My mom is a girl-boss. I know everyone says that about their mom, but my mom is the real deal. When she was fourteen, she came from Mexico to the United States in a large Greyhound and was forced to assimilate to a foreign culture that she wanted to hate. She didn’t speak English and only knew what short phrases my grandma could teach her. She once told me a story about a girl on the school bus, who did not speak Spanish, would look up words in Spanish and share them with my mom, trying to communicate with her. 

After a few months in the states, she met my dad. At fifteen, my mom became pregnant with my sister, Roxana. She had my sister during Thanksgiving break and the next week was back in school, still navigating how to support herself and my sister when my dad became too preoccupied to care. My mom worked various jobs-babysitting, working at the front desk of the Hilton and even at the deli in Albertsons. 

Eventually, my dad came around and began to help as much as he could; he was a teenager, after all. After earning his associate’s degree in Respiratory Therapist, my dad worked as a Respiratory Therapist and has done so for over 25 years. My mom’s ending is a little bit better, in my opinion. 

After saving enough, my mom returned for her Master’s degree as a Physicians Assistant. She would pick me up after school, take me to Starbucks, order me a tall vanilla bean frappuccino because in those days I thought that was coffee, and she would study while I tried to figure out why two plus two equals four.  Sometimes she would take her tape recorder into the shower and listen to lectures, and she would even listen to it in the car to replace the radio. 

  I was at the end of first grade when she received her lab coat. I wore a green dress with a pink bow to her ceremony, oblivious to the significance of my mom, a first-generation immigrant and mom of two, graduating with her second degree. 

Of course, my sister had to follow suit. After graduating from UTSA, she began working at the local rape crisis center-advocating and caring for domestic and sexual violence victims. 

My sister graduated from P.A school in perhaps the worst way possible, during a global pandemic while also battling depression and anxiety. 

The two have a dream of opening up a clinic together, and by the grace of God, it will happen. A family of girl bosses, am I right?