\/a><em>, a project of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Sarah Silva, the executive director of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.organizenm.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>N.M. Communidades en Acci\u00f3n y de F\u00e9<\/em><\/a><em>,\u00a0is a W.K. Kellogg fellow\u00a0(and, by way of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/disclosures\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>disclosure<\/em><\/a><em>, Silva is dating NMPolitics.net editor and publisher Heath Haussamen, who edited this project). Silva\u00a0focused her fellowship resources on partnering with news organizations\u00a0to tell stories of multi-ethnic families as a way to bridge our understanding of one another. NMPolitics.net and the Las Cruces Sun-News also provided financial support for this project, and the news organizations retained all editorial control.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both the father of Sarah Stevens&#8217; two daughters and her ex-husband ended up in prison. Now they also end up in Sarah\u2019s comedy routines. Over at least the next four years President Donald Trump will too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2959,"featured_media":283125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3307,145,143,116,292],"class_list":["post-282497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-donald-trump","tag-las-cruces","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-washington","tag-women","series-multi-ethnic-families"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}