Hope is What Lifts and Carries This Mother

Partially paralyzed woman battles obstacles on new path out of
Mexico
Gilroy – Tales of family border-crossings are commonly shared, but few involve making the trip in a wheelchair.

In February 2004, that’s just what Elisa Ovin Arrendondo did. 

Partially paralyzed since the age of 16, the 38-year-old Mexican national borrowed $7,000 from her mother in San Jose to hire “coyotes” to shuttle herself, her husband and two young children from Mexico City to Las Vegas. She was seeking to elevate herself from a life of confinement in Mexico where paths of travel seldom lead far for the disabled.

“I wanted an opportunity to see what possibilities there were to help with my disabilities,” said Arrendondo, whose family now lives at the Sobrato Transitional Apartments in Gilroy. “In Mexico, I was always confined to my home. It was difficult because I didn’t have a lot of strength in my hands, and when I wanted to move (my wheelchair), my husband had to come help me. Coming here opened doors.”

Arrendondo is recovering from surgery she had Thursday at Valley Medical Center in San Jose to remove a tumor from her ovary and implant a catheter in her kidney. In addition to being paralyzed from the waist down after a virus attacked her nervous system when she was a teenager, she is battling a host of ailments that have weakened everything but her resolve.

“I want to live because of my children,” she said, “but it’s hard.”

Arrendondo said her mother kicked her family out after a sibling rivalry erupted over the money paid to the “coyotes … polleros.” The family spent the next year shuffling from shelter to shelter, occasionally sleeping on concrete floors. They eventually won a lottery for temporary housing, a $249-a-month apartment that her husband pays for as a dishwasher at a Gilroy restaurant. He makes about $1,200 a month. He left behind a career as an electrician in Mexico City.

For now, Arrendondo’s biggest challenge is transporting herself across town. The family’s small van doesn’t have a lift for her electric wheelchair. A new van with that equipment costs $65,000 – money the family hopes to raise with a charity car wash in January promoted by Eduardo Sotelo, a syndicated Los Angeles radio personality known as “El Piolin.” 

Details for the event are still being ironed out. 

But the family also needs help with basic house cleaning and furniture, including a bed for her 4-year-old son Raymond and a mattress and desk for her 10-year-old daughter Lina.

When she leaves Valley Medical Center – if all goes well, she said, in a week – Arrendondo looks forward to resuming English classes at the Learning and Loving Education Center, a nonprofit provider of services to immigrant women in Morgan Hill. She’s also training for a job at Santa Clara Family Health Plan, a nonprofit provider of low-income health care, where she’ll help people with disabilities who are eligible for Medicare in addition to Medi-Cal.

“She has so many challenges, but she is just so full of hope,” said Janet Leach, who works at the Learning and Loving Education Center. “She doesn’t see things as obstacles, she just sees them as steps.”

Readers can learn more about how to help the Arrendondos by calling the family at (408) 842-0398 or the Learning and Loving Education Center at (408) 776-1196.