A bridge to their futures

These immigrant women get together at the Madres (Mothers') Project meetings. They socialize, learn about their new culture, learn how to live here happily. DP

By Julia Scott, San Mateo County Times

They sang "Feliz Navidad" and decorated small, potted Christmas trees with their children, cutting hearts out of construction paper and adding words of love, prosperity and hope.

The simple evening of holiday cheer meant a lot to the Mexican women missing their families back home at Christmastime, both as an inoculation against the despair that they often experience in the darkest days of winter and an excuse to share a laugh with their children.

The joys of friendship, community and family — sometimes just the experience of joy — are often elusive in the lives of the immigrant women who live and work in the fields of Pescadero alongside their husbands, many of whom are out of work or back in Mexico at this time of year.

One night they took time to breathe, reflect and celebrate as part of the Madres (Mothers') Project, courtesy of local nonprofit Puente de la Costa Sur (Bridge to the South Coast).

"I get so focused working all day, and it's good to get a distraction," said Maricella Lopez, adding an ornament of brightly painted berries to the tree she would bring home to her four children later that night.

The monthly Madres meetings brought her together in mutual support with other families — they rarely get a chance to socialize, living as they do in crowded trailers on ranches miles away from each other.

"There's more confidence in yourself as you get to know other people,"

Lopez said. "I've learned to be a better mother and that we should treat our kids the best we can."

Though packaged as an opportunity to socialize and create decorations around important Mexican holidays — the mothers also made their own Nativity scenes from scratch this year — the Madres Project is also an advanced form of family social work and group therapy.
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