Esperanza Perez prays in Spanish as she gets into the car:
”
En el nombre saya Dios.
”
Then she prays in English:
”
Blood of Jesus cover us,
”
as we start our journey. She is traveling with me to a weekend
women’s conference in Santa Nella.
”
I’m bilingual,
”
she explains,
”
so I pray in both.
”
Esperanza Perez prays in Spanish as she gets into the car: “En el nombre saya Dios.” Then she prays in English: “Blood of Jesus cover us,” as we start our journey. She is traveling with me to a weekend women’s conference in Santa Nella. “I’m bilingual,” she explains, “so I pray in both.”
She lives on a small pension after working for 15 years in the tomato cannery that once stood downtown by the railroad tracks. She has a small apartment on Church Street near the ESL program (English as a Second Language) known as Community Language Connection (CLC) where she helps out in the classroom. With careful budgeting, her pension combined with a meager social security check and what she makes as a teacher’s aide enables the 73-year-old to live independently.
However, she sees herself as nothing but very fortunate, thanking God everyday for what she has. She cares for her 8-year-old niece every weekend, and shares what she has by helping others in whatever way she can. Her latest plan is to donate hard candy to the troops in Iraq. She has heard that soldiers often request it because it’s the only candy that won’t melt in the heat of the desert. “I feel better when I do things to help other people,” she tells me.
Esperanza’s friend Lydia is a student at CLC. In her 70’s now, she raised 12 children as a single mom after her husband died – six girls and six boys. Lydia used to work in the cannery with Esperanza.
“Lydia has a lot of faith,” Esperanza says. “She was a worker on the belts. She sorted out the good tomatoes from the bad ones. All her kids turned out good – they are very hard workers. One of her daughters works for the post office.”
Nick is a U.C. Santa Cruz student who drives over to Gilroy to teach the class Esperanza has been assisting. Nick draws pictures and has the students practice writing about them. One picture shows a turtle with a boy riding on it. Esperanza describes, “One student wrote that the turtle was going very slow. Another student looked at the same picture and wrote, ‘The turtle is going very fast.’ We all started laughing.”
Esperanza learns by being an aide in the class as well: “It helps me by helping him,” she says of her work with Nick. “I get the dictionary for everything,” she says. Recently, she was able to help a student grasp the difference between “of” and “off” by explaining, ” ‘Off’ is when you shut something, like the lights, but ‘of’ is United States of America.”
Esperanza’s name means ‘hope’ in English. Those who come to learn English at Community Language Connection come with many different hopes: the hope of finding better work for themselves, the hope of providing more for their families, the hope of graduating from high school or college, the hope of being able to vote, the hope of being able to participate as full-fledged members of society, the hope of getting driver’s licenses, the hope of starting their own businesses – the hope of living happy lives.
Esperanza Perez is a living embodiment of that kind of hope.
