Ana is an immigrant who came from Guatemala, entering the US through the desert at the Southern border, and finally being led to Los Angeles. She lives in Los Angeles and has had various jobs. She worked in a sewing factory for a while and now sells fruit at the freeway entrance. She left her country because she felt that there was nothing for her there. She never had a chance to go to school, lost her parents and her brother early, leaving her and her sisters struggling to survive. She worked there, but felt it was too difficult because she was mistreated and not paid properly. There was so much sadness that she felt the only thing to do was to leave it behind her.
Ana lives with her husband and 3 children in South Los Angeles. I taught her son in middle school, and when I found out that she was illiterate, I tried to teach her to read. Her life in Los Angeles has not been easy either. With work being scarce at one point, the family has struggled to pay rent and put food on the table. At one point, they were homeless, but were able to get into a shelter that helped them get back on their feet. Yet Ana is grateful to be here. She feels that here, in the United States, people like her are valued more than they are in Guatemala. She has a chance to work with dignity and her children have a chance for a better future here. She says:
“I want to say that I still did not want to go back to Guatemala even after all of this. My children were born here and I’m going to stay here for the future of my children. I don’t want them to go back to Guatemala because life is so difficult there. There is no future for them there. Here we have help. They have schools and if they get sick they have Medi-Cal. In Guatemala we are so sad without help. If you get sick no one helps. There is no work for us in Guatemala.”
Ana wanted to tell her story because she said, “People should know what life is like for us poor people”.
You are welcome to read Ana’s full story here.
ANA
EARLY LIFE
I was born in Guatemala, in Nueva Calendaria, a village in San Cristobal Totonicapan. Over there we speak the dialect Quiche and use huipile skirts. We use very different types of clothes.
We used to buy them and I had some there. I left most my huipiles behind and now I don’t wear them too much because my sisters and I don’t have the money to have them sent. Huipiles are very expensive; a skirt can go for 1500 quetzales and a huipil can go for 900 quetzales.
The people there weave them on a loom and they make big clothes on them. They do many things which I don’t remember because I have been here for 15 years. My sisters and I learned a little because Papa would make the skirts. He would make them and sell them. My Mama would do the threads after my Papa bought them. He did the weaving but after he died, we stopped doing it.