ABOUT BERTHA

Bertha Ponce’s apartment on a tree-lined street in Chelsea may be tiny, but it’s cozy and as welcoming as the smile on the young woman’s face as she plays with the two-year-old girl on her lap. Bertha, a native of Honduras, has been in the United States since 2001 and, though it took a few years to get used to, she says she wouldn’t live anywhere else.

A long car trip via Mexico brought the young Bertha and her longtime partner and now father of her child to Boston. They were young and ambitious with great hopes for life in a new country. Though her parents were reluctant to let her go, she was curious about the world. (Her sister had already left for Europe.) But most of all, she wanted to get a good job. “I wanted to help my parents. They were getting older and were no longer able to work.” And help she did. Laboring in a factory for several years, she was able to support herself and send money home to her family in Honduras. Although life was challenging in the new country with its harsh winters and strange customs, the young woman says that the beauty of the land and the opportunities it offered made the transition easier.

However, when her first child was born with Giles Smith syndrome (clubfoot), Bertha had to stop work and care for Ashley full-time. With no job, a baby in a cast that needed to be changed weekly, and difficult surgeries ahead, life became a struggle. Bertha is enormously grateful that she is living in Boston because, as she explains, “If I were living in Honduras, my daughter’s foot would not have healed as it has here. Things are definitely better here.”