About the Book
The Name That Wasn’t Mine is a raw and unflinching memoir chronicling one boy’s journey through the wreckage of generational trauma, abandonment, and abuse—and the quiet, slow process of becoming someone new. From the sun-soaked streets of San Diego to the quiet corners of Texas, Daniel Charles Tate (later Daniel Mateo Reyes) tells his story with haunting honesty and a steady refusal to look away from even the most painful memories.
This is not a tale of neat redemptions or happy endings. It is a deeply personal reckoning with identity, survival, and what it means to grow up in the shadow of those who were supposed to love you. Through evocative storytelling and poignant reflection, the author invites readers into the tender, fractured moments of his childhood—nights of hunger, confused prayers, and cold pavement punishments—and the uncertain refuge found in the home of an aunt and uncle who did their best with what little they had.
But The Name That Wasn’t Mine is more than a memoir about pain; it is about persistence. It’s about the strange comforts of silence, the delicate weight of questions that never get answered, and the slow-building strength
The Name That Wasn't Mine 