February 20, 1979 was a rather uneventful day in Los Angeles. Grass was green and life went on as always, but there was a new immigrant in town. Elodia Carrillo was a 24 year old single mother, who had just arrived in the United States. Unlike other American Dreams, she had envisioned a less ambitious dream. With her children back in Mexico she only had one goal in this “land of opportunity,” to obtain enough money to allow her to move back and live comfortably with her children. She would, of course, send all her earnings back to her children, waiting for the day she would return to them. But, fate had other plans for her family, so she changed her dreams, altering the future of the Barragan family.

            To understand her American Dream, one must ask, who is Elodia? Well to understand her humble dream, one must understand her humble upbringing. As a child, she had kind, nurturing parents. Her father was a rather kind, generous fellow, always coming home to an adorable crowd of children, whom would sleep with him as he held them in his arms, “even if we had lice,” my grandmother recalled. Her mother wasn’t too different, always jubilant and eager to tell stories of the past and of imaginary creatures that would fill the dreams of her children. My grandmother’s family lived on a ranch, where she would spend her time on a swing under a tree overlooking the ranch, watching her parents work hard to sustain the family. As a result, her dream revolved around work to achieve it, as she was inspired by her parent’s dedication to their children through their hard labor. She had dreamed of growing up and working for her family to help sustain them, since she was nine years old.

            But as one knows, time changes everything, aside from the constant use of clichés. Over time, my grandmother had to irregularly move from place to place in order to follow the stream of jobs. To this day, she still goes up to Washington to pick cherries over the summer, where, “They still have good pay and housing.” This created an uncertainty over the flow of her money, whether she would still be able to send her money back to her children. So, it was decided that her three kids would move over to the United States. From then, it became apparent that her original dream was unfeasible. Time passed and her children grew up here, becoming more and more attached to their new home. She couldn't just throw all of that away now.

            So, her dream had changed, it transformed from wanting to support her family into wanting to be there for them and preparing them for the arduous journey ahead, life. By then, she had wised up from the many years past, when she had first set foot on American soil. She knew that one had to work hard to thrive in this new land, so she wished to be there, supporting her offspring as her parents did long ago. When one would ask her, “What is the proudest thing you have ever achieved,” she would reply, “putting a roof over my children’s heads back in ’93, when Mexico made it into 2nd in the Copa America.”