The Realization: A Mother’s Journey
My mother was eighteen. In Ecuador, at this age, the eldest child had many responsibilities. She was responsible of taking care of her younger siblings, watching after the animals her family owned, and on the verge of graduating high school. But my mother, at eighteen, had many more responsibilities to come. She was pregnant.
Surprisingly enough, this was not the primary reason for the changes to come. See, while my mother was contemplating her future, so were my grandparents. Of the two, the latter took initiative and my grandparents were soon off to New York, leaving my mother behind while she made her decision. She was either to stay in Ecuador, with a man that was incapable or being her economic, let alone moral support, or immigrating to New York. This was not exactly a choice to make, in my mother’s opinion.
While my mother had help from my grandparents, they were firm in teaching her to fend for herself. My mother had to get a job, quick, learn a new language, adapt to a new environment, all while being pregnant. She attained a job as a maid and soon gave birth to my older sister, Allinson. As happy as she was to have a daughter, she deemed it important to let her father meet her. She returned to Ecuador for a visit, but this visit turned into a stay when she became pregnant, again. This is where I come in. I was born in Ecuador on December 6, 1993.
During this time, my father was better off than he was when my mother was pregnant. My mother had a second chance at staying in Ecuador, which was what she wanted to begin with, but she did not. She realized that although she thought she wanted a life in her homeland, she would lose the opportunities she was able to experience in the months she lived in New York. They were not exactly pleasant months, but she saw more in New York than what she saw in Ecuador.
Just like my grandparents, my mother wanted to provide more for her children. She returned to New York with her two children and continued working hard. As the years passed, she struggled less and became more independent. Even while she had to face the imminent struggles of an immigrant she had the support of her family. Her whole family was relatively new to New York, but somehow it made it easier knowing that you have someone close going through the same ordeals.
With the help of her family, my mother’s acculturation process was not a lonely one. She is still a single mother, with four children that she has raised mostly on her own. She started of as a maid and is now working in a management company, in the process of starting her own business. Although my mother may not have lived a conventional life, it was worth more to her because of these hardships. Like many parents, my mother immigrated for the future of her children, but it was also for the purpose of bettering herself. I may be the only one of my siblings that can not say they are a U.S. citizen, but knowing what my birth helped my mother realized means more to me than a label does.
| Previous | Back to Top | Next |
