My name is Yohanna Maceo-Ramirez and I say my full name because I have no shame in me anymore about what has happened to me. I was raped at 13 (I was a virgin) by a local playboy in the small town that I lived in the state of Pennsylvania. I had a little girl crush on this 26 year old, and moving to the USA from Canada as a child, I was horribly alienated because I was of a mixed race and did not know racism until I set foot on American soil.
My mother is of Dutch/Indonesian decent born and raised in Amsterdam, Holland and my father is of African American and Afro Cuban decent born and raised in the US. This 26 year old played on my naiveté and desperate need to fit in and mixed with wine manipulated my innocence from me. Then at 15 while intoxicated and unconscious I was raped by the brother of my elder sister’s best friend who was home on leave from the Marine Corp two days before Christmas.
I bore my first child as a result of the rape and back then it was not cool to be a teen mom. They were not handing out reality show contracts back then they sent me to a home for unwed teen moms until I was ready to give birth. My daughter is 24 now and has given me a beautiful grand son and she is an amazing young woman. Again, while working as an exotic dancer at 20, I was raped by my boss in his office.
Watching Linor’s fight and healing in this documentary has further motivated me to tell my story whenever I can. I am a born again christian and my relationship with the Lord has been the foundation of my strength and healing. Watching Linor return to her roots and enter into one with God and how God has blessed her with and amazing husband and beautiful family and the fight in her has lit even a stronger fire in my spirit to keep fighting and reaching out to anyone who needs a voice. Thank you for taking back your shame and turning it into strength. God Bless you always!!!
After I commented on this site, my former husband, who was with me when I was raped in Belize 36 years ago, communicated with me about the rape for the first time. With his permission I am publishing his response, in the hopes that it will help other people to find the courage to share and heal their wounds. I would like to say that as my mother embraced me, my father was frozen and could not hear it. That was such a painful thing to experience. It’s all about courage to confront dragons. There is a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke that I would like to dedicate to all victims, including their parents and loved ones:
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
Here is the letter from my ex husband:
FINALLY! YES FINALLY! After 36 years one of us succeeded, and of course it was the strongest of the two of us. I would have never been able to do it.
I thought over and over again about the rape, thousands of times, promising myself each time it would be the last… the last time I would NOT keep it to myself, and I would finally talk to you about it. But as you can see, it never happened. Why? Because I was so scared of opening a wound again, but that was an excuse.
I have been an hypocrite. Modesty? Maybe, but what is modesty if not avoiding to look at something. To hide, while knowing it’s there. So this too, was a terrible excuse.
The truth is that all the responsibility of your rape is mine. I should not have allowed you to go too far from my side.
I was trying to prove to you and myself that an 18 year old girl can look after herself, prove that she is strong, that men and women are equal and that we were both emancipated, that feminism gave us strength and a strong will. That we were young, beautiful and strong.
In reality that was a new age macho attitude, which crumbled.
This is why I am so grateful that you had this courage, this immense courage, to reach out.
How hard it must have been to wake up, for years, every day, living with such a huge weight on your shoulders.
Looking at all men, even the ones you loved, in a different way, with beautiful feelings in your heart, but with some doors closed forever.
You lifted my spirit, but my regret, again is that I was not able to do it myself FOR YOU.
I know how hard it must have been for you to see also your father unable to speak to you, even as a psychoanalyst.
That must have been as hard as the pain you were keeping inside.
He belonged to a different generation, and there was so much moralism and blindness.
I love you always,
Paolo