Jaime Reyes is a 15-year-old Mexican-American, who immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 10. He lives and attends high school in the working class neighborhood of Central Falls in Providence.

Jaime’s mother and father were born in Guatemala, and they had originally immigrated to Mexico, two years before Jaime was born, due to the violence in that community. The same kind of violence was happening in their Mexican community, so Jaime’s father, Alberto, wanted to move his family “as far away as possible from Mexico.” They decided to face the dangers and cross the border; and they found a new life in the U.S. which would protect Jaime and provide him with a safe and positive future.

Jaime is especially close to his younger brother Milagro (“Ro”) who is 8 years old. They often play soccer together, read comics and books, and play video games. Jaime’s friend Natalia, who plays on the high school soccer team, sometimes hangs out and shows Ro new soccer skills. Ro likes her very much. Jaime and Ro also team-up to do the daily chores together in the household. It’s a close-knitt family.

Jaime recently began seeing Dr. Gomez, after disclosing sexual abuse by a family friend, “Uncle Max,” which happened over the course of a year when he was 11 years old. Jaime tells Dr. Gomez that the reason he finally disclosed the abuse, was because Uncle Max had returned to the area, and he’d learned of his contact with his brother Ro. This enraged Jaime—and led to Jaime’s mom Bianca noticing a real change in her son’s behavior.

After Jaime disclosed the abuse to his mom, she sought help from a family friend, Maria, a nurse at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital. She was told they needed to contact DCYF to report this so that they could investigate if Uncle Max had hurt Milagro as well. She urged Mr. And Mrs. Reyes to take Jaime and Milagro to their doctor to have a medical check up.

They were at first highly hesitant to report, due to having a negative past experience with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the police, due to their citizenship status. Mr. Reyes is in the country on a work visa while he tries to obtain citizenship. However, with Maria’s help and contacts, they reported to DCYF and set up their doctor's appointment. This led to therapy treatment with Dr. Gomez.

When Dr. Gomez meets with him, Jaime aggressively shares that he deserves to die for not disclosing sooner—because his silence led to the sexual abuse of his brother. He feels that he is responsible, and that he has let down both his brother and his parents. In that session, Dr. Gomez explores the implications of a world without Jaime Reyes.