Ilda Rocha Research Paper

Ilda Rocha was born on June 28, 1972 in Watsonville, California at Watsonville Hospital. Her parents, Leonor Fernandez and Jorge Fernandez were born in Gomez Farias, Michoacán, Mexico. She grew up in a “loving and supportive family,” a catholic family who went to church every Sunday and made it a tradition to go out to lunch and to the movies as a family. She stated, “I was raised catholic, one of my dad’s rules was to never miss Church. In Mexico, our house was attached the towns church, so we had no excuse to not go. In California, we would wake up and have breakfast Sunday morning and head over to the only Catholic Church in town.” Ilda grew up with two siblings, her older brother George Fernandez and older sister Maria Guadalupe Rocha Fernandez, with her being the baby in the family. Her brother George was born in Gomez, Farias, Michoacán, as well as her sister Maria. Ilda is the …show more content…
Ilda indicated that this was not the case in her family. Ilda comes from a collectivistic culture where responsibilities were shared and accountability was shared. Everyone co-operated in their family, she states, “There was no machismo in our family, as couples my parents took care of each other and their children. My father was the youngest and had to take on the responsibility of looking after his family. It’s our responsibility to take care of our parents and make important decisions, if they’re not able to.” She recalls her grandmother being a hard work, always doing hard labor. She doesn’t recall her being discriminated against, neither her mother nor herself. Her father’s side of the family consisted of both men and women being hard workers. They both had a lot of jobs and performed a lot of the same job duties. Ilda recalls, “They both took care of us, especially my father, he brushed my hair and took us to