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| | • | Latina entrepreneurs are an integral and growing part of the US women business owner population. They are in a wide variety of industries, and have owned their firms for an average of 12 years. | | | • | Recent studies suggest that access to credit at the household level acts as a substitute for child labor. | |
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Well, my life was somewhat hard: I was left fatherless at the age of eight and that’s when I started to become a "big girl."
I started working in other people’s homes, cleaning here and there, and I started making money to bring home because I had nine brothers and sisters and we had to help out mom.
At thirteen my life took a hard blow when one of my sister’s boyfriends raped me. From then on I couldn’t have a normal life like any other young girl, like having a boyfriend, and it taught me that you have to work to pull the family through. A little while after that my mother abandoned us to run off with a man, so I had to take care of all my siblings (eight brothers and sisters.) My mom came around to visit us once in a while, sometimes on Sunday, and sometimes not at all because her new husband wouldn't let her.
I can still remember my first job. I worked as a cashier in a bakery. One of my neighbors, who saw how hard I was working, said to me one day: "Girl, you really are a hard worker! Why don't you sign up over at the Health Care Center, they're giving first aid nursing classes and in a year you can become a nurse and in two and half you can become a general nurse.” So I said: "Yeah, I'll go," and I started studying. That was when I was thirteen, and I was doing really well! The bakery owner gave me the chance to come in two hours late in order to study, and since I was such a hard worker and could do everything myself, the owner knew that he didn't need another employee. He used to say that with me on board his income had never been better. I think of all the jobs that I had that one was the best; the best paid, and the one that gave me the most satisfaction.
But when my mom's husband found out that I had been attending nursing school for the past year, he hit one of my brothers and said to me "So you think that with your little school you're going to make things better? You think with that you'll be able to pay all the household expenses? Right now I'm going to take your mother, and we're going away to some place else." Since he saw that I was giving my mother more money, he brought us to live here in Tultepec, and we had to start our life all over again.
I started to look for work again, but I was underage. One day, as I was walking around the streets of Tultepec, I saw this man making fire crackers in the patio of his house and I said to him: “Excuse me mister, do you want one of my brothers to come over and help you with that?”
"Well, how old are they?”
I told him roughly how old they were and that I would send them over. It turned out that he did given them a job, tying up the fire crackers, counting them and putting them into bags. My brothers were really happy because now they had some money! From then we all were making money so we told my mom that we would treat her to something from the store: Coffee, because she like coffee, and her cigarettes. So we bought them for her, and we felt like we were really being useful.
We then started having more money. My mother’s husband was on to the fact that we no longer needed him and he took away what mattered most to us: our mother. Our mother went off with him and she left us completely alone here in Tultepec, but we still we're pushing forward.
We started by moving from the house to somewhere cheaper. Uglier but cheaper. We all slept in the same bed. My siblings were awful because there were so many of them...but they also went off to school! Jesus, the next in line after me, finished high school. The next one down just finished elementary school, and the one that after him only finished through the fourth grade because he didn’t want to study. Victor had cerebral meningitis. When my mother left him with me he couldn’t even walk, he had to go to therapy. He always called me mom: “mom this, mom that.” He got jealous when my then boyfriend at that time became my husband because he didn’t like him, and he was probably right not to.
My mother came back years later with two new daughters. Her husband treated her really badly and she lived in an awful place. I said to her: “Look mom, what we had with dad you can’t have again with this man.” But she didn’t want to stay with us, and it hurt us so much, but we let her suffer.
When I began my married life I was quite pretty; the torture started up while I was with him, he used to hit me. So I lived with it, between the beatings and humiliations, hoping he would change, and that's how twenty years went by, amidst the beatings, humiliations and being treated badly.
We built a house, and I remember a lot of things from there. I never was happy even though I went along doing things to make myself comfortable, such as: setting up a bedroom, having a T.V., having a nice kitchen. It turns out that about four years ago, a boy was interested in my daughter and my husband saw them together on the street and then hit my daughter. So I went outside and he hit me and left my face black and blue, and all in front of my daughter. I felt completely destroyed.
I sold my house to a girlfriend of mine, and she was the one who invited me to Pro Mujer (Pro Woman in Spanish), telling me: “You know what Chela, there’s this group that lends out money, and I know that you like selling sheets and blankets, so why don’t you come along? They’re going to have a meeting to talk about the program, and I know that it will help you." She knew about my problems because I had mentioned them to her. I decided to go, more due to the fact that I had to find another option, than anything else. I like the group because I can really get things off my chest, feel useful, and the fact that sometimes the other members put your name down because they think you'll be a good president, secretary or treasurer, or for any other position. And at home you feel really useless and this shows you that you can do something. It’s probably just something small but you end up doing it, and it's probably one of the first steps that you take, at least I felt it was one my first steps.
I tried to pull through, I didn’t let myself stumble and fall… I am not the same person as before, since I’ve been in the Pro Mujer program. My children say that I’m an example for them to follow because I always am pushing them forward. They say that they always have the books they need, and with my income from selling my things I intend to provide them with everything.
I feel thankful for the things that life has given me because with what I lived with as a child has helped me to value what I have now. Just think that I didn’t know how to do anything before. Now my friends tell me that in spite of the life that I’ve had there’s something that cannot be taken away from me: my personality and the way I am.
I've only been working as a nurse for this agency for a few days. My living expenses are really too much for me, because my daughter has a seminar and she's going to graduate, and it's a lot of money. I'll have to figure out a way to get the money for her, because as a daughter she’s lived up to her end of the bargain, and I can’t let her down as a mother.
My goal is to get a stable job, preferably from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. That would allow me to leave the house tidied up for my kids and also leave them some food already made. And preferably Monday through Friday, that way I can take a nursing class on weekends.
When I remember my childhood, it gives my strength and I feel like I've made something of myself, but not like I’m better than other people because I have friends that are garbage men, and they invite me over for dinner, and I really feel good around them even though I have friends from all levels.
One day my daughter said to me: “Mom, when you were about to have me, they told me to choose an angel, and I chose a great big one. That angel was you mom and I made the right decision because you have been an example for me as well as my guide. Thanks mom!" When my daughter says that to me I find the strength to push forward and I forget about the suffering that I have gone through as a woman. | |  | FLAG THIS STORY FOR REVIEW | |
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