Aurelia Rodriguez Research Paper

Aurelia Rodriguez was born on September 25, 1951, in San Felipe, Guanajuato. She was born into a very poor household. The household included her parents, Martha Rodriguez and Sergio Rodriguez. She was the oldest of two female siblings, Yolanda and Jessica. Her family was so poor they couldn’t afford socks, and consignment clothing was too expensive for them. Every morning she would wake up not knowing if she was going to eat that day. For her parents it was a choice between eating or paying rent. Due to the fact that Aurelia’s parents were poor, they were not fortunate enough to buy her a crib by the time she was born so they would put her in a shoebox. Both of her parents worked to take care of cows and lambs, and would take her in the shoebox. The likelihood of her getting any education and moving out of the extreme poverty she lived in was very low. As a little girl, Aurelia did not grow up with toys or dolls. There was no technology so she would go outside and played with her neighbors. They would make games of their own and played in the mud. The community in which she lived in was very tight-knit, everyone one knew each other and were also caring. Aurelia remembers her community as if they were all one big family. Although, the entire community was poor they helped each other. If a family had a five-pound bag of corn or beans they dished it out to their neighbors and the others did the same. Since her parents took care of their bosses animals, occasionally their bosses would pay them with corn or beans. The corn could have been eaten alone and was also used to make tortillas. Aurelia spent almost all her life eating corn and beans with her family. Aurelia lived with her parents until the age of seven. Her parents gave her permission to go live with her aunt, Tania, so she could take her to school. Unfortunately, Aurelia only went to Primary School and started working at the age of twelve. In Mexico, education is divided into three steps: Primary School, consisting the grades 1-6; Junior High School, consisting the grades 7-9; and High School, consisting the grades 10-12. She started to work to take care of her siblings because her parents only made enough money to pay their rent. The only job she could find was five miles away from her aunt's house. Every morning she would wake up at four and walked to her job. She worked for a middle class family where she cooked, cleaned, and did laundry for them, until her feet got swollen and her back ached. Aurelia’s parents also helped to take care of her siblings, but she helped more because she made more money. Aurelia had to step into the mother role, she was forced to grow up immediately, and didn't have an opportunity to be a teenager. She was living a life of despair, and had to think as an adult and learned to solve problems exactly as a mother would. As a child, Aurelia had one dream which was to have new shoes. She dreamed of having many shoes. Near the house Aurelia worked at there was a shoe shop, and she would stop and look at the shoes. She loved the smell of new shoes and didn’t have a favorite shoe because she treasured them all. Aurelia only had one pair of shoes and they …show more content…
They fell deeply in love with each other and started dating one month after Ezequiel's arrival. Aurelia fell in love the moment he heard her story, discovered her emotional scars, and didn’t flinch. She later referred to him as the one who saved her, because he pulled her out of the depths of cynicism and her self-destructive habits. Three years passed of their relationship, when Ezequiel asked her to be his wife. Aurelia had come to understand the meaning of love as it was meant to be. Her mother once told her that you find the most happiness in life in the small, seemingly insignificant things. There is wisdom in that statement, because Aurelia found her happiness from working at a bakery and cleaning