Carmel Balderas De Castillo And Sandra Guadalupe Chapa

The women represented in this essay may come from similar backgrounds, but have both grown to become drastically different human beings. One in a desperate attempt to keep the peace in her marriage and keep her family together, has given up nearly every form of freedom she has the right to have as a human being. The other, however, lives independently and freely, having given working hard to achieve her goals a chance.
Carmel Balderas de Castillo and Sandra Guadalupe Chapa (now “Wright”) both grew up in the country of Mexico. During childhood, Carmel grew up without a mother figure, leaving only her dad to support the family in any way he could. When Carmel finished primary school at the age of twelve, her father found that he could no longer pay for her education. Where Carmel’s future began to shift into something unfulfilling, Sandra

let go of her childhood to become the substitute mother to her younger siblings. She took on responsibility at a young age, working late nights in restaurants and waking up early to make sure they were fed and ready to go to school, all while attending school herself and participating in sports.
In her mid-teens, Carmel married herself to her husband Ambrosio when she became pregnant with her first child.

This would happen to Sandra, too, but that was years later. While Carmel gave up on continuing her education and became a mother and wife, Sandra’s father pushed her to pursue her education and become a nurse. These decisions set them on completely different paths, though not immediately.
Also coming from a heritage that encourages women to marry a man at a young age and have his children, giving up the rest of their lives and most likely their independency, Sandra did no marry too long afterwards.
Years after Carmel gave birth to her first child, Sandra, now a nurse, met Juan Antonio Valdes whilst taking care of his injuries from a drunken brawl. It wasn’t love at first sight, nor was it love at all, but eventually Juan took Sandra to the United States and married her when she became pregnant with their first of three children. Now, Carmel and Sandra were living the same exact life. It was their job to stay at home and tend to the house and the kids and the husband that didn’t respect their wishes to work for a

living.
This went for years, until eventually Sandra had found out about the other woman. Angry, she immediately filed for a divorce and took her three children. No longer were Sandra and Carmel set on the same path, but one had finally broken free.
Sandra eventually became a legal citizen, and she began to make more money than her old husband ever could. Her new husband loves her for not being dependent of him, and instead doing well for herself and her children.
In the end, Sandra wound up to be strikingly different from Carmel. She was independent, and strong, and she knew what she wanted and wouldn’t let anyone take it away from her. She fought against everything that pushed her back, and eventually she became the victor. One can only hope that Carmel will one day do the same.