“One of the proudest days of my life was when the social worker from Section 8 called to tell me I didn’t qualify anymore.” Irma says with a smile.
Growing up in Tijuana, she never imagined needing Section 8 housing assistance. She lived among extended family, all on the same block, close enough that her grandfather called his daughters by pulling a rope stretched between the houses with a bell attached.
That changed when she was 7. Irma’s mother died. She bounced from home to home, 10 residences in 13 years. “I had to adapt to every house. I never knew there so many different ways to make a bed.”
One of her first stops was with an uncle, a WWII veteran who adopted her. She was intimidated by his stern demeanor, angry that he forced her to learn English. She was impressed though; his was the first house she’d ever seen that had books in it.
Irma immigrated to the U.S. for high school. Despite the culture shock and language barrier, she was a good student.
“I cheated at chemistry,” she admits sheepishly, but she hung on her English teacher’s words, soaking up the rules of English. She was unprepared for the attitudes of her classmates: uninterested in the lessons, distracted by the babies they already had at home. Irma had larger dreams. “I wanted to be a lawyer.”
Irma entered college, proud of being accepted to San Diego State. She sat through the first day of classes but with each class, her heart sank a little more. Textbooks would cost $200. She had no idea how to pay. It was hard enough to scrape up the bus fare to get to school. At the end of the day she gathered her things and left.
She never went back.
With few other options, she returned to Tijuana and crossed the border daily to work at McDonald’s.
At 20, she got pregnant. The next 12 years were a blur of fights and peace, fear and pain, marriage and separation. Irma tried to keep her growing family together, hoping to give her boys the security denied her since her mother’s death. Periodically she fled her husband, but the desire for a stable family drew her back again and again.
Finally she broke away for good. Suddenly Irma was a single mom of four sons, from newborn to age 9. Swallowing her pride, she applied for welfare, Section 8, food stamps and Medi-Cal. With that, she says, “All the doors opened.” At the same time she began volunteering in her sons’ classrooms and her life changed forever.
“My boys’ teachers,” she says, “were everything I wanted to be. You fall in love in a way.” She describes talking with her son’s teacher one afternoon.
“She was typing and I thought, she can type and speak English and Spanish. Everything she had, I wanted.”
The teachers she admired saw promise in her as well. “You could be a teacher,” they encouraged. One teacher went so far as to tell her, “I don’t want to see you back in my classroom. I want you in school.”
When Irma entered Southwestern College, she didn’t know what classes to take or even what a GPA was. She turned to her sons’ teachers for guidance. “I didn’t feel as alone as the first time.”
Raising four rambunctious sons alone, she strove to balance school and motherhood. She recalls taking the boys camping in Ensenada.
“I’d feed them then watch them run around all day while I studied.” When the boys rebelled against her busy schedule, she would remind them, “You will be the first generation that knows how to do things. Your nephews will ask you for advice and you will be able to give it. We will break the cycle.”
She graduated as class valedictorian and went on to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and teaching credential. At 36 years old she became a teacher.
“The system works,” Irma insists. “It can work for you or against you; you decide.”
Today, more than a decade later, Irma is a special education teacher with an affinity for difficult students. I gladly send my students to her for extra support, knowing that her history helps her see beyond a student’s learning or behavioral difficulties.
“That kid who is violent and acts out — I know who he is. That child who can’t learn — I know who he is. When you appreciate who a child is, you can teach him.”
She has some advice for other women struggling, “Find out who you really are and go back to that. I always wanted to study, and I did.”
Although her path from orphan to single parent, from welfare recipient to teacher was difficult, she feels fortunate.
“I appreciate everything. Everything.”
