Aguilar claims Youth of the Year
Growing up, Gissel Gonzalez Aguilar lived with what she called her "complete family"-both of her parents, an older brother and younger twin sisters. "To me, my family was perfect," she said. "But I had no idea how dysfunctional my family really was." Her father was an alcoholic and substance abuser. He would regularly return home late at night, brutally hit her mother, and then tuck young Gissel into bed. The tragic cycle continued until Gissel was nine years old, when her father finally left for good. "That was the last time I ever saw him," she said. "He left us with nothing but a broken home, a pile of bills to pay and no way to pay them." But her mother wasn't about to let her family fall apart. She found a job making minimum wage and somehow managed to keep their family of five together.
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