Making it in America
As a teenager in El Salvador, Alma Velasco dreamed of earning a degree and building a future in her homeland. But the El Salvadoran civil war shattered those plans, forcing her mother to make a heartbreaking decision: send Alma, just 16 years old, on a perilous journey to the United States in search of safety and opportunity. Alma survived the treacherous crossing and found herself in California, where survival meant hard work, not education.
Now a single mother of two, Alma works tirelessly as a seamstress at American Apparel, starting each day at 6:15 a.m. to produce hundreds of t-shirts. Her afternoons are filled with chores, school pickups, and family dinners, where her daughters, Ashley and Katherine, share their dreams of becoming a lawyer, a police officer, or even an architect. Alma’s own dreams of higher education were left behind, but through her sacrifices, she’s given her daughters the chance to dream big.