Francisca
Francisca crossed to the United States when she was twenty years old. She lives with her ninety five year old mother and son in the town of Hidalgo Yalalag, located on the mountains of the Sierra Norte. Her mother did not want her to go to the other side because she needed her help keeping house and raising her younger siblings. Her father was the one that gave her his consent; he said that it was good for her to go. He had already the opportunity to be over there.
Francisca worked cooking and cleaning houses in Beverly Hills, California. She did not stay long because she started having intense headaches; she said it was because she often stayed alone in the house. Her employers traveled frequently and she had lots of responsibilities like turning on the alarms at night, answering the phone, going shopping, etc., this caused her too much stress. She was used to be in contact with nature. From a very young age she accompanied her father to work the cornfields, although in Yalalag it is not usual for women to do this kind of work; she loved to feel the sun and the air, see the plants grow and encounter animals and insects in the fields. When Francisca returned to her town, automatically her headaches disappeared. She married and had a son. After seven months of marriage she divorced because hr husband wanted her to work too much.
Today, Francisca has a cornfield that keeps with her fourteen-year-old son. She says, with a smile, that her son loves the field as much as she does, so much so that he prefers spending the day in the field instead of going to school; although she says to him that going to school is important.
September 2009
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Ethnic dress.