Crying Out For Help

Jocelyn Gray, left, talks with Ana Martinez about a friend: "She was having trouble with her parents," Jocelyn says. "She asked me, 'Why should they care? I don't even care about myself.'" (Lois Raimondo - The Washington Post)

Jocelyn never acted on her thoughts. Her mother has an intuitive sense of the pull between family and classmates, Jocelyn says, and helped her navigate her father's demands. Last year, Jocelyn joined a Girl Scout troop, where she found encouraging adults and new, upbeat friends. She now considers her father her biggest champion and her mom her closest friend.

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Hispanics have the highest unmarried birth rate in the country, according to the CDC, and experts say many youths who have attempted suicide have witnessed a parade of boyfriends move in and out of their homes. Abuse is not infrequent and can contribute to feelings of worthlessness, as Yadasmarie knows.

Yadasmarie, 17, is a blond, blue-eyed Puerto Rican living in New York. She has never met her father, who she says is in prison, and rarely sees her mother anymore. In her early years, she lived with her mother, her mother's children by another man and her mother's boyfriend. Her mother and the boyfriend fought regularly, she says. The boyfriend would occasionally turn on Yadasmarie; once, when he caught her biting her nails, he punished her by putting her hand on the hot burner of the kitchen stove.

She got along well with her mom's next boyfriend, whom she called "Dad," and when Mom decided to leave that man a year ago, Yadasmarie insisted on staying with him. The man's father was bothered that Yadasmarie was living with his unmarried son, though. "It looks bad," he told Yadasmarie's mother, who then insisted that she live with this "grandfather" and his wife. "Dad" was told not to contact her.

A year ago, Yadasmarie cut her right arm with a razor blade. She is now in therapy and living with the "grandparents." She rarely sees her mother and wishes she could move back with her "dad."

"I'm basically by myself right now," she says.

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A Latina's relationship with her mother is the single biggest factor in whether that girl copes well with stress, according to a study published by Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service. "It's not just being loved, but knowing they're loved," says Edgardo Menvielle, a psychiatrist at Washington's Children's Hospital who also works at the Cliniqua de Pueblo in Adams Morgan.

Zayas can spot the difference quickly by listening to a girl talk. "It's the difference between 'My mother doesn't understand' and 'My mother is old-fashioned but she listens.' "

Some Latina mothers -- exhausted by fighting with boyfriends, raising children and working several jobs, or burdened by their own emotional problems -- have trouble showing mother love. Paula, a petite high school senior with curly black hair and a big smile, says her mother used to be that way.

The two of them immigrated to New York from Ecuador four years ago, in part to escape Paula's violent father. Paula's relationship with her mother was strained after their arrival, and she believed her aunt, whose home they moved into, resented her presence.