Patricia Aguilar is a brave, strong woman capable of anything. She is 46 years old, she was born in Mexico City and raised in the town of Quitupan, Jalisco. She currently lives in the Ejido Rojo Gómez, in the community of the Nuestra Señora del Tepeyac chapel.
The story of how she came to our community is very interesting. At the age of 10, her parents abandoned her and her six siblings due to alcoholism, and since she was the oldest, when she finished high school, she started working to support her siblings. She grew up at an accelerated pace, as she had to pick the routine of being the supporter of her loved ones. She dedicated her adolescence to washing other people’s clothes and caring for an elderly woman to earn money. Due to the stress and anxiety that the situation generated, she developed hypertension and diabetes, and due to unknown situations she contracted HIV.
At the age of 19 she already had two children from her first marriage, who abandoned her for another woman. With the desperation of not being able to provide for her little ones as she would like, she decided on something very risky, but if it worked out correctly, it would bring many benefits to her and her family: crossing illegally into the United States.
She undertook the trip, and with the help of a coyote she managed to hide from the US immigration officer, reaching Los Angeles. Hoping that the same individual who helped her cross would also take her children to where she was, tragedy struck again when the coyote told her that he would sell her children to the human trafficking market.
Even though she would find better opportunities for her family if she stayed, what good would she do if she would never be able to see her children again? With that in mind she decided to return through Tijuana to Mexican territory and together with the authorities they located her children. From then on, she didn’t leave them. There she decided to move to Rojo Gómez, starting a life from scratch with her loved ones.
She has been in the community for 11 years, and her children are already 28 and 29 years old respectively, studying until high school. To support them, she opened a miscellaneous store outside her house, which is her sole source of income, and due to her medical situation, there are times that she cannot afford to pay for the medications for all her sufferings.
She remarried, and her marriage was very happy. He helped her start her small store, but because of the man’s family, the two separated, losing total contact. She was left in charge of a grandson of her ex-partner, from whom she has not received any type of economic support.
Her driving force in life is to see his children with a fulfilled and successful life in their fields. He is supporting his daughter with everything, who is about to attend university in Industrial Engineering, while his eldest son is working as a bricklayer. However, she has problems at the end of the month because the small amount of money she generates in her store is not enough to pay for everything he needs to be well.
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