Sonia's story

A few days ago, Sonia (the maid) and I were saying good bye to Isabel, and I sat down to pet Estrella, the family dog. Sonia stuck around and we started talking about our families. Soon, it turned into the differences between English, Spanish, and Quechua, and we ended up on my bed, exchanging phrases of Quechua and English. That afternoon, we continued talking, and for the first time, Sonia sat with us at the dinner table and we all ate together and she told us her story.
She was born north of La Paz, to a large family. She has 7 brothers and sisters, but 3 of them died as children, so now she only has 4. When she was little, her father made her go to school, but by the time she was 11, she hated it, started skipping it, and eventually ran away from home. At first, she came to La Paz looked for work, but no one wanted to hire an 11-year old so she went to the Yungas (the Amazonian part of Bolivia) and worked on a coca farm until she was 17. Then, she came back to La Paz and Isabel hired her. She has worked here ever since. Now, she goes to night school I think because she wants to learn to read, write and learn English. Apparently, Isabel’s favorite language is German, Lucia’s is French, and Sonia’s is English. I love this family. When she came back to La Paz, she also went home to her family, who haven’t seen her since she ran away 6 years before that. Her family thought she was dead because they haven’t heard of her, and when they saw her, they thought she had come home with a child or at least pregnant or married. But no such thing – it was just Sonia. Now, her mother visits her at least once a month and one of her sisters works in a household not too far from our house, so they visit each other about once a week. One of her other brothers lives in Brazil.
When I asked her where she liked it the most, since she’s been to many places, she says she loves La Paz, because its never boring to walk here (it’s always either up or down – never flat!). El Alto is too flat, and the rest of the country is much too warm. Once you get off the altiplano, there is a lot of discrimination against the indigenous people (las kollas) by the cambas (the lowlanders who don’t speak Aymara or Quechua). She spoke so matter of fact about it and I couldn’t begin to imagine what it must be like to be in her place, where her people are for the most part, second class compared to the European-descended Bolivianos. Not only is there a large gap between rich and poor here, but it’s also usually divided up by race as well, with the European-descendents being mostly the upper and middle class, and the indigenous people filling up most of the lower class.
A few days later, we switched from learning English and Quechua to talking about dreams. She mentioned how she wanted to go the United States and how she met a woman in her 30’s who stayed here before and told her that when she would have a child, she’d hire Sonia as the child’s caretaker, so the child could learn Spanish. Sonia lost the contact number of the woman a while ago, but I think she still hopes that maybe the woman will contact her. I was so torn at that moment. How do you tell someone that being an immigrant in America, especially Los Angeles, usually amounts to no more than a super harsh reality but at the same time, I know Sonia is strong and intelligent, you can see it in her eyes and the way she holds herself, and that if anyone would make it in America, it would be her. The country was created for people like her. She is only 20 but her maturity is way beyond that – I always forget I am older than her and when I remember, it startles me.