Excerpt

For many Hispanic women, love is something sublime and can produce the ultimate reward in life, that being happiness. It has been pounded into their minds that they can only obtain that prize if they are willing to endure fear, failure, poverty and betrayal. It happens that many women never have the opportunity to achieve that happiness but for them the dream is always alive that one day they will find it somehow. The perfect prince will one day appear and bring with him the long sought-after perfect love and salvation.

Some Hispanic women get married to obtain the approval of the society they live in, whether it be in another country or in America, the fate of many women is the same. The fantasy of the "complete woman" is to "brace" herself to a man who will be the support of the family and who will "put bread on the table." A woman thus indoctrinated is disposed to sacrificing her own freedoms and her personal growth. She adapts herself to everyone else's needs and goals except her own. Some of the women in these stories desired their liberation from a husband who had used them like his own personal sex slave and punching bag. Sadly, it is at the time of near liberation, though, that they "sacrifice" becomes so poignant so their children will "have a father," and never be hungry. With this strong desire to have their children survive and have it better than they did, they humbly and silently accept their own entrapment, many times leading to mental illness or a hopeless existence that eventually leads to a deterioration of their physical and mental well-being.

Why these Hispanic women are not getting the necessary treatment, is a complex and multidimensional problem. The migrant population has their own perception and myths about the world that we live in. These beliefs have prevented many individuals from getting treated for their psychological disturbances and actual illnesses. Sometimes, because of superstitious and cultural as well as economic barriers, the women in these stories did not rely on professional services until their symptoms were too severe.

Migrant people experience barriers such as adapting to a new culture, learning a new language, education, inadequate transportation and absence and documents to work legally in the United States. Additionally, their own myths and prejudices, make it very difficult for the migrant population to overcome these barriers to. To have a successful and healthy transition, immigrants should be able to access social services and join support groups.

Within the past decade, there have been significant improvements in the field of mental health, but these are still not enough. Many people that are eligible for services do not know what services are available to them but there are those that are not eligible because of their illegal status. Undocumented persons, with psychological problems cannot get treatment if they are not eligible for any social services. The irony of this situation is that it takes more money to provide emergency care and treatment to these individuals and their children than to provide prevention treatment. Our government has had to pay excessive amounts of money for removing children from their homes, which is incredibly more expensive than if preventive treatment had been offered before an individual's illness has taken its toll.

Depression is one of the most common illnesses, especially among women. Since childhood, many women have endured all types of abuse: physical, emotional, sexual, negligence and deprivation. These beautiful brown creatures, whose stories we are writing about, were born to be loved and nurtured. They begin to blossom like beautiful roses, but in a twist of fate, sometimes during their early infancy, they suffer the inclemency of a world of terror, hopelessness and pain. These brown roses are destroyed and the only thing that keeps them alive is an inner strength and a natural human desire to live. Others have had to experience the pain of their thorns for the rest of their existence, enduring a lifetime of sacrifices.

The following stories describe the sad experiences of ten first generation Hispanic migrant women who came to this country looking for the "American Dream," experiences that have left permanent psychological scars that would affect any human being regardless of their race, gender or social class. These tragedies could easily happen to anyone under the same circumstances. These stories represent the cries of individuals searching for the most basic of human rights, that of being physically and psychologically healthy. The United States is the most powerful country in the world but to be able to keeps its status, it must be willing to care for its most valuable natural resource, its population.

We felt that the plight of these women had to be told because their suffering in the end affects us all. It is not our intention to generalize, form judgments or indict any group in particular. Perhaps Hispanic husbands, fathers and brothers may feel indignation because of how Hispanic men are characterized in this book. Please remember that these are true, clinical case histories of Hispanic women and the depiction of any character, male or female in this book, does not extend beyond these stories. Our goal in telling these stories was to create an awareness of the assistance that these women and others like them and their children require. These stories have obvious implications for the medical community, for school systems as well as police and social agencies. We are not making statements about immigration issues, but the treatment of immigrants crossing the border speak for themselves. We hope to shed light on how to help prevent the kind of suffering as described here, particularly if the reader is in a position to make a difference in the lives of victims. We hope that our readers will be able to decipher what the issues are form their own conclusions about our society's understanding of culture, mental illness, education and government policy.