Unemployment, poverty, language, solitude, violence or transport are some of the barriers that day to day must exceed million women immigrants in the United States. Many of do it to them without no company or like female leaders of family.
So it is the case of Nancy Contreras, mother of two children and who for a year from Michoacán, Mexico, with its two daughters.
“I came, like all the Latins, by necessity and to want to find me with the father of my daughters. Unfortunately the things did not work”, said Contreras, that almost on a daily basis remembers to its mother in Mexico. When entering his apartment it draws attention drawings hung in the walls, sent by relatives from Mexico, and a poster of the football team of the Kids of Guadalajara.
More women come
A report of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) indicates that 180 million emigrants in the world are women, and adds that “every time there is a greater number of women than they do not travel as companions of his pairs, but by its own account”. Also it indicates to the United States as the destiny number one of the feminine emigration in the world.
For Emilio Parrado, professor of sociology of the University of Duke in Carolina of the North, and expert in migratory subjects, the feminine emigration is not a as contemporary phenomenon as he is created.
“The women always have been part of the internal emigration of countryside to cities, in the case from the emigration to the United States the movement continues being more masculine than feminine”, Parrado said.
As it happens to the men, the economic difficulties that are lived in the Latin countries are the main motor of the emigration. Rosalía Lopez was forced to leave its medicine studies in Mexico, by the use necessity.
“papa operated to him and he could not work. I had to come to help family, because we could not with the expenses. Everything was very fast. For my it was very difficult to leave to my studies and family”, said Lopez, who today works in a restaurant in Avenue Power station.
“The first time that I came took hold Immigration to us, to that same we tried it again night”, remembered Lopez
More work for the men
For many women immigrants the options of use in this country more are limited than after the men. An important portion of the Latins works in workings like construction, a sector dominated by working men.
“Many works available for immigrants are physically complicated for a woman, thus are discriminated”, said Judy Aulette, sociologist and specialist in the subject of sort of the University of Carolina of the North in Charlotte. For many immigrants, to fulfill the dream American has been very complicated. It is the case of Nancy.
“For the men it is much more easy to find a job”, says Contreras, that has been dedicated most of the time to take care of children.
The image remembers that it had of the United States during his days in Mexico. “Like many, it thought that here the dollars are swept”.
Transport: a challenge
Like all immigrant, the women have great amount of difficulties to survive in a society different and to face the life in a country a different language. In a city like Charlotte, in which to have a car it is practically indispensable, to this the problem is added to secure transport to him. “Many women who come single do not know to handle and depend on other people to go to their works, that create dependancy”, said Parrado.
“He has been hard for me, because nonhandling”, confesses Contreras, “I have had to learn by the my same system of buses, at the outset did not know nor how to throw the currencies, nor she understood the driver to him when she spoke to me”.
Facing the solitude
Another one of the challenges of the women immigrants is to face single or like family female leaders the difficulties of the daily life.
“They must face the fact of being women and immigrants, often are single woman mothers who must make a decision to remove to their family advanced, that is something that it requires of much bravery”, explains Aulette.
To be family female leaders or to face the challenges to live in a foreign country is a difficult load. “When single being I surprised everything. To have my family to the reach was a support of long years”, said Veronica Delgadillo, that emigrated to the United States with its family, but who lives single in Carolina of the North. “Here I tried what is to be independent”, added.
For Contreras, the distance of the family has been difficult to support to him like woman, although it has his children with her. “Almost always fodder in returning”.
To be family female leaders or to face the challenges to live in a foreign country is a difficult load. “When single being I surprised everything. To have my family to the reach was a support of long years”, said Veronica Delgadillo, that emigrated to the United States with its family, but who lives single in Carolina of the North. “Here I tried what is to be independent”, added.
For Contreras, the distance of the family has been difficult to support to him like woman, although it has his children with her. “Almost always fodder in returning”.

I do not want that my daughter happens through the border
Aníbal Calderón

One of the saddest situations that they have had to live many women immigrants has been to have to separate of its children to be able to give “a life better them”.
Martha Pedrosa arrived at Charlotte two years ago. Two of their daughters still live in Mexico, one of them already is married, and the other, on 13 years, lives with her in its country.
Pedrosa outside remembers as if yesterday the day that said to him to its daughter who came to work to the United States. “I said to Him, “you know that, mihijita, I go away for the other side””, it remembers with glassy eyes.
In spite of the pain that causes the separation to him, it says that it prefers to be far from his smaller daughter before exposing it to cross the border.
“I underwent much crossing the desert, with little water and without food by five days”, Pedrosa said, but their greater fear “chicken farmers” are the calls. “I saw as they took advantage a girl of 13 years”.
During both years that he has to be in American ground he has doubted nor a little while his decision.
“I say to him to daughter whom I am going it to me to bring and that is studying English, I come therefore it calming”, nevertheless, Martha discards all possibility of bringing to its daughter to this country. “It is better there”, says.
In spite of his fear, she recognizes that him it has been very difficult to separate of his daughters, although knows that to the minor she is to whom him has been harder to live without his mother.

“I often speak with my daughter by telephone, she says to me, “you do not send money to me, you do not send anything to me, I only want that you are here with me””.

In spite of the pain the separation and the desire of an encounter, Martha recognizes that it needs to be at least six years here to more save the sufficient thing to return to his country. “There it is not like here that until the viejitos can find a job”.
When it is wondered to him how the encounter with its daughter in six years imagines, it sighs. “Every night I sleep with that thought”.