About This Story
Quotations in this story are designated in two ways: Those heard by the writer are enclosed in quotation marks. Those recalled by others in interviews are designated by italics.
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The Fight of Her Life
THE GIRL | Chapter Five of Five
Seniesa learns from a loss and lusts for revenge. For her and her father, it's not just a title at stake. It's their dream.
In this archived version, all italics are designated by single quotation marks. Only a page view can actually reproduce the italics as they were originally published.
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There was nothing for this pain.
Although she had lost, her father bought her a tall trophy with a fighter on top, inscribed "Seniesa Estrada, Regional Junior Champion." He surprised her with it. She took it to her bedroom and placed it near her pillow. It didn't help.
Sucking a lollipop, she watched a videotape of her fight. "Maybe I did win," she said. "I didn't do as badly as I thought." It didn't help.
She stayed away from the gym. When she finally went back to training, she was stale. She talked about other sports and practiced with a basketball team, against her father's wishes. It didn't help. Even her teachers noticed that something was amiss. Seniesa goofed off, and her grades fell. She interrupted class with chatter and gossip.
She was nearly 12 now, and losing her first big match had taught her something. It showed her, said Lupe Arellano, one of her teachers, that she was not invincible, and it forced her to realize that there was more to life than boxing. "She is testing out what it is to be an ordinary girl," Arellano said. "Maybe it's good for her. She's just a kid. Now is the time to test and figure out where she belongs."
It was a time, also, to test herself against family obstacles. Her father, Joe Estrada, 45, who shared the dream of her becoming an Olympic champion and then a world champion, was in a tailspin of his own. His brother, Seniesa's Uncle Rick, was facing trial for attempted murder and could get 25 years to life. Joe feared that Rick would kill himself, maybe provoke someone in prison to kill him.
Joe hardly slept. He spent long days running the family sign-making business without his brother's help. It distracted him from training his daughter as a boxer. In his shop one day, as he arranged metal and vinyl letters, his scarred and battered hands faltered, then stopped. He looked up. A few years earlier, he said, he would have cracked under this pressure. He would have been going out again, maybe drugging, maybe heading straight for the gutter, maybe heading back to prison -- or a coffin.
Luckily, he had his little girl now and the dream they shared. Seniesa's boxing had long meant his own redemption. It was keeping him straight. "I gotta be there for her," he said. "I don't want this affecting her, because she hurts when I hurt. We're tied together. She's my glue, holding me together."
Still, Uncle Rick was a problem he had to talk about. She was just a little girl, but she understood her father best. At lunch one day, eating hamburgers and drinking Cokes, he would recall, he told her how tired he was, how worried and distracted and stressed.
'What do you think, mija?' he asked. What could he do for his brother? What should he do about the business? Should he close the sign shop? 'What should I do?'
'I know it's hard,' she said, stepping up to the challenge. She would never forget looking at him, tears in her eyes. 'Dad, you can do it,' she said. 'You've been through so much. This is nothing compared to what you've been through.'
She didn't need to say more. Her presence, her concern and her boxing were enough. If only she didn't let her loss in the ring, so unexpected, so painful, cause her to quit.
A New View of Boys
It might help if she beat some boys.
The thought came naturally. It had helped before. But now it was cloaked in complexity. Although she needed to beat them in the ring, she was discovering that boys could be attractive.
She was the leader of a tightknit group of sixth-grade girls, giggly, rambunctious, brimming with nonstop talk about shopping, food and music. But boys?
Truth was, her teacher told me, she had spotted Seniesa holding hands with a boy.
I asked Seniesa about it. She stared at me as if I were a ghost. Then she smiled and blushed. "Miss Arellano," she said, "should mind her own business."
Her friends squirmed. One asked: Was it true that she actually got into a boxing ring and fought boys? If that was true, she must be pretty good.
"What do you mean, pretty good?" Seniesa said. Her voice grew sharp and stern. "You know I fight boys. And sometimes, I hit them so hard they get all bloodied up. What do you mean, pretty good? I'm more than pretty good. I make boys bleed."
Her father encouraged the idea. Maybe it would get her confidence back.
An opportunity came one day when Seniesa was sick with a cold. It was Feb. 23, 2004. She sat alone in her gym in East L.A., watching boy boxers work out. A team from Hawaiian Gardens was on its way over to spar. Only bragging rights were at stake, but at least it was something.
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